Originally posted on American Partisan on June 28, 2022

A TDG is a Tactical Decision Game, a mental wargaming exercise designed to get you practice making tactically sound decisions in a hypothetical scenario.  The ability to make sound and timely decisions based off incomplete and imperfect information is a critical skill to have, especially as a team leader.

You will be given a scenario, confronted with a tactical problem, and given a time limit to think about and write out your answer.  The time limit is to simulate the pressure of a real-world tactical decision, where you must quickly assess the information you are given and come up with the best answer you can.  Then comment below with your answer so you can discuss each others’ solutions.

TDG 15: The Best Laid Plans

2 months into foreign occupation.  The PLA (Chinese Army) have been invited in by the governors of several states as “peacekeeping” forces to restore order to the region. The National Guard and US military have been ordered to stand down and cooperate with the PLA, who came in as “UN Peacekeepers.”  From the first day that Chinese troops marched ashore they began taking sniper fire.  What followed has been a full-on guerrilla war against the occupiers conducted by militias, rogue military units, and criminal organizations.  Still, due to sheer numbers of troops and equipment, the PLA has managed to make slow, steady progress expanding their area of control.

YOU are the commander of a local Jäger force, a squad-sized element consisting of 13 men including yourself, operating just outside of the enemy’s zone of control.  The terrain in your area is mostly flat, forested with dense but navigable undergrowth.  You receive a tip from a local civilian that a PLA reconnaissance patrol is operating in your area.  The SALUTE report for the enemy is as follows:

• Size: 10 men
• Activity: Inserting via helicopter and patrolling on foot South towards the town of Hidalgo
• Location: 934 385
• Uniform: PLA Infantry
• Time: 0709 Yesterday
• Equipment: 9x QBZ-191 rifles, 1x Type 67 GPMG (Chinese PKM), rucksacks with entrenching tools visible, 2x ghillie suits, helmet-mounted night vision

You have good intelligence on their probable return route, so you decide to ambush them on their way back to an LZ for helicopter extraction.  You break your 13-man squad into the following teams:

• 1x 5-man squad all armed with AR-15s and 2x NVGs
• 1x 5-man Machine Gun squad with the following:
  • 2x M240B LMGs
  • 3x AR-15s
  • 3x NVGs
• 1x 2-man scout team with AR-15s and 1x NVG
• Yourself, with an AR-15 and NVG

You give the following order to your men:

“We believe the enemy will patrol North towards a likely location for an LZ for their extraction tonight around midnight.  Their most likely route is through the woods East of Cinderville, handrailing Patriot Rd.  At 2000 the Scout team will push out to 9410 3826 to establish an LP/OP for early warning of the enemy’s advance and to confirm their route.  We are going to set a baited L-shaped ambush in this clearing here.  1st Squad will open fire with a few rifle shots when the enemy enters the clearing.  They will likely form a skirmish line to assault through what they think is a small team.  When they do, 1st squad is to go to ground and cease firing.  When the enemy gets into the kill zone, 2nd Squad will open up on them with enfilading fire from the machine guns.  When the enemy is destroyed, 1st team will become the assault element and sweep through the kill zone to finish them off.  After that we will conduct TSE (Tactical Site Exploitation) and regroup.  We will occupy our positions no later than 2100”

You issue each team leader a radio.  Since you have time you conduct plenty of rehearsals to really nail down the scheme of maneuver and all signals.  At 2000, as planned, your scout team departs to establish their LP/OP, and at 2045 your force reaches the ambush site.  Just as you are about to set in to your ambush positions, however, your scout team calls you over the radio.

“They’re patrolling past us now!” the scout team leader whispers over the radio.  “They’re on the road, and they’re moving pretty fast in a staggered column.”

The enemy is early and moving quickly.  You had suspected that they might use the road and had a backup plan to relocate further north if that happened.  However, you weren’t expecting them to be moving this quickly.  It would take you 5 minutes to get there and the enemy will be at your position in about 2 minutes.

In a time limit of 5 minutes, draft the frag order that you would issue to your squad.  Write down any special instructions you would give to your men and explain why you chose to do what you did.

Reality

Originally posted on American Partisan on June 15, 2022

Another tough situation with no perfect options, TDG 14: Personnel Recovery hit you with ethical decisions as well as tactical decisions.  We have an imperfect plan cobbled together without force multipliers, an enemy with unclear capabilities, potential compromise, and on top of all that we have something of a moral commitment to our action.

Due to the situation we have a limited set of options available to us.  It is, however, not as limited as some readers may think.

Option 1: Proceed with the attack as planned

We do not, after all, know for certain that the drone is 1: controlled by the hostile force, or 2: able to PID us.  Although the chances are high that the drone is looking down at us, it’s entirely possible that we are sufficiently covered or camouflaged enough that it hasn’t been able to identify a threat yet.  If we wait the remaining 5 minutes we may see if the enemy goes on alert.  This course of action seeks to get more information before we proceed, cautiously watching for a response from the enemy.

The only downside to this course of action is that if we are compromised, the element of surprise is lost.  We will have surrendered the initiative to the enemy and we will be forced to react to their actions rather than making them react to us.

Option 2: Begin the attack early

This course of action assumes that we are compromised and seeks to seize the initiative before the enemy can react.  We can start by sniping the lone guard, shooting the drone, maneuvering to a different position, or any combination of the three.  The point is that we take action to deny the enemy a timely response to our discovery.  Depending on what we do or how we do it, we may even get the NPT guys to help us by opening fire early.

We must be very careful here, however.  Our lack of communications is an obvious limiting factor.  We do not have radios and there is no time to send a runner.  Thus we must proceed in such a way that our actions communicate our intent to the NPT guys.  There are other ways we can communicate as well, such as smoke signals (not a joke, color-coded smoke grenades are incredibly versatile), flares, or whistle blasts.  Just because we have no radios doesn’t mean we have no comms.  Hopefully we arranged these forms of signal in advance.

Option 3: Withdraw

If we assume that we are compromised we may decide that the risk to ourselves is too great, and we pull back.  There is no need to stop the NPT from opening fire as planned; if anything they’ll be covering your retreat without knowing it.  Once you’re back at the ORP you can send a runner to the NPT to tell them to abort.

This is the safest route we can take for us.  Unfortunately, there is the problem of Kelly.  Withdrawing under observation will no doubt lessen the chances of a rescue in the future.  The enemy could use that time to strengthen their guard, dig fortifications, or relocate entirely.  Even if we are able to come back say a week later to try again, what do you suppose would happen to Kelly during that week?

Conclusion

There come times when the tactically correct decision may not be the right decision to make.  The facts of this scenario require you to make a decision that is not only tactically sound, but ethically sound.  If our ethics/morals require us to commit to this action, we may be forced to accept a greater amount of risk than we usually would.  On the other hand, emotionally accepting a ridiculous amount of risk on an action that is unlikely to succeed may be worse than doing nothing.  In the end, the best course of action depends on your assessment of the risk involved and whether it is worth the chance of success.  I was pleased to see some readers debating the moral issue, as that was mostly the point of this exercise.

A secondary point I intended to convey was that suppression by drone is a real thing.  The drone in this scenario is not armed, and yet its very presence forces us to change our plans.  Keep this in mind if you have a small drone in your inventory, it can be a psychological weapon as well as a practical tool. I cover this topic in the Jäger Course.

Originally posted on American Partisan on June 14, 2022

A TDG is a Tactical Decision Game, a mental wargaming exercise designed to get you practice making tactically sound decisions in a hypothetical scenario.  The ability to make sound and timely decisions based off incomplete and imperfect information is a critical skill to have, especially as a team leader.

You will be given a scenario, confronted with a tactical problem, and given a time limit to think about and write out your answer.  The time limit is to simulate the pressure of a real-world tactical decision, where you must quickly assess the information you are given and come up with the best answer you can.  Then comment below with your answer so you can discuss each others’ solutions.

TDG 14: Personnel Recovery

Week 6 into WROL.  You and your MAG have been living peacefully at your homestead, but last week “Kelly,” the wife of one of your MAG members was kidnapped when she left the homestead alone to check on her sister’s house.  Local sources and your own reconnaissance have led you to the farmhouse where she is being held in the basement, guarded by a small garrison of thugs.  Your MAG has enlisted the help of a nearby Neighborhood Protection Team (NPT) to raid the compound to recover Kelly.

Your MAG has a 6-man squad and the NPT has committed their 10-man QRF to support you.  Since none of you have night vision, you have decided to conduct the raid in daylight.  YOU are the leader of your 6-man squad, which is acting as the assault element.  The NPT is acting as your support-by-fire element for the raid.  You estimate the enemy strength at around 8-12 thugs guarding the compound, with at least 3 awake on guard duty at any given time.

You do not have radios, so you plan to synchronize your actions to a time.  The plan is for the NPT to open fire from the North at 0700 while your squad closes on the farmhouse following the treeline from the East.  After two minutes, the NPT will cease fire while your squad closes the last 50m to the farmhouse to clear it and rescue Kelly.  “Just make sure you’re in position on time,” the NPT squad leader tells you.  “If you’re not in position by the time we cease firing, your approach will be uncovered and very dangerous.”

At 0500 you begin the foot patrol towards your objective.  When you get to the objective rally point (ORP) at 0630 your groups split up and begin their final movement into attack positions.  You’re moving very slowly to avoid making noise.  About halfway to your assault position your pointman throws up a the hand/arm signal for “FREEZE!” and points up.  You look and notice a small quadcopter drone flying North to South over the objective.  Cautiously, you lead your patrol a little further into the tree line to evade the drone.

You make it to your assault position and everyone gets into the prone to wait for 0700.  So far you have only observed 1 enemy outside the building on guard.  At 0655 you hear a high-pitched whine and look up.  The drone is back, but this time it’s hovering about 200ft above you.  Does it see you?  So far you don’t notice any change in behavior from the guard or any activity from the house.  What do you do?

In a time limit of 5 minutes, decide how you will handle this situation.  Write down any special instructions you would give to your men and explain why you chose to do what you did.

Grid squares represent 100m.  Map created using Hawg-Ops.com

Originally posted on American Partisan on June 1, 2022

TDG 13: Quick Reaction Force presented an urgent scenario that still required careful planning.  There was a healthy mix of known, suspected, and unknown factors at play, which can be confusing to juggle.  Let’s start with what we do and don’t know for certain:

We KNOW that there are at least 5 enemy at the objective.  We KNOW that there is a group of 14 refugees unaccounted for somewhere in the county.  We DON’T KNOW if this is the same group.  It could be larger or smaller.  However, depending on how good our surveillance is of the county line, it could be unlikely that a group larger than 14 managed to slip through unnoticed by either our own guys or a neighbor who could report it to us.  Thus we can estimate the enemy strength to be 5-14.

The mission is clear, we need to respond to Jared’s call for help swiftly.  Our struggle is to find the solution that balances urgency with the risk to our people.  There are infinite possibilities here, so I will discuss some planning considerations for this TDG rather than list a set of possible solutions.

The drone

While many readers proposed using the drone in some way, there were a few creative uses such as for a distraction.  There was some debate as to how to best use the drone to our advantage, with good reasoning for each possible use.  However, an argument could be made against using the drone at all.  Reader American Yeoman stated, “On the one hand I think the drone will not be very useful in these circumstances and just a distraction with limited man power. I don’t want to get ‘tech fixated’.”

One could argue with merit that since the drone won’t see very much, and even risks exposing your presence (thus losing surprise), the risk-to-reward ratio does not justify using such an asset.  It is easy to get so hung up on a force-multiplier that you’re eager to use it without stopping to ask if it’s suitable for the task at hand.  I can’t tell you how many times I have witnessed giddy officers with new toys do exactly this.  Just because I give you a resource in a TDG does not mean that you need to use it.

The enemy

We may suspect that this is the group of 14 refugees that was spotted yesterday.  If so, and we only know of 5 shooters, we are faced with the troubling question of “where are the other 9?”  Several readers suspected that they might be pulling security for the muscle at Jared’s house, maybe even waiting to ambush the QRF.  This is possible, especially if someone in the OPFOR group has a handheld CB radio and heard the call for help.  They may even be a different group that has been in our area for a while undetected, observing patterns of life.  And maybe, just maybe, they aren’t outsiders at all, just some ne’er-do-wells from within our county.

The bottom line is that we must be wary of the possibility that the OPFOR knows about the QRF and may have prepared for it.  For this reason it would be unwise to drive right up to Jared’s driveway, as we risk getting ambushed while mounted in soft-skinned civilian vehicles.  Several readers planned to dismount a ways away from the objective and finish the approach on foot.  This is smart to do.  Even if there is no ambush, you will more likely surprise the enemy if they don’t hear truck engines approaching.

One last possibility to consider is that we don’t know how many people in the group of 14 were in fighting shape.  Some could be women, children, or elderly and incapable of fighting.  Maybe the 5 Jared reported are the only military age males of the group.   They might not actually be a squad-sized group of thugs, but a roving band of desperate refugees.  Still, it is smart to err on the side of caution.

The approach

Perhaps the biggest point of variance in answers to this TDG is how we approach the objective after we dismount.  There were various schemes of maneuver planned, most of which involved multiple groups approaching from different directions to get as good a picture of the enemy situation as possible.  We must be careful here, because there is a very real danger of friendly fire in the dark.

This scenario takes place at night, and we have a very limited number of NVGs.  This is a very likely scenario.  Most “bad guys” prefer to do their dirty deeds under cover of darkness, so the likelihood of you dealing with a situation at night is pretty high.  Thankfully, there are ways to reduce the risk of friendly fire at night.  “After all,” you might say, “we have radios to communicate with each other!”  Well, as we saw in TDG 12, comms can (and often do) fail you when you need them most, so this doesn’t mitigate the risk much.   We can also mitigate risk through rigorous training as a group, but after only 5 weeks into WROL it is unlikely that our group has much practice working together.  Even if we had been training together for a while, for an impromptu mission like this with no time for rehearsals, the risk of friendly fire would still be very high if we split our forces early.

Conclusion

All told, this is a hairy situation that could go any number of ways.  The lack of intel and lack of time mean that we need to come up with a simple plan that still gives us as much flexibility as possible to account for the unexpected.  However, it is okay to take some risks if you believe that the reward justifies it.  As long as you analyzed your options and  decided that your risks were worth taking, you accomplished the intent for this exercise.

Again, thank you to everyone who played this TDG.  I won’t be able to post one of these every week due to work and training events, but I will endeavor to post one a week as often as possible.