;-P
Posted on 08/22/2012 4:49:46 PM PDT by dynachrome
So how do you become a self-taught deadly warrior of the night? You begin in the daytime. Lay out a walking path through your neighborhood “Area of Operations,” a path with plenty of transitions across all types of urban, suburban and rural terrain. Culverts, gullies, overgrown chain link fences, woods, meadows, railroad tracks, bridges, power line right-of-ways, abandoned commercial properties and fallow fields will be your classroom.
To begin, mark your route every twenty or thirty yards. Small torn rags stuck on fences and tree branches look fairly natural, and won’t be noticed. Walk and crawl through thickets, under fences, over walls, through the doors and windows of closed factories or falling-down barns. Travel your path in daylight both ways, several times. If it’s summer where you are located, dress for bugs, thorns and mud, but stay inconspicuous.
Then come back after dark on a moonlit night. Your mind and memory will already know the route very well, but the darkness will swallow up much that was plainly visible by day, while revealing new folds and textures of light and shadow. Your rag markers will help you to stay on course. You can also blaze a temporary trail with a small bag of baking flour, leaving a white pile at intervals.
(Excerpt) Read more at westernrifleshooters.wordpress.com ...
I have my own well for water - and it is a great comfort.
Also, in my area - there's a stream, a pond, a lake (or several) within 2-3 miles in any direction...and I have a little ‘brooklet’ running through my woods (don't need a whole lake ;o).
I have friend who knows every piece of water in the state, but has also dug himself his own fish pond for trout - and a ‘nursery’ for raising trout fry.
Just throw a line in the pond and bam, you got breakfast -
PVS-14 BTTT !
Sneaking around at night, setting up various scenarios of defense and offense,
What does one -hypothetically speaking- do to defeat the FLIR that is sure to be employed?
How much insulation is needed to thwart the heat signature?
Without ways to address this issue, one sneaking around at night may not be as stealthy as one wishes they were.
More so if Federalis vs urban yutes.
Definitely stuff I should be doing. Also the recommendation down-thread of goggles to protect the eyes - don’t wanna skip that.
Much appreciated are grey man techniques. One illustration by Travis in (I think it was) the first book of his trilogy was Rayna carrying a green T-shirt until she needed to use it as a makeshift balaclava - making the point that one can make do with everyday objects rather than being tac’d up and worthy of note to TPTB.
I put FLIR into the category of drones, surveillance satellites and other high-tech tools. Governments like to use their existence as a propaganda tool to make folks believe that escaping detection is not possible, so don’t even try. The truth is that all of these tech tools have limitations.
Unlike the film “Enemy of the State,” (and other Hollywood movies) satellites can’t be manuevered around like sports cars to hover over a city. That function would be taken by drones, but they are not in common use (yet). FLIR can’t see through glass, and heavy vegetation also hinders it. If you are in thick woods, your blurry heat signature could also be a deer or a large dog.
Once you are located by technical means, yes, it’s hard to escape. But keep in mind that at any time, 99.99% of your operating area will NOT be under such surveillance.
As far as hiding from FLIR, there are home-made ponchos incorporating a space blanket and fiberglass cloth. It blocks and diffuses the heat very effectively, or so I am told. The problem is knowing that you are under FLIR observation. You might take anti-FLIR methods (the poncho, getting into very thick cover, hiding under a barn roof etc) as soon as you detect the sound of a helicopter.
UAVs, you will never hear or see. They operate above visual and audible range.
On that theme, common dark blue jeans work well at night. No need to “suspiciously” wear cammies. A brown shirt and blue jeans will allow you to pass from “night fighter mode” to walking down the street under the lights with none the wiser. The t-shirt balaclava method also allows easy transitions, with no camo grease paint left in your ears to give you away.
Another great “tool” is a good boonie hat. Not only do they break up your outline, they protect your face and neck from thorns and ticks etc when you push through thick brush. You lower your head, and let the brim of the boonie hat protect your face and neck.
;-P
One of my tools is a pair of “Game Ears” that enhances my hearing. In regards to hiding from a FLIR one could have a bolt hole with some CO2 portable tanks that will fog the air with cold escaping gas, or have a hide with thermo insulated windows, thats two layered glass with an inert gas in the middle, or just a roof of 2” bluboard foam.
On a very funny movie episode of “Tremors” people were trying to hide from some flying nasties that used heat seeking organs to hunt with and they walked along with a mattress over their heads. Not a practice concept but it could work if tested is just a camo colored umbrella that has several layers of mylar space blanket and aluminized insulation bubble wrap sold at places like LOWES.
As far as clothing goes in darkness a dark gray is harder to see than all black. Also should a person have to fight in darkness such as in my neck of the woods in Alaska during the winter I would make some lightweight diversionary type of equipment, mostly just an inflatable figure with some attached chemical heat pouches such as used for heating your hands or toes, tape these to something that resembles a prone person in hiding, activate the heat packs around the chest and face and a drone or other device with a FLIR will look at that while you either achieve your objective or make a safe egress from the area.
If it comes down to trying to escape from airborne FLIR platforms that are circling your immediate area looking for you, you are probably screwed. The anti-IR poncho might be the best bet, since you could carry it and not hinder your mobility, then you could dive into thick cover and put it over yourself. But ifthey are already tracking your heat sig, forget it, game over. They will direct K-9s to your hiding place quickly. Or, if the ROE have changed, just shoot you from the helo with a burst of MG fire.
That one actually had too small of a brim.
I suggest training with the use of a FLIR, you can buy one from Cabelas. Have a friend use the device while you work either in or awat from your objective. Many people are not aware that you can take rusted brillo pads and aluminized powder from an etch a sketch and with an igniter like a fireworks sparkler or a strip of magnesium you have thermite.
With some trips to Walmart or Radio Shack I can take a $20 remote control toy and make a poor mans RC transmitter, I have done it at a gravel plant where I sit in a loader and with the guts taken from a Radio Shack car I made a transmitter with a four function swith to operate a conveyor belt and chute controls.
If I knew I was spotted by a FLIR I would set off a dozen thermite charges to overload the FLIR screen. But it depends on what the objective was, was it recon or was it a target of action, in and then out hot?
Depends but as far as dogs go I have not a lot of fear in that area. A MG from a helo, well that can ruin the day if you stay still too long in one place, but a smart person could buy several dozen green laser pointers, wrap them all together in a short tube with a common switch and with several dozen beams striking a person looking through a scope it may be enough to make them break off.
Yeah, I have one of the ones you’re talking about. Bought it to play paintball in.
I have a conceptual idea of a paintball gun loaded with a mix of female canine pheromones, bear and wolf urine plus even some human scents. A humane alternative to dealing with dogs approaching you to shoot off at angles of your departure route. If up close a strobe and ear shattering loud warbling sound with commands to heel in german could be a last ditch recourse, little known fact that most handlers use a foreign language to train their dogs.
Hey Matt, are you looking for ideas in your next novel?
I would love to keep posting except I have to go do my day job thing right now, best wishes and be safe friend.
I have a conceptual idea of a paintball gun loaded with a mix of female canine pheromones, bear and wolf urine plus even some human scents. A humane alternative to dealing with dogs approaching you to shoot off at angles of your departure route. If up close a strobe and ear shattering loud warbling sound with commands to heel in german could be a last ditch recourse, little known fact that most handlers use a foreign language to train their dogs.
Hey Matt, are you looking for ideas in your next novel?
I would love to keep posting except I have to go do my day job thing right now, best wishes and be safe friend.
Good post!
Thanks, that’s deceptively simple, yet I had not thought of a boonie hat, or any head cover, really.
WRT FLIR, I’d actually wondered about lining a blanket or other outer fabric with mylar for that purpose. I’m kinda jazzed that others are doing it for real, confirming that my brainstorming isn’t so far off the mark.
Today I finally got a good pair of boots that should also be good for the get-home-any-way-I-can bag. I live in dread of being caught out at work when for some reason it’s a wiser choice to abandon the car and follow terrain creases to safer territory. Not that I could eloquently explain my instinct, mind you, but I’ve learned to trust that small voice.
Those 'bucket hats' were indeed short in that regard. Even the new issue boonies are only 2.5". I go for the 3" variety -- not official USMC issue, but the only diff is no EGAs in the pattern.
Btw, I've played with several types of camo new and old in central/south Florida environs, and the current woodland MARPAT is best overall. Colors here are very vibrant, especially in summer, and shadow areas are pitch-black in contrast.
One drawback: They're too heavy. If only the NyCo fabric the USMC made them out of was about half the weight, like what the Army uses for it's ACUs. The upside on that is that bug bites don't get to you as much, nor do thorns.
Good article. I often go for a walk on clear nights when the moon is more than a sliver, walking the same paths around the property that I follow during the day. I have a 1 LED red key ring/map light that is more than enough for those sections that are pitch black.
And these woods are teeming with life at night, so I suspect (although I have had no way to test it) that a human under a mylar blanket would have no more of a heat sig than any of dozens of deer, possums, coyotes, etc., in the area.
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