Alright – a new topic (here anyway) and a lot to write about. Now we’re going to start digging into the process of actually building usable fighting skills and knowledge among your tribe members. The next few entries are going to attempt to impart upon you some basic realities you’ll be dealing with along with some nice simple tips to use when establishing your security force. To set the record straight right now I’m going to be referring to what I call a “Rural Defense Force” (RDF) throughout this series. That is simply the defensive element of your tribe. The folks that actually defend the area.
This entry is going to deal with defining operational capabilities and using a simple training methodology. Operational capabilities are the tasks that you need/want to be able to execute. I.e. do you want to establish roadblocks, conduct ambushes, raids, deliberate defenses, etc? You need to sit down and conceptualize what tasks your RDF will have to accomplish. This is how you focus your training as your efforts need to be geared towards supporting these capabilities. For the .mil guys out there this is what we used to refer to as a developing a Mission Essential Task List (METL) along with associated drills but we’re going to go through this without the luxury of having higher echelon tasks and directives to work this out. Basically we’re going to build a list of tactical tasks that we identify are critical to the defense of our tribal area. The difference here is normally a METL goes no lower than a Company but unless you’re really fortunate chances are you won’t have the kind of strength. So I’m going to make another convention at this point – when I refer to METL what I am actually using are more akin to ARTEP battle drills for a Platoon and Squad sized element. Training methodology is simply the way we’re going to train.
h/t WRSA
