Guerrilla Warfare School

2021-06-24 22:35:32 The ubiquitous A-Frame shelter Open / Comment

2021-06-24 21:59:57 ...This provides a fully enclosed shelter that is easy to conceal and is highly resistant to weather, but it doesn’t offer a lot of interior space or visibility.

Another expedient shelter often used by Infantry soldiers is the A frame. With a small amount of preparation, an A frame can be deployed and struck down just as quickly as a simple hooch, with the added benefit of additional visibility and space from inside the shelter. Open / Comment

2021-06-24 21:59:09 COVER

One of the most invaluable, multi-use pieces of equipment in any good soldier’s arsenal, and one which no good soldier would be caught without in the field, is the military style poncho. It’s light, packable, and has a myriad of potential uses. Foremost among its uses is the ability to pitch it as a tarp for use as a shelter. Actual tarps, rain flies and survival blankets (the good kind, not the paper-thin Mylar kind) work equally well.

The simplest type of poncho shelter is a “Ranger roll”: no more than a poncho liner (woobie) combined with a poncho and snapped together in a tube to form a makeshift bivy. A poncho “hooch” can be pitched in minutes, and taken down in less than a minute, by tying off the hood of the poncho, using a guy line to secure it to an overhanging branch or tree (taking care that it’s not a dead branch ready to fall) and staking out the corner gromets directly to the ground... Open / Comment

2021-06-24 21:54:45 Additionally, any effective shelter system has three major components:

COVER from rain, sun and snow.

INSULATION for the retention of body heat during periods of physical inactivity.

SEPARATION from the ground to prevent conductive heat loss. Open / Comment

2021-06-24 21:52:27 When building a concealed shelter in a tactical environment, remember BLISS:

BLENDED with the environment.

LOW silhouette – keep ridgelines and shelters knee or waist height at most.

IRREGULAR shape – break up regular outlines with branches, boughs and other foliage.

SMALL in size.

SECLUDED away from high traffic areas and natural lines of drift, with cover and concealment from land and air. Open / Comment

2021-06-24 21:29:36 SHELTER SITE SELECTION AND CONSTRUCTION

First and foremost, a camp site should be in an inconspicuous location, away from common and easy routes of travel, in an area that allows the concealed surveillance of avenues of approach, and with as much cover and concealment from land and air as possible. When trying to avoid detection, do not select the most likely or “comfortable” looking sites. Before finalizing on any site, consider the “five W’s”:

WIND – utilize natural wind breaks to stay out of heavy winds

WATER – If possible select a site with nearby access to water. But remember – water sources attract heavy traffic from man and animal. Select a spot that is close enough for a short trip to collect water, but away from common paths and trails.

WOOD – If building a fire is an acceptable risk, select a site with easy access to fuel.

WIDOWMAKERS – Make sure there are no large, dead branches or trees that could fall on the site due to wind or snowfall.

WILD ANIMALS – Always be aware of animals. Open / Comment

2021-06-05 22:52:45 THE DAKOTA FIRE HOLE

It is possible to conceal the open flame of a fire below ground by digging a “Dakota fire hole”. First, find a suitable location to dig your primary hole in the ground. The size and depth of the hole will depend on the intended size of the fire, but a 12” deep hole 6-12” in diameter is a general rule of thumb. Then dig about an 8” diameter secondary hole about 1’ upwind from the first one, angling it toward the bottom of the first hole to make them easier to connect. Finally, create a fist-sized tunnel between the two holes at the bottom. Build the fire lay as usual in the bottom of the first hole. The fire will draw in air through the tunnel, resulting in a hot, efficient burn that produces less smoke. Flat rocks or wet sticks can be laid across the top of the fire hole to further conceal the light produced by the flame and provide a surface for boiling water or cooking. HOWEVER – in a hostile environment, there is no such thing as an invisible fire! Open / Comment

2021-06-05 22:50:33 THE NEXT FIRE

Once an initial fire has been built, it can be used to prepare materials which make starting another fire significantly easier and more reliable. Strips of cotton, chunks of rotted “punk” wood, twigs and strips of wood or bark can be superheated in a fire to produce what is called “char” material. This is done by filling a metal container such as a tin or camping cup with a lid to heat the material without providing it enough oxygen to achieve ignition, into the coals of a fire for an extended period of time. This causes the thermal decomposition of the material and leaves behind only matter with a very low flash point. The resulting char material will accept the slightest spark, and as such is very suitable for ignition methods such as flint and steel or Fresnel lens. Open / Comment