good afternoon captain justin de leon here from the university of iowa apms here at iowa and also the ms3 instructor today what we want to talk about is conducting a point ambush at the platoon level so today's terminal learning objective is that the purpose of this lesson is to demonstrate a doctrinally sound way to conduct a platoon point ambush the two references that we're using for this is atp 3-21.8 infrastructure and squad and also the ranger handbook year 2017 tc3-21.76 so an ambush a point ambush at the platoon level is a surprise enemy attack where we engage and destroy the enemy's main body killing them within a defined kill zone on the objective also we destroy any key equipment that the enemy has according to our commander's intent this type of attack is typically conducted on a enemy that is moving or an enemy that has gone stationary for a short period of time and then following actions on that objective there's a planned withdrawal where we move to a spec a separate location we call up to higher for further guidance and again continue on with future operations so let's just talk about uh the four squads again that we have in the platoon that we have to conduct this this type of attack this ambush so first of all again we got that security squad we got that assault one squad assault two squad and then we have our weapon squad and this is all according to the ranger handbook all right and again we like to use the functionality of the squads to define them and depict what they're doing on the battlefield rather than using first second and third squad all right so what we're gonna the way we're gonna start is we're gonna work under the assumption that we're working under the iowa sop and that we've established our objective rally point or our orp hastily and we're in a cigar shape formation so we're going to look at our cigar shape over here again we've got a machine gun at the 12 o'clock we have a machine gun at the six o'clock that's our weapon squad on the left we have our assault one squad pulling security all the way from the 12 to six and on the right we have that assault two squad pulling security from the 12-6 to the east or to the right-hand side all right and then in the center again we have that security squad has just gone straight to the center in order to prepare for actions in the leaders recon all right so next let's define in an ambush who are the right personnel to go on the leader's recon so the right personnel according to the ranger handbook for the leaders recon obviously we got the pl and we have his rto we have all four squad leaders all squad leaders according to the ranger handbook go on the leaders recon all right and then also we have to have some type of security element all right so this is where i'm gonna throw in a little bit of sop something that a lot of people do is they don't take their entire security squad on leaders recon they only take the minimum number of security all right all the ranger handbook says is that a security element of some kind has to go on the leader's recon in order to minimize any confusion the way i always do it is i take my entire security squad on that leader's recon it sounds like a lot of people but those security squad members aren't going to actually physically go up to the road they're not going to compromise the objective they're going to go conduct their function on the objective to the left or the right flank security so i just take the whole squad and i think it works out best that way so i take the whole security squad all right and since here at the university of iowa we have our security squad first in order of movement that alpha team leader that point man who did all your route planning is also encompassed in your security squad so he is automatically in there as well just a caveat if your security squad if you do not put him if you're not if you do not put the point man in the security squad then you have to bring him as well if he was an assault one or assault two all right but since he's encompassing here i'll just mark him underneath here but he is part of that security squad all right so we're gonna have all these people in here for the leaders recon i'm gonna put an lr to define that so really what's happening in the leader's recon uh prepping for that inside inside the orp is we're prepping men weapons and equipment um in the old fm 7-8 there was a huge list of steps of everything that used to happen in leaders recon uh newer doctrine with the ranger handbook and 321.8 has left a lot of this up for your decision as the pl of what needs to happen in there there's not as many defined steps but there's some key things that we have to do the biggest one is obviously prepping men or women and the biggest way we do that is by camouflaging this is one of the biggest things that we fail to do in the orp a big style i'm talking camouflaging obviously we do in our face paint which is a key part but we're camouflaging our uniforms we're putting in grass we're putting in branches we're putting in leaves inside our entire uniform inside our helmet everything we can do to break up our signature as we're on that objective that's a key part and it should be a priority in that leader's recon when we're prepping all right also prepping weapons if there's any weapons that need to be traded hands and equipment all right biggest thing we're going to talk over here is como and claymores especially on an ambush so in an older ranger handbook i think year number 2010 or something there was actually a standardized way to lay out all this equipment in an orp in the new ranger handbook it's not defined however a great sop that we can still use is where we actually lay out a poncho in that leader's recon we lay out a poncho and we lay out every single item of equipment in there and we literally inventory everything that the platoon has all radios all claymores all special weapons maybe at4s whatever we need that we're going to take on that objective it's all laid out there and we can then distribute appropriately all right so the biggest thing that we need to distribute is claymores we need to make sure that whatever squad we want whether it's assault or support has claymores and if we have enough extra we're probably going to distribute those to the security squad as well as they can better protect our flanks to prevent enemy movement onto the objective the biggest thing however is our radios so let's talk over real fast what radios look like and we're going to go back up here to our squads so typically in a platoon we're gonna have six radios and these are the people that are gonna have those six radios you're obviously gonna have the pl the platoon sergeant your security squad leader assault one assault two and weapon squadrons four squad leaders pl psg are the individuals that are going to have radios throughout that patrol here in that leader's recon is where we need to separate those into uh where we can use them most effectively on the objective so the people that need to have them on this objective again this is a little sop driven however this is where it's going to be most effective to get your results on the objective so that pl and psg are obviously going to keep their they're going to keep their radios that security squad leader is going to keep his radio and that weapon squad leader is going to keep his radio because typically more times than not they're going to have to be able to operate individually without with themselves and be able to communicate straight to the platoon sergeant that assault 1 and that assault 2 squad leader those are typically options where you can take radios from them and assume risk because typically that pl is going to be co-located with that assault 1 and that psg is going to be co-located with assault 2 or that pl might be co-located with both and be able to control both so those are typically the two squads that you can take radios from and reallocate to your security teams so on your objective you're gonna have a left security team and a right security team those security teams need to have those radios so they can communicate effectively with the pl throughout the entire operation all right so once we've distributed all those comms we've prepared our men weapons and equipment we feel confident that we got everything we need to go into that leader's recon we're going to start moving out towards our objective so we're going to play here we got our road and we're going to work through if we're conducting and under the assumption that we're doing a linear ambush today so we're going to move that leader's recon out of the 12 o'clock and the biggest thing we need to do here obviously is move through that platoon sergeant that platoon sergeant is going to position himself in a funnel-like formation typically with his medic where everyone has to move to his location we're going to move through him and he's going to count everyone out individually the key thing that the platoon leader is going to provide that platoon sergeant is that five-point contingency plan or that galwa so he's going to give those five contingencies when if anything happens and that platoon sergeant then is going to one disseminate that information to all personnel and help make sure that all personnel within the orp understand where the leader's recon is going and what they're doing all right so that leaders recon has departed they're going to move tactically to their initial point which is a release point all right so real fast let's talk about actions in the orp so that leader's recon is being conducted so actions in the orp that the platoon sergeant is going to begin conducting one very important thing is he's going to be conducting that ruck plan establishing that in the center making sure everything's organized and ready to go second he's going to be probably identifying a security team that is going to stay back and that security team does not have to come from the security squad but from assault 1 or assault 2 or wherever the pl designates it that's going to stay back and maintain security on that orp once they left lastly he's going to continue to improve security this leader's recon might be an hour and a half to two hour operation it could be a long-term thing depending on how how much time the pl has allocated this in his plan so they're going to be in a secure position for a long period of time what we got to do is identify you know dead space they got to do those range cards and all those things to identify where's their dead space at how do they best conduct their sectors of fire everything that goes into planning full security and operation sector sketches and such so if he does have some claymores back here that he can utilize still he can place those in as well to protect and protect that element from dead space so platoon started just taking care of all that and again yes he did lose all his squad leaders because all his squad leaders on the leaders recon but the platoon sergeant is effectively working with all the team leaders here from those assault 1 assault 2 and those machine gun teams so that squad leader correction that platoon leader has then moved to this release point staying in columns with the platoon sergeant he lets him know hey i'm at the release point my now my first step that i'm going to take is i'm going to pinpoint that objective all right so what the pl is going to do is he's going to move forward with his rto and a two-man team from his security squad so that security squad leader is going to give up two personnel typically the best personnel that we want to use for this is a saw gunner a 249 gunner and also a grenadier with a three two three two mike or three two zero mike uh uh grenade launcher they're going to move forward and they're going to place they're going to pinpoint the objectives so they're going to identify the road identify that they see where the road's at and a good spot for it and they're going to put in what's called their sno or your surveillance and observation point all right so that's surveillance and observation point i'm going to cancel erase this and just put so is that location where we can place that saw gunner and that grenadier where they can maintain eyes on the objective at all times and the reason we do this is because we want someone to have eyes on that kill zone so in here when he's placing his sno team that pl is identifying yep i see the objective i see where a good kill zone is i see where i want my left and right limit of that hey sno team in place here maintain eyes on the objective maintain eyes on my kill zone and let me know if anything changes also what that sno team provides and why we use a saw gunner and a grenadier is that that provide firepower in case something happens during the leader's recon on the objective they can then use conduct suppressive fires both direct and indirect that allow people to break contact off that objective all right so we got our sno team in place maintaining eyes on from here now let me move this road out a little bit from here now the pl's main priority once he's identified where the objective is is he needs to now identify where the assault element needs to go and the support element so that's the key part you got three main key parts to that ambush you have security assault and support a lot of times what i see people doing especially cadets is they move up to the objective and they say oh yep there's the road i see the objective okay i'll probably put assault over there i'll probably put support over there good to go man let's head back all right obviously that's not an effective leader's recon and people have not identified where they want individual bodies all right that's lazy so we need to use to allocate the time this is the most important part of any single operation is that leaders recon so allocate the time properly this should be the longest part of your operation okay so he's placed in the sno team now when he needs to do before he doctrinally declaring the ranger handbook before he can go in and recon his assault and his support by fire positions that pl has to establish full security in that objective okay so there's two ways to do this and a lot of it is time dependent all right what the ranger handbook says that the pl in places his security that's what the ranger handbook says it does not necessarily say that the pl personally walks security to each location and establishes them now the pl feels that he has the adequate time available yeah great opportunity for him to actually physically walk security to the left and walk security to the right and then place them however a lot of times we don't have the time to do that so trust that security squad leader and give him your intent at that release point show him on the map where you want his security to go to the left give him a good description on the right according to the map do some terrain analysis make sure they can see around curves make sure they can see over hills if we got this road coming this way and it curves out this way obviously i don't want visibility to start right there i want visibility to start on the back side of this road so i want people looking out that way so the point is is do some critical thinking about where you want that security to be don't just say hey man go establish right side security or go establish left side security you need to critically think where you want that security to be in place and really what you need to provide them is intent on what and where you want them to be able to observe okay so let's say the pl only has about an hour to recon he doesn't feel he has the adequate time available so he makes a call he says hey security squad leader i want security to be in place to the left and right this is where i want them to be this is where i want them to be able to deserve he gives them everything they need okay he then moves back and gives he gives that sno team this is their gatwa so they know what to do if they're if contact happens moves back gives the direction to the securities squad leader and then security to the left goes and in places so we got left side security over here in placing he tells the same thing to the right and they go in place to the right side security all right once they in place they call back their grid they call back what they can see the pl ensures all right that he can that those security teams can see what he wants them to see and they can observe what he wants them to observe all right sop's time what i like to do as well is i usually got about a three-man team on the left a three-man team on the right and then that security squad leader moves forward and establishes himself with the sno team the reason why i like to do that is because now i have an sno team with a security squad leader so that security squad has a radio remember the left side security has a radio and the right side security has a radio so now i have eyes on the left eyes on the right eyes on the center encompassing that entire objective and they can all talk back and forth to each other and they can all communicate with the pl directly so i think that's the best setup for an objective a lot of times what people do on the sop side what people do is they leave that security squad leader back in the orp and they take his squad from him and basically throw him on the objective i believe in making that squad leader that security squad leader responsible for securing the objective empowering him and giving him control of that that way the pl doesn't have to worry about it all and he's monitoring that the whole time okay once security is in place to left to right and i am confident that the objective is secure then and only then as the pl and i am i able to start um conducting my reconnaissance of my assault and support positions according to ranger handbook i cannot recon those on a deliberate ambush i cannot recon those until security is set and i'm and i'm confirmed that that's true okay so i've confirmed that's true i'm then going to move uh to my assault and support position so that obviously this is terrain dependent i don't know exactly what it's going to look like but i probably have a decent idea so let's say i go and move up and i begin to cloverleaf to the left to the right again conducting that recon all right the biggest the best way and the reason why we do that clove relief again is it's harder for someone to see you if you're walking slowly towards them and the environment's not changing whereas if you're moving side to side the environment is changing constantly around you and it's easier to identify you so moving out moving in moving out moving in and you're looking to identify that support by fire position all right again on this one it's up to you as the pl who you want to take to your left and to the right in my opinion the best leadership recons are where a squat a platoon leader takes all four squad leaders with him or correction all three squad leaders with him his support and his two assault squad leaders that way those assault squad leaders can see where the support is they can see their view their fields of hire and observation and same with support support can see where the assault elements are going to move through the objectives so they can better provide suppressive fires to them i think this is the best way to do it and the most successful operations i've seen at ranger school and at advanced camp and i think in real life is where all those squad leaders see where everyone's at and they can effectively you know really manage themselves better because they know all right at this time the pl doesn't even need to do that much talking those squad leaders can actually identify where they're going to be and they can talk it out so let's say they move all four of them to the left and they identify hey this is a great area for our support by fire position this is where we're going to place our guns great again all the squadrons can sit there and talk they get down on the ground they actually see the line that those 240s are going to look through and they identify hey this is where i want my stuff all right every single person sees it the assault or the weapons squad leader feels confident that all the weapons will be able to move there effectively and occupy the positions all right so they move back all the way back to that sno position all right that's checking with him again give him another um another gatwa and say okay we identified that support by fire position to the left we're now going to move to the right all right so now they go this way and they identify where they want their assault positions again what i'm going to call it is it's one assault position but it might encompass two assault squads this is where it comes into how you want to do your operation and it depends on the size of the objective you might say hey i got an assault position here in a salt position here my assault 1 is going to go there and my assault 2 is going to go there and they're going to both assault through the objective you might identify on the operation that hey there's only enough room due to the terrain and in the surrounding area there's only enough room for one squad so hey i'm only going to have a salt one here and assault two i'm going to keep you at the release point or assault two i might even leave you back at the orp as a reserve all right there's different ways to allocate your squads you basically have these elements and you can use them as you see fit for today what we're gonna do is we're gonna pretend like we don't have a reserve we don't have the need for a reserve so we're going to say we identified that hey we have a large kill zone we're expecting a potentially large enemy force so we want as many weapons oriented on that objective as possible so we're going to have an assault 1 squad and assault two squad all on the line okay so we identified that the weapons squad leader was also able to see where these guys are again what these guys are doing is they're defining their different areas of operation defining where they're going to set in those squad leaders are looking and finding individual finding positions getting down making sure they can see making sure they have fields of fire all right and observation of the objective itself of that kill zone that was defined by the pl and the objective all right another thing what they're doing all those squad leaders is their thought they're talking through trps they're making target reference points on the objective where maybe that support by fire position it can start firing and you have a tree on the backside that's trp1 you have a tree on the backside here trp2 over here you have trp3 and they're talking about different control measures maybe to begin the attack those weapons are going to be firing between both trps then maybe we'll call a shift fire all right and these weapons will only fire between trp2 and trp3 and then once a1 and a2 assault 1 salt 2 begin moving through the objective all right they'll be lifting fires and completely or now lift and cease fire are documented the same thing they will be can quit firing on the objective so they're talking through all these contingencies all these different control measures everything that they're going to be doing on the objective and they all understand where their different kill zones are where their different aiming points are everything down to the lowest detail all right again on here i'm kind of working on the assumption right now that we might not have fires however if we do have fires all right and we have a forward observer or that pl is playing those fires he's integrating that into the plan as well we're putting in targets maybe on the back side to remove to help us withdraw or to deny enemy withdrawal all right we're putting targets on the kill zone if we want to help that initiate the ambush and we think we'll be far far enough away we're using those integrated with the plan as well all right so a lot of times you may not get the opportunity to use targets on the battlefield but if you do definitely incorporate them all right as this is all going on something that's left security and rights to side security is continuing to do they're continuing to improve their position as well okay so they might have a security established but if they have that claymore they might move forward and position a claymore near the road where they can effectively stop enemy movement of the objective all right when i say stop i mean block or prevent so once the pl feels confident that they've identified that support by fire and both assault positions they're then going to move back to that sno position and they're going to leave agawa with that security squad leader so they're going to talk to him and say hey security squad leader we identified our support and our assault positions we feel confident that we know we can hit this objective you are now in charge its objective please maintain security on here and let us know if anything on the objective changes obviously that's why we keep eyes on if something changes on the objective if a tank rolls in if we see an enemy platoon roll in things are going to change and we're going to have to you know either move off the objective or we're going to have to request request more assets to effectively destroy the enemy all right so we're going to move which remain of that leader's recon should be the pl the rto and those four squad leaders that element is going to move back to the orp all right they're going to move through that platoon sergeant that platoon sergeant again is going to make a funnel and count them in all right once they get back to that orp there's some key things that are happening there all right again if we're doing any if we need any additional prep of men weapons and equipment now that we've seen the objective when we've seen what's going on that's got to happen also what we need to do is we need to disseminate information that we saw on the objective you know maybe the objective looks a little different than we originally planned maybe we thought we were going to do the actions on the objective out of l shape and now it actually makes more sense to do a linear shape whatever has changed we need to make sure we draw that out we do our quick terrain model we do whatever we need to do to disseminate that information down to the lowest soldier on the line so they all know the changes and what the attack is going to look like now okay once we got that all disseminated we're ready to actually execute actions on the objective we're going to begin moving towards the objective so we're going to get up as a platoon all right and we're going to move forward to that objective so we'll move forward through the platoon sergeant again and we're going to move to that release point what i'm going to do at that release point is i'm going to establish a short haul or a short security halt and put everyone there all right at that point i'm then going to go talk to the security squad leader i may physically move to that security squad there position i may not if i have good comms with him and i feel confident that he has positive eyes on still i may be good there but what i need to do is get a quick situation report from him identify what has changed on the objective has anything changed on the objective do you feel that we're still set up for success he's likely going to tell you yes set up for success good to go all right and so then we're going to say roger let's continue with the operation all right so the first element from this point that now goes on to the objective is going to be that support by fire squad which is going to be your weapon squad okay so that weapon squad leader is going to move through that release point and he's going to move and in place his support by fire position all right so we have that weapon squad there now that is a pretty a pretty large operation all right he's gonna have to set in his tripods with his ag's his assistant gunners and he's then gonna have to put his guns on all right which sounds easy but it actually takes a lot of work especially to set up the correct metal to metal on those tripods the biggest thing that he needs to do is the moment he gets to that point he needs to put both of his guns down on bipods once they're done on bipods now we at least have suppressive fires that can already we have those two weapons that can provide suppressive fire on the objective all right at no time should both guns not be focused on the objective and trying to fiddle into the tripods only one goes into the tripod at a time so that we have at least one gun able to suppress uh that objective at all times all right so once those tripods get set up we can then hook the guns in one at a time so one's always focused all right things to think through here as well is talking through how we're going to feed that belt of ammunition into the 240 is it laying in the dirt do we lay out ponchos underneath the guns so the rounds rest on the ponchos you know how are we doing this to keep this the best operation we can and to keep the grounds clean all right so we just need to think through that again that's more sop driven on your unit but what i recommend is making sure you don't have rounds laying in the dirt feeding into the into the gun all right once we are confident that the support by fire position is in and its fires are going to be oriented towards the objective and they're ready to roll all right then that assaulting element made up of one squad two squads however you've made it they can start moving into their position okay and the reason we always put in the support support by fire position first is so that we have a element with two large machine guns that can suppress the objective all right in case those assaulting elements who are typically going to try and get closer to the objective they may come in contact with the enemy and if they do we have a large element that can suppress so that they can break content out the objective that comes in a little more play and it's a little bit more important on a raid but it also applies to the ambush all right so that pl along with those assault squad leaders goes in and helps them set in place salt one and the salt two all right once they're in place now and again they're in place very deliberately those squad leaders are likely telling each individual soldier where to go or really they're telling their team leader hey team leader i want your four men at these four trees hey alf bravo team leader i want your forming these four trees very deliberate occupation of this and the pl is there likely behind it all right so let's talk real fast about plpsg all right doctrinally according the ranger handbook the pl and the psg can go wherever they want to go during this operation they don't have to go into the consistent where you've always heard the pl always has to go with the assault and the psg always is with the weapons all right different practices different ways to do it i still recommend i think it's actually a very wise thing for the pl to be with the assault because then he has highs on the foremost forward element of what's going on another way to do it though is he can be somewhere else where he has better visibility of the kill zone to initiate the ambush two ways i've seen it done a lot of people put the platoon sergeant up here with the weapon squad all right but again remember that weapon squad leader is your most senior squad leader and he also has a radio and has communications so another thing which you can do which i like to do if i'm taking two squads in the objective is i put the pl with the assault one i put the psg with assault two again if you only had one squad here and you left your assault two back in the rear as a reserve then yeah by default the plasmas aren't just going to probably go with the weapon squad and beat that support by fire but this is a set that i've used before and i've had success with it um but again there is no doctrinal place for them to be it is based on your decision based you know based on the circumstances and the environment that you're in okay so throughout here wherever the pl wants to as well he's setting up claymores if he wants his assault squad to set up the clay more so he has control over it here that's fine if he wants claymore set up here by support by fire with them having control that's fine but again the main thing is that we have to plan that when enemy moves into our kill zone excuse me when the enemy moves into our kill zone we are going to destroy them right away with the most casual producing weapon that is the standard that is doctrine the most casualty producing weapon so that means claymores if you have them number one you could potentially argue an at4 if the enemy is mounted all right after that is the 240 bravo and then after that is a personal weapon of some kind or maybe it's a saw but the point is is that a lot of people these days are really scared to initiate ambushes with open bolt weapons and they try and teach that that's not correct and in fact that is is that is wrong initiating an ambush with an open bolt weapon is still acceptable it just means you better clean your weapons and make sure they're ready to fire alright so now that our ambush is set we'll probably call up to higher let them know that our ambush is established and we're ready to go all right the biggest role at this time that right side security and left side security have on this objective is that they are they are there to provide early warning to the pl they are there to let them know that if enemy is moving on the subjective from the right all right one what's the direction of travel how big are they um do they have any potential secondary elements a lot of times what smart enemy forces will do is they send forward a reconnaissance element of two to three personnel and you know and then 400 meters back you have their main body which is a full you know two squad element or something so what those security squads or that security element on left and right have to make sure they do is they're trying to identify the enemy's main body not just the first enemy to walk by them all right so once they've identified that let's say they're moving in from the right all right he calls the pl pl is tracking hey enemy is moving in from the right it's eight eight individuals with smaller arms i believe that this is their main body i assess this their main body pl says roger make sure that information is disseminated throughout the entire platoon all right once that enemy moves into the kill zone and use a black marker to look at the enemy here once that enemy moves into the kill zone and hits a specific trp at the petuna that the platoon leader has defined they're going to initiate the ambush again they're going to initiate with that claymore or a 240 or an at4 if it's if it's a mounted that most casualty producing weapon so they're going to initiate fire on that enemy all right again now there's no defined way to fire here there's no defining like hey it's 30 seconds everyone firing and then everyone stops and we do a reassessment it's based on the pl on his assessment of the objective but for sure again that support by fire is likely firing through all these trps all right that assault 1 and assault 2 are also firing doing their best to provide crossing fires inflating fires along that objective and making sure that we have ultimate crossfire to kill all those individuals all right once we're confident that the enemy on the objective is destroyed and that they're killed we then are going to look into uh beginning to assault this objective so what i'll say is on a linear objective i'm going to redraw this real fast on a linear objective or linear ambush a lot of times we may not have to shift fires but we're always going to have to lift our cease fires so we're going to begin assaulting through this objective all right at some point we're going to shift if necessary and at some point for certain most likely our last covered and concealed position right here we're going to lift fires as well as ceasefires our salting elements are they're going to move to the backside they'll assault through this objective and move to the back side all right they want to move to the last or the first covered in concealed position past 35 meters so they want this distance from the kill zone to be at least 35 meters and the reason is that's the hand grenade throwing range all right so we're going to get outside that range and we're going to establish what we call that limit of advance all right so they're going to call their loa all right now if we're doing a squat attack or sorry a platoon attack a lot of times we have that assault element moving through and we have another element moving down through it as well all right here a lot of times especially with the linear ambush we only have one element assaulting through the objective and reaching that loa all right because it doesn't really do us any good to have this support by fire or two machine guns assault into the objective so once they've moved the opposite objective they're calling the loa there's specific steps they're doing now the one is establishing security so what they're doing is they're looking down those flanks and making sure they got security down the road this way and security down the road this way and likely what they're doing is we're moving our saws to either side so we have sufficient firepower looking down the road neither side okay obviously keeping in mind where the right and left side security actual elements are to make sure that we don't have you know potential for fracture side once that's complete all right team leaders are moving along and getting those lace reports so we're getting lace reports again liquid ammo casualties equipment making sure we're up on all identifying what we're black on all right and once we got that then the pl wants to start working about additional security on the objective so the main thing that he's going to be doing first is identifying those enemy epws all right so he's calling in his epw teams his enemy prisoner war search teams clearing the search teams okay again that's up to the pl how many of those teams he wants to have typically we have two we have a primary and alternate and usually we're gonna call them both especially if we have eight or nine enemy kias so what they're going to do is they're going to identify those enemy kias and they're going to move them off to the side of the road they're going to make sure they don't stay in the center of the road because this road is still a linear danger area where someone could look down the entire road a mile out and likely identify friendly forces on the road so we're going to drag those off to the side of the road and make sure they're cleared okay we are not going to search them right away the point is we need to clear them all right so we can do other actions on that objective as well until we clear all those enemy epw's all right that objective is not clear that objective is still seen as hostile so once we clear all those epw's all right then we can start working on other priorities of work so once they're all clear we can then call in our aid and litter if we have other friendly casualties or we can call in something else that we need to get done on the objective all right and then once they're clear those epw teams can begin searching and actually looking to identify pir you know anything with you know maps combo equipment any seaburn anything like that that we've identified as pr of our objective so we've got epw here working on searching and calling out all right there's a lot of different ways to do it there's black and gold ways i'm not going to go in depth on epw and searches here but they're doing epw operations all right aiden litter let's say there's a ccp here and there's any friendly aid in litter they've moved to this location all right and they're prepping them for if they need a medevac they're prepping them for either ground or helicopter or air medevac of some fashion all right objective's looking messy now there's lots going on that pl is calling up reports he's letting higher know what's going on he's letting higher no any initial things that they found the number of enemy pows that they have live or killed he's identifying all this information and relaying it up right but the most important thing that's on his head is a ticking time of when they got the objective so that rto typically or someone else that's been identified is calling out time they've been on the objective a lot of times you know different units have different standards you know the standard that we used at ranger school was seven minutes you don't like to be on an ambush site for more than seven minutes because there might be another enemy force nearby or there might be someone else that is able to counter attack and try and move to that location so we want to get on and off this objective as soon as possible again we have a planned withdrawal here okay so we finished epw operations we finished all eight litter operations and now it's time to move off the objective so let me try and organize this a little better real quick all right so we got our salt 1 our salt 2 here all right we've got our support over here something i want to bring up as well that our support can do as our support can easily move down to the road and put those two 40s on the road as well you know one facing up this way and one facing up this way so they can actually provide more security on the road so they don't have to be standing back here but that is at the pl's discretion all right so once it's time to move out the objective all right according to ranger handbook we move off the objective in reverse order that we occupied it so we use some type of sop that we have to withdraw the objective all right the best way that i've seen is using code names for different people getting off so most importantly though the pl communicates to his platoon sergeant and says hey man we're about to move up this objective it's time what do you think platoon sergeant agrees says yeah roger let's move off the platoon sergeant then centers himself at a point on the objective all right a lot of times it says he can go to the release point in my opinion especially during periods of darkness or nighttime operations it is hard to find that platoon sergeant unless he's at a very easy identifiable location to find so i like him being somewhere right on the edge of the objective he puts himself there with the medic all right and he says pl we're ready to do it all right so the pl the platoon sergeant whatever they do within their platoon calls that first withdrawal code name something we do here at the university of iowa is we use red white blue all right so we use red red so red is the last people that occupy that objective so this is this entire assault element salt one and salt two they're gonna move and move through the platoon sergeant okay the platoon sergeant is going to count them off the objective they can either move to the release point or they can move all the way back to the orp it's kind of dependent again on the pl's discretion what i would say is that time at periods of darkness night time i would definitely have them halt at the release point during daylight operations if you feel confident with them yeah maybe they can move all the way back to the orp but definitely during the night only go back to the least point or else you're going to lose someone i guarantee it all right so they move back to this point let's say occupy a secure location there all right then he says once all them off and they've been counted boom red sorry he said red he's going white next going white all right that's support whether they're on the objective now or they're still on that location here they're gonna move through the platoon sergeant that whole support element is gonna move through the platoon sergeant and move back and occupy a section of that security hole at the release point all right and then lastly is blue on blue two things are happening on blue that security squad is moving in through the platoon sergeant i say security squad i also mean that security element that was out there in the left and right and lastly anything that was identified if we have weapons we got radios anything that the enemy had that we don't want that is the time for the demo team to plant their charges and to blow it all right so they they plant their charges they blow and the pl says roger and the demo team and the pl move to the platoon sergeant and go back to the release point as well platoon sergeant and medic follow them and now we basically have a little security hole at the release point ready to go back to the orp and pick up our rucks all right we move back to the orp we pick up our rucks we can either decide to stay there hang out there call uh hire for guidance to move to a patrol base to move to another operation whatever it may be or maybe we've already defined that from this location we have a patrol base down this way 800 meters and we begin movement there the moment we pick up those rocks all right so that's kind of how the operation ends uh again one of the most the two biggest things here is that leaders recon and then something that makes this go to crap is your withdrawal off the objective you can see kind of how messy it looks i was trying to draw it the best way i could but the point is is that if you do not have a very systematic approach with some type of code words that everyone understands a standardized way it doesn't have to be red white blue it could be another way but if you don't have that systematic approach implanted with or implemented with every single person understanding what every single word means it's going to go to crap all right so make sure you have that approach defined that systematic approach to find in an sop for your specific unit so i think that pretty much covers platoon point ambush i went into a lot of detail on some specific things but i think that'll help you if you brief at this level detail especially at advanced camp i think it's going to serve you very well if you have this level of understanding you're going to be able to conduct this operation especially when things are thrown at you at last minute you're going to understand the intent of each individual piece and understand how important that use recon as well is to support the main operation so the purpose of today's lesson was to demonstrate a doctrinally sound way to conduct that platoon ambush a platoon point ambush and i hope you guys enjoyed it i hope it helps i hope it wasn't too messy again this is captain justin de leon from the university of iowa rangers lead the way