Originally posted on American Partisan on April 20, 2021
I started this series, TDG (Tactical Decision Game) Tuesdays, to get you more in the mindset of how you could potentially handle a given tactical scenario with a limited amount of resources and manpower. My goal is to get you to read these scenarios and think about what resources you have available, what sort of scenarios you might encounter, and what gaps you need to fill in your equipment/training.
I will use the basic 5-paragraph operations order format, or SMEAC, to present the scenario as follows;
Situation: Disposition of all friendly, hostile, and adjacent forces.
Mission: What we are trying to do.
Execution: How we are going to do it.
Admin & Logistics: Who/what is getting where and how.
Command & Signal: Who is in charge and how they are communicating.
TDG 7: The Other Side of the COIN
Note: This TDG builds off of TDG 6: COIN. If you haven’t already done that exercise, get your answer to that TDG and then come back.
Situation: Guerrilla Warfare Scenario. You are the local guerrilla commander in charge of a small platoon of volunteers fighting the PLA occupation in your county.
- OPFOR Situation: The local PLA garrison occupies a FOB just NW of the town of Eminence, as shown on the map. After several successful guerrilla attacks on PLA forces in the last two months, our informant has told us that the local garrison has received some additional units (see TDG 6: COIN).
- BLUFOR Situation: Following your successful attacks on the PLA, your group has grown in size from the original 17 to a platoon of 30 fighters, broken into three small squads. You are encamped in the forest in the vicinity of Midridge, regularly displacing your base camp when necessary. You are running low on 5.56 ammunition for your AR-15s, but thankfully a successful raid on a PLA checkpoint has yielded some captured weapons and ammunition.
- Independents Situation: The civilian populace is largely supportive of your guerrillas, and those who aren’t still don’t like the PLA invaders. Local police units have been taken over by the Chinese, but only cooperate as much as they need to. Police checkpoints rarely search vehicles for contraband like they’re supposed to, unless a PLA supervisor is present.
- ANTIFA, emboldened by the communist occupation and with weapons/training from the Chinese, are essentially a state-sponsored gang at this point. They have a small camp outside the PLA FOB, and they occasionally drive around in large numbers bullying the local populace.
Mission: Based on your analysis of the EMLCOA (Enemy Most Likely Course Of Action) in the last TDG, determine what changes you will make to your operations planning to counter potential enemy actions/changes in SOP.
Execution: Up to you.
Admin & Logistics: Your platoon now has the following resources:
- 25 AR-15s
- roughly 500 rounds of 5.56 ammunition
- 4 captured QBZ-95 rifles
- 1 captured QBB automatic rifle
- 700 rounds of 5.8×42 ammunition
- 1 captured PKM light machine gun with 300 rounds
- 6 hand grenades
- 1 underslung grenade launcher mounted on a QBZ, with 10 rounds of HE ammo
- the same 2 pickup trucks and 5 quads from TDG 5, but with very low fuel.
- 4x FRS walkie-talkies
- 10x Baofeng UV-5Rs
- 2 PVS-14 NVGs, and 2 captured NVGs
Command & Signal: Up to you, be mindful of the enemy’s SIGINT capabilities. Remember, not all communications are electronic.
Once again, the point of this and last week’s TDGs is to drive home the fact that your enemy will adapt their tactics to defeat you, and you must be constantly anticipating those changes so you can be prepared to modify your own tactics. Failure to adapt to your enemy will get your people killed.
Feel free to post your answers in the comments and discuss. Keep an eye out for the recap next Monday!
Von Steuben Training & Consulting 
having had success raiding some supply convoys and a checkpoint i would pivot my focus from disrupting logistics to hardening the hearts of the local populace against the invaders. if we can successfully get locals to start staging their own unaffiliated actions against the PLA it’s a win/win. either they are successful in further disrupting the rear area, or they generate a strong reaction from the invaders that we can use for propaganda purposes even beyond my AO (assuming we have some way to broadcast this kind of info to guerilla groups in the larger population centers). my goal in particular would be to poke and prod the ANTIFA goons until they do something stupid/vicious since they are already acting gang-like and do not have any kind of regular order and discipline that the occupying army units should possess.
to that end, i would cease all offensive operations and start observation of all known ANTIFA members. we want to know as much about where they live, who their families are, regular training or patrol routes, etc.
if any ANTIFA members are still sleeping in their own homes then we would plan some “random” vandalism of their homes. a brick through the window at night, spray painting “TRAITOR” on their car/house when they aren’t there, maybe some light arson of their properties and vehicles; but nothing that would suggest the perpetrators are armed guerillas. i would have the smallest statured individuals (women if any, short guys, teens) in the group commit the acts so that if they are observed fleeing the scene they could easily be confused for teenage hoodlums. if ANTIFA is keeping to themselves we would have to raid some of their patrols and do the vandalism on the homes of their families in the area to get their anger going.
i would also dress up a team as ANTIFA goons, arm them with captured PLA weapons, and start giving the community the feeling of lawlessness. some armed robbery of outlying businesses or homes, carjacking on isolated roads or late at night, etc. this would also give us a cache of personal items of locals we could use to plant at the scene of our vandalism to bait ANTIFA into reprisals. and it would potentially cause organic clashes between armed locals and ANTIFA, this being a red blooded American county the locals should have plenty of weapons stashed around.
if the PLA commander believes that his ANTIFA goons are doing the lawlessness and keeps them close to base then that’s an added benefit. either way this will incentivize the ANTIFA goons to find who’s doing this and punish them; either to get back in good graces, or just plain revenge.
using the local populace as bait would likely be terrible for morale of the team. so if we plant evidence it needs to be highly secret within the team. depending on team dynamics/morale, we could potentially read in the whole team that we’re going to use a local as bait for our own ambush of ANTIFA goons and destroy the ambush before it arrives. however we’d then have to sequester that person permanently or they will get imprisoned (or worse) by the PLA. if they have a large family that would be a logistical challenge for us. we could potentially then use our “rescue” of that family to buy good will with the locals and enlist them more directly in our aid by hiding the family, tying the locals to our cause with their own actions/complicity. obviously OPSEC will be critical to prevent locals from being able to give actionable info about us if/when they are arrested.
the ideal candidate as bait would be someone living away from Eminence so any prospective QRF or drone launch would take time to get to us, if we luck out with the ideal candidate we’ll setup an ambush using all our firepower. i would hold the grenades in reserve and only use them if we needed the firepower to destroy the ambush. the hope would be that after the ambush we could loot the ANTIFA goons for more equipment and their vehicles (or at least steal their fuel).
once we stage the ambush we’d have to change tactics again, as that would be a punch right in the face of the local PLA. they would probably get even more reinforcements after this operation. if we are unsuccessful in getting more direct aid and support from the locals then we would seriously need to consider evacuating the AO and finding another area to target.
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Not that I understand military tactics but I would take out the antifa camp. Watch the camp with scouts anticipate the optimum opportunity take them all out, replenish your supplies,and move on. This would do one of two things either discourage any additional antifa because they have no backbone or cause additional antifa to join there ranks, it’s a toss up but you would add more ammo and weapons to the cause
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strategy idea – needs details to execute
Spend next 6 weeks focusing on Logistics and Intel.
Break up the teams into 5 teams of 6 effectives.
Cache most of the weapons across multiple team sites with only a few people knowing more than one to mitigate loss on capture.
Redeploy to towns in area – e.g. Fremont, Winona, Summersville, Ellington
Attempt to gain contacts and intel, resupply food, fuel, and ammo primary.
After 6 weeks, each team to organize and execute independent raids on convoys or other high visibility targets – the raids should be done far apart and close in time giving the impression of a larger force.
Regroup only if needed – try to act as independent teams severing contact with others.
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I would split the force into 3 groups of ten. 1st squad goes to find their LP/OP and blow some tannerite around them so they think they’re under attack. That would hopefully draw the QRF away from the camp. Then 15 minutes later 2nd squad goes for the comms and drones at the main camp. with more tannerite. 15 min later the 3rd squad blows up the antifa camp. This should split the PLA force into 2. Use those grenades and more tannerite to obliterate the Antifa camp. Burn it to the ground. Try to recover weapons and ammo from the Antifa pukes. The napalm smells better in the morning. 😉
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It is time to set up and takeout any small groups of troops or antifa people in town or running around.
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Based on the EMLCOA and the updated situation, it’s advisable to make the following changes to the operations plan:
Allocate resources based on priority: Prioritize the distribution of the 5.56 ammunition to the AR-15s as it is in short supply, and ensure the QBZ-95 and QBB rifles are utilized to supplement the firepower.
Incorporate guerrilla tactics: Utilize the forest and terrain to your advantage by using guerrilla tactics such as ambushes and hit-and-run tactics to harass the enemy and avoid direct confrontation with their superior firepower.
Recruit more volunteers: Attempt to recruit more volunteers from the local populace, especially those with knowledge of the area, to increase your numbers and capabilities.
Maintain communication: Ensure communication is maintained between all elements of the platoon through the FRS walkie-talkies and Baofeng UV-5Rs, and minimize the use of electronic communication to prevent enemy SIGINT capabilities.
Take advantage of civilians: Utilize the support of the local populace to gather information and provide supplies, while also avoiding civilian casualties.
Target ANTIFA: Conduct raids on ANTIFA to disrupt their operations and take out their weapons and ammunition, reducing the enemy’s capabilities.
Plan for resupply: Plan for resupply missions to acquire additional ammunition, food, and fuel to maintain operations.
Avoid direct confrontation: Avoid direct confrontation with the PLA as much as possible and focus on guerrilla tactics to wear them down over time.
Hat Tip to: ChatGPT. I copied from, situation to the end. Pasted into ChatGPT. The above is the un-edited output. Cheating? No. I was curious and wanted to see the potential. Now, do you believe AI won’t be used against the global population in a manner similar to this? It already is in progress. Buckle up folks.
What the Fox said.
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Fascinating. I might try this with other TDGs and see what happens.
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Update:
I just ran last weeks TDG through the system and got a warning that I had violated policy. When I checked, there is a prohibition against using the system for violence. Hmmm. It did generate a response though. I won’t complicate things by posting it unless requested.
Just a heads up so you don’t end up on a list. Yeah right. You’re already on 10. Or get kicked off OpenAI.
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Split into three squads of ten. Set up L shaped ambush on approach to antifa camp from QRF camp with two squads. Ambush element should have the underslung grenade launcher and three handrenades. Three hand grenades, QBB, and PKM go to the antifa camp assault element. Set up the QBB and PKM for grazing fire into the antifa camp.Inititiate the assault with automatic fire and grenades into the most densly inhabited areas of the camp at first light. Rifleman take out sentries, if any, upon initiation of fires.Riflemen maintain a conservative rate of fire, keep any survivors pinned down until the ambush on QRF is tripped. If assault on antifa camp is overwhelmingly and rapidly successful, assault element should coolect ammunition, explosives, or useful weapons systems in antifa camp and maneuvetoward QRF ambush site. Ambush should be tripped with grenade launcher fire, and hand grenades thrown. If ambush is wildly successful, rapid battlefield collection of weapons, ammo, and intel and rapid exfil. 10 minute, tops, to minimize chances of another maneuver element suprising us. If ambush is only marginally successful withdraw and exfil rapidly. Successful suppression of antifa camp should bring in more support from the local populace.
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