Tricks of the Trade

(During the Vietnam War, among many other responsibilities in the SEA AOR, SF fulfilled a core mission, providing leadership cadre for indigenous ranger-type units referred to as "Mike" Forces. The project under which this was conducted was Project Delta, or B-52 (any errors in my recounting of that two sentence history are the result of OPSEC. They have nothing to do with my ongoing battle with CRS syndrome..."Can't Remember Shit"). One of the lasting legacies of Project Delta was the production of the now-famous Recon Tips of the Trade. This ongoing article series will be my feeble attempt at updating them, with modifications for irregular force partisans in a non-SEA AOR....--J.M.)

The mini-manual known as "Recon Tips of the Trade" was developed by SFOD-B 52, 5th SFG(A), with assistance of the MACV Recondo school.

General Tips of the Trade

1. While conducting operations, minimize fatigue. A tired shooter is a careless shooter. Sleep deprivation is a well-known and common training tool in special operations, specifically because it creates extreme stress in individuals. Contrary to popular opinion, you can become accustomed to sleep deprivation, but not inured to it. On operations, it will be necessary at times, to set aside sleep in the interest of mission essential tasks and operational necessity, but this should be minimized. Considering the considerable disadvantage individual groups will face in dealing with large numbers of potentially well-equipped hostile forces, maintaining the mental equilibrium of individual shooters and leaders should be a critical element of planning and logistics. Don't skimp on sleep gear and dry clothes in an attempt to "be hard." There's a fine line between hard and stupid.
   
2. Always, always, ALWAYS possess and display confidence in front of your people. If you are confident, they will feed off that confidence. False bravado is not the same thing as confidence. Confidence in the tactical arena only comes through realistic, effective training. You can't fake it. Train.
   
3. Never lose your temper in the field. Not with your own personnel, not with the enemy, and certainly not with life. A temper tantrum, or rage, will have a deleterious effect on your judgment and lead to rash decisions. Plan for contingencies, and keep them in mind when shit seems to be going wrong. Don't be afraid to take solid advice from subordinates. It does NOT make you less competent.
   
4. Team work is the crucial element in tactical success. It only comes through constant practice and training. You MUST practice your collective training tasks and battle drills as an element. "Chalk talks" and walk-through rehearsals have their place, but should never replace realistic field-training (including live-fire iterations!)
   
5. All other considerations aside, a good PT program will lead to less health issues arising in the field. A healthy, athletic body, under combat stress WILL end up sick. An unhealthy, unathletic body, under combat stress will not have a fully functioning immune system to help resist those illnesses. Historically, illness and disease has killed and otherwise made combat-ineffective, legions more warfighters than enemy fire has.
   
6. Hydration is critical, but do not overlook the replacement of electrolytes in the system. Today, under normal circumstances, the average American diet contains FAR more than enough salt and electrolytes, without supplementation. Field rations, under austere, combat conditions will require supplementation.
   
7. Wear loose-fitting, comfortable clothing, suitable to the environment, for field operations. This does not necessarily mean the latest cool-guy ACUs in multi-cam. It does mean clothing specific to outdoor athletic activities (I've gone to the field in Levi's. I don't recommend it), whether mil-spec or outdoor sports such as mountaineering or backpacking (that having been said, if you show up to a class in climbing tights, expect me to laugh at you). Tight-fitting clothes will restrict movement, and more often than not, tear at inopportune times, in inopportune places.
   
8. Develop a system of pre-mission checklists to facilitate your pre-combat inspections, in order to ensure that no patrol member is forgetting anything. Whether built around a team SOP (a good idea), or specifically developed for a given operation, this will help alleviate showing up at a breach point on a structure and going, "Who the fuck left the breaching shotgun at home?"
   
9. If you need to criticize a member of your team/element/unit/crew, use tact and common courtesy when doing so. Take the man aside and do it in private (especially if he has ANY leadership authority), in order to allow him to save face and thus react positively to the criticism.
   
10. Regardless of what type of radio communications devices you utilize (FRS/GMRS/Marine Band/HAM/etc), pre-set frequencies so that you can change channels in the dark, on the run.
    

Rifle/Carbine Specific Tips

1. Tape or otherwise cover the muzzle of your weapon in rural/wilderness environments, to keep out water, dirt, and other debris. Condoms are, of course, a popular mainstay for this, and there are plastic caps available for AR-15 platform muzzle devices (I've always used 100-mph tape, and never had a problem. --J.M.). You can shoot through the cover when needed, with no deleterious effects on combat accuracy.
   
2. If you are the only guy in your element running NODs, alternate tracer and ball ammunition in your magazines (I run a 4:1 ratio of ball:tracer. --J.M.). This will allow you to identify targets for your technologically-impaired compatriots to focus their firing on (I never bother with the whole "last three rounds are tracer" concept, because when I did, I never noticed I was dumping tracers before I hit bolt-lock anyway --J.M.).
   
3. Sleep with your weapon locked and loaded, safety engaged, in case you are awakened by hostile fire and need to engage bad guys, right-the-fuck-now! In the morning, if you haven't fire it, always replace the round in the chamber (quietly, if it needs to be said...). Condensation in the chamber, combined with powder residue CAN lead to stuck cases. Further, if you are dumb enough or cheap enough to run a non-chrome-lined barrel, this will lead to a pitted chamber that will result in you dying with a fucking cleaning rod jammed down the barrel of your weapon. Even with non-corrosive powder (in plain English, get a fucking chrome-lined weapon!)
   
4. Lube your weapon thoroughly, every day in the field. A wet weapon is a happy weapon (they're like women that way). A dry weapon WILL fucking choke (as I point out in classes, if I could dump a gallon of lube in my weapon and get it to stay in place, I would. You cannot, in my experience, use too much lube, especially on the AR platform). Carry a bottle of lube on your fighting load-out. The choice of lube doesn't matter in the long run. (Yes, CLP sucks. We all know it. Yet, I used CLP exclusively for almost 20 years and have NEVER had a problem, because I oil the ever-loving-shit out of them. I currently run Mil-Tech, and have heard nothing but good about Frog-Lube).
   
5. Keep your fucking safety selector switch on "safe" unless you're killing someone. It will NOT make you any faster to have it already on "fire," but you WILL end up shooting your buddy, or dumping a round in the dirt on a patrol, leading to a compromise and the whole fucking element getting killed. A negligent discharge is ground for dismissal from the Ranger Regiment. I firmly believe a negligent discharge in the field should be a fucking hanging offense.
   
6. Slings are to rifles what holsters are to pistols, but don't treat your sling like some sort of irreplaceable sensitive item. Outside of vehicle-based operations and MOUT, most of the time, you ought not have the fucking thing slung anyway. An M4 weighs less than seven pounds, until you start adding shit to it. If you can't carry that, all day, without a sling, do more PT.
   
7. Keep your weapon as slick as possible. A light is a necessity. An optic is not a necessity, but is useful enough it ought to be considered one for most applications. A sling is generally a necessity. If you are running NODs, an IR laser is a necessity. Nothing else is a necessity. Run your gun slick (I run a vertical fore-grip much of the time, but seldom use it for anything beyond a reference point when I grab the gun. --J.M.)
   
8. Your first magazine change should be a speed-reload. Do not worry about retaining or retrieval until after the fight is over. Focus on getting rounds downrange to occupy the enemy and disrupt his OODA loop. Other than that, the only time a speed reload is necessitated in a gunfight is a) when you are providing suppressive fire to protect a buddy who is still exposed to enemy fire when your rifle runs dry, or b) shooting while moving from one position of cover to the next and your weapon runs dry. B) should seldom occur, because you should be conducting reloads-with-retention while in a covered/concealed position if you know or believe you are close to running dry.
   
9. Inspect and test all magazines before conducting an operation. Ensure they feed properly and inspect for bent/damaged feed lips, weak springs, etc. Mark every magazine you own and if one fails to perform in training or inspection, throw the motherfucker away. DO NOT PUT IT UP FOR SALE ON TOP OF YOUR GUNSHOW TABLE. If you do, you're a fucking scumbag, and I hope you die a slow, painful death that involves anal rape with a sharpened implement, you fucking douchebag.
   
10. Never assume your weapon is clean enough on an operation. While an IG-level cleaning may lead to premature wear on some parts (still open for debate in my mind), at a minimum, wipe down the bolt-carrier group, and run a patch down the barrel.
    
11. It should be self-evident, but place your magazines in the mag pouch with the feed lips pointed down, to prevent loose rounds from falling out on the ground.
    
12. These rules apply, regardless of what type of weapon you carry. We all "know" AKs are impervious to abuse, can be run over by a fucking Abrams tank and still function flawlessly (I think I just threw up in my mouth a little...), but humor the Gods of War, and maintain them any-fucking-way.
    

Load-Bearing Equipment Tips

(My preference for modern, MOLLE/PALS-based LBE is no secret. This version of the "Tips" will focus on that system. --J.M.)

1. Be certain that all velcro closures are closed before leaving the patrol base. Ensure all fastex buckles are snapped. Let's be real. Velcro is far from a perfect method of closure for gear that needs to be silent. However, it beats the living shit out of the old snaps that always seemed to quit staying closed about the time you exited a MC-130 at 800' AGL, at 0330, over some god-awful DZ, and then refused to work again until you went to DX the item at CIF. If you can't figure out how to be quiet while using velcro in the field, have a seamstress of equipment manufacturer replace all your velcro with fastex buckles somehow.
   
2. Make sure you can get your magazines out, in a hurry. If you can't, either replace your mag pouches with something more user-friendly, modify them by cutting the edge down, or (most importantly) fucking train more.
   
3. Tie off EVERYTHING attached to your LBE. Snaps fail. I've yet to have any of my MOLLE gear fall off in the field, but I've seen it happen. Forgo the expense and inconvenience, and tie everything off with an end-of-the-line bowline knot of 550 cord (honestly? This SOP used to annoy the shit out of me as a private. Everything had to be tied off, in accordance with the RSOP at Regiment. Then I lost some equipment that I hadn't tied off properly, and paid for it. Fuck that. Tie your shit off. I've NEVER lost a piece of equipment that was tied off properly).
   
4. Always carry some type of knife on patrols. Quit worrying about what a bad-ass man-killing piece of weaponry it is, and focus on a functional field tool. It's one hell of a lot easier to kill a guy with a goddamned Swiss Army knife than it is to cut aiming stakes at 0200 with a fucking Gerber MKII dagger (ask me how I know...). Too many guys focus on edged weapons instead of cutting tools (seriously, I started out carrying a Gerber MKII as a private at Regiment. Then I went to an Ek Commando dagger. Then I went to a Ka-Bar for a LONG time. Then I went to a push-dagger. Finally, I figured out a small, 4-5 inch blade knife was more than adequate for a combat-utility knife. I currently run a RAT-3 on my warbelt, and a Benchmade folder in my pocket. If I need a bigger knife, such as in the rain forests of the PNW, I toss a Cold Steel kukri on my ruck).
   
5. (A lot of guys ask me about machetes and hatchets and tomahawks. Here's my two cents: machetes are great in the jungle. That makes sense, they were designed for that environment. Hatchets generally suck. If I need a hatchet, I probably really need an axe, which is far too large to carry on my ruck. I have carried a tomahawk, and still have a soft spot in my heart for them. It's the whole Roger's Rangers thing. If a guy in my crew showed up to train with a 'hawk on his LBE, I'd ask him what it was for. "Bushcraft" would be an acceptable answer. "Breaching" would be a semi-acceptable answer, since I prefer other tools for breaching. "Killing the enemy" would get his ass kicked. "Bushcraft/Breaching with killing the enemy as a secondary purpose" would get him a snicker and a pat on the head for being a motivated little guerrilla. I recognize that a lot of "bushcraft" experts badmouth the tomahawk for field chores. I greatly prefer it over a hatchet though).
   
6. Keep some sort of "pogey-bait" in your pockets as emergency SERE rations. Even a couple of bouillon cubes, dissolved in some water, will provide a motivated evader energy for a day or two. A couple of MRE entrees, taped together in a cargo pocket will provide a much better caloric boost, with marginal weight, while reducing the amount of effort you will need to expend gathering food when you should be running.
   
7. As much as we want grenades, and as useful as they are, most of us are not going to have them, at least initially, with the possible exception of smoke grenades. Smoke grenades should be carried in your ruck, rather than on your LBE. You don't fight with smokes, and 99% of the time, if you need one, you will have time to get it out of your ruck.
   
8. Every member of a patrol should carry at least one ground signaling flare, if you cannot access or manufacture thermite grenades. These will burn hot enough to allow you to functionally destroy equipment that you cannot remove from the battlefield, whether the enemy's or your own. While battlefield recovery should always be your first option, when it's not possible, at least try to fuck the enemy by not letting them use it.
   
9. If you are going to carry a patrol radio, besides a small FRS/GMRS type walkie-talkie, sew or have sewn, an antennae pocket on the outside of your ruck to allow easy access to the long-whip antenna.
   
10. Bug dope leaks and spills easily, and the good stuff will flat destroy any synthetics. Separate it from all other gear in your ruck, wrap it in its own plastic bags, and check it daily.
    
11. In most environments, including alpine winter environments, a poncho, poncho liner, and casualty blanket, with some long underwear and maybe a fleece jacket, will be sufficient for sleeping comfortably. In deep snow, you always have the option of a snow trench or cave if necessary, to hold more body heat.
    
12. Keep field glasses, cameras (for surveillance and reconnaissance operations), and other mission-essential items, in external pouches or pockets on your ruck, as possible, to facilitate easy access without having to dump your whole fucking ruck in the ORP (objective rally point).
    
13. Always use the water from the Camelback on your ruck before using the water on your LBE. This ensures you will still have water if you have to dump your ruck and run.
    
14. Check and double-check the shoulder straps on your ruck before a mission. Carry extra 550 cord on patrols (you should anyway) to facilitate repairs if they break (as cool as it is to carry your daypack over one shoulder around town, in the field, with a 40-80lb ruck, it gets old in about two steps).
    
15. Use a waterproof bag (I still use the USGI version, but whitewater rafting wetbags are good too) to protect the items in your ruck on patrol. It sucks to hit a remain-overnight (RON) site and dig out your poncho liner, only to discover that it is a sodden mess.
    

More will follow. It's a long document, and longer to re-write......






Nous Defions!
John Mosby
In the mountains