Originally posted on American Partisan on July 12, 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 16: The Long Road Home

2 months into WROL.  State and federal authorities are still struggling to regain control of the nation.  County officials, small towns, and individual communities have been forced to take charge of their own well-being and work with each other to the point where you have somewhat re-established order.  Your small town is one of these, and has stood up an impromptu militia force to keep the wandering bands of thugs at bay.

Your town has trade agreements with the neighboring communities and towns to get whatever items you need.  These trade agreements are done through vehicle convoys between towns, which must be executed very carefully.  Anything on the roads at this point draws a lot of attention, so the militia is tasked with protecting the convoys.

YOU are the second squad leader in the latest convoy to the town of Fairfield, about 20 miles East of your home town.  Prior to departure, the convoy commander tells everyone the plan.

“The town is low on gasoline, so to save fuel we are only taking two vehicles this time instead of our usual three.  We are going to use primarily gravel country roads to avoid the highways, which is where bandits like to set ambushes.  1st squad will take point in Josh’s van, because it has better observation from the higher windows.  2d squad, you guys will follow with the cargo in Jose’s station wagon, about 1km back.  You can get closer if you need to, just stay within line of sight.  3d Squad will be on standby here as QRF in the third vehicle in case something happens.  I will be with 1st squad.”

Each of your 6-man squads is equipped with the following:

• 5x AR-15s
• 1x .308 DMR (FAL, PTR, or AR-10)
• 2x CB radios (1x mounted in the vehicle, 1x handheld for dismounts)
• 6x smoke grenades

The trip to Fairfield is uneventful, and you make the transaction successfully.  As planned, the precious cargo of medicines, bleach, and electrical components is loaded into the back of your vehicle and you begin the trip home.

On the way home you are heading West along 320th St approaching a planned right turn onto Merino Ave.  Suddenly you hear a crackle of gunfire ahead, and you see Josh’s van come to a halt about 75m short of the intersection.  You tell your driver to halt the vehicle, and order the rest of your squad to dismount and set security.  You hear the occasional snap and whine of ricochets whistling past you from very far ahead.

As you are pondering what to do, the CB radio comes to life.  “It’s an ambush!  They’re in the treeline to our front!  My driver is dead and I’m hit!  You’ve got to help us!  They’re chewing us up!”

You consider your options.  Your home is 5 miles NW from you, where 3d squad is standing by as QRF.  You call them, but it will take them a while to get here on the back roads, you estimate they’re probably 10 minutes out.

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 the QRF and provide a brief rationale for your actions.

Originally posted on American Partisan on June 29, 2022

No matter how much effort you put into planning for combat operations, the enemy still gets a vote on what actually ends up happening.  In TDG 15: The Best Laid Plans, you are suddenly thrust into a situation where your original plan has gone out the window and you must improvise fast.

Before I get into our options, let’s take a quick look at two of the major factors in this situation; darkness and proximity.

Darkness: The fact that this scenario occurs at night complicates matters, especially for an improvised plan.  There is a very real risk of friendly fire, so we must be very careful to mitigate that risk.  Darkness also places restrictions on our speed, so it will take longer to move into position than it would during daytime.  Given how soon the enemy will arrive, it is unlikely that we will be able to displace any squads more than about 100m in time to affect the firefight.

Proximity: The terrain is restrictive here, which could result in much shorter engagement distances than normal.  “This has the potential to be an up close and nasty fight,” reader “John” pointed out.  “…overwhelming violence of action and fire is going to be essential.”  The initial moments of this ambush could prove decisive, so it is vital that we overwhelm the enemy quickly before they realize what is happening.

Bearing these factors in mind, lets take a look at our options.

Hold fire and let them pass

We may decide that there is too much risk involved here to improvise on the fly.  And depending on the skill and experience level of our guys, this could be a valid choice.  However, just because the enemy has thrown us a curveball does not mean that we have lost the advantage.  We still have the element of surprise, or else the enemy wouldn’t be moving the way they are.  We are still ahead of their route and have freedom of maneuver for the moment.

Reader “John” also points out; “This is a ‘specialist’ patrol (Reconnaissance). Taking them out is a strategic loss for the enemy commander and will likely degrade his ability to conduct operations in the area going forward. It takes considerably more time to select and train a reconnaissance unit than it does a “typical” infantry unit.-We are in a good position to strike them.”  John also goes on to correctly assess that we could glean weapons, NVGs, intelligence, and a significant morale boost if our attack is successful.

In the end, if our group has even the smallest bit of competence, the opportunity is too good to pass up.

Consolidate into one large ambush

We may choose to completely scrap our initial plan and keep our new plan dummy simple by eliminating moving parts and grouping together into one large ambush formation.  This practically eliminates the risk of fratricide and makes it incredibly easy for us to control our men.

In order to do this quickly and in the dark we should refrain from making overly complicated plans.  Reader “Timbersour” said, “Getting a very simple plan out to the team quickly trumps any big-brain stuff.”  We don’t want to risk our new plan being difficult to execute safely, taking too long to brief, or exposing ourselves to the enemy by moving too much in the dark.  A simple linear or T-shaped ambush would be the easiest to implement quickly, or even an L-shaped ambush if we’ve trained enough in the past.

The only downside to this plan is that having only one firing element makes the enemy’s job of maneuvering on us or assaulting through us simpler.  This can be mitigated, however, if we make sure that our opening volley is devastating enough that there is no one left to maneuver on us.

Slightly change the original plan

We might not need to come up with an entirely new plan.  After all, we already have control measures and rehearsed signals and maneuvers established, so why not use them?  All we would need to do is find suitable locations to relocate our teams, and maybe tweak the control measures just a bit.

As long as we have rehearsed this ambush thoroughly, we should be able to execute this action with no difficulty.  Thoroughly rehearsing an action should not just consist of flawless runs every time, you need to throw curveballs to your guys when it gets too smooth.  Between rehearsals, encourage your people to ask all the “what if” questions to predict what could go wrong and how you would handle it.  If you have done all that, this slight adjustment should be a breeze.  If not, this course of action may not be ideal.

If you take one thing away from this TDG let it be this.  Thorough rehearsals are absolutely critical.  If you have extra time during the preparation for a mission, you should use as much of it as possible for rehearsals so that everyone knows every detail of the plan and how they can make adjustments to it.  Sloppy rehearsals make for sloppy operations.

Story Time

This TDG is actually a scenario I faced during a force-on-force exercise in the Marine Corps.  While I gave you 5 minutes to evaluate the situation and come up with a hasty plan, I had 60 seconds.  In two minutes the enemy would be upon me, so I had one minute to think and issue the order, and one minute to get my guys in position while remaining undetected.  Since I know you’ll all be asking me in the comments, here’s what happened.

I quickly decided that there wasn’t time to create an elaborate new plan, so I chose instead to keep most of the elements of my original plan with a few amendments.  I sent my second squad to the tree grove in the middle of the field at 9430 3837 and set my first squad in the trees to the Northeast where they could see the road.  My frag order was as follows;

“Second squad, see those trees over there?  That’s your new firing position.  Same scheme of maneuver and signal plan.  First squad, your trigger to open fire is when I start shooting.  We will try to bait them into attacking East into the field.  Second squad, your new trigger to open fire is when the enemy squad is on line in the open.  If they try to break contact North, we will pursue them until they get past the town.  I will be with first squad.  Move.”

The end result was surprisingly better than anticipated.  The enemy, when ambushed, didn’t take the bait and attempted to break contact by peeling North along the road.  When I saw that they weren’t taking the bait, I called my second squad to join us and prepare to pursue.  However, the sudden appearance of two M240Bs belching fire into the night pinned the enemy squad, and we were able to close with and destroy them in place.

Bayonets may have been involved.

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.