ENGLISH VERSION BELOW THE FOLD[Encore un article pondu par Oslik concernant le vaste sujet de la défense, où il se focalise sur les travers dans lesquels les survivalistes peuvent tomber en s'équipant et se préparant pour les K2KK - même si je suis d'accord sur la plupart des points, j'ai mis quelques remarques entre crochets]
Les survivalistes ont tendance à s'inspirer des forces armées de leur pays pour préparer la défense de leur BAD. Dans les pays occidentaux cela veut dire que leur "défense" va en fait utiliser des techniques et tactiques plutôt... offensives ! En effet les armées de l'OTAN sont plutôt accoutumées à l'avance au contact et au "feu et mouvement" qu'à la defense de site (quoique celle-ci arrive parfois en Afghanistan lorsque les FOB sont attaquées) et -- encore moins -- à la défense d'une zone étendue. Or les survivalistes et BADdistes éviteront typiquement l'attaque : l'attaque c'est plus dangereux, moins survivable.. Surtout comparé à la "défense proactive". Et c'est évidemment difficile à justifier moralement. Problème : les membres de l'OTAN n'ont pas été impliqué dans des opérations défensives depuis des décennies. Ils font de l'offensive. Et cela influe sur leur équipement, leur doctrine, leurs tactiques. Les survivalistes feraient bien de prendre cela en compte et voir qu'il faut "en prendre et en laisser", pour ne pas imiter des techniques, tactiques, procédures, achats d'équipement qui vont être sub-optimaux pour la défense.
Quelques exemples :
- RdS (réducteur de son) : Le RdS diminue la signature auditive du tir -- uniquement l'onde de bouche, pas le 'bang' supersonic du projectile; mais ce dernier ne permet pas vraiment de localiser un tireur, c'est surtout l'onde de bouche qu'il importe de réduire. Typiquement, un RdS fait disparaître complètement la flamme et contribue donc à diminuer la signature visuelle du tireur, en particulier la nuit (les Gremlins attaquent surtout la nuit !). En contrepartie, le RdS augmente le poids, l'encombrement, et le coût du système d'arme.
Ces caracteristiques sont extrêmement typées, elles placent le RdS très nettement du coté défensif de l'axe qui sépare le contexte d'avance au contact du contexte de défense statique :
> Du coté des soldats, très peu sont équipés d'un RdS. Il y a une bonne raison à cela : quand on fait une avance au contact, les avantages en terme de signature n'ont aucun interêt. Tandis que les défauts, eux, comptent : poids et encombrement de la carabine augmentés, sans compter le prix (facteur souvent décisif quand il s'agit d'équiper des centaines de milliers de trouffions). Donc aucun interêt pour le stormtrooper chargé d'envahir Baghdad avec sa division d'infanterie mécanisée.
> Du coté du survivaliste qui défend sa BAD, au contraire, la flamme et l'onde de bouche sont le maillon faible à solidifier, le problème à résoudre : si le défenseur fait bien son travail et intercepte l'offensive de l'adversaire à bonne distance des habitations, il peut mettre en oeuvre une défense de la zone étendue et rester caché dans un taillis, plutôt que de défendre depuis l'intérieur de sa maison, structure qui a bien sur le problème habituel : le défenseur ne peut cacher qu'il y est présent une fois l'engagement commencé - en plus des autres problèmes de limitation du champ de vision et de la capacité à maneuvrer et battre en retraite et de proximité avec les membres vulnérables/jeunes/vieux de la famille. Si au contraire il a eu le temps d'organiser la défense de la zone étendue il a interêt à rester aussi indetectable que possible durant l'engagement : le RdS fait la différence pour diminuer sa signature auditive et visuelle : à quoi bon revêtir le dernier uniforme MARPAT (ou une Ghillie) si l'on se signale par son flash et que l'on est audible comme un bûcheron à chaque tir ? Quand aux autres défauts : en étant statique, le poids et l'encombrement du RdS importent peu. Donc dans ce contexte on ne voit que les avantages et beaucoup moins les inconvénients. Comme le dit l'admin de ce blog : "Les RdS ? Géronimo en aurait rêvé !"
À noter que la législation est restrictive dans certaines régions ; en Amérique du nord il faut parfois un timbre "Class 3" à $200. Et parfois le RdS est même totalement interdit [NdlR : en situation dégradée on peut toujours envisager d'en fabriquer un, pourvu qu'on ait quelques outils et matériaux ad hoc, ce n'est pas un défi technique - vos oreilles vous remercieront]. Si la législation fait obstacle il reste plusieurs autres aspects à optimiser.
- Plaques céramiques niveau III : Ces plaques sont capables d'arrêter un ou plusieurs impacts d'arme d'épaule. (on ne parle pas ici des vestes IIIA et des vestes II qui ne protègent que contre les armes de poing et donc s'utilisent dans des contextes e.g. urbains [NdlR : une veste IIIA peut aussi servir en combinaison avec la plaque céramique en tant que pare-éclats]). Elles couvrent le tronc pour protéger contre les impacts qui ne "pardonnent pas", ceux affectant les poumons, le coeur, le foie... Mais le personnel ainsi protégé ne doit pas s'attendre à franchir un mur de plomb en sifflotant comme l'on porte un parapluie lors d'une averse : un impact de e.g. 7.62x39mm peut littéralement mettre "sur le cul" ; et un impact de 7.62x54R va non seulement faire tomber à la renverse mais mettre hors de combat et à souffle court pendant plusieurs minutes. En contrepartie le personnel ainsi équipé s'allourdit typiquement de plus de 10 kg (!) et pour un coût élevé.
Du coté des soldats de l'OTAN, l'avance au contact, le feu & mouvement pour flanquer le défenseur adverse, les "sprints de 3 à 5 secondes" à découvert pour rejoindre le prochain couvert sont ce pour quoi ils s'entrainent et leur quotidien lors des "resource wars". Même lorsqu'ils tirent depuis une position à couvert, ils sont dans un endroit non familier, ne savent pas de quoi est fait le mur derrière lequel il se mettent à "couvert"... Mais le plus grand besoin est lorsqu'ils avancent à découvert : dans ce cas on a interêt à "emporter" son couvert avec soi. On peut le faire de façon mastoc, en avançant grâce à un blindé... Ou en se "blindant" soi-même avec des plaques niveau III ou IV. La généralisation des protection niveau III depuis 20 ans a fait ses preuves en termes de vie sauvées : les vétérans souffrent maintenant disproportionellement de PTSD, de membres mutilés, de divers "syndromes", mais peu de soldats sont tués. Le ratio morts/blessés à complètement changé depuis la guerre du vietnam. Ces protections ont donc fait leur preuve pour les opérations offensives, et justifient leur coût et leur poids.
Du coté du défenseur de BAD, c'est justement là que l'on trouve le couvert statique ! Que l'on parle d'une maison renforcée par des sacs de sable à la Rawles (ou par bioclimatisme ;-), ou d'un discret trou de combat amménagé à l'avance, ou d'un fossé ou talus, le défenseur qui s'est bien préparé bénéficiera de couvert imcomparablement plus efficace qu'une plaque balistique couvrant la cage thoracique. Par exemple une grosse ondulation de terrain arrêtera n'importe quel nombre de tirs de tout calibre, 12.7x99 compris, et peut protéger tout le corps, pas juste le tronc. De façon plus générale on pourrait citer aussi l'aspect psychologique : le porteur de plaques niveau III pourrait être tenté de prendre plus de risques que si non équipé. [NdlR : il est à noter que le survivaliste n'est pas 24H/24 dans son trou de combat et qu'il sera forcément exposé de temps à autres, notamment s'il fait une patrouille ou qu'il se rend au village pour chercher un outil par exemple ; ainsi les protections balistiques sont à envisager si le budget défense le permet]
- Tir "full auto" : le tir en rafale existe depuis l'invention des Maxims guns mais s'est généralisé dans les doctrines des armées modernes après la Seconde Guerre Mondiale lorsque le fusil d'assaut est devenu "standard". Il est utilisé pour le tir suppressif, c'est à dire un gros volume de feu envoyé "approximativement" sur le personnel ennemi, dans le but de lui faire baisser la tête plutôt que dans le but de le toucher. La situation à obtenir de la sorte s'appelle "supériorité de feu". L'idée étant que celui des deux adversaires qui a la "superiorité de feu" est capable de manoeuvrer pour flanquer l'ennemi et/ou s'en rapprocher par avance au contact, en subissant pas ou peu de tirs et donc de risque.
On peut s'interroger sur le caractère défensif ou offensif du tir F/A. Le tir suppressif est destiné à favoriser l'avance au contact, donc l'offensive. D'un autre coté, le tir F/A semble pratique pour rendre la vie difficile au personnel qui pratique le "3 seconds rush" (quoique la doctrine Suisse NTTC préconise plutôt le "cpcr", coup par coup rapide.. j'aurais tendance à leur faire confiance).
Dans l'immense majorité des pays, les armes F/A sont reservées au Léviathan, les civils devant se contenter de S/A (semi/auto). Mais j'espère avoir consolé ceux qui en sont désolés, qu'ils ne manquent pas grand chose, cette capacité étant un peu plus orientée attaque que défense :-)
- Entrainement physique : l'infanterie - en particulier l'infanterie "légère" et les Forces Spéciales - des pays de l'OTAN doit subir un entrainement physique intense. En contrepartie, les vétérans (demandez à Stan Goff ou John Mosby) sont presque grabataires à l'age de 40 ans ou avant. Les survivalistes ont tendance à souhaiter faire de même.
Du coté des soldats, leur physique athlétique leur permet de porter un équipement (sac à dos, carabine, LBV, contenu des poches de la BDU) de 40 kg ou plus (!) sur de longues distances, parfois mesurées en dizaines de kilomètres (!). Tout cela est essentiel pour partir à l'attaque, surtout si l'insertion se fait loin de l'objectif, ou si l'on patrouille à travers le pays à la recherche d'un ennemi qui applique Sun Tzu et Mao, et se cache lorsque l'ennemi est fort. Les conséquences en terme de santé à long terme ne sont pas connues des jeunes recrues (qui n'ont parfois même pas encore l'age de voter), et quand au Léviathan, la santé à long terme des vétérans n'est tout simplement pas un facteur qui compte.
Pour le BAD-member qui s'est préparé de façon compétente, c'est le contraire :-)... Il défend sa zone locale, pas une AO - zone d'opération - située à 30 km ; s'il fait un effort violent ce sera pour réagir à un appel de LP/OP et sprinter se positionner le plus vite possible dans son trou de combat ou à l'endroit propice à une embuscade rapide, si face à un adversaire "dur à cuire" il aura sans doute aussi à opérer des "retraits en tiroir" ordonnés, couvert par les membres de son équipe, donc sans paniquer. Il s'attend à survivre à tous les engagements ("nobody is expendable") et à vivre longtemps et en bonne santé après la période de convulsions. L'utilité de l'activité physique est indéniable si l'on a un style de vie sédentaire, l'activité cardio raisonnable (jogging, vélo...) prolongeant la vie de 5 ans environ. À prendre en compte si vous avez trouvé un moyen de faire marcher votre BAD tout en restant assis tout la journée ! Mais attention à ne pas tomber dans l'excès inverse.[NdlR : l'entraînement militaire n'est pas à proprement parler adapté à chaque individu, en revanche le survivaliste peut s'entraîner à son rythme et selon ses contraintes physiques ; être fort et endurant facilite grandement la vie quotidienne]
On pourrait citer aussi au chapitre "santé" la protection auditive : le US.gov se moque que ses vétérans soient à moitié sourds après une décénnie de service, mais les homesteaders devront rester alertes et garder une bonne audition toute leur vie.. Donc ne pas négliger la protection auditive à l'entrainement, voire en opérations (à la condition expresse d'avoir un système particulièrement adapté, e.g. casques actifs Peltor ou similaires).
Quelques autres éléments en vrac : les dispositifs de vision nocturnes sont typiquement appréciés comme un outil qui donne un gros avantage à l'attaquant.. Mais si les défenseurs sont eux aussi équipés (avec discernement : attention à l'effet tunnel qui retrécit le champ de vision) c'est le contraire, ça devient un outil défensif très important !
On pourrait citer les radios, autant pour se coordonner entre BADs distantes et s'appeler à l'aide que pour la coordination locale d'une embuscade d'ailleurs...
Autre grand classique, les tactiques : ceux qui se préparent à l'avenir en lisant des Field Manuals décrivant les opérations inter-armes (comment appeler une frappe aérienne ..etc ) méritent le bonnet d’âne. Les tactiques pertinentes sont celles liées aux petits groupes, à l'échelle d'un voisinage (voire village). Penser aux techniques permettant de se défendre même si en inferiorité numérique : si l'adversaire peut vous amener à un engagement à courte distance (c.à.d. si vous réagissez trop tard, une fois qu'il est très proche de vous et/ou votre famille) il a déjà gagné la moitié de la bataille, il devient difficile de reprendre la main. Si face à un adversaire compétent, il vaut mieux le "garder à distance". Et si c'est au contraire une "soft target", point besoin d'utiliser de carabine pour le gérer ! Pour conclure, la doctrine militaire est facilement disponible en "open source" pour l'étudier, mais attention à bien choisir les domaines d'étude : les manuels liés aux petits groupes opérant en autonomie correspondent bien plus aux besoins des défenseurs de BAD que la doctrine des troupes à l'échelle d'une compagnie faisant du "avance au contact" leur pain quotidien.
[Latest from Oslik, The Offensive Bias or How Not To Prep Like A Monkey When It Comes To Defense :-]
When it comes to security issues, survivalists tend to err on the offensive side of things, whether they realize it or not. I blame this bias towards offensive tactics and tools on their main source of inspiration -- the military of their countries -- having an almost purely offensive mission: NATO has not been "defending" sh*t since the Warsaw Pact dissolved in the 1990s; and even pre-1990s this alliance was mainly enforcing what Maj. Smedley Butler once called a "global racket". You could go back to when the War departments of western countries were renamed "Defense" departments and say that from then on they stopped caring about defense and were interested only in offensive ops. Or you could go way back to the good Major's heyday, or to Wounded Knee or further. Point is -- in NATO countries and their allies the world over, following your army's lead is indeed following the doctrine of soldiers whose primary job consists of being deployed to overseas FOBs, being inserted in various hellholes, attacking and breaking the will of the defenders, then occupying their land and (generally) "playing it for keeps". This is far away -- in fact almost a mirror image -- from the situation that will be encountered by doomstead'ers defending their AO and its immediate environs: if not a looter you will be 99%+ defending, not attacking. You will be in familiar land, not inserted into foreign land. You'll be on foot, without armor or air support and with limited ammo supplies, not the "tip of the spear" of the "army of one" with an "extraction" taking you back to your "Green Zone" and willing to take casualties nonchalantly because the "MEDEVAC" will likely occur within the "Golden Hour".
Let's illustrate with just a handful specific examples. One may find additional inspiration in this TLF page (and a great many others in there; TLF's blog is second to none for defensive TTPs).
- Sound suppressors: suppressors reduce the muzzle report; not the "sonic boom" of the projectile of course, but the latter does little to give away the shooter's position anyway, the muzzle report is the important component of the audio signature. A sound suppressor also typically cancels out the muzzle flash completely, thus also decreasing the visual signature of the shooter, especially at night -- remember, a lot of the action might occur at night, that's when Gremlins attack! As a trade-off, sound suppressors add a little weight, cumbersomeness and price to your shooting platform.
Those are very marked characteristics, placing suppressors away from the offensive side of the equation as they are of little to no use when attacking: when you're runnin'n'gunnin' toward an enemy position your visual and audio signature does not exactly lend itself to "moderation". During a Move To Contact your muzzle flash is the least of your concerns. So for the overwhelming majority of grunts, suppressors are not issued and they do without. Only those S.O.F. groups with special needs (DF: operating e.g. in buildings where rifle fire is deafening; SF: infiltration missions with potential for break-contact-and-evade situations) are suppressors issued or even standard. The rest have little incentive to use them, and even have incentives (slight weight and size increases) to not use them.
Guess what: things are reversed for the defender. A competent defender will use area defense, as well as improve one's concealment and camouflage as much as possible. So much so in fact, that the rifle's signature will become the weakest link in the concealment chain: when you are laying down ranged fire from good concealment, the unsuppressed muzzle flash and report are giving away your approximate position, possibly ruining the rest of your concealment work. At night especially, the muzzle flash will often be the lion's share of your signature. Reducing it with a sound suppressor will be worth it, instead of being beside the point. What about the sound signature ? When you can't be pinpointed visually, the OPFOR will try to at least get a ballpark idea of where you are, based on your muzzle report, as the last part of your 'signature' available to them. If you also make it difficult to use that, you have just denied them the last element they could use to acquire and engage you from a distance, leaving them little choice but to withdraw or attempt to get more close and personal in spite of the risk of attrition. It's an awful lot easier to defend an area if you can hit but can't be hit. And while talking of "signature", let's mention also smaller yet sometimes significant things, like using earphones with your talkie-walkie to keep it quiet, using LBE gear with fastex buckles rather than noisy velcro, using hand-and-arm silent communication and plenty other things in the "noise" department; especially if you somewhow failed to keep the enemy personal at bay and they are in earshot range.
A show-stopper for sound suppressors, of course, is if the leviathan in your country forbids their use altogether (as is the case in parts of Europe, parts of the USA ..etc). If so then read on for do-and-don't ideas in other departments.
- Level III ceramic plates: Level III and Level IV body armor is designed to withstand at least one rifle round. Not that the grunt carrying it will brush it off like a mosquito bite mind you, he won't -- when hit with rifle fire, the ceramic plates' carrier is typically knocked off his feet and possibly breathless. And those plates only cover the most critical body parts: lungs, heart... But when acting in a team, they give a psychological edge to the grunt, allowing him to take risks (typically offensive ones, as we're about to see) he otherwise would have shied away from. However there's a price to pay beside the $$$ one: there is of course the extra 10 kg or so to carry, and it gets darn hot in summer; there's the need to adopt a modified shooting stance, with the extra thickness meaning you can't shoulder your e.g. deer rifle as usual (hence M4s with their adjustable/collapsible stocks being very popular with the Level III crowd). That kind of armor is also not one you can conceal, so a smart OPFOR marksman will know you wear body armor and will attempt to shoot around it, when the range and the wind permit. So is it worth it ? Again it depends on what your typical day looks like.
On the offensive side, we indeed see everyone and their dog in NATO armies carry Level III armor; to wit, the well-known Interceptor standard issue and the Dragonskin favored by those with enough dough to shell out. Advance to contact, fire & movement, flanking entrenched OPFORs with 3-to-5 seconds rushes, those are their bread and butter especially so during the Resources Wars ("Peak Oil Wars") of nowadays. Whenever you're on the offensive, running away from safety to go into harm's way, you want to carry your cover with you. Since 1917 this has taken the form of main battle tanks and other mobile armor, and (more recently) personal armor. Especially after these became less cumbersome once ceramic plates were developed that improved on heavier (and ricochet-prone) steel plates. That's the theory -- what about the practice ? In practice the numbers speak for themselves in terms of casualties since e.g. the Vietnam War: the second Gulf War NATO casualties are mainly IED-caused, the gunwounds are not in the majority any more (admittedly there are other factors at play, like the abysmal "marksmanship" in much of the Sunni world). Combined with the leaps and bounds in "care under fire" TTPs progress in the last decade, this explains the four-digit KIA number in Irak by opposed to the 58'000 Oz & US KIA of Vietnam, and the disproportionate number of injuries compared to deaths. Personal 'cover' has served NATO well in their offensives.
What about the defense? Hell, that's where you happen to find static cover serving its purpose! Whether one is thinking of Rawlesian sandbags or dual-use bioclimatic sand-walled thermal mass homestead designs *g* or a low-profile foxhole prepared in advance of societal collapse or a ditch or what-have-you, static/natural cover is far superior to personal armor -- even more so if man-improved. Depending on the lay of the land and your using below-ground-level cover, you can end up with (dozens of) meters of earth between your thoracic cage and the OPFOR's business end. That's better cover than any tank with the latest reactive armor doo-dad could ever provide. And which will definitely stop something as puny (!) as 12.7x99 (though not quite easily so if you have only 1-2 meters of earth of cover or even less! But if you expect to face .50 BMG weapons you definitely took on a mamma bear or something). To note, this is not a black-and-white topic: you do have to expose part of your body to shoot, after all, namely your arm and part of your head. But guess what, rifle-threat-level ceramic plates help for neither. So an entrenched defender with Level III thoracic armor makes little sense (maybe keep that for you family in case your home is targeted or something), however it does make sense to protect the one protruding part of the entrenched personel's body, the head. But absent Level III helmets -- they're all Level III-A (handgun threats) at best -- that's an hypothetical. Not to mention that even if space-age technology managed to pull-off a Level III helmet feat some day, one can't change the physics of energy transfer: the blunt trauma caused by a hi-power round being stopped cold by your (armored) fore-head would be enough to knock you out anyway, with probable brain damage on top of that. So instead of going full-armor medieval, careful consideration of this topic makes you look for less ambitious goals instead... Like protecting against flak (shrapnel) in the face. Now that is a very worthy goal, maybe worth an article on its own... Bottom line -- secondary hazards to the eyes are relatively manageable with balistic-grade glasses. A tiny speck in the eye, part of whatever you're using as cover (tree, sandbag, concrete...) and energized by incoming rounds, can take you out of the fight by virtue of being blind and unable to see sh*t. There's nothing as 'efficient' as the tinest piece of dust hitting that most vulnerable organ (no not that one, this is about the eye you silly twit!). Fortunately, it's also fairly straight-forward to get (cool looking) ballistic glasses that go a long way towards alleviating this problem. And that's one area where CDI -- chicks dig it -- interests are aligned with sensible ones (!) So in the end -- ballistic glasses ? No-brainer. Level III armor for personel in a foxhole ? Not so much.
- F/A fire: A force multiplier invented more than a century ago, automatic fire left its crew-served ghetto after WW1 and started being issued to individual troops as SMGs, then as assault rifles. Most everyone waited until after WW2 to leap on the F/A (assault) rifle bandwagon: the US pondered for a while and finally settled with the select-fire M16A1 during and after the Vietnam war, whereas the Warsaw Pact decided from day one of the Cold War to introduce the AK47 (inspired-yet-different-from the Stg.44) and then almost immediately replaced it with the AKM, all in all making suppressive fire a part of its infantry doctrine without delay. And indeed this is what F/A is all about.
Supressive fire is a technique used to force a defender to "keep his (collective) head down" to facilitate the assault and overrun of its position: you lay down a high volume of fire on enemy defenders, typically more efficiently with a (more stable) LMG/SAW than with a magazine fed select-fire rifle (whose accuracy completely goes out of the window with muzzle climb past the first couple rounds). Meanwhile your maneuver element flanks the enemy and gets up close and personal to finish them off. In a word, it has value especially as an offensive feature, rather than defensive.
There is something to be said for defensive applications of F/A fire however: moving targets. Of all the things that set defenders and attackers apart, movement is the one that favors the attackers (the others, like static cover, key terrain, target acquisition ..etc favor the defender with enough foresight to prepare in advance of the engagement and explain why the doctrine recommends at least a 3-to-1 attackers-to-defenders ratio when facing competent defenders). It is tempting to remove that one advantage left to the attackers: if rushing, bouncing, zig-zagging enemies are the one thorn in the defender's side, then let's address this problem, and doing so requires F/A fire, right? Maybe not. The Swiss doctrine adresses this differently. Not by going the other extreme -- they of course don't require the infantryman to be a world-class shot and pick up rushing personel with first hit every time with a bolt action rifle. They're fully aware that it's very difficult for even a trained marksman to spot a rushing personel, acquire it in your optic (I'm assuming use of an optic with windage/lead hashes on its reticle here, if using iron sights to engage moving targets then YOYO), come up with the correct "hold-by" firing solution on the fly, apply it on that goshdamned zig-zagging target that's exposing his narrow side and then send an accurate shot, all in the 3 to 5 seconds that the OPFOR will typically/doctrinally run out of cover. Quite a tall order. Instead the Swiss go the "middle way": they use their rifle on S/A (semi-auto) to perform what they call cpcr. That's a french acronym for "rapid shot-by-shot" fire, with very minimal re-aiming between each shot. Think of it like a double-tap that would extend to not two but ten or more rounds, sending a 'cloud' of rounds centered on the moving target (or better, slightly leading it), increasing the probability of scoring at least one hit. If that's good enough for them, that should be good enough for you. And it makes sense too: light-weight as it is, an MBR would never be stable enough to put automatic lead on target like an LMG would, so 'cpcr' is more efficient than F/A fire here, sorta kinda the poor man's ma-deuce.
Point is -- don't feel sorry you don't have access to F/A fire (or if you do because you're Swiss or US Class 3 why are you even reading this! For schadenfreude eh ?). It's mainly offensive in nature, and its defensive application(s) is not a big loss. It's no substitute for proper use of cpcr and obstacles anyway. Your S/A rifle is good as it is.
- Projection to distant theaters: This is a catch-all for several items. There's a bunch of subtle and not so subtle consequences to the geography of NATO's Resources Wars, which survivalists ought to be careful with. Starting with tactics, which are mostly the extension of the strategy, that is, they are almost as completely offensive as the strategy in nature -- but let's keep that for last.
To accomplish the "kick their ass and take their gas" strategic aim, western armies have to be deployed to where the resources (and their disgruntled, untamed owners) are. This means spending countless hours in flight, at sea, in APCs and what-not. The oil-rich middle east being largely desertic, it impacts the camo patterns in use: "desert 3 colors", "MARPAT-desert", the dominant brown hue in MultiCam, Fleckdesert and so on. Also one cannot overstate the importance of supply chains in this day and age: the non-SOF troops typically don't eat food water nor consume a battery or one drop of gasoline that was produced in the occupied country, it all has to come from imperial Rome, at great energetic expense... and at great risk during the last part of the journey, in the resupply convoy on the road between the airport and the more remote bases. Between time spent in supply convoys and time spent on mounted patrols, NATO grunts thus spend an inordinate amount of time crammed in helos, Strykers, Bradleys, APCs and Humvees. This translates into rifle (!) design constraints: the M4 is a downgrade from the M16A2 in any way you can reasonably think of (especially barrel length, which is critical for terminal performance of the 5.56x45 round that it fires). Indeed the USMC corps did not switch to it. Yet the US Army, which stays onsite long after the USMC has gone back home, did. Why ? Because that 20" barrel was more than the cramped troops could handle in confined spaces; yet the army was not willing to switch to a "you can have your cake and eat it too" design (yes it exists, sort of, it's called bullpup rifles) so it shortened the barrel, worked around the bugs somewhat (higher cyclic rate leading to component failures, FTFs and FTEs, the magazine follower/spring had to be stronger to keep pace, cleaner propellants had to be used in M855 after the don't-shit-where-you-eat DGI problem came back with a vengeance ..etc) and voilà -- M4A1, typically firing M855 rounds.
This does not mean you have to do the same. Choosing a short-barrel rifle "because the army does it, so it must be best" is silly. The army rides crammed tight in APCs. You don't. They do a lot of MOUT ops and room clearing. In your rural B.A.D. you don't/won't. The army gets "inserted" and "extracted" to targets. You have to hoof it to ambush sites. The army can afford to cripple its main MBR since the M4A1 is just one weapon system among many -- each squad sports quite some additional punch including an FN Minimi, a DMR, a couple M203s, sometimes Javelin missiles, and close air support a RATELO's call away. If their baseline rifles are inadequate, they -- sometimes, though in Afghanistan it's reportedly more acute -- have plenty of Plan Bs. You don't. For the survivalist in his BAD, guess what ? The main -- maybe the only -- weapon system will be the rifle. Crippling it does not make sense. If we were talking of a 7.62x39 system (SKS, AKM among others) that'd be different as its terminal performance decreases linearly with muzzle velocity (or rather, linearly with energy), but in .223 the muzzle velocity (and thus the barrel length) IS critical for terminal performance, due to the steep threshold at ca. 800 m/s. As to camo patterns, does it even need explaining? Use the pattern that is best for your AO. If your B.A.D. is located in arable and forested land, as it should, that probably translates into a woodland-style pattern rather than desert-this or that. 'Nuf said. And finally we come to tactics: why do survivalists focus so much on "room clearing", IADs like "react to contact" and "break contact" and the like? Because that's the high-speed CDI stuff depicted in action movies (it's easier to make fun/thrilling flicks telling high-speed stories than flicks telling the story of a patient ambusher's planning, preparing and finally executing a successful ambush which reaches conclusion without much ado) ; and because that's what the FMs talk about. The people who write the FMs would not be doing their job if they didn't focus on the offensive, since that's what their audience does: except for the occasional (though increasingly frequent of late) attack on Afghan F.O.Bs by "insurgents", NATO forces are on door-kicking and hunter-killer rampages; last I checked, SkyNet is not yet on the defensive. So apart from some great blogs by retired US soldiers there's little defensive inspiration out there, and survivalists typically follow suit. What could possibly go wrong with that! Does one even need to spell this one out? Offensive tactics, techniques and procedures should not be at the top of your list. One may obviously find interest in studying them so as to learn how to counter them if they're used against you some day; but that hardly justifies training only on them and only from the attacker's perspective. Use your brain and separate what is fun from what is useful.
- Ranged fire: There's a controversy of late about that one, including some big names from the SOF world claiming mid-range shooting is quite over-rated... I'll stick my neck out and make a couter-claim (from the comfort of my armchair, granted) that they are letting emotions take over basic reasoning. It seems a no brainer, basic fact that hard targets should be kept further away than soft targets. The harder the target, the least you want to engage it from within the same county, so to speak. So if you foresee never being engaged by anything else than smooth bore long-guns or even handguns then fine, focus on short-range marksmanship only, out to 100 m or so. But if you expect hard or very hard targets to enter your AO some day, work on those wind dope and range-finding skills so as to be operational to the very farthest your bolt-action rifle is able to, keeping your S/A rifle for breaking contact when the adversary sneaks up on you, or for ambushing smaller units. That's my view and I'm sticking to my guns, in a manner of speaking.
There's some similar -- if more light-hearted -- controversial support for the mid-range shooting tactic expressed by V.Aguila: it emphatically puts the offensive aspect on its head, wondering how americans could defend their homeland only with deer rifles against a full-scale armored invasion; so if you need inspiration for alternative tactics to the mainstream (mainly offensive) ones, you could do worse than look up the Aguila system and tactics based on this "sniper flash cards" system. The author has (litteraly) something to sell you but it's not your typical marketroid website, it's creative enough and remarkably informed, it deserves a full paragraph in this article..! Also the author has a funny Red Dawn fetish -- most of his fictional stories involve a Russian invasion of some sort, though Blackwater (Xe) gets plenty of scorn too. Be aware that the author is not sympathetic to CQB and long-range sniping, so if you're a practitioner of either then get a bulletproof sense of humor and a thick skin on, before entering the site... but it's worth it. Basically his recommendation for urban combat against conventional airland invasion is to go "medium range": he puts the emphasis on designated marksmen getting lead on target in a matter of seconds and argues that this can work even against hard targets (OPFOR's that will return fire with LMGs and HMGs) so long as the shooter uses "swarming" and "hug" tactics: fire from a position distant enough from SAWs but close enough that indirect fire won't be usable, and get out in a hurry on a motorbike after each shot, before the enemy bring in more effective means (close air support e.g.). My armchair theorist's take on it: long range marksmanship is downplayed way too much (a shot from 1k metres can NOT easily be pinpointed unless you have significant muzzle blast, and even then that requires luck from the targetted unit) and he ignores blinds spots in his tactic (point taken, sorta kinda, on 5.56 SAWs being marginally efficient beyond 300 m.; but what about 7.62x51 and .50 HMG ? those will ruin his day and make him wish he was at longer ranges than just 400 or 500 m. !). His fiction stories are both inspiring and humorous.
- Longevity: One big difference between offensive .mil and defensive survivalists is one of self-centered vs. 'selfless' interest: survivalists are fighting for their own sake and their family's, and their tribe's; servicemen/women are doing a job, they are fighting in service for their employer, for a *cough* noble cause and a grateful nation *cough*. This translates into various time-scale issues: staying alive is the goal of survivalists, whereas keeping enlisted men and women alive is just one military objective among others. Sometimes the Powell doctrine puts "Force Protection" at the top, sometimes troops are sacrificed for the (quote, unquote) "greater good". And the military brass' and SecDef's benevolence is limited not only in intensity but also in time: the survivalists want to stay alive and healthy until a ripe old age; whereas the .gov wants to extract as much juice from the servicemen during the few years they stay in the army, even if it means they will have gulf war syndrom, be half deaf, outright maimed or simply worn out and "old" when they get their honorable discharge; that's why you hear J. Mosby say that he's still close to peak physical performance despite (not because of) time in the Army, or Stan Goff say his knees are shot and he's a walking drugstore, or Chris Kyle say he's become half deaf after shooting .338 LM indoors in buildings so many times, or so many vets are on disability or various 'syndromes' and so on and so forth.
Which brings us to auditive protection: apparently the armed forces do not deem it important to issue active protection and the such, probably because the consequences show up only after the service members are discharged from service so why spend a kopeck on it. But survivalists should look at longer timescales: investing in active electronics à la Peltor Sportac, or at least the $20 plastic protections doing a 'similar' job, is money well spent. Use/wear them not only in training, but in operations as well: the better ones (e.g. active Peltor's) allow to protect against the "bangs" whilst allowing to perceive small noises, preserving one's situational awareness. Likewise for Physical Training, don't go "monkey see, monkey do" without a second thought. Yes you do need to be something of an athlete and carry a 40 kg rucksack and full combat load in mountains to bring the pain to people defending such and such country. No you don't need to carry all that much gear on all that long a journey when you are the one defending your A.O.: in fact for this task the emphasis is more on sprinting; as in, sprinting from your home to an ambush KZ agreed in advance with your neighbors, as soon as the LP/OP is ringing the village's alarm. With regard to "sacrificing" members, for families "nobody is expendable" is the rule of the day, as well as "live long and prosper". This means not only avoiding combat casualties but also avoiding debilitating training. Of course one should not fall for the other extreme and become a sloth: in the unlikely scenario where you have little physical activity in your homestead (i.e. the tooth fairy is taking care of chopping wood, weeding, gardening, canning, cooking, patrolling the land, hunting, and you just sit on ass all day long) then you should definitely take up a modicum of "PT", especially cardio training (jogging, biking and so on). This will help not only from an infantryman point of view, but will also prolong your life; lack of physical activity is bad for longevity, just like ridiculously excessive "training" is.
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In closing let's be clear about the defense/offense split: there will be room in future B.A.D.s for, well, offensive-like TTPs: when patrolling your land or when traveling to the neighbour village for trade or for visiting relatives you will be vulnerable to ambushes: you will be technically speaking in a offensiv-ish situation and subject to 'defensive' techniques, even though located on your home turf and strategically the defender of it. So there is a probable need for practising "react to contact" and counter-ambush drills in the future. Heck, there might even be a need for body armor or long-range infiltration in some extremely specific scenarios, though it's difficult to foresee any contrarily to defensive scenarios that are dimes a dozen. But the point is, keep your priorities straight: practising only "dynamic" drills full of action and fury because Chicks Dig It is not conducive to survival. Practising ambush drills against attackers is more prioritary than practising counter-ambush drills, simply because you're much more likely to be subject to the former (attacks/raids) than to the latter (long range patrols which you might or might not need and during which you might or might not be detected and ambushed). Beside, the beginner is more likely to get defensive techniques right first, and they are not so much subject to Diminishing Returns like the other side of the coin is. Crawl, walk, run.
