Be willing to make decisions. That’s the most important quality in a good leader. Don’t fall victim to what I call the ready-aim-aim-aim-aim syndrome. You must be willing to fire. — T. Boone Pickens I am quick to point out that while leadership and management are inextricably entwined, leadership is…
Read MoreElusiveness: Force protection means being hard-to-kill
As with any other aspect of warfare, force protection includes various measures and concerns, with situational awareness, simply knowing what’s coming next, being preeminent. Too, it’s always a good idea to establish 360 degree security around us; an umbrella of protected space above us; and a networked bubble below us.…
Read MoreGunfighting: The Force-on-Force Quantum Leap
The best way to win a gunfight is to train for it. The training regimen is straightforward and follows a banal sequence – firearm safety, basic marksmanship, combative shooting, and finally gunfighting against actual human opponents. That’s force-on-force training. Force-on-Force (FoF) training is the critical element of gunfighting. No experienced…
Read MoreReconnaissance: Masterful Use by Small Unit Leaders
Most warriors understand reconnaissance – the need for it, it’s objectives, and how to conduct various reconnaissance techniques. Yet when tasked with an Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance (ISR) asset, few small unit leaders are comfortable with this asset. In fact, it is commonly viewed as a burden. And so now it’s…
Read MoreKnow Your Gear: In Praise of the Kalashnikov
Let me be clear, I am not an aficionado of the Kalashnikov, better known as the AK-47, or more properly the Automat Kalashnikov Modernizirovannyj (AKM). Yet there are countless millions who have been singing the praises of the AKM for the past half-century. It did not become a beloved weapon…
Read MoreFailure in Training
I’m riding across Missouri with four members of One Shepherd’s staff, headed to a 3-day immersive field exercise. Invariably the war stories start flying – as that is the birth right of all troops. And this is good because war stories often turn into lofty discussions of what went wrong…
Read MoreWorst Case Scenario: Outnumbered Assault!
We’re bound to be outnumbered sometimes. That is unless the MILSIM scenario planners intentionally set the opposing forces at exactly an equal number of troops – and that almost never happens! The natural instinct under such conditions is to bunker-down tight and form the team into a small defensive perimeter.…
Read MoreManagement of the Defense: Conviction of Purpose
Few tacticians give the defense its due. But for the record, history does. The slaughter of Union troops at Fredericksburg, Virginia; the massive carnage of Confederate forces at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania; the unimaginable horror at Ypres, France; and the wasting of a million Chinese lives along the 38th Parallel between the…
Read MoreDeliberate Attack
This article was originally published on odjournal.com (Olive Drab: the journal of tactics) and has been transferred here with permission.
Read MoreAdvantage of the Offense: Seeking the Initiative
The effort of the offense is to maintain a tempo of operations that the defense cannot match. Too abstract? Yeah, I agree. Let’s look at the offense through another lens. In a recent conversation I made the claim that the significant difference between TACSIM (law enforcement scenarios) and MILSIM (military…
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