I am putting an Ambush manual in the training manuals page. It’s a great summary of the tactics to be used in setting up and conducting an ambush. The money quote is one that I want to point out to all of you:
Maintaining a 3:1 ratio is imperative. It is standard in the U.S. Army to always have three soldiers for every one enemy soldier when initiating contact. This rule ensures that you will have superior firepower over the enemy and will not become outnumbered. You should NOT initiate the ambush if the enemy unit is larger than expected.
It is an important tactical consideration that you, as someone who is initiating an ambush or an assault, never allow your assault element to be outnumbered by the defenders. That is how you ensure that your team doesn’t get overwhelmed by the superior force. Sometimes, discretion is the better part of valor.
7 Comments
OutOfTime · June 15, 2024 at 9:34 am
3 to 1 may be a good ratio but in asymmetrical encounters, speed and stealth/surprise are your force multipliers. If the goal of the encounter is supply, strike-take-leave before the enemy can marshal a response. If the goal is to disrupt, strike-leave. Quickly.
There are areas nearby that lend themselves to quick strike ambush and would give a small raiding party all the cover they would need and a terrain advantage in retreating. Can’t always get the perfect ratios/numbers. “Do what you can with what you have where you are.” T. Roosevelt
Michael · June 15, 2024 at 11:24 am
In the era of horse Cavalry (think Boers) the supply strike-take-leave before the enemy can marshal a response, it worked. You’d even have some time to grab supplies before fleeing.
You were dealing with same speed of response. The enemy had to mount up and ride to the attacked area to start the chase.
In the era of drone warfare, the response time to a surprise attack is measured in minutes, and unless you have technological advantages like anti-aircraft-drone disruption weapons you can be tracked and attacked by a couple of out of shape neon green haired folks in AC trailers many miles away.
Light infantry (irregulars-terrorists etc.) in pickup trucks-atv’s or worse on foot trying to evade thermal sights and now side looking radar that can see the steel in personal weapons is facing 80+ MPH chase. Meanwhile vectoring in more forces.
Not to mention long loiter time that allows drones to loiter at high altitude for over 10 hours in a lazy figure 8 observing the area. Are you sure you’re not under observation?
There are tactics to take advantage of human factors and terrain (mostly built-up cities) but open field advantage is to those that control the air. Drone operators seeing a mass of civilians might not notice a few irregulars moving into an attack and fleeing into the mass of civilians again as Mao said, “The Guerrilla moves in the ocean of people as fish in the seas”.
dave in pa. · June 15, 2024 at 11:28 am
a lot of times, it is a much smaller force than does the ambush and then melts away before the reaction happens. many a British army group was hit by one or two guys(?) and then they melted away never to be seen again that day. history is full of these types of hits or ambushes done on much larger forces. now to attack and over take the force. you will need numbers like 3 to 1
but to hold up or stage a hasty ambush, no. see how snipers have held up whole army units from
going somewhere for that lesson. see IRA files and others for insight.
Michael · June 16, 2024 at 2:52 pm
While small groups of riflemen have slowed an armies advance (call then snipers if you like) the situation for a guerrilla group in the era of drone warfare is different.
Even a small observation drone launched by the troops being pinned down can be used to target the shooters with indirect fire. More powerful drones can simply wipe them out.
The ability to shoot and scoot under drone observation is a real problem. Gillie suits are nice but thermal sights and side looking radar can see you and your rifle.
Then the wounded survivors are intelligence sources for the Empire.
That is very dangerous for the rest of the guerrillas.
Drone operators and the support for them is a CARVER situation.
Robert · June 15, 2024 at 6:55 pm
That 3-1 rule is useful to consider. But who are you planning to ambush? And what sort of crew do you have available?
For 99% of the situations, you might face, that rule will tell you: “Nope. Do not proceed with this plan”. Which is undoubtedly the right answer.
Until quite late in the breakdown of government, you may not be able assemble a crew of more than two or three people. And there will be an exponential increase in the risk of a government informant for every crew member that you have. It will be “full stop” on just about any plans for any ambush. Wait and watch the show. Listen and observe details.
After the police stop coming out of their stations to investigate any criminal complaints, the situation changes a great deal.
Known government informants? An easy target for a two-person team. They will be first casualties. Their defenses are inadequate, and their handlers do not really care about them. There will be no follow up responses from the government, and it will discourage the others.
You don’t actually need to do those projects. Somebody else certainly will.
Local political activists? Not such an easy target. After the easy ones are gone, the rest will quickly get armed protection. It will take a larger crew with attendant risk of exposure to informants. And government might take an interest in tracking down the perpetrators who remove one of their allies. So will the political activist organizations. Some of them are quite competent at investigations and they have their own very capable strike forces – which do not need to worry about government informants disrupting them.
You will need to very careful to avoid having your own people ambushed in return. Maybe you want to sit this one out too.
Ambush a government official or their staff? Kind of a bad idea. That will draw a response from the government. The only safe way to carry out such a project is to make it look like it was done by another Leftist faction. Which will happen anyway. The Leftists always eat their own once they have run out of other easy targets. Just pull back and watch the show.
There will also be criminal gangs who are stupid enough to attack government officials. Let them do the heavy lifting and take the resulting casualties. Got popcorn?
So far, you and your crew have probably done nothing illegal, except think bad thoughts about the government. Keep them to yourself and your crew. Speaking about such things will become a criminal offense, so remember to shut up! Visible reconnaissance will likely also become a criminal offense, so be careful about that. Internet searches are all trackable to individual computers, and all email or other files can be snooped. Stay off the internet. Better yet, do not use cell phones or computers at all.
Ambush police or military? A really bad idea. Don’t do it. They have a bigger crew than yours, and if you do hit one of them, they have enough left over to track down all the perpetrators and kill them. They won’t be picky about collateral damages either, or even if they got all the right guys. Rules-of-engagement be dammed. That kind of project is suicide for all concerned. And the guy promoting it is likely the last surviving informant in your crew. Hard pass.
I do hope target selection and project organization warrants a chapter in your manual. The CARVER matrix needs a prominent and clear explanation.
99% of all projects are abandoned without execution, and they should be. That is just the way these things work. Situations change in an unpredictable fashion, and you must pay constant attention.
Robert · June 15, 2024 at 7:40 pm
Thank you for posting the tactical instructions in the Training Manuals page. They are simple and easy to understand.
The “money quote” as you called it, effectively rules out most projects right now.
The current political and social environment rules out all projects right now. There are no benefits to starting early.
I pray we never see that change.
Anonymous · June 16, 2024 at 1:06 am
Conservatives may grumble, but ultimately will submit to The Powers That Be. That instinctive submission to whatever order is present is what makes them Conservatives. So Conservatives might shoot at drones out of frustrations, but they will never never never never attack them in a way that works, because they know that would work, and then there would be no hierarchical “order”, and that’s [Princess Bride accent] inconthievable!