Small Unit Patrol Class

I am smoked. That is what I told John Mosby after attending his Idaho Small Unit Patrol Class this past week.

I spent two days prior to leaving home packing and repacking my ruck sack in the vain attempt to cut some weight. The front room was strewn with gear for two days prior to my step off. Based on my SUT (Small Unit Tactics) class last year I learned a valuable lesson to pare down the crap I carry. This past week I relearned that lesson. I carry to much crap! And I’m sure a vast majority of us all carry to many comfort items. This was a hard trip to pack for in all honesty. Idaho in the spring can be a very fickle girl. Do I pack for a warm clime or a cold one? In a fit of frustration, I packed a little of both.

I don’t do very well in the cold and in all honesty I am a pussy in the cold weather. My feet are what bothers me the most. Once they get cold it seems to take over my whole body and I just can’t get warm after that. In the end I errored on packing more for cold than a warm environment. Glad I did. It rained  most of the first day of class, then sleated, then rained some more. The daytime temp was in the 40’s and nights dipped into the 20’s.

Rendezvous was at 0800 on Friday in Idaho Falls and we did a caravan to the training site. First order of business was to ruck up a hill to the actual property that we were going to setup a base camp. I come from the flat lands, and attempting to hump up a hill that had 3 inches of slippery clay in full kit, a ruck, an assault pack with 20 preloaded ammo magazines and a 10×12 target steel plate  about did me in a quarter of the way up the hill. I started to loose vision and thought I was going to pass out, twice. This was a deceiving little hill.

After a quick introduction, John gave us a few moments to setup our hooch’s. We jumped right into the safety brief, then John gave us a quick primer on the brown Idaho mud by having us low crawl through the muck. Then the rain started, then it sleeted, then rained again and didn’t end until after dark on the first day. Day one, twelve hours of non stop movement.

Class consisted of, well you can read John’s breakdown of the SUT and SUP classes here. I’m not going to give a blow by blow. That just wouldn’t be right. I suggest you take a look at the Ranger Handbook to get a feel for the class also. What we did is pretty much line by line out of the Ranger Handbook. Besides, it would take away from when you attend the class.

What I will do is give a high view and all is predicated on the crawl, walk, run form of training.

Standard patrol formation. In this case the diamond formation. 4 and 8 man teams.

React to contact drill

Hasty attack

Hasty ambush

Break contact

React to ambush near and far

Movement Formations

Movement Techniques

Standards

Fundamentals

Tactical Marches

Movement During Limited Visibility

Danger Areas

Patrol Planning

Security

Common Sense

KIA and EPW body searches

We did a night shoot react to contact drill to demonstrate how the muzzle blast from your rifle can mess up your night vision. Lots of laying in the cold mud. Camouflaging oneself and your gear, did I say laying in the mud?  Then we did every drill, multiple times with full ruck sacks on. Total smoke fest, in a very good way. I am in no way complaining, it felt good!

There was also an exercise on moving quietly through the brush. Listening for the sound of a twig breaking, the sound of a jacket scraping along a branch, or velcro separating as you bend down. Ask me how I know that?

A couple take aways for myself. Pack lighter! strip all the nice to haves out of your bag, you don’t need it. I’m here to tell you from experience.

All you need is the pants and shirt you are wearing with one spare set.

Plenty of socks. Two pair per day. (I always changed into clean dry socks when I had wet pair on and before I crawled into my sleeping bag for the night.)

Rain gear. A GI light weight Gortex jacket and pants combo or a civilian equivalent. And one could also use a US GI poncho if that is all you had. I would suggest wearing your kit on the outside of your coat. Some guys didn’t and found it is a bitch to reload quickly when your mags are under a coat.

Fleece jacket or some sort.

Silkies, long johns tops and bottom. One set. I slept in these at night.

Stocking cap. I carried two.

Baseball or boonie cap. Rolls up easy and you can stick in your pocket when you are not wearing it on your head.

Gloves. Some kind of shooting gloves. I used a pair of nomex flight gloves. I also had a pair of winter gloves on hand.

Sleeping system. I used a US GI three piece sleep system. You can pick one of these bad boys for less than $100. The system comes with a light weight bag, a heavy weight bag and a Gortex outer shell. What is nice about this system is you can use parts of or all three together. The Gortex shell is going to keep the damp and rain off you and still let sweat and body moisture out.

Sleeping pad. I used the newer GI inflatable type. But any brand will do.  Just something to keep a barrier between you and the ground. It is amazing what a half inch of padding will do to keep the cold away from your body. Something I figured out the second night. If you stick your sleeping pad between the layers of your sleep system, the pad stays put and will not slide around underneath you all night long.

For this trip I bought a hammock. There are a ton of brands out there. Some costing $60 and others that run all the way up to hundreds. I bought a Hennesey Hammock from a guy at work and I will never sleep on the ground again! The hammock I used had a rain fly and mosquito net that weighed less than two pounds and comes in a little stuff sack that compresses down nicely. I would also suggest getting two sets of hammock rap rings. I’m not a knot tying guy and you can pull your hammock down quickly and be on the go in nothing flat with these. See video below.

Magazines. I used Magpuls but ran into an issue. Magpuls can hold thirty one rounds, this is bad because the spring becomes so compressed, it causes the top most round to hang on the feed lip and not load into the rifle chamber. Stripping one round from the mag solved my problem. This happened to me four times. Glad it happened in training and not in a real life or death situation. I became very proficient at SPORTS (Slap, Pull, Observe, Rack, Tap, Shoot)

Leg rig/Battle Belt. I own both but did not bring either to the class.

Dump pouch. I should have brought one of these. I forgot and left it at home.

Plate Carrier. I run a ShellBack plate carrier. By far worth the $150. I attached a cheapo Condor water bladder carrier to the back with a 2 liter Camel Bak bladder inside.

Multiple tourniquets.

Misc items. I had a small self built first aid kit. Advil is my friend. A butt pack that has bungie cords, chem lights, fire starting kit, and a whole lot of other “stuff”. I also packed a woobie and a GI poncho. A small stainless steel camping cup with folding handles. A GI “E” tool, extra tent stakes and para cord.

MRE’s. I field stripped my MRE’s. By taking the meal pouches out of the cardboard boxes they come in, you can stuff two entire meals into one brown outer plastic bag. By folding the top of the outer bag over and using a small piece of duck tape you can seal the top and keep all the contents in the bag. The tape also allows you to reseal the bag after taking out what you want to eat.

After this trip I think I’m done with MRE’s. Out of the 8 meals I had packed only one meal heater actually worked. The other seven heaters failed. You can find after market meal heaters online. Below is a review.

I just couldn’t eat cold MRE’s without gagging. I lived on the MRE cheese, peanut butter, trail mix packages and crackers for three days. Only on the last day did I get a heater to work enough to have some potato soup for breakfast. It was delicious! Exquisite cuisine that you can only get in a green package made by the folks at Wornick in Tennessee. I’m serious it was awesome.

So I bought a Jet Boil system. I am going to pre-package rice, beans and what ever else I can vacuum seal and stow it in my ruck. I’ll keep a few MRE entrees on hand that I can heat with the Jet Boil system. I hate dry heaving.

Boots. A good comfortable water resistant high ankle pair of boots can really make or break your day. My good old reliable pair of Altama’s lost a sole and I will retire them to un-envious duty of being used for grass mowing now.

PT. Let me say this. If you don’t do some sort of PT or haven’t PT’d in a while your gonna suck at this class and hold everyone up. I’m not a PT nazi by any stretch, but I can find time to workout with my schedule. Burpee’s can be done anywhere, and in the last six months I did a lot. Running up seven to twelve percent grade slopes suck on a good day. In shitty weather, in full kit is even harder. I can’t imagine what it would have felt like if I still smoked.

I drove close to 3000 miles (round trip) to go to this class and it was worth every mile and every hour I spent in my car.

If not for the class itself but just having the ability to meet like-minded people and train with them was beyond cool. I will also tell you all this, I spent my 50th birthday standing in the rain, rolling in the mud, and learning new skills and in the end having 12 people that I met three days prior stand in a circle around me signing Happy Birthday was priceless.

Fucking far out!

 

Get training, get your mind right, get your body right.

Prepping A Tourniquet

Been a long time since I posted last. That damn thing called life has gotten in the way lately.

I was lounging in the chair (picture a scene from the Big Labowski) mentally going over some of the things I need to take to my next class coming up this May. I am heading to Idaho and attending a Small Unit Patrol Class with the “Gray Ghost” John Mosby. What a better way to spend my birthday than in the field learning a new skill!

So I wandered downstairs to give my gear a once over. This simple act of wandering downstairs to my gear room, is what my wife refers to as “dress up time”. I guess in a way I do play “dress up”, but it also serves the function of getting familiar with my chest rig and accoutrements again. I will probably do this another dozen times before I leave to go to a class.

As I was trying on my chest rig, I took a seat, closed my eyes and mentally went over where things are located on my rig. If I was in a situation in low light or no light I want to be able to find what I need without fumbling around.

What would I do if I needed to get to one of my tourniquets? I carry two, one in my blowout kit (left side) and another directly on the outside of my chest rig located on my right font side. As I went through the exercise of trying to put a TQ on, one handed, I realized that the way the TQ was folded I could not open the device up to get my arm through the hole. So I pulled out my second TQ from my blow out kit and it was folded differently than the first. The second fell open the way it should and I was able to get my arm through the whole and cinched down.

Apiphany! A TQ is probably more important than the ammunition you carry on your gear. If I had needed to use this TQ, in the dark, and wounded, I would have bled out before figuring out how to get the damn thing on properly.

PCC’s and PCI’s anyone? For the non military types that is Pre Combat Checklist and Pre Combat Inspection(s). No matter what you call it, PCC’s, PCI’s or dress up, check your gear!

Here is a good video that shows how to prep a TQ.

 

What the hell did I do?!

This been along time coming, and a lot of mulling over and over in my head. I broke down, bought some camo spray paint Rustoleum branded from WalMart and painted my AR. This was a really, really REALLY tough decision for me. A couple of preconceptions that I mentally had to get past. One is: I spent X amount of dollars for a good solid carbine. And two: I have always bent taught that you have to keep your rifle clean and black. Even the Army teaches this, well at least in garrison or in the rear.

This past spring when I attended a SUT course taught by John Mosby he talked about painting your rifle during one of his fireside chats. His mantra is “A rifle is nothing but a tool, and should be treated as such not as a safe queen”. I get that part. But spray painting a $1300 rifle!

I picked up a book called the Reluctant Partisan by John that can be ordered at the link provided (I will do a book review here in a couple weeks). I ran across this statement in regards to camouflage, and only John can sum it so succinctly “If you’re afraid to camouflage your weapons for fear of negatively impacting their resale value, then you’re not treating it as a weapon and a tool, but as a safe queen financial investment. That is gayer than a bag of dicks and you deserve to be butt stroked in the nuts for being retarded”. 

I did a little research and ran across a couple videos that really showed how easy it is to paint a weapon. The videos can be found here and here. Like I stated above I used a different paint than what they talked about videos, mostly because I didn’t want anything permanent in the event I want to change it later down the road. With brake cleaner and a stiff brush the paint can be cleaned off.

This is the rifle in its original state. I have replaced the front stock with a Magpul a short time ago previous to the painting.

Before I even cracked the lids on the cans of paint. I wiped the weapon down very well with a clean rag and alcohol to remove any oil. Then I taped off all areas that either had threads exposed or any adjustment points like the front and rear sights and any areas where paint might blow into the internals like the mag well.

Areas I taped off.

Another view

 First and a very light coat of the sandy or base color.

 Butt-stock with a light coat of  base.

I picked up a roll of Jute string for like $2, I’ll explain more below about the Jute string.

 Second coat of the base applied

I randomly wrapped the rifle with the jute string and applied the second color of ranger green, very lightly.

 The butt stock with the string removed after the ranger green color applied.

 Another view of the butt stock.

 After the second color was applied (ranger green) I removed the string and re-wrapped randomly the butt-stock and rifle again with the jute string and applied a light, a very light and random coat of brown.

 The butt stock after the third color applied and the string removed.

 Rifle after third color applied and string removed.

The final product all back together. The grip was left unpainted. In my experience paint doesn’t stick well to rubberized products  very well.

 In hindsight I could have stopped with just the two colors of sand, and ranger green but in my area we do have trees and fair amount of underbrush so I think the brown will help some in blending. This really wasn’t a hard or time consuming project. In all I have about $20 and 90 mins involved. I know with use the paint will rub off over time but that’s ok with me. There are a number of ways to paint your rifle other than using jute string.  Sponges to randomly dab different colors on you’re weapon. Real or artificial foliage can be used to paint patterns. I’m sure there are hundreds of ways but the string was pretty easy and inexpensive.

One thing that I was very careful about was keeping the rattle cans 12-18 inches away from the rifle as I painted. This kept any runs from appearing and allowed more control of the paint application. I’m glad I took the time and over came my initial trepidation’s, it was actually pretty fun! I think it turned out pretty good and in the end that’s all that matters.

Bug Out Vehicles and Survival Gear For Sale

 

Was killing some time last night waiting for The Walking Dead to come on, I ran across this site of a family business that is taking former military vehicles and cleaning them up pretty nicely and then doing some mods. Well, take a look at the link below and see what you think. Personally a bit out of my price range.

Bug Out Vehicles and Survival Gear For Sale.