TGA 2024 Patrols and Patrolling 1

[00:00:02] Welcome to the Gunmetal Armory. Here's your host, Dane D. What's up Team Gunmetal? It has been a minute. It has been a while. I want to let you guys know that the reason it's been so long since I've been on here

[00:00:19] is multiple different reasons and to be perfectly honest with you, I'm not going to be able to do Gunmetal Armory shows as much anymore. The reason being, well I mean I make it back into doing it constantly, you know,

[00:00:35] every week in a while but right now we're looking at getting ready to move. We're trying to get our house fixed up so we can sell it. We're looking at a lot of different options right now and where we want to move,

[00:00:50] how we want to move various different things right now. So all that being said, we have a lot on our plate right now. On top of that, right now is a season where we're growing a lot of stuff in the garden

[00:01:08] and that, you know, being able to feed my family and take care of my family, take precedence over literally everything. So I just want to let you guys know I haven't forgotten, I haven't just decided to tap out or anything like that.

[00:01:23] It's just that some other things take priority over me doing a show. So that being said, I know that, you know, like I don't have the biggest audience on the planet. So it's no big deal. You know, I will do shows as often as I can.

[00:01:39] They'll be dropped here and there and that is that. If you have any questions, you can always email me gunmetalarmoryatgmail.com. Feel free and ask me any questions you want. Now that being said, I figure we can dive into since we're getting closer and closer to,

[00:01:59] you know, the crazy times in November, I figure we could talk a little bit about tactics and techniques and things like that right now. So what I wanted to talk about today was patrolling. Okay. So in case you guys don't know,

[00:02:18] patrols are basically a detachment that's sent out by a larger unit to conduct a specific mission. Patrols can be something as simple as, you know, walk around the property or the area that you have taken over.

[00:02:35] Or it could be something much more complex where you are trying to find specific answers to a specific thing. You can send out a patrol that will ambush another group. There's lots of different things that can happen when it comes to patrolling.

[00:02:50] Okay. So what exactly are we going to be talking about today? Sorry, I got a little bit of the allergies or kicking my butt right now. It's so windy outside. But I was just using it to thresh some grain which is really, really nice.

[00:03:06] No wait, winnowing some grain. I already did the threshing. Back to patrols. Okay. Patrolling fulfills the infantry's primary function of finding the enemy to either engage the enemy or report their disposition, location and actions. So patrolling does a lot of things.

[00:03:26] Now if you want to look at this from a preparedness standpoint, patrolling is going to be kind of like your eyes and ears of a larger unit. Imagine a point team or a LERP, long range recon patrol. Or even a sniper team, a modern day sniper team.

[00:03:49] They're going to be the eyes and ears of that field commander. They're going to be like, yeah, we're out here several thousand yards in front of the main company and we're radioing or transmitting information back to our fob, a forward operating base. Or even behind that, behind lines.

[00:04:12] Model Warfare doesn't really have a lot of lines, trenches and all that crap at this moment. But that is basically that kind of reasoning behind a patrol. Okay. Now, can a patrol deliver devastation? Can a patrol kick butt if they need to? Of course they can.

[00:04:36] There are actively patrols and then there are passive patrols. There are some that are set up for defensive use and there are some that are set up offensively. And there are a lot of different patrol formations.

[00:04:54] So the term patrolling or conducting a patrol, basically it's used to refer to a semi-independent operation. It's going to be conducted to accomplish whatever that patrol's mission is. Patrolls are always going to require a specific task and purpose. There's always that YouTube channel task and purpose.

[00:05:24] That guy is kind of cool. I kind of like his channel every once in a while. But, anyways, patrols are always going to require a specific task and purpose. What is the task of the patrol to gather enemy intel? Or what is the task? What is the purpose?

[00:05:43] Purpose is going to be gathering enemy intel. The task is going to be going and finding it. Something to that effect, task and purpose. Just think about that and it'll come to you.

[00:05:56] For example, a commander may be sent out of patrol from the main body to conduct a specific tactical task with an associated purpose. Upon completion of that task, the patrol leader returns to the main body, reports to the commander and describes the events that took place.

[00:06:15] They describe the status of the patrol's members, the equipment and any observation. So, what does that tell us? It tells us that they are basically trying to gather intelligence. Depending on the patrol.

[00:06:35] There's also, if patrol is made up of an organic unit such as a rifle squad or squad leader, if it's made up of an organic unit like a rifle squad, if you have a rifle squad, the rifle squad leader is responsible.

[00:06:53] If patrol is made up of mixed elements from several units, an officer or an NCO is going to be patrol leader. Now, that is a temporary title but that defines their role and responsibilities for the mission.

[00:07:06] The patrol leader may designate an assistant, normally the next senior man in the patrol, the next guy in charge. So, any subordinate element leaders are going to be the ones that he will require. A patrol can consist of a unit as small as a fire team.

[00:07:26] Squad and platoon sized patrols are the norm. So, sometimes for combat tasks such as a raid, a patrol can consist of most of the combat elements of a rifle company. Unlike operations in which the infantry platoon or squad is integrated into larger organizations,

[00:07:49] the patrol is semi-independent and relies on itself for security. Let's think about that for a second. You rely on yourself for security. Why would that be? Well, because it's autonomous, right? It's semi-independent.

[00:08:07] You're out there on your own so you can't really rely on the security of a base, right? Your base would normally have way more security but you're not out there. You know? Or they're not out there, rather. You're out there.

[00:08:22] You've got your team, you've got your guys and that is all you have. So, you need to look at it from that perspective and realize that, okay, what we have with us is what we have with us.

[00:08:33] Like I remember reading about how modern sniper units operate and they take everything they need with them into the field. Including guys, including claymores, including rifles, including grenades, including everything that they are going to need.

[00:08:50] Right? That's why if you ever look at a sniper going out into the field, you will see a massive backpack on this dude. And I'm like, how on earth do you carry all that? Dude, that's so much, man!

[00:09:03] But they do. Okay? Because that's all the stuff they're gonna need. So, something to consider there. Next thing, the purpose of patrolling, right? What's the frickin' purpose? Why do they do this? Okay? Well, there's apparently several specific reasons why you would have a patrol

[00:09:27] and there's a lot of purposes that can be accomplished by patrolling. Okay? Hear me out. Gathering information of the enemy, gathering information or a basic layout of the terrain or gathering additional information on the populace.

[00:09:52] What kind of population are you dealing with? What weapons do they have? How many are there? You're getting into like met-tc, kind of sort of, you know? Mission, enemy, time, tactics, blah, blah, blah, blah. Terrain, so on and so forth.

[00:10:10] So, you can also, another specific purpose could be regaining contact with the enemy or regaining contact with adjacent friendly forces. Right? So, if you were out there kicking butt and you got separated from your main force

[00:10:29] you might want to regain contact with that main force so you don't actually get yourself clacked. Right? You definitely don't want to do that. Okay? Now, oh well, I mean, I guess there's other ones too, right? Protecting key infrastructure or bases or your own patrol team, right?

[00:10:50] Providing unit security, just talking about that. Deterring or disrupting insurgent or criminal activity, that would be in a martial law type situation. You know, kind of like how they were doing in Iraq for a really long time.

[00:11:05] They had our guys over there patrolling and moving around and doing their thing and so on. Okay? Another thing, martial law, right? Preventing public disorder. Reassuring or gaining the trust of a local populace or, you know, engaging in combat. Right? Engaging in combat with the enemy.

[00:11:27] Destroy the enemy, inflict losses, whatever it happens to be. So, there are various types of patrols. Various types of teams I guess that you could call it out there. There's combat and recon patrols. Okay? There's different ways to organize the controls.

[00:11:53] There are, wait, do I say controls or patrols? I don't remember. You've got headquarters elements. You've got air and litter teams. You've got prisoner of war detainee teams, right? You've got support teams, assault teams, guys that do navigation. You've got surveillance teams, breach and search teams.

[00:12:24] You've got all kinds of different patrols and various different elements that work within various different size units. So, the planning and the coordination of patrols is a big deal. And how they're going to operate in any given area. That's not something to be taken lightly.

[00:12:53] There are multiple different items that can be coordinated between a leader and a battalion staff or a company commander. Let's say changes or updates in the enemy. Where are they? What weaponry do they have?

[00:13:09] Is there more of them? Did they meet up with another enemy battalion or group, right? Light, weather data, right? Like the sunlight, moonlight, all that stuff is very important. Best use of terrain, rally points, patrol bases, changes in friendly situation.

[00:13:25] What if you have soldiers in your group, in your patrol or in your unit, your overall unit that have a specific skill set or equipment with them. Such as, let's say a bomb-sipping dog or tracker dogs, right?

[00:13:43] Interpreters, engineers, sniper teams, all kinds of different possible options there, okay? You need to know that about your team. Who all is in that unit and what can they do, what capabilities do you have? Okay?

[00:14:03] We also need to know about landing zones, right? What if you get somebody injured? You're going to need to know about that stuff, okay? Let's say, you know, going in or coming out of friendly lines at Ford Operating Base, right?

[00:14:18] What about signal plan? You know, are you going to use the challenge word? Are you going to use flares? Are you going to use radio or you're going to use satellite? What is the signaling plan, right?

[00:14:30] Transportation, ammunition requirements, equipment requirements. There's a lot of things to think about. What about fire support, guys? I mean, there's a lot of stuff here. Speaking of challenge line or challenge words, right? You guys know what challenge words are, right?

[00:14:49] So an interesting example would be like back in World War II, they would use famous movie stars sometimes. But sometimes they would use sports metaphors that only Americans would know.

[00:15:07] Like for example, let's say they're talking about baseball and one of our soldiers' challenge words, he yells out, I don't know, let's say big hit, right? And one of the other guys goes first base or he's like home run.

[00:15:25] And the other guy is like on base or umpire strike you out or strike. And the other guy goes out, you know what I mean? Like it had to do with the same thing or somebody would yell football.

[00:15:37] The other guy would yell touchdown, right? It's just one of those things that certain things in sports that only Americans would know about back then. Or they might say a movie star's name like, I don't know, I can't think of any movie star's names from back then.

[00:15:54] But heck, they might even yell something like ow, the other guy yells back capone. But it's just a stupid example that I don't think they actually did that.

[00:16:03] But yeah, you know, it kind of gives you an option or kind of gives you a thought of what it is, right? Now let's say you have an entire unit, you know, let's think about preparedness, right?

[00:16:13] You have your tribe, your team of guys and there's stuff that only you guys know about inside jokes. Let's say the area that you're operating in, only you guys understand that area. Let's say there's a river in that area called, you know, John's Bluff or something like that.

[00:16:28] Or, you know, Blood River or something, I don't know, something like that, right? And you guys say, you know, your challenge is the challenge word is blood and the return word is river, right?

[00:16:45] So, you know, you got guys walking up to you at night and you're not sure who they are and they do the challenge where they're like blood and the other guy goes back river, you know, so they're able to make sure it's the right people.

[00:16:58] Now if it's not the right word that comes back, sometimes that can be because somebody gets nervous. But sometimes that can be because that ain't your guy, okay? That ain't your team. Those ain't your peeps, okay?

[00:17:13] So, a challenge and password, it must not be used when the patrol is outside friendly lines, okay? The unit's tactical SOP should state the procedure for establishing a patrol challenge and password, as well as the other combat identification features and patrol markings. Okay? You must think about that.

[00:17:39] You must also plan to address actions upon enemy contact. What's going to happen? What are your ROEs, okay? Which are rules of engagement? What are they? Do we only fire until fired upon, right? You only shoot if someone shoots at you. So on and so forth, okay?

[00:17:58] All these things come into play, all right? I hope all this stuff was important to you guys. I hope this stuff was useful to you guys. Think about this stuff, okay?

[00:18:10] It may get more and more likely that you and your tribe are going to have to know how all these things make sense. You're going to have to know how to patrol.

[00:18:20] You're going to have to know how to protect your tribe, how to protect your area, whatever property it is, whatever house you're in, whatever group you're with, you're going to know how to, need to know how to protect them. So be thinking about this stuff, guys.

[00:18:36] Be thinking about the patrols you might send out around your property. Be thinking about the guys that are going to protect property while you're gone. Be thinking about convoys. Be thinking about medical evac.

[00:18:49] Be thinking about a medical team back at your Alamo or whatever you want to call it, right? Be thinking about all these things, guys, now, okay? I'd advise you to be thinking about these things now. The other thing that I'd like to say is I have been...

[00:19:10] For those of you guys who don't know, I'm a Christian, okay? I believe that Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior. I believe that he died on the cross for my sins, and I believe he rose again on the third day, okay?

[00:19:24] If you have a problem with that or if you don't like that kind of stuff, if you don't like people who are Christian or whatever, I understand. You can feel free to not listen. You can feel free to not listen to my podcast anymore.

[00:19:35] I totally get it, okay? For those of you guys that do understand this stuff or do want to know more about this stuff, I am going to be doing a little bit more about the Bible, a little bit more about Christianity,

[00:19:52] a little bit more about what it means to be saved. It's not going to be a gigantic, long thing. I'm no pastor, right? But some of the stuff that kind of pushed me toward being like, man, my faith is confirmed, right?

[00:20:08] Scientific facts that are in the Bible kind of blow my mind, compared to what they knew back then, okay? Because keep in mind, the Bible was actually written two to three thousand years ago. Okay? You got the Old Testament, you got the New Testament.

[00:20:26] So this is a long, long, long time ago. Now let's think about this one. In the Bible in Job 28, 25 it says, air has weight. It talks about air having weight. Well, back in the day they thought air was weightless. Okay? In Leviticus 15, 13,

[00:20:52] it talks about when dealing with disease, hands should be washed under running water. Okay? Back in the day they washed their hands in still water. Think about when you watch those old westerns, you see them wash their hands in still water.

[00:21:10] If you look at the movie Gladiator with Russell Crowe, that's a South Park joke, with Russell Crowe, right? You see them wash their hands, you see them wash their hands with still water. Again, okay? What about Job 38, 16 saying the ocean contains underwater springs? What about that?

[00:21:35] Well, we know now that the ocean does contain springs. But back then they thought that oceans were only fed by rivers and rain. That is not true. Okay? This is all stuff that's in the Bible. What about the earth being a sphere?

[00:21:51] Back in the day they thought earth was flat. Everybody, there's still people that think the earth is flat, even though they got pictures from freaking NASA. Okay? The Bible said it in Isaiah 40, 22 that the earth is a sphere. Okay? In Jeremiah 33, 22,

[00:22:10] it talks about there being an incalculable number of stars. All right? In the day, you know, two, three thousand years ago, they thought there was only 1,100 stars. You know? They thought about 1,100 of them, right? But the Bible knew that there were incalculable stars.

[00:22:30] Now, there was a point where, you know, at some point they started polishing lenses and putting them in these big long tubes and looking up in the stars, aka a telescope. Okay? And they looked up there and they realized that every star,

[00:22:49] there was many, many, many more stars behind that. But the only ones that were visible to the human eye was a certain number of them. Okay? So as that technology got better and better and better, they realized that some of those stars

[00:23:05] they were seeing up there were actually a galaxy. Okay? And then as the technology got better than that, they realized that those galaxies, there was multiple galaxies within those galaxies. And if you know how big the Milky Way galaxy is, it's pretty big.

[00:23:25] That's a lot of galaxies out there with a lot of room, with a lot of planets and a lot of stars. Okay? Give that some thought. All right? That's pretty freaking crazy to think about, okay? What about First Corinthians 1541? Talking about each star being different.

[00:23:49] Well, back in the day they thought all stars were the same. Because they couldn't see them, right? They didn't know. Okay? In Job 38, 19 and 20, they talk about light moving. Light moving. Well, back in the day they thought light was fixed in place. Right?

[00:24:12] Guys, all this stuff is crazy, dude. The fact that people don't see this. Okay? What about Job 267? The free float of Earth in space. They thought Earth sat on a large animal way back in the day.

[00:24:28] I think the Romans thought it was on a gigantic turtle or something. If I remember correctly. Okay? Another thing they talk about in Hebrews 11.3. Creation being made of invisible elements. Okay? Back then science was mostly ignorant on the subject. They didn't know what creation was made of.

[00:24:49] They didn't know what atoms were, molecules were. They didn't know about any of that stuff. We do now. Right? What about winds blowing in cyclones? In Ecclesiastes 1.6. They thought wind only blew straight. They didn't understand what cyclones were. Okay?

[00:25:09] And then blood being the source of life and health. They thought sick people must be bled. Remember back in the day they had ways to bleed people? Well, they know better now. Right? And then oceans floors. Ocean floors containing deep valleys and mountains. 2nd Samuel 2216 and Jonah 26.

[00:25:29] They all thought the ocean floor was flat. Guys, there's so much in the Bible that just can't be accounted for any other way than it being written by a creator. Whoever created the earth. There's too much knowledge in there, guys. Okay?

[00:25:53] I'm going to leave it at that. We'll talk more about it later. Okay? But I do want to say one more thing. I don't know who needs to hear this. Okay? Whoever needs to hear this, listen up. Stop running. Okay? Stop running from Jesus. Just accept him.

[00:26:16] Stop pretending like he's not real. Stop pretending like God's not a real thing. Stop pretending like this is Mother Earth, Gaia and all that crap. Jesus is real. God is real. Jesus loves you. And they want you to come home. Okay?

[00:26:38] One of these days we'll try to explain the Trinity to you. Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Okay? But I don't know who needed to hear that. Okay? But Jesus loves you and he wants you to come back home. Okay?

[00:26:56] All right guys, that's going to do it for me. I appreciate each and every one of you. Y'all have a wonderful, wonderful day. Take care everybody.