A Gamer's Guide to Small Unit Tactics

[apocalypse1138]

Well, since the purpose of posting this had to do somewhat with a connection to games... What do you think about melee weapons in shooters? More specifically, the knife, an effective one-shot close ranged weapon. Is that really realistic? How do melee weapons figure into a real-life firefight? And most importantly, are they even effective?

 

-Oh yeah, and thanks for posting this, this made my day today :P

[Oldwolfe]

Well, since the purpose of posting this had to do somewhat with a connection to games... What do you think about melee weapons in shooters? More specifically, the knife, an effective one-shot close ranged weapon. Is that really realistic? How do melee weapons figure into a real-life firefight? And most importantly, are they even effective?

 

-Oh yeah, and thanks for posting this, this made my day today :P

 

I don't want to offend you, but you asked the wrong question. The question should be, "Do melee weapons have any practical purpose on the modern battlefield?"

 

You don't live in a firefight. However, you do live on the battlefield.

 

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Let's backtrack my explanation a little. Remember how I said that shooting can be grouped into two types, offensive and defensive? You can group melee weapons in the same way.

 

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Practical Modern Defensive Melee Weapons:

 

Yes, knives do have a place on the modern combat battlefield. I wouldn't even consider going to war without a good combat knife. I've always been partial to the K-bar.

 

I do modify the K-bar slightly. I take a jeweler's rat tail file and put an edge to the top of the clip point, smooth the edge with very fine silica cloth wrapped around a dowel rod. Then, since it's a concave surface, I have to use a ceramic sharpening stick to maintain the edge. That way I can do an upwards gutting rip without having to flip the knife around. Also, makes it better for skinning game.

 

The top tab of the cross-guard I bend forward slightly, to put my thumb on when doing finer cutting work. (not fighting, but cutting)

 

I'd like to see the old traditional marine K-bar with a slightly larger and sturdier cross-guard personally, but you can't have everything.

 

Honestly, I'd feel naked without a good combat knife.

 

Normally I don't want to put examples here of things concerning me, it sounds like bragging and is likely to have people that don't know me screaming "Bullshxx!"

 

However, I remember once I was scrounging around in a tiny old grocery that had already been looted. But I came up with a can of tuna and a stale candy bar. And while I was giggling over my treasures, I rounded an aisle into a bad guy who obviously had the same idea. We were nose to nose (typically soldiers don't carry handguns) and I grabbed him so he couldn't get his AK to bear. So we were struggling, and he kept trying to unsling his AK. I kept holding on to him and drew my knife. He didn't have a knife. I did. You can guess the rest.

 

Games don't reflect these sort of physics.

 

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Practical Modern Offensive Melee Weapons:

 

Garrotes and tomahawks.

 

Garrotes

 

I used to carry a coil of piano wire attached to a couple dowel rods in my left bellows leg pocket. Later, when they came out with the cable saws, I substituted one of those for the piano wire.

 

I like weapons that can serve double duty as an effective tool. Remember my earlier comments about weight?

 

You can see that a garrote could not possibly be considered a defensive weapon. It's only effective when used by surprise.

 

They never get garrote attacks correct in the movies. Actually, after you loop the guy around the neck, you pull downwards as you bring your knee up, impacting his back as hard as you can. It rarely actually snaps the spine, however it does help to keep them off balance and under your control.

 

While I carried a garrote, I never actually used it. Although I did teach the technique. I have wrestled one or two to the ground (I'm rather large) while a buddy came in and did the dirty deed with a knife. Something else you never see in movies. Probably because it doesn't look quite so heroic.

 

Tomahawks

 

I've never carried one. Actually, if I had to do things all over again, I probably would. I own a SOG Fusion Tomahawk today and love the thing. At my request a friend made a mod for the game, and my in-game character uses it. I do a better job of describing that particular weapon on his comment thread.

 

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=7728

 

In Viet Nam the special forces used to carry tomahawks for taking out sentries quietly.

 

The drawback to a garrote is you need to get very close, quietly, and you really need to be positioned just right. Not so much with a tomahawk. And while there are people who are good at taking out sentries with a knife, the tomahawk is much more effective at it.

 

As well, remember my comment about liking weapons that serve double duty as a tool?

 

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I think that about covers it as well as I can without adding more examples guaranteeing people stand around screaming "Bullxxxx!"

 

One huge caveat:

 

Most of what I am putting down is my own personal opinions. As I have said before, many people smarter than this dumb grunt, don't agree with me.

 

What you need to do is wade through what I ( or anyone else says ) using your own common sense and personal judgment.

 

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EDIT:

 

One additional thought. In a crisis situation most people don't shift gears very smoothly. They have too much of a tendency to stick with their first thought and hang onto it. That guy in the grocery, he should have given up on the AK and grabbed for my knife hand. He didn't. He was simply too focused on his weapon.

 

The same in a street fight. People think of guns as being the end all of lethality. If someone with a knife grabs their gun hand and keeps it off-target, 99% of the time they will die still trying to get the gun to bear. When they should be doing other things.

 

PS.

 

are they even effective?

 

Gamers have a tendency to think of a weapon being effective in terms of numbers. In reality, dead is dead, my friend. In that grocery, would I have rather been standing back 20 paces with a full automatic shotgun? Oh hell yeah! But that's not what I had. And if you handed me one down there, I would have tossed it in a pond first chance I got. You have any idea what one of those things WEIGHS!?!?

 

Tell ya what....

 

Go down to Nicaragua. Dig that guy up. Ask him if a knife is effective.

 

(I'm NOT trying to insult you, so I apologize for my wording. I'm a retired NCO and a former drill sergeant. I get a little crass sometimes. I'm trying to make a point.)

 

 

Yet another addendum: Cold Steel (I think) makes a really nice variant on the Russian Special Forces shovel. It's nice to have around the camp and a lot of people like to sharpen one edge of it for weapon use.

 

Yes, it's Cold Steel, I found a link,

 

http://www.coldsteel.com/spshovel.html

[Oldwolfe]

A few thoughts on...................... thinking.

 

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I often quite deprecatingly refer to myself as "Just a dumb grunt".

 

To be perfectly honest, I use that as a tool. Generally in two situations.

 

1) When things I am saying may sound too much like bragging, but I still want to use an example to make a point. I use that phrase as a tool to disarm people who would verbally attack what I say.

 

2) When I want people to consider my words, but to think for themselves and not take what I say as absolute gospel.

 

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People tend to think of the typical grunt infantry soldier as being on the lower end of the mental scale ( and I have known a few that were ), the good ones are almost always thinkers.

 

I don't necessarily mean geniuses or have a high IQ. But they think. And that's not the same thing.

 

It's a habit of the human condition in any crisis situation to focus on one thing, and just stop thinking of anything else. The brain shuts down.

 

For example, the person who catches fire and intellectually KNOWS they should stop, drop, and roll. But the first instinct is to run, and they go with that. The brain shuts down.

 

My knife fight example, that guy may have been smarter than Albert Einstein for all I know. But all the IQ in the world does you no good if you can't use it.

 

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It's been said that a good soldier in a defensive position should never stop building. You build your foxhole. Okay, you don't stop there. Clear some obstructions to your field of fire out front. Okay... what now? Why don't we dig a few pits along the avenues of approach? Put out some pungi sticks?

 

The typical person would dig the foxhole and then just stop.

 

You have to be the same way about thinking. There are certain things that make people stop thinking. Finishing a project is one. You have to keep asking yourself, what now?

 

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I used to encourage my young soldiers who wanted to make a career out of the infantry to go get a degree in psychology. Aside from the fact that you can't make the upper NCO ranks anymore without a degree, psychology is good for anyone who wants to lead. It used to be the officers were the educated one and the enlisted were the uneducated. Not so anymore. Quite often anymore, the top 3 (A military phrase referring to the top three enlisted ranks, E7, E-8, and E-9.) will have more degrees than the officers directly over them. The competition for promotions to those ranks is FAR stiffer than the competition for the officer ranks.

 

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I personally believe people put too much emphasis on raw IQ. A person who is able to think flexibly, is going to have a much higher chance of survival than someone who is technically much smarter. In the educational setting, you have people who are technically just BRILLIANT who fail out of school because they don't put out the effort. They cut classes, stay out partying, etc. I'm talking about people who could easily sail through the courses if they put out even a tiny little bit of effort. Meanwhile, you get people who get degrees and even good grades who struggle every step of the way. But they are there, they apply themselves, and work five times as hard as a smarter person would have to get get the same grades. But they DO it.

 

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I guess I have turned this from a conversation on thinking in combat, to one on life in general. I'm rambling again. But honestly, I think there is a lot to what I am saying here.

 

Here's my summary:

 

Think of intellect as a tool. Some people may have sharper tools than others, but don't use the tool well. Some people are stuck with an inferior tool, but succeed better because they make better use of what they have. It's all in the application, not the ownership.

[humanbean234]

Heh... had you pegged for an 11-series at OCOKA... hooah.

 

Solid advice, people. Not always usable in a PC game, but fully effective for tabletop (as-well-as RW, where this doctrine is all drawn from).

[Oldwolfe]

Heh... had you pegged for an 11-series at OCOKA... hooah.

 

Solid advice, people. Not always usable in a PC game, but fully effective for tabletop (as-well-as RW, where this doctrine is all drawn from).

 

By way of explanation:

 

Each profession in the Army has a job code. Infantry is the 11 series.

 

For example: Artillery is 13 series. A cannon crewman is a 13B. A fire direction controller (the guy at the map table) is a 13E.

 

Your typical straight leg grunt is an 11B. That's the guy that will never forget what mud tastes like.

 

As far as my guide way at the front..... there's a lot more to being an infantry soldier than that.

 

There are millions of things a soldier learns. Such as:

 

1) How much of a slope, how thick a tree, how wide a ditch, are needed to stop an enemy tank?

 

2) What is an APCAT, how do you make one, and how do you use it to pull a tracked vehicle out of the mud?

 

<snip>

 

9298454734543094369834127342197348934923485734859) How do you keep rain out of the muzzle of your M-16?

 

When I wrote it, I thought to myself.... in any education, people forget little bits and pieces of what they have learned. Let's write down the things that are absolutely important that every infantry soldier remember above all else.

[Oldwolfe]

Leadership.

 

When it comes to leadership, everyone has their own style. The military teaches leadership. However, what they teach is a standard approach that most generally works for most people. Like most things, you have to tailor that to yourself.

 

Most of the guys I learned from were the guys that were NCOs when I was a raw boot. They were the Viet Nam crowd.

 

I had my own leadership style pretty much set by the time that I started receiving classes on it.

 

I pretty much was a hardass. I mean, I took care of my troops, but I had a reputation as a hard son of a female dog when it came to what I expected from my troops. But I took care of them.

 

I never ate until my troops had at least been afforded the opportunity to do so. My squad leaders didn't eat until after their own did. In the chow line they fell in immediately AFTER their troops. If they had a guy working some detail somewhere away from the rest of the unit, their squad leader didn't eat until they found out if that guy had been given the chance to eat, and reported that to me. And then I ate last.

 

If someone in the unit was going through a divorce, by god the man's squad leader had better know everything there was about it, and be there to help him move, or whatever was needed... or there would be hell to pay.

 

But we had to have the cleanest barracks in the company. We had to have the best PT scores. It was the way I wanted things.

 

That's the way I was when I was sent to my first class on "Military Leadership." It was heavy on the "politically correct" way of doing things. And I found myself asking myself, "Am I being too hard on these guys?"

 

So I started trying to adapt myself to what was being taught. Our inspection scores started going down, but they were still "passing" scores. And this is what I was supposed to be doing, right?

 

Late one night (I was living in the barracks at the time), I had insomnia and walked out to get something from a vending machine. On the way back I overheard our CQ orderly talking to a new guy that had arrived in the middle of the night. While he was handing him his bedding and room key, etc, he was giving him the lowdown on the unit.

 

"And our platoon sergeant? Well, he's the meanest, toughest +bleep+ on the base. A real ball buster. But we got the best unit in the 75th too. No one else comes close. The sarge is going through this mellow stage, but don't worry, he'll come around and he'll be back to the toughest there is, you'll see."

 

Every once in awhile, there comes along a few seconds in your life that you NEVER forget.

 

-------------------

 

This is a mentality that sometimes it takes a soldier to understand. They took a perverse pride in the fact that I was a hardass. The fact that they worked for me, also meant that they measured up to my standards. And yeah, I did go back to the way I was, but taking some of what I learned in the leadership class.

 

Now, that style doesn't work for everyone of course. In my case, I'm not 100% sure why, but in my case it worked for me.

 

My point is this....

 

You have to find what works for you. But you also need to look hard at other ways of doing things. Maybe try some of it out, a little at a time, and see what works for you and what doesn't.

 

My best friend at the time, was an outgoing platoon sergeant who was everyone's best bud. Most people couldn't do his style either. There's a danger in that style of military leadership in that if you get too casual, the troops won't take you serious enough when you have to start issuing hard orders. But somehow, he was able to pull it off. He wouldn't have been able to lead using my style, and I wouldn't have been able to lead using his, although I have often wished that I could.

 

(Edit: We sometimes traded troops back and forth that we thought would do better under each other, and vice-versa.)

 

We both led specialty units. I led the building clearing team and he led the FIST team. Actually, our personalities and styles seemed to work well for those specific team types. I have to tip my hat to our colonel, the battalion commander who assigned us those jobs. That's another aspect of leadership, pick the right person for the right job. You don't want to try to cram a square peg into a round hole.

 

You also have to look at your audience. I'm currently leading a rather large in-game mod project. My way of military leadership would only chase the modders working on the project away. They are volunteers and not being paid. They don't go to jail for disobeying orders.

 

So my way of doing things there, is to make requests, suggestions, and ask them what they need from me to support them.

 

In leadership, as in many other things.... you can't take what anyone says as absolute gospel. You have to consider everything, but then modify it to fit yourself and the overall situation.

 

I have a few truisms that I use a lot. This is one that I coined myself, but it makes enough sense that I am positive someone must have said it long before I did, so I can't truly claim it as mine:

 

"Whenever there are two differing points of view, the truth is usually to be found somewhere in the middle."

 

 

 

PS. In this posting I am talking a lot about me, my way of doing things, etc. Honestly, that's because on this particular subject, my own experience and point of view is the only one I CAN talk about. This is more introspective, and not the same as "I saw this guy once take three hits and keep fighting" sort of thing. This posting is all about people and how they relate. So it has to be my own experiences.

[Oldwolfe]

There are millions of things a soldier learns. Such as:

 

1) How much of a slope, how thick a tree, how wide a ditch, are needed to stop an enemy tank?

 

2) What is an APCAT, how do you make one, and how do you use it to pull a tracked vehicle out of the mud?

 

<snip>

 

9298454734543094369834127342197348934923485734859) How do you keep rain out of the muzzle of your M-16?

 

 

Hehe, I guess I screwed up. I've already got people sending me PMs asking me the answers to those.

 

1) I got no clue. They have different tanks today than back when I was doing this. Ask some newer soldier. I'm an old fart.

 

2) An APCAT (I can't remember what it stands for) is one of a hundred different homemade tools made by soldiers. There's like this hidden industry of standard homemade tools that eventually even make it into the textbooks and field manuals, but as far as I know, have never been made in a factory. But most soldiers will recognize them.

 

Remember what I said about DOING things? Your average person would think, "We could really use something like..." and go looking to see if anyone makes anything like that. Your soldier thinks, "You know, I bet I could make that."

 

To make an APCAT all you need are a rectangle of thick steel, a piece of rebar, a vice, a sledgehammer, and a welding torch. You should probably clean it up with a file though and paint it.

 

An APCAT is sort of a flattened U-shaped channel of steel. Think of it as a REALLY strong clip with a loop welded onto it for fastening a cable to. This clips between the wide parts of a track. You hook the other end of the cable to something pretty substantial. A thick tree, bigger vehicle, or if you need to drag out something REALLY heavy, my ego. (Hey, I realize that flaw in myself.)

 

Then the tracked vehicle can put itself forward the length of it's own track. Think of it as turning the track itself into the drum on a powered winch.

 

If that doesn't pull it all the way out, you reset, and pull it forward another length of the track. Keep repeating til it's out.

 

9298454734543094369834127342197348934923485734859) I'll give you a hint, I'd advise using non-lubricated, and the ribbed versions, while they work, will get you teasing from the other guys. And many guys carry them in their wallets.

 

PS.

 

If some moderator reads this, you may want to change the name of the thread to, "Wolfe's Ramblings of Questionable Value" or something equally inane. The original topic title doesn't apply anymore.

[LHammonds]

I have given this topic my endorsement.

 

LMAO...Good read. Full of very great advice.

 

Although I am not a soldier, my entire family tree is full of them and from what I've been told, this is spot-on. The bit about all the "extras" on the rifle is so true! It is fun to play with while playing around but it should be emphasized that when action is required, you will NOT rise to your level of training...you will only rise to the level of training you have mastered.

 

Those examples of buddies dying because they do not switch their line of thinking were doing what they always did when training...or did what they felt was instinctive because they did not get enough "good" training.

 

Thanks,

LHammonds

[Oldwolfe]

Lhammonds, thank you for your kind words.

 

I've posted this for several reasons.

 

1) I'm retired, too cranky for any sane girl to want to live with, and very bored. (Yup, another flaw. Guess I need to find one of the insane ones.)

 

2) I hope someone may enjoy it for entertainment value.

 

3) Here and there is a small grain of truth that some people may be able to use in their life.

 

So,

 

Keep asking questions. If I don't know the answer, I'll say I don't know the answer.

 

 

 

 

To the guy that asked why use the APCAT at all, when the military has engineering vehicles,

 

Good question.

 

The military DOES have engineering vehicles. But they don't grow on trees. So you want to try to get your vehicle unstuck yourself, first. Then if you can't, you call for one. But it may take a long time for the engineering vehicle to show up, so in the meantime you keep trying to unstick your vehicle.

 

 

And here's something just for fun,

 

There's an old Bill Mauldin cartoon, where Willie and Pete are digging foxholes. The caption is something like,

 

"Willie, my future is set. After the war, I'm gonna be a perfessor on the types O' Europeean soil."

[TheCalliton]

very indepth

oh and apocalypse

the knife is very usefull

silent ambush of a single soldier

too close to shoot

you yourself are ambushed

you run out of ammo in an enclosed space

cut a string to set off a trap

KILL

take a prisoner easyer

KILL MORE

KILL

to have a knife

KILL

post a warning by sticking it to a tree, pinning the note there

and KILL

 

i beleive that the G.I's are issued knives

a knife is the oldest fashioned tool

it is multi porpouse outside of battle

ever watch survivor man? he brings a knife if he can

a good knife can take down a bear (very very very very very very hard to do and not reccomended if you have a gun and the knife must be huge)

throwing knives, silent and effective if you know what your doing

when rigging a booby trap, a knife is very usefell as you can cut most things with a knife

i myself have never been in a fight at all, and i dont intend to, but i know the uses of a knife as i collect