Transcript for:
Overview of Patrol Base Operations

lesson is to go over a doctrinally sound way to occupy a patrol base and then to conduct the priorities of work inside a patrol base we're going to use two references for today atp 3-21.8 infantry platoon and squad tc3-21.76 uh the ranger handbook year 2017. this is gonna be the majority of what we're gonna be using for today okay so we're going over platoon operations our correction for uh platoon patrol base operations so what are some reasons we might move into a patrol base patrol base is really a re-fit area or resting area that we're waiting for further on our operations and there's two main ways i like to think about it so either we're coming off of an operation let's say we just completed an ambush and now we move back to an orp and we need to move off to another location to establish a patrol base for the night and maybe we're going to do a future operation or maybe we just need to get through the night until we have extraction uh sometime the following morning or potentially we're infilling during the night in order to do some operations in the next couple days so it could be kind of from a secure location moving to a patrol base or moving from an objective after we just hit it whether it would be an ambush raid or recon or whatever okay so that's the purpose and really it's a time to rest a time to eat a time to refit you know maintain our weapons get everything ready for future operations a lot of times it's just basically a holding place for a period in time especially if it's too dark or too vegetated to move and we just need to sit down and rest okay so we're going to go over the key things again we want to make sure we're tracking we're using our four squad layout and a platoon so just to get that down we have our security squad we have our assault one we have our assault two and then we have our weapon squad so for today's lesson we're going to work under the assumption that we just complete an ambush so we just got off an ambush we moved back to our orp and now we're moving towards our predetermined patrol base location a lot of times hire is going to give you this location again it does not mean that you have to be in that specific place but that's in a location or an area geographically that's going to set you up for your follow-on operations or your follow-on mission or you're you know moving out of the ao back to friendly lines okay so we're moving now let's say this direction we're moving east okay and what we're going to do is the only way to occupy a patrol base is deliberately so that includes a recon it's very similar similar to the deliberate occupation of an orp there's just a queue a few small differences so let's talk about it so we're moving this direction as a platoon so here's our platoon column at the pl the psg i'm not going to draw out every single person in this element but we're moving to the west okay what we're going to do is we're going to conduct our security hole and we're going to take that cigar shaped security hole all right with this being our 12 and this being our six our squads will push out and pull security 360 you know rough 360 security and from here now we're going to go ahead and do our leader's recon of that patrol base now of note typically in day light situations we want our security halt to be 200 to 400 meters away from our patrol base location all right during night time or also time of limited visibility we're gonna shorten that distance to 100 to 200 meters that makes sense so basically obviously we want to be closer if we can't if we have low visibility and low visibility doesn't have to mean darkness it could mean wearing lots of vegetation uh so we can't see very far that way uh fog could be you know early morning whatever it may be um but anything it's up to the pl to make that uh decision okay so we're going to move out and connect to recon so we got to decide now who is on the reconnaissance of this mission all right so i'll go ahead and mark this hour up here so who is on our leader's recon and of note this does not change for establishment orp is either it is exactly the same so our leaders recon we need our pl and our rto pretty straightforward and obvious right we also need our weapon squad leader commonly referred to as the weasel all right he's going to be the guy that manages that position and then we need three men from his squad and doctrinally we take the ammo bearers the abs so doctrinally according to the ranger handbook we take three abs these are going to be our placeholders for the triangle formation that we do at the patrol base okay lastly we need our alpha team leader otherwise known as our point man all right he's the guy that's typically planned the route he knows the way we need to take him there and take him back with us all right and then lastly we have a saw gunner and a rifleman all right those do not have to come from a specific squad they can come from wherever the pl decides i typically take them from the security squad but there's no right answer there it can come from any other squad okay so according to ranger handbook this is who's going on the leaders recon okay so they're to head out and they're obviously going to get counted out by the medic and the platoon sergeant all right who's going to physically count them out and also the pl is going to leave them at galway that five-point contingency plan where they're going others they're taking with them time they're going to be gone what to do if they come back don't come back on time action on contact all that good stuff okay gonna leave that with them as they leave the platoon sergeant and the medic are gonna move back into this formation to that security hole and they're gonna do a few things they're definitely going to maintain security and likely improve security place claim wars if they have dead space whatever they need to do and also they need to disseminate the galway to everyone in the uh in the element so everyone's on tracking what's going on how long they should expect to wait everything like that okay so they're moving back our corrections so they're moving out to that patrol base location okay so this is a key difference between occupying a patrol base you occupying an orp when we're occupying a patrol base we do a 90 degree turn at a specific point before moving to the patrol base and so what that looks like is we literally move out we find a position and we conduct a halt there okay and probably the best type of hole to use here is a seals hole all right stop look listen smell listen for that enemy all right it's trying to smell if anything's going on around you and here if there's any activity going on okay once we're confident that no enemy has followed us uh there's nothing going on the area we're gonna leave that lpop here so lpop stands for listening post observation post so we're gonna leave an element there all right we gotta leave uh we're leaving that saw gunner and that rifleman all right those are the two personnel that were leaving there at that point all right i'm going to backtrack one second and i want to talk about real fast actions going on here in the leaders recalling all right before the leader's recon leaves just like any other leader's recon we need to prep the men weapons and equipment okay and so um unlike other operations there's not as much cross leveling that has to happen but the key thing that does have to happen is we got to make sure that this lpop has been cross-leveled or radio they gotta have comms all right so we can take it we need to take a radio from one of our squad leaders and give it to the lpop all right probably not the weapons squad leader because the weapon squad leader's gonna have to have comms up there as well but this lpop has to be cross-loaded radio so that probably comes from your assault one or your assault two given to them all right once we place that lpop the pl is then going to leave them again five point contingency plan and then take a 90 degree turn and move towards the patrol base okay they're going to move towards a patrol base all right and they're gonna form a six o'clock okay likely at that six o'clock you're going to do another seals hold because you want to make sure there's no enemy in the area again all right so here we got the other one else we used the saw gunner we used the rifleman we got the rest of these guys all right and so what they got to do now before we just occupy this patrol base and start taking up positions is we got to clear it we got to make sure that we're confident that there's no enemy in the area there hasn't been any enemy in the area and that there's nothing there that's could be potentially dangerous to to our operations all right so again we want to make this triangle formation is what it optimally is going to look like so we got a 2 here we got a 10 all right so we typically use these positions the 6 the 2 and the 10. all right so there's two ways to clear i should say there's really there's one doctrinally way to clear a patrol base and there's one way that works well as also okay so the doctrinal doctrinally sound way is the group moves to the 12 they move to the 9 they move to the three and they move back down to the six and this way they clear the patrol base area okay while doing so they're dropping off an a b at the 10 and an a b at the two as placeholders okay so they're doing that the other way which also works quite well and which can work even better i think in times of limited visibility is this whole element you have here you lose recon gets online you put an a b on one side you put an a b on the other side and they literally walk across in a line clearing that way and this way you can manage hey i want this side the 10 and the two to be 50 meters long because you know the size of your patrol base maybe you want it smaller because it's darker you want it wider because it's lighter out you need to be more spread out whatever you want you can put it in place right here and then move them up and so that's also an advantage to doing it this way as well so either way however you decide to clear your set ends up looking like you have an a b at the ten the two and the six okay so now we still got the weasel the pl rto and he got his alpha team leader his point man all right they're they're what's left okay so once we've identified where these guys are now the p on the rto they in the in the alpha team leader they're ready to move back to the platoon okay and let them know uh and get them up and moving to occupy the patrol base the weapons squad leader is going to remain and stay in charge he will be in charge of the patrol base while the pl leaves all right so obviously again we got to make sure he has comms can i do that weapons check okay so on this a key check that we need to do is make sure while we're doing our recon that we have good columns and i don't mean that by physically he has radios i'm talking about radio checks so we need to make sure in this position that we can contact higher and talk with higher and we need to also make sure that we got contact with the lpop and the platoon sergeant back in the security hold okay if we get all the way to this patrol base all right and we have no comms we can't talk to hire we cannot occupy that position we will fail what if in the middle of the night higher tries to call us it has a huge frag go hey you're no longer doing a recon on this objective you're doing a raid on another objective and we can't get that message it's going to be bad so communications is vital do not forget to do a radio check on your recon and then get there and get established and all of a sudden you find out holy holy crap i can't talk to anyone okay very important video check okay now again the pl and rto atl they're going to move back so they're going to go back to the lpop again they'll leave a galwa with the weapons squad leader they'll move back to the lpop they'll call the lp on the radio hey we're moving your position and then when we get close to the lpop they're going to use that challenge and password during patrol based operations that challenge and password becomes very very important especially during periods of darkness do not forget it all right okay so they move through they move through the lpop and then uh to use a challenging password they leave them a gatwa and say hey we're gonna go back and get the rest of the platoon we'll be here shortly all right they move back they call the platoon sergeant hey platoon sergeant we're on the way get everyone ready and prep to move they get back if they need to brief any additional information maybe something changed in the original plan they'll brief them up otherwise they're going to pick up and move okay so they're going to move to this lpop all right pl will it call the opiop let them know we're on the way notice how every single time we're moving from position to position we're calling on the radio first and then we're doing that challenging password it's it's basically far side recognition and then near side recognition okay so once we get to the lpop we call a short halt there okay now it also depends on this distance if this distance is 100 meters then you know we we could do some other things so basically what i'm getting at here is um there's going to be a couple ttps here that i'm going to put forth so if you look at the ranger handbook it just says the pl grabs the platoons the platoon and then they occupy the patrol base it doesn't give descriptions of how the proper way to do that okay and there's several different ways that you can do it but i'm going to give you a grid a good way a good ttp that works okay no matter what the way you do it here's the key the key is it must be incredibly systematic and incredibly organized and simplistic okay if you just let things happen it's gonna fail it's gonna be a huge cluster on this area okay so it must be systematic it must be organized and there must be a like a specific way to do things okay so i'm gonna show you a way that i do it that i think works pretty effectively okay so if this was 100 meters i'll send one squad at a time let's say we had to move longer distances i can send multiple squads but the point is is from the lpop up to the patrol base the way i like to do it is only one squad is moving and occupying at a time so what this looks like is i got one squad they move forward in a file to the lpop at the lpop they're stopped by the opioid and they're told to stand by okay and the weasel right here can play a very key part the lpop lets the weasel know hey we've got a squad the first squad ready to move in he says roger send them to me so they send him this direction to that six o'clock the weasel waves them in and then is gonna literally lead them into the patrol base again this is not doctrinal it is a method you can just let them find their way in and meet doctrine but the point is is that i've seen a lot of people very intelligent people move into a patrol base and just get lost immediately all right it is very difficult to occupy a patrol base without knowing you being personally i've been there before knowing where the two in the tent is especially at night at night it's next to impossible you really need someone to lead you in and that is the best method that i've found from doing this so that weasel literally leads them in and again they're gonna occupy from the six they're gonna walk all the way to the two and they're gonna walk to the ten and that first squad is gonna occupy right here okay the best way that i like to occupy are somewhat in strong point positions so i like having two men there two men there two men there two men there and now i got basically my alpha team and my bravo team but they're together because they can work together then they one you know eventually on the priorities of work one can be on security while one sleeps or eats food or one's on security ones connected weapons maintenance whatever it is it makes that very simple so i like having strong points in that way all right so once the weasel has gotten them all in okay he then comes back and he's gonna pick up again this squad just went in right so the next squad then gets called forward and is standing by at the lpop he comes back to the six and says hey lpop i'm ready for the next squad el piopi says roger i'm sending him he sends him forward he leads him in again and this time he leads him in between the 10 and the two and they occupy this side all right lastly the last squad comes in once the weasel comes back and says hey send the last squad he moves and they occupy from the six to the ten there we go okay now we also in there is our weapon squad when the weapon squad gets there the weasel will then place each individual weapon system all right again we only have two 240s it kind of is built for a three machine gun set so we have to assume risk at one of the apexes it doesn't matter which one i typically just to make is easy i standardize i make a 240 bravo here a 240 bravo at this apex and i put a 249 saw at this apex and so basically i borrow this 249 saw from another squad and then we just rotate through the squads through the night or whatever of who's supplying that 249. okay once we're here pl psg they set up their headquarters in the center all right lpop stays out listening post observation post stays out all right they can look to occupy different terrain if they think they need to you know if we're still struggling with comms a little bit they can try and move to some high ground to establish comms but they got to basically remain there to have eyes on to make sure no one's following us in no one's operating in the area and make sure that we stay within communications with higher all right so our entire platoon now has moved into the patrol base all right this is what i call occupied we have now occupied the patrol base we are physically there all right however we are not established okay established means that security is set all right we got to have security set before we do it so um now we go into working through that all right the last thing before we can start working security and when i say security it's easy to say hey yeah there's a 90 chance we're pretty much secure but when i talk about a security plan it means you are 100 confident that there is not a single hole in your security all right and we're going to talk about that here in a sec all right last thing we do is now the pl is going to sell send out his rns teams all right so r s teams they have really really one role to do they're trying to confirm la you know finally confirm that this is a good spot for our patrol base okay i didn't quite mention it on the recon portion but there's some things that are that their patrol base needs to have all right there's a lot of things actually so if you look at the ranger handbook i'm going to read some read some here it's going to sound like there's a million things but basically you want to select train the enemy probably will not consider as to having tactical value select terrain that is against main or is a that is off main lines of drift select terrain that is difficult to impede uh foot movement areas of dense vegetation all right select terrain near water select rain that can be defended select terrain that is does not have known enemy positions not built up areas avoid ridges and hilltops avoid small valleys avoid roads and trails basically you can't have a patrol base anywhere all right that's a joke anyways the point is is that they're we're trying to get something across here okay so there's three things that can be boiled down to three things so when selecting our patrol base location i want to mention this all right there's three things we need to do so one we need to be near water okay we don't always expect that we're going to have resupply so we've got to be near water so we can do that water resupply operations okay two all right we gotta have columns we've got to have columns so we got to be able all right to talk to higher to talk to lower okay three little tactical value all right if you follow that fundamental it's going to go along with you know what we're trying to get across here so all right if you're by roads if you're bi populated areas that has tactical value all right those people that's influencing on people if you're you know um on a hilltop that obviously can have tactical value we're trying to stay away we're basically trying to get to a spot where no one would ever go the only reason they would go there is they accidentally get lost in the woods and they literally walk into our position all right and that's the purpose behind all those details again you can reference that in the ranger handbook but that's what it's trying to get across all right okay so these r s teams are gonna go confirm all this confirm that we're meeting that intent all right now every patrol base is gonna have to mitigate risk in some way you're never gonna find the perfect spot but you can do your best all right so r s teams three two man teams so typically a two-man team from here from this squad a two-man team from this squad a two-man team from this squad they're all going to move to the center okay each rns team all right i'm going to play rns here each rns team reconnaissance and surveillance team has to get their priorities from the platoon leader and really the platoon is going to tell him what he's looking for hey i'm looking for signs of enemy activity i'm looking for any roads i want to identify water there's supposed to be water down here i want to confirm that um you know hey i want you guys to really focus on dead space because i'm concerned about that off to our east you know whenever he's trying to really get across to them okay so the two man teams now are going to go out and do their rns patrols okay there's three ways to do this first of all the biggest thing is before they're sent out everyone on this line needs to be fully aware that they're going out in those rns patrols they must be tracking all right you're going to have six friendlies out there especially at nighttime you're going to have dudes in the line you know soldiers on the line that are trigger happy that maybe they're a little scared whatever it may be everyone needs to know and you need to be confident as the pl that everyone's tracking we got friendlies out there doing reconnaissance weapons tight weapons hold no pulling the triggers all right makes sense okay so rns is going to go out there's three methods according to ranger handbook to do this patrol to do this um to do this reconnaissance okay so i'm just going to say i'm i'm drawing out the 10 the two here so i got the 2 o'clock and i got the 10 o'clock all right right here i'm going to draw an example yeah i'll draw just like this okay so three methods first method we got the i all right so these rns teams they can exit the patrol base in any location all right they can exit wherever they want all right but basically i typically tell them to exit towards the center of their formation but they're going to go up over to the left over to the right back to the middle up left right middle back see it forms an i okay got the i method all right typically we ask them to go out 50 to 100 meters all right somewhere in there next we got the t method again i like starting the center when you move up you move left you move right you come back okay and then lastly you got the box so you move up do a little and draw a box there okay so they're going to go out there they're going to find that pir all right for their platoon leader and also if possible they're going to make a sketch of what they see all right which is very important okay so the reason we do these three methods specifically is typically we're doing patrol patrol based operations at night so it's very hard to see um we're in you know dense terrain dense vegetation um you know we want to make sure that we these guys don't get lost it's very easy we say hey go out there do some club release recon and come back people get lost so the reason we do these methods is you it's very easy uh to to manage where you are and to eliminate any potential getting lost what i mean by that watch i say hey i'm going to march out at this azimuth let's say it's a 360 degree azimuth i'm going to move out for 50 meters going to take a 90 degree turn and walk this way 25 meters then i'm going to do a 180 degree turn and walk back this way for 50 meters then i'm going to march back 25 and i'm going to march back 50. basically you can keep track the whole way with an azimuth and a pace count of where exactly you are and not get lost and you can do that with any all three of these methods and that's why we do that and that you know and this usually gets us around to all the areas to identify those things around the patrol base to make sure we're in a solid location okay once the platoon leader confirms with the use of his arne so the rns teams then they come back to the center and they brief the platoon leader what they found okay and they give him those drawings whatever they say he's that's when he decides for sure yes we're staying here this is the correct location this is a feasible patrol base location okay not until then that's when he makes it okay so once he decides that now we can start working on our priorities of work all right so let's list them out so pl puts out the information yep we're staying here this is the place okay so security always number one you're gonna find that um the ranger handbook lists these in a specific order some of these are happening happening simultaneously all right um they're not all happening at the same time but some of them are okay so security the biggest thing here is yes again it looks like we have security but we have to confirm 100 without a doubt that we have security and the way we do this is by doing sector sketches and range cards and so if you're doing this correctly each position makes their own sector sketch to confirm that these are all interlocking then each team makes their team sector sketch to make sure we're interlocking and then each squad does their sector sketch to make sure they're interlocking okay and these squads are all making sure that they're crossing here you know what i mean um all that stuff okay so each squad basically makes their own sector sketch and then brings it to the center all right where the platoon leader can sit down and draw out there's some great ttps out there i've seen them on youtube of how to make it where you have some cutouts where you make a little thing like this let me try and do it the best way i can kind of sound like this where this is like a piece of cardboard now this is a piece of cardboard and then this is a piece of cardboard and each squad draws their sector sketches on here and then they can be pieced together just a thought but look you can look that up online there's some great things there okay anyways the platoon leader is going to have to make his overall sector sketch all right so once he feels confident with that now he also has to look at the range cards the range cards point specifically to the machine guns sorry this is getting a little bit messy but the machine guns have to have their ranged cars all right showing what they're looking at okay and the key thing is identifying their fpl or their final protective line all right and the way the final protective lines work is like this so what you can see is again we want a patrol base to be easily defendable or a good defensive terrain but reality is it's not in a high tactical situation it's not at a tactically advantageous location so it's not always the best to defend so what in the end if if someone finds your patrol base you're in a bad spot you know it is what it is but we're going to do what we can to protect our location and we're going to make sure that no one can result through assault through our position so the real purpose that these machine guns hold is they make this wall of lead going basically in 360 around the patrol base and it goes 15 degrees off each side all right so that gun is oriented this direction there this direction here this direction here so that if someone were charging in this gun can open up and then literally just run into a wall of bullets and go down so if we have an element assaulting through this gun opens up its wall of bullets and it just disintegrates those guys is the intent once the pl confirms uh by spot checking now security is done boom so once security is done this is where you can establish your patrol base this is where you can call the hire and say higher this is lower i am established all right and keep going through your um through your priorities of work okay so number two we got our withdrawal plan and all this is is simply making a plan a contingency of hey if something goes bad these are some locations we can go according to ranger handbook your withdrawal plan can take you to a new orp or it can just take you straight to a new patrol base operation and typically what we see is we see what's called black and gold our black and gold plan where a patrol base won our alternate patrol base one and alternate patrol base two all right and they're supposed to basically be 180 degrees off each other so if black patrol base is that way to 300 meters my gold patrol base is literally the exact opposite way you know 500 meters or whatever all right uh and the purpose again is that everyone now has disseminated this and everyone's tracking the degrees and the distance to each alternate patrol base yes they want to know the grid as well but you know some soldier on the line if i just give him a grid he's not going to be able to find that necessarily all right but if you tell him hey 300 meters at an azimuth of 42 degrees he can do that okay so that's the purpose now what i will say is if that withdrawal plan is enacted we kind of have a bad habit of teaching that hey black black black and everyone just gets up and runs um no that's not the way to do it right all right it is still a deliberate movement it's going to be a fast movement it's going to be real fast and you're probably going to risk some lacks in your security as you move but it is not just a free-for-all everyone grab your stuff and run all right that's how people get lost that's how you lose half a percent all right it doesn't work that way all right so uh next look at comms right yep communications okay so in the ranger handbook it's listed as number three all right but it also says then continuous and the point is is that i can't spell continuous but the point is that we're constantly trying to uh do our columns throughout the operation all right and what that means too is um that so con one we gotta maintain columns of higher okay to get those frag goes but then having a columns plan inside your patrol base is very key as well and we're gonna go out here is you know we sometimes we depend on our radios too much which is good but also a key thing to leading in a formation or any security halt is always ensuring that you have a new touch point with your subordinates so anytime i ever stop if i'm on a security halt i'm on a seals halt i shouldn't say seals we know if i want a security hold i'm in an orp i'm in a patrol base every time my subordinates leave me to go execute my intent or go execute some orders i gave them they the last thing i give them is their touch point of when to return so right now the time is you know 12 15 you guys just have you guys have your guidance i just gave you you will be back inside here at the patrol base headquarters at 13 20. all right you have an hour and five minutes go all right and now no matter what you know you're gonna get to speak to them again because at 13 20 they will be back in the center to get synced again and follow on for further guidance even if it's five hours away give them that touch point so that if comms aren't working you know you can find them and or you know when they're going to be there you don't have to go searching out for them does that make sense so that's part of your communications plan i think that's a vital part that people people forget it's on you every time your subordinates go out give them a return touch time touch point okay next we got mission planning so again a lot of times we might be in a patrol base and get a frago and now we got to plan a mission so the pl is going to lead the planning effort you know just like always all right five all right we got our um weapons maintenance all right let me see let me make sure i'm not missing something yeah so our weapons maintenance now the big thing about weapons maintenance here i want to hit on is weapons maintenance can start earlier as well so like i said security has to come first it absolutely has to come first okay these withdrawal coms mission planning they're kind of all happening at the same time all right and same with weapons maintenance in there we can i can the pl can be do work in the withdrawal plan and we can go into weapons maintenance all right we can kind of start to fudges a little bit the biggest thing is security has to be first and weapons maintenance must be conducted before the next two all right so weapons maintenance the key thing is that if we're doing weapons maintenance the lowest amount of security that we can have is 50 security we must have at least 50 security all right secondly if i'm taking a machine gun off the line that whole line now is at 100 security so if i was to take a 240 off the line to clean it all right a 249 saw will replace that position and the whole line will be on 100 security to make sure we're prepared for anything that might happen all right okay weapons maintenance a little field craft you shouldn't really be taking your weapons apart very very far okay if you're in daylight conditions and you feel very safe about it maybe you could take your bolt apart but i i'm telling you there's no reason in the field that you should ever need to take your bolt apart all right weapons maintenance and an m4 you take the bolt out you wipe it down with a rag you wipe down the hammer and then you basically clp those points of friction on the bolt where it goes against the weapons or against the chamber okay and that thing will fire very well same with the 249 and 240. you wipe down the bolt in the inner inner parts you clp those points of friction and you're going to be rocking okay don't get in the habit of taking a bolt apart in the forest and actually doctrinally at night you're not allowed to at all according to doctrine so um it's just a good technique all right all right moving in now we got our water resupply this goes in to why we uh made sure that we um got near water okay we can't we can't depend that water is going to find its way to us we can't depend that we're going to get a sling loaded or something or a drop we got to have water resupply all right so the key thing is is the water resupply is led by the platoon sergeant that is his job that is his role okay so a method two men from each squad meet the platoon sergeant in the middle with all the canteens that need to be refilled from their each individual squads they exit through the six because now once we're established we can only exit through one point and that's a six and they go to the water we fill those canteens and bring it back and of course they got iodine tablets with them as well to make sure that that water is uh you know not doesn't have disease or bacteria in it okay all right lastly what we all care about is our mess slash rest plan okay again the pl can mitigate risk and take risk where he sees fit he can go on to this earlier if he sees fit in some cases but the point is is this weapons maintenance and security obviously they must be done before moving to the mess and rest plan they must be done okay obviously we gotta be prepared to fight before we can think about sleep or eating okay so the key thing i'm gonna say here is in security we gotta stay on at least 33 security at all times removing the rest and mess plan all the guns should be up always the 2 the 10 and the 6 apex 6 o'clock apex they should always be up all right and then throughout we should have 33 securing on the lines all right at all times and whether you're cleaning weapons you're eating you're sleeping you should be doctorally one to three meters off the line okay reasons obviously you know if you're on the line and you're eating food you're not ready to fight so you shouldn't be in that secure location but the biggest thing is is you're a huge distraction you know you and your buddy have been rocking all day just can finish an ambush you guys are hungry you're tired you know if you're over there eating your she's tort next to your buddy how much do you think he's gonna be he's gonna be paying attention uh to the environment in front of him or he's just going to be eyeing your food wait when when's my turn take yourself off the line get behind him one to three meters so you're not a distraction whether you're sleeping whether you're eating when you're cleaning weapons okay that mess and rest plan we execute that until it's time to leave all right how long can we stay in a patrol base doctrinally no more than 24 hours and we never go back to the same patrol base again all right the last part of that mess and rest plan that we're going to talk about is the slit trench okay slit trench is managed by the platoon sergeant somewhere inside the patrol base you know they cut that hole i forget the dimensions of the top of my head but it's like 18 inches deep you know three feet by three feet whatever it is but basically you know it's for um going to the bathroom so that has to be inside the patrol base and it has to be a certain depth i'll have to get back to you on that certain depth but in order to so that odor does never get never gets out okay why can't you go outside the wire obviously you're now not you're now one unsecured and now you're a liability because if we were to get attacked while you're outside the wire you might get killed all right so never use the bathroom use the latrine outside the wire always use your slit trench always okay just part of being in the army it's probably doing what you do okay so i think that's all i got to you today on patrol based operations again just to reiterate today the purpose of our lesson was to go over a doctrinally sound way to occupy patrol base and then conduct priorities of work we talked about through the recon and talk through the occupation the key thing i want to say again i'm telling you when you're occupying the patrol base do not just let squads start moving in do not even if they know yes i go to six the two the ten do not just let squad start moving in have someone lead them in and have it one squad at a time you might take five minutes longer but the systematic approach to it will pay off trust me all right we talked about the r s we talked about the priorities of work all right and how those go so i hope this lesson helped you out today again i'm captain justin de leon rangers lead the way