TEOTWAWKI has come and gone. You have been hunkered down in your retreat for a couple months as the cities burned and the human locusts ravaged the countryside. You have been lucky so far, whether by blind luck or faith you cannot say.
You and your regular squad are out on patrol. You are definitely within the retreat’s area of influence – say a 1/2 mile away as the crow flies. While crossing a large, open area multiple shooters fire off at least a dozen rounds between them.If your a suburban prepper, you were crossing a wide boulevard or park, if your retreat is in the sticks, then you were crossing a large field or meadow.
After hitting the deck and scrambling for cover, you verify no one is hit. You know that it is at least two shooters, and they are pretty far away – 400 to 600 yards. As one of your team pokes their head out to scramble for better cover another staccato of shots ring out, with bullets hitting about 30 feet away.
They seem to be firing from the same spot, a brushy wood line, as before. Muzzle flashes as they shoot at a nearby stone wall (or abandoned car) confirms their location. Any attempt at verbal communication results in 2-10 shots being fired.
What do you do?
Tags: tactical homework
‘They’ have absolutely no legitimate reason for taking this pre-emptive, unprovoked hostile action against you, and are therefore the aggreesors. As you are in the immediate vicinity of your homstead/retreat, you cannot do ‘nothing’, hoping they will depart the area of their own volition; further unwaranted attacks are at least a 50-50 possibility. Unacceptable odds in my opinion.
If your manning supports 24/7 monitoring of their movements, do so. If you have a discreet means to communicate (PTT radios, morse cose laser pens, etc.), spread out to cover their most likely avenues of approach/withdrawal. You short-term goal should be to safely confirm or deny their chosen course of action (COA). Your resources should be judiciously applied to monitoring the indicators of whatever it is they’re intetions are.
More than likely, they will eventually get lazy, complacent, drunk/high, etc., at which point your group can take whatever action is necessary at the time & place of your choosing. Recommend choosing (as a group) what you ideally would like for the bad guys to do, and then provide them with enough incentive to choose the COA you’ve selected for them.
This *might* mean making your homestead en even more attractive target than it already is, and pre-positioning your forces on favorable terrain to respond to their approach.
Close the trap.
Destroy the evidence.
Deny everything.
I have a fight on my hands, whether I want it or not. So far, they don’t have the range and are burning a lot of ammunition, but I can’t be sure that they won’t improve on accuracy or that they will run out of bullets.
My ‘squad’ is 5 men total – one shotgun, 2 carbines, my heavy rifle and the marksman. Depending on who’s on, I will have either a nephew or son-in-law carrying their attempts at a sniper rifle: a 30.06 bolt action scoped deer rifle or my father’s match M1 with a decent scope on it. He (and everyone else) will be getting to cover while I try to keep their heads down. I will be distracting them with my rifle, which is an Ishapore Enfield .308; it can reach out that far but only has iron sights. I can sling lead closer than they were, but a hit would be luck. Once he’s in position, I’m scrambling. The other squad members will be finding the best cover they can, and trying for a flanking movement when they get out of the kill zone.
Once our designated marksman is set, these guys are in trouble. It will probably take a round or two for him to get windage, but if they stay put, they’re past history. The questions I have are: were they trying to distract or pin us down for their buddies? Also, how’s the retreat?
If this is or could be private property I would probably just break contact and not go “patrolling” through peoples fields anymore.
In this situation I would send 1/3 of my patrol right and 1/3 left in an attempt to engage the target from 90 degrees of angle. If we can spread out enough and engage them from one position while the other positions take aim for controlled fire(or advance) we should be able to overrun them. Should the targets retreat in would be necessary to track them as far as possible. Information is everything here. Are they a scout party for a bigger group? Neutralize the threat while its small.