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Shooting, Tactics, or Fieldcraft.
- Thread starter Gunfighter14e2
- Start date
Depends on the task/job.
For a military sniper: Fieldcraft, then Tactics, and with Shooting a distant 3rd.
For a police sniper: Shooting, then Fieldcraft, with "Tactics" a distant 3rd.
For a military DM: Tactics, then Fieldcraft, and Shooting a distant 3rd.
For an individual dealing with an unknown/hostile environment: Fieldcraft, then Shooting, then Tactics.
For a match: Shooting, with Fieldcraft and Tactics not even on the radar.
For a military sniper: Fieldcraft, then Tactics, and with Shooting a distant 3rd.
For a police sniper: Shooting, then Fieldcraft, with "Tactics" a distant 3rd.
For a military DM: Tactics, then Fieldcraft, and Shooting a distant 3rd.
For an individual dealing with an unknown/hostile environment: Fieldcraft, then Shooting, then Tactics.
For a match: Shooting, with Fieldcraft and Tactics not even on the radar.
Trying to keep your ass alive when what is going to go down in this country finally happens, I'd go Fieldcraft, Tactics and Shooting if you must.
Yep, shooting gets all the glory until it becomes a two way.
A subsection of field craft is target detection. When we were doing sub matches long back that lacking skill set, stopped many sub shooters, in their tracks. Guess they thought the targets would be waving a flag or something? Most were so poor at it, we had to start giving a azimuth from the FP. Later as it became more realistic (more target camouflage) we had to give azimuth & distance with in +/- 25 yds.
If you can't find the target, yet the target can find you, trading up is free.
- Nov 3, 2010
- 9,730
- 20,536
I’d say tactics first, have to be tactically sound enough to find a position where you can employ fieldcraft to keep that position hidden.
At either rate, shooting is a last ditch effort. Most folks won’t think that, which is why I am still firmly set at being a scavenger when Cypress Hill starts playing.
The shooting element also requires logistical support the other two don't need.
-LD
Not really,
The age old concept of trading up will never die, but only if you know the hows & whys. This is one reason you need to know how to operate/employ any & everything you might pick up.
The why & history of the liberator pistol is easily searchable, but that concept is much, much older.
For what is coming, street resupply will be plenty. Knowing where/how items are stocked within and outside of your A/O is a plus as well.
Some of us are too old to be running around in the woods. My fieldcraft is going to be masking up and dressing up in black with a big, red hammer and sickle on my back. When it's time to charge the patriots I'll be the guy in the rear mowing my "comrades" down and shooting them in their backs.
That is me as well, however with the proper bait and tactics anything is possible. Direct engagement is not the best way to win any fight, make it as unfair and one sided as you can going in.
That old saying "If its a fair fight your tactics suck" is so true.
1. Fieldcraft
That is the ultimate survival system for the long run. Can you live off the land? Jury rig lifesaving devices like radios, water filtration, traps/intrusion detectors, etc...
2. Tactics
That is how you perform when a task needs to be done. And that can range from having to find the shortest route to the nearest base camp with a blizzard on the way. Or making the silent approach to within effective range of a bunch of cartel hitmen who had just murdered a rancher and are rummaging through his truck.
3. Shooting
That is merely one of the skills among the skillset which you have to be proficient at.
That is the ultimate survival system for the long run. Can you live off the land? Jury rig lifesaving devices like radios, water filtration, traps/intrusion detectors, etc...
2. Tactics
That is how you perform when a task needs to be done. And that can range from having to find the shortest route to the nearest base camp with a blizzard on the way. Or making the silent approach to within effective range of a bunch of cartel hitmen who had just murdered a rancher and are rummaging through his truck.
3. Shooting
That is merely one of the skills among the skillset which you have to be proficient at.
Or how you present bait, allowing them to be their own worst enemy. Long ago (circa late 70's early 80's)when the Manatee Co Fla run & guns were going on (w/ Mc Donalds associates) it was interesting (& funny at times) to watch how people would engage a stage tactically based upon strep & op order. We ran some of the same when doing sub matches, years back here. You could almost tell who was going to get a m/c stamp by the way they approached & kicked off the stage.
Pretty suggestive question there. My response will be from a military/combat standpoint.
1. Shooting
2. Tactics
3. Fieldcraft
I will now explain in reverse order.
Fieldcraft will only keep you alive against an opponent who has equal or less knowledge than you, it may allow you to defeat the elements and gain time to formulate plans and strategy.
Tactics can keep you alive to an extent depending on the situation and your tactics vs your opponent tactics. This is a broad subject that really has too many scenarios to even imagine, but tactics will only get you so far. Every trained person has them and studies them, some are better than others, its a calculation made to enhance chances of survival in a given scenario.
Shooting will decide whether anything else matters. If you cannot neutralize your target faster than he can neutralize you, you lose. The greatest tactics and fieldcraft usage ever conceived can be negated in a split second because your opponent can shoot better than you.
1. Shooting
2. Tactics
3. Fieldcraft
I will now explain in reverse order.
Fieldcraft will only keep you alive against an opponent who has equal or less knowledge than you, it may allow you to defeat the elements and gain time to formulate plans and strategy.
Tactics can keep you alive to an extent depending on the situation and your tactics vs your opponent tactics. This is a broad subject that really has too many scenarios to even imagine, but tactics will only get you so far. Every trained person has them and studies them, some are better than others, its a calculation made to enhance chances of survival in a given scenario.
Shooting will decide whether anything else matters. If you cannot neutralize your target faster than he can neutralize you, you lose. The greatest tactics and fieldcraft usage ever conceived can be negated in a split second because your opponent can shoot better than you.
I guess it could depend if you are planning on a long engagement or you just want to make a point on your way out, perhaps even the sides for eventually victory for those inspired and coming to your side.
If you have hope perhaps you care about the future.
If you just wanted to be left alone and are living for the moment maybe field craft and tactics don’t matter.
This is the man Solzhenitsyn speaks of needing when the political enemies were rounded up for the gulags..
If you have hope perhaps you care about the future.
If you just wanted to be left alone and are living for the moment maybe field craft and tactics don’t matter.
This is the man Solzhenitsyn speaks of needing when the political enemies were rounded up for the gulags..
You want to talk sights and 03?
The USMC had a great idea with their Number 10 sight set…..wide back cut front sight for better sight picture and reduce BZO from 550 yards to a realistic 200 yards. For better sighting using the raised ladder they increased the size of the aperture to .10 that and the big front blade were quicker to pick up visually.
But……
It kind of took some accuracy out of the gun on the competition range bigger sights were not as accurate as the fine sight. Better combat sights for plus MOA targets but not as precise on paper.
So the Marine Corps tossed the number 10 sights and went back to small(er) aperture and thin(ner) front sight.
Disagree,
If your field-craft is par you will find/see your enemy long before he finds/sees you. Then your tactics if solid will allow,... you,... first shot.
The older I get, and more I realize that it'll be a team of 10+ that comes and gets me...
1. Shooting
2. Tactics
3. Fieldcraft
You ain't getting out alive either way, might as well take a few with you.
It used to be the other way around. Then I learned how to hunt the lazy man's way. Then we actually had a fugitive search out here a few years ago involving a guy half my age and arguably in much better physical condition...and they ran his ass down in less than 18 hours in the woods and across creeks etc... Dude had made it probably 20 miles already by that point.
Tactics are a great idea, but when you start trying to do one-man room clearing with SESAMS (paint rounds), you quickly, painfully learn that it isn't all that it is cracked up to be on YouTube. This is an area where you need a team, and a lot of training to be effective.
1. Shooting
2. Tactics
3. Fieldcraft
You ain't getting out alive either way, might as well take a few with you.
It used to be the other way around. Then I learned how to hunt the lazy man's way. Then we actually had a fugitive search out here a few years ago involving a guy half my age and arguably in much better physical condition...and they ran his ass down in less than 18 hours in the woods and across creeks etc... Dude had made it probably 20 miles already by that point.
Tactics are a great idea, but when you start trying to do one-man room clearing with SESAMS (paint rounds), you quickly, painfully learn that it isn't all that it is cracked up to be on YouTube. This is an area where you need a team, and a lot of training to be effective.
Technology has come a long way in combating actual fieldcraft skill. It is cool to think we are all John Rambo hiding in a wall of mud, but the reality is that any "modern" adversary is probably employing thermal, night vision, and drone equipment. The chances of "them" detecting us before us them, is significantly in the advantage of the modern army.
Now, in a one-on-one against a fellow redneck over who has rights to the 30-acre lease... your position is much more defendable.
I stopped worrying about the lone home intruder or vagrant years ago. My concerns are much more federalized.
Correct, the closer you F/C allows you to get, your circular probability error drops like a rock,...
So you think only the po-lice & military has that?
Absolutely not as I enjoy a decent amount of success killing shit in the dark.
Do I think that running around in the woods, learning some basic "don't wipe with poison ivy" knowledge is important? Yes.
Do I think that diverging training time and resources from firearms skills and self-defense tactics in order to practice some sort of self-evaluated, zero experience SERE tactics in the woods in order to "find/see your enemy long before he finds/sees you" - is not a great use of time? Yes to that as well.
I'm not stating that the judicious use of learning how to track, identify choke points, general hunting and fire-starting skills etc... etc... etc... is worthless. What I am saying is that statistically, Americans use firearms defensively 500,000 to 3 million times (depending on data source) per year, and that about a quarter of those (125,000 to 750,000) require defensively shooting. I was unable in a quick search to find the number of times a citizen had to apply fieldcraft in order to "find/see your enemy long before he finds/sees you". My guess is that it is significantly less... like damn near zero. Since time is precious, and nobody on this site is burdened by having to do any of this shit for a living - anymore or otherwise - my position is based upon addressing the most likely course of action one will encounter.
And while I know that we civilians have access to fantastic surveillance equipment, I have yet to see anyone other than a LEO entity thermally track and hunt down another human being with drones. Maybe it is a fantastic trend that you can share with us?
Tech works both ways, and tyrants hate for it to get out of their control. It's interesting how quickly people change once they learn, all their high tech shit can be used against them.
You mean you don't have a drone with a thermal camera on it already?
Folks have those all over the place and the more enterprising folks have their drones already modded for "payload" or "launcher"...
Are you telling him to go be poor somewhere else?
JK, having a laugh and simply could not resist. And thereby prove how I earned my certificate of upgrade to complete asshole.
It's my own damn fault. I fed the troll, and then attempted to stoop to his intellectual level but was overpowered by a lifetime of experience. Lesson learned.
The paradigm shifted greatly in Ukraine. I'd say to the point where traditional warfare has been significantly impacted. That example is along my point of technology outpacing fieldcraft...but I eluded to it only being used here by LEO entities (so far).
There is a bit of a flaw and circular logic in your argument.
If you are going up against the full power of the government and military and all those "high tech stuff" your shooting skills are probably going to be way less important.
Take a look at the war in the Ukraine, "shooting skills" are not nearly as important to staying alive in a war dominated by drones, robots, satellite imagery, missiles, etc.
If a group is hunting you down with thermal imaging drones, as you are worrying, then if their drone can find you, your shooting skills will matter not nearly as much as your fieldcraft as they will have plenty of time to figure out the best way to get a shot on you before you know where they are coming from.
I'm not saying it isn't good to have "mad chooting skilz" but if you are in a gunfight you are already in the bad stuff.
In an urban environment, "fieldcraft" that could save your life, might be things as simple as knowing what areas to avoid, knowing when folks look suspicious and when you need to get off the X, knowing when it looks like bad stuff is about to happen and getting away from it. Knowing when folks look like they are up to trouble or where trouble might come from and seeing it. Knowing what to watch out for to avoid an accident or blockade. Knowing how to carry yourself to avoid looking like prey and also avoid looking like you are spoiling for a fight.
Fieldcraft could be things like knowing how to not draw attention to yourself in a city even when folks are looking for you, how to blend into the background and move about invisible to most. Fieldcraft could be as simple as knowing how to keep your face down as you traverse an urban area, how to get lost in a crowd, how to beat AI image pattern matching etc.
What you have to remember is who makes and comes up with many of the concepts and initial designs of the stuff that eventually the glorious heroes of the Uniform Hanger brigade use?
Lots of very clever folks coming up with cool and innovative things.
You'd probably be surprised how many tech savvy people that have electronics and programming skills already have their own home brew versions of all that stuff the local uniform hangers are so proud of. AI driven killbot turrent? Couple thousand dollars of computer parts and some knowhow in programming and mechanics.
Your local thug on the street and career criminal? Probably not.
BUT have you seen the stuff the organized gangs from South America are starting to use here? Wifi camera jamming, remote surveillance, drones, high level computer access toolkits for vehicles and buildings, rudimentary RF disrupters and such.
Wait till things officially kick off and everybody starts playing with the good stuff.
The folks thinking their gun and shooting skills are the be all end all will be the ones in the first wave of dying.
I don't doubt it. When I worked in the basement of the Pentagon even 12 years ago, there was a very real possibility that your smart-anything could be hacked and record you without you knowing it. We had to leave electronic everything in front of armed police before entering our work areas. I also had a few friends in the "intel" side of the house then. Their words: "You'd be amazed what we can get into, nothing you have is safe." It was about that time that old Edward Snowden brought quite a bit of it to light. In a way, I only know jack and shit about it because so much of it was already compartmentalized. However, I know enough to have an idea of the capability. It is yet another reason why I decided against a suit and tie job in the beltway after I retired. and chose to yell at cows on a ranch in the middle of nowhere instead.
I have zero doubt that after so many years that the ability to be as electronically destructive as a government has filtered down to the point where there are hundreds of high school aged kids who possess the same capabilities now.
Your last sentence - I don't think that anybody who has not joined a community effort is going to make it more than a few days. I believe it to be a fallacy to train for going out and making it or anything on your own.
The whole point of this thread, right there. Then you have others who,... Don't,... want people to think for their selves, and you see it all over the hide these days. You have to have X to accomplish Y task, yet we have won what past 8/8/45 with all the so called un-defeatable high tech? High tech has never won us a war, battles yes but not the war. Its always came down to who has the strongest will power, best tactics & are up for the long knife fight.
In the none shooting war we are in for now, (country control) there is only one group that is dedicated to than end, and you can see it in their posts if you know what to look for. Their mission is to keep people from thinking on their own and maybe realizing, all the propaganda they were fed in the last 20+ years is all lies & bullshit,...
Field craft & tactics is an area they don't what discussion or expansion of at all, because the combinations-permutations into other venues are endless once you start delving into it. Course if you can nudge people into just being one trick pony's across the board, it makes whats coming so much easier for the oppressor/s. Then you have the whole "We have X and you don't" so you'll never win, mind set,...laughing.
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Side question,
You & the Nailer ever get any HF arrays hung in the sky yet?
Had to trim some 4-8" limbs that were starting to hose up some Tx/Rx emissions here a month or so back. Have all the material now and am going to lay a 1K' Rx only antenna, as soon as the grandson returns in Nov. The Loop Rx's great, but a dedicated Rx will be much better at sucking out what is in the weeds now. Plus on the digital & SSTV side it will be many times better across the board, even if some notching is required. Thought about a 4 square but for what I want it to do the issue is the space the 4 would take for 160. Came up with a new portable vertical for the buggy, that is working perfect so far on 20 down to 2. Easy to tune 1-1 using a cheat sheet I made, I'll have to get photos and send to you. Fast up & down, perfect for shoot & scoot. Wish I could get the ground plane on the buggy better, moding or having to carry & install more conductive is not the road I want to take.
I'm not sure about Sean, I think he might have put that project a few years onto the back burner.
On my end, I'm going to try for this winter to get my setup redone.
On my end, I'm going to try for this winter to get my setup redone.
Throw ups are quick & easy. Those I have built will do DX up higher but I was thinking & wanting more NVIS when I built them. With them getting local help (<100 mile Radius ) is assured, but you can still Rx long very well, also. The 80 meter does well across the board (80/60/40) and w/the travel tuner, makes for a nice compact set up when on 60. Did many MARS stations this last C/Band test, using just the buggy set up. I wanted to proof it and that test is a good way to see how it would operate all across the country if need be.
Man portable Microwave is a better, defense than mud,... At least that is what they said at the Holiday inn express I stayed at once,...
Literally. I've used my Matrice 210 with Zenmuse XT2 to catch a fella who had warrants, and opened fire on my neighbor. Still have the footage, I was on the phone, while flying the drone, directing local Game Warden and PD where he was hiding. Would've never NEVER caught him without it.
In a highly populated area, not having a military/service background my 3 to survive and would be.
Fieldcraft
Tactics
And as a last result, shooting
Fieldcraft
Tactics
And as a last result, shooting
yep, just noticed the title didnt show up in the copy paste I did, but it needs to be attributed to Robert Rogers of "rogers rangers" fame, lessons learned in the mid to late 1700s
I've always wanted to try my hand at target detection. I often shoot guardian team matches, and the stages are blind, but that's still not quite the same as trying to detect a target that doesn't want to be found.
Target detection is a life long & constant learning skill. As detection distance increases the more the skill set has to be refined. We had guys that were excellent shots with subs to 5-600yds no matter what mother throw-ed at them but could not find a simple target at 1-200 yds. In that short of a distance even with a subsonic its almost a gimme, as the average shooter was well under 2 moa at that distance.
If you really what to learn, get a friend to start setting simple targets at unknown distances w/o camo and as you progress revert to smaller & different levels of camo. Once you're deep into it, start using the sun & moon angles to your advantage. No matter how good of a shot or tactician one is, if they are always reacting,... at some point their luck will run out.
Good static target detection skills don't happen overnight,... and like electricity, (and many other things) not being able to see the threat does not mean its not close enough to, tag you.
