Tactical Tuesday Episode Fifteen - Breaking Contact: Escaping the Far Ambush Through Combat and Australian Peels

In this episode of Tactical Tuesday with Modern Milsim, we discuss breaking contact through the use of Combat and Australian Peels.  Specifically, we discuss:

• Definition of Breaking Contact (1:11)
• Avoiding Being Pinned by the Enemy (1:46)
• Breaking Contact under Battle Drill Three (5:41)
• :Combat/Lateral Peel (7:50)
• Australian Peel (11:57)
• Variations on Australian Peel (17:38)
• and more.

A new episode of Tactical Tuesdays is uploaded on the first and third Tuesdays of each month.
  
SHOW LINKS/RESOURCES

For a video demonstrating the Combat Peel, click HERE.

To learn more about Craig White click HERE.

To find “From Alpha to Omega, A Milsim Tactical Primer and Training Manual” :  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07FZ57B23/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

To find “From Insertion to Extraction:  Advanced MILSIM CQB Tactics, Techniques and Procedures” :  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07THX1CFT/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/ModernMilsim
If you have a topic you would like to see in an episode of Tactical Tuesdays, please suggest it in the comments of the post containing the posted episode.  We do read them.

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YouTube Instructional Videos:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUXI_GBdPeDuIoq_KJeCgWg

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You can also find “From Alpha to Omega, A Milsim Tactical Primer and Training Manual” and “From Insertion to Extraction:  Advanced MILSIM CQB Tactics, Techniques and Procedures”  at Amazon.com.  

Chapters

• 1:11 Definition of Breaking Contact
• 1:46 Avoid Being Pinned
• 5:41 Breaking Contact via Battle Drill Three
• 7:50 Combat/Lateral Peel
• 11:57 Australian Peel
• 17:38 Variations on Australian Peel

Transcript

 TACTICAL TUESDAY WITH MODERN MILSIM - EPISODE 15 TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to another episode of Tactical Tuesday with Modern MilSim. Through this podcast, we will bring you real world tactics, techniques, and procedures that will enable you to succeed on the MilSim battlefield. It's time to make ready.

Hello, and welcome to episode fifteen of Tactical Tuesday with Modern MilSim. As always, I am your host, Craig White. Thank you for being here. Now, at the end of episode fourteen, I indicated that the subject of this episode would be breaking contact, including the use of Australian and combat peels. Well, after that episode had gone live, I realized that in order to give this topic justice, I need to briefly touch on tactics, techniques, and procedures for avoiding getting pinned down by the enemy.  So with that in mind, let's get to it. 

The term breaking contact refers to drills and methods for ending an engagement by putting distance between a friendly unit and a superior enemy force. Obviously, it is difficult to break contact with an enemy force if you and your unit are effectively pinned and cannot maneuver.

If the enemy force is on its game, it will not only suppress your force to fix or pin it in one particular location, it will also be maneuvering a second element to move to your unit's flank or rear to achieve a more advantageous position where it will deprive you of your cover and concealment and then destroy you.

So how do you avoid getting pinned? Well... If you're expecting enemy contact, you should be moving in Bounding Overwatch. Having two elements maneuver with this technique provides cover for the moving element, while the other element provides cover, or overwatch, for it. This base of fire element can provide superiority of fire against the enemy so as to allow the friendly element to break contact and move away from the enemy.

This movement technique is generally effective when the friendly force is engaged by the enemy while on patrol. Now, an extreme example of getting potentially pinned down is during a near ambush. If the enemy is executing a near ambush properly, your unit will likely find itself in confining terrain where most, if not all, escape routes away from the enemy force are blocked or otherwise covered by the enemy.

Attempts to break contact away from the near ambush will likely result in heavy casualties or complete loss of your force. With a near ambush, assaulting through the enemy ambush is often the only viable, yet risky, manner of breaking contact. And I mean by “breaking contact”, I mean it in quotes. You're essentially assaulting into an enemy force to escape the kill zone that he has established for you.

Now, when you are defending an objective, or some type of key terrain, your unit will likely be in a rather static position to protect it. Nevertheless, you do have options to avoid getting pinned down. Your unit can use an element to act as a defensive patrol outside of the wire or perimeter of your defensive position to search for and engage enemy units before they can move into position to suppress friendly forces on the objective.

In essence, the patrol acts as a spoiling attack to prevent the enemy from suppressing and pinning down the defenders. Now, as an individual player, there are several things you can do to help prevent yourself from being pinned. First, don't leave your unit on your own. Always move with at least a battle buddy.  If you move on your own, it is very easy for the enemy to pin and flank you. As an individual, you cannot cover both your forward sector, and flanks at the same time. With a battle buddy, he can take on some of the responsibility by covering your flanks. Second, unless you are conducting a static defense of key terrain or an objective, do not stay immobile for very long.  Stop to conduct SLLS checks, but otherwise keep moving as much as possible. It is harder for the enemy to pin you down if you are moving. 

Third, when engaging or being engaged by the enemy, immediately seek superiority of fire over the enemy. Use the maximum sustained rate of fire against the enemy unit to suppress them before they can suppress you.  If you are a SAW gunner, go cyclic. This action will likely result in a shift of initiative from the enemy to your unit. Fourth, use cover effectively. Once you reach cover, avoid shooting over the top of it. Doing so makes your head a prime target to every enemy that has a line of sight along the plane that makes up the top of your cover.  It is almost always better to work around the sides of cover instead of over the top. You expose much less of your head.  Using the sides of cover also allows you to shift positions after you fire. This keeps the enemy off balance and prevents him from focusing on one spot of cover where he expects you to stick out your head.  Instead, the enemy has to constantly attempt to determine where you will be next before he can engage you. Since the enemy has to react to your movement, you have the advantage and it will be much more difficult to pin you down. 

Now, to avoid getting pinned on the defense, each individual player defending an objective should set up more than one firing position with covered approaches between each of them to hopefully prevent the enemy from locating his current position.  If the enemy does not know where you are, it is very difficult for him to suppress you. We'll talk more about this subject in more detail in future episodes of this podcast when we get into defensive operations. Now, in episode nine of this podcast, we discussed the basic method of breaking contact by each element of a unit.

Alternating between bounding away from the enemy or putting suppressing fire on the enemy while the other element bounds away from it. Here are the basics of how a squad will break contact under Battle Drill 3. Prior to going out on patrol, the squad leader designates an alpha and bravo fireteam. Upon contact with the enemy, the squad leader designates one element, in this example we'll make it Bravo Team, to suppress the enemy.  At the same time, the squad leader notifies Bravo Team of a distance and direction, terrain feature, or last rally point for it to move toward after the drill is fully executed. At this point, the squad leader can also direct and employ indirect fires or close air support to suppress and or destroy enemy positions.

Next, Alpha Team, as the bounding/flanking unit uses smoke to screen its movement as it breaks contact and moves back to its next Overwatch position for Bravo Team. Once Alpha Team is in its next Overwatch position, it suppresses the enemy with direct fire in an effort to facilitate Bravo Team's efforts to break contact with the enemy.  Once Alpha Team initiates suppressive fire on the enemy, Bravo team pops smoke before moving to its next covered position behind Alpha team. Alpha and Bravo teams then continue to bound away from the enemy until they break contact with the enemy where it can no longer effectively suppress the squad.

At that point, any disrupted elements or players move to the last rally point designated by the squad leader when you order the squad to break contact. Think of breaking contact as the reverse of fire and maneuver. Instead of bounding toward the enemy, friendly forces are instead bounding away from the enemy.

Listen to episode nine of this podcast for details on this method of breaking contact. Now, in addition to breaking contact under Battle Drill Three, there are at least two more advanced techniques for accomplishing the same. One is called the Combat or Lateral Peel. The other is called the Inside, Center, or Australian Peel.  Of these two peeling methods, the combat peel is easier to perform and has a lesser risk of fratricide. 

So let's talk about the combat peel in more detail first. The combat or lateral peel is most often utilized where a unit needs to break contact and the nearest cover for that unit is either on its left or right flank.  It is most often applied when the unit has reacted to contact under Battle Drill 1 and has already formed a line formation. So this is how the procedure works. First, the OIC will call either Peel Left or Peel Right. Second, all of the unit's members repeat the OIC's command down the line. Third, the player on the side opposite from the direction of peel, i.e. the left or the right, will proceed to fire his entire magazine to the front and flank of his position. In other words, if the unit is peeling left, the rightmost man on the line will open up and expend all ammunition in his magazine, firing it to his front and right flank. Once his magazine runs dry, the player will move behind the line in the direction of the peel while reloading his weapon.

As he passes the next team member in the line, he will tap that member or yell Last Man to let him know that he is end of the line. In this example, the player on the right end will move directly behind the line and toward the left end of it. As he does so, the player will tap the team member that was closest to him on the left side or yell last man to let him know he is last man and to open up with his weapon.  Fourth, the player will continue to move toward the end of the line in the direction of the peel to cover the other team members. At this point, the moving player has reloaded his weapon and is ready to re engage the enemy when the peel reaches him again. At this point, the second man on the right side has already stopped firing, has moved behind the third man, and has notified third man to open up with his weapon by tapping him or yelling last man as he went by.  He is continuing to move down and behind the line while reloading his weapon. This cycle continues in this manner until a player reaches the desired covered position in question. When the player reaches the edge of the covered position, he yells “door” to let the unit know that he's reached cover. 

“Door” does not necessarily mean an actual door.  Instead, it simply means that the player has reached a covered position for the rest of the unit. At this point, the combat peel continues its progression until all of the unit members have reached cover. At that point, the unit OIC must then decide what orders to issue to the unit. He can decide to counterattack the enemy from a different position or decide to continue to break contact using the method most effective at this point.

So let's do a brief example about how this combat peel works. So what happens is you've got a squad is moving along and they receive contact. Now they have moved into a line formation. And as they're in contact, the squad leader realizes that the enemy force is too big for them to handle. So then he decides to break contact.  So he yells, peel right. And so when that happens, the entire line repeats this order all the way down from one end to the other. And then beginning with the man on the far left. He empties his magazine to the front and to his left flank until he expends all ammunition in it. When that happens, the man on the left side moves behind and down the line to the right side.

And as he passes the next man in the line, he either taps him on the shoulder or yells, last man, to let him know he is now the end of the line. The man continues to move down to the far end of the line on the right and then takes up a position where he can then cover when the peel gets to him. 

Now, once that happens, the second man does the same thing the first man does.  He empties his magazine to the front to the left, he then turns and goes behind the line and down to the right side while reloading his magazine. As he passes the next man in the line, he tells him last man or taps on the shoulder. Let him know that now he is into the line and that he needs to open up.

And this process continues all the way until the peel reaches cover on the right side. Once that happens, the member of the horse that happens to find the cover. And then everybody proceeds to reach that cover, and the peel ends. 

Another more advanced method of breaking contact is the inside, center, or Australian peel.  This method is more typically used when the unit is engaged while either in a file or staggered column formation, where the unit is surrounded by cover and or concealment, and the OIC wishes to expedite breaking contact by moving directly to the rear. Unlike Battle Drill 3, Where units bound back in loosely parallel tracks back to the rally point, individual members of a unit using the inside center or Australian Peel move along a path that runs down the center of the unit formation.

This technique is most effective when vegetation is dense or during limited visibility. Use of smoke can also be used during the drill to obscure the movement of the unit using the Australian Peel. Fragmentary grenades or frags can also be thrown according to unit SOPs or at the direction of the OIC to deter pursuit by the enemy.

The Australian Peel is typically performed when a unit makes enemy contact by either in a file or column formation such as when it is on a road. are moving along a trail in wooded terrain. So here are the steps on how to perform the Australian Peel. First, the OIC will call either Inside Peel, Center Peel, or Australian Peel.

Second, all unit members repeat the OIC's command down the line. Third, the unit will create a path through the formation for troops to move through toward the rear. If the unit is in a file formation, the second through the last member of the file formation alternate taking either two to three steps to either the left or to the right so as to form a lane running down the center between the two lines formed by this action.

The men at the front of the lines formed by this action immediately cover the front of the formation. Everyone else in the file formation cover the flanks. If the unit is already in a column formation, the path running down the center of the formation is already in place. The men in the front of the formation cover the front of the unit, while all the other members of the column cover the flanks.

Fourth, the men at the front of the lines, formed in step three, immediately fire several rounds toward the enemy. The actual number of rounds fired is at the discretion of the shooter. All other members of the unit cover the flanks of the formation, but do not shoot forward at the enemy until they reach the front of the line.

Again, no one other than the men at the head of the lines fire forward. This is to prevent possible fratricide where friendly forces are aligned immediately in front of unit members located toward the rear of the formation. Fifth, once the unit member at the front of the line fires several rounds, he then turns and moves down the center lane inside the formation while avoiding masking the fire of other members providing covering fire.

When he reaches the end of the line, each man takes a position behind the formation and on his side of the center lane. As he passes the man immediately behind him, each unit member yells, Last man, to make sure that the man previously behind him knows his forward field of fire is clear of friendlies and to open up to the front with his weapon. Each man must wait until the man in front of him passes him down the inside of the formation while yelling last man. Again, this is to avoid fratricide. 

Sixth, each member of the unit continues this process or cycle until the unit has successfully broken contact with the enemy.  As circumstances permit, as stated earlier, unit members can cover their movement back with smoke or fragmentary grenades according to unit SOPs. Typically, a fireteam leader or the last member of the formation will throw the grenade. During limited visibility, this drill may be executed without firing weapons.

In this event, the battle drill is still executed in the same sequence. The unit initiates fires only if it has been compromised. If the enemy element breaks contact and ceases fire, unit members should cease fire immediately to prevent revealing their new position. Now, if the enemy contact occurs from the rear, the battle drill is executed in the reverse sequence.  The first member of the force is the last to throw a hand grenade. Once the battle drill is completed, the unit moves to the designated enroute rally point. 

So this is how this works. You're on a trail in the woods and you come in contact with the enemy and you realize the enemy is too large to handle or you need to find a different way around.  The squad leader will then announce Australian peel. And then what happens if you're in a file formation, let's just use that for the example, because that's a little harder to deal with the alternate members of the file will take two to three steps to each side so that they create a path down between each line that they form by taking those steps out from the center.

And when that happens, everybody, except the people to the front of the line do not shoot forward, they only cover the sides. The people in front of each line fire to the front several rounds at their discretion before deciding to turn inside and to move back toward the rear of the formation. And when they get to the rear of the formation, they take up a position on the same side but at the end of the line.

As they go by the person behind them, they yell, last man, as they pass him to let the man behind him know that the area in front of him is clear of friendly forces. And so that he can engage the enemy at will. And then this cycle continues until the force reaches a point where they've been able to break contact.

And then the OIC decides what the next course of action shall be. So whereas the basic Australian peel is used in forrested terrain when enemy contact is made while the unit is in either a file or a column formation. It can also be applied to units that make contact while either in the wedge or line formation.  To successfully use the Australian Peel while using these formations, the squad leader needs to do some preparation ahead of time. Initially, the squad leader needs to set a center point for the line or wedge formation. The two men at this, or I should say, the two men straddling this center point will be the first two to move toward the rear when the squad leader orders execution of the Australian Peel.

Typically, this will be the member of the Alpha and Bravo teams that are closest to each other or at the inside of the formation. This applies to the squad on line with fire teams also on line or squad on line with fire teams in wedge. In this variation of the Australian appeal, and based on unit SOPs, more than one member of the squad or fireteam can engage the enemy to its front, so long as there is lateral separation of each member of the unit, so there is little risk of fratricide. The important thing to remember is that the unit moves to the rear from the inside out. Once each member of the unit finishes firing his weapon to the front, he moves down the inside of the formation into a position behind other unit members at the back of the formation.

As before and after moving to a position at the rear of the unit. Each man is prohibited from shooting to the front until the man in front of him yells last man as he passes him by. This prevents friendly fire hitting men moving from the far sides of the formation toward the front of the central path going through it.

So in closing, being able to break contact with a superior force is essential to protecting the combat effectiveness of your unit. Although the reverse bounding method of breaking contact under Battle Drill 3 is effective, The Combat or Lateral Peel is more effective when cover is available to either flank of the unit.  It is a fairly easy technique to achieve so long as each man remembers to reload his weapon while moving behind the line to a position on the other side. 

In contrast, the Australian Peel is very effective when breaking enemy contact. In heavily wooded terrain where cover and concealment are plentiful, use of the Australian Peel allows ongoing suppressive fire on a small front while allowing the unit to withdraw to the rear behind it.  The small footprint of this technique also typically makes the use of grenades more effective. With that in mind, note that the use of the Australian Peel has its risk. By its nature, troops will be moving down the center of the formation and past troops that were originally behind them. For that reason, it is essential that no man fires forward unless and until the man in front of him yells, last man, as he moves past him.  For that reason, it is probably best for only experienced players to attempt to use this technique and probably only with players that have also practiced it. 

For that reason, players should master each of these techniques. Doing so can preserve the effectiveness of their unit and allow them to stay in the fight longer.

Now, in our next episode of Tactical Tuesday, we will discuss reconnaissance and security tasking, as well as their importance in shaping the MILSIM battlefield. If you have any topics you would like to see covered in future episodes of Tactical Tuesday. Please let us know by posting it on the Modern Milsim Facebook page.

If it's not one of the topics we are already planning to cover, we will likely add it to our ever growing topic list. If you like this podcast, please subscribe to it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, as well as many other podcast directories. As always, thank you for your support, and I'll see you at our next episode.  See you then.

To our listeners out there, thank you for tuning in and I look forward to providing you with new episodes every two weeks.  If you like what you're hearing on this podcast, please subscribe and provide us with a review. We want to know what you like and how we can improve. You can also contact us on our Facebook page at Facebook.com/ModernMilSim with any suggestions you may have.  In our next episode of Tactical Tuesday, we will discuss reconnaissance and security tasking, as well as their importance in shaping the MILSIM battlefield.. 

If you want to know more about application of real world tactics, techniques and procedures to MilSim, please check out From Alpha to Omega: a Milsim Tactical Primer and Training Manual, as well as From Insertion to Extraction: Advanced CQB Tactics, Techniques and Procedures. Both books are available at Amazon.com. As always, thank you for your support, and I'll see you at our next installment of Tactical Tuesday.

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