THE FIGHT OF LIGHT INFANTRY AGAINST SUPERIOR ENEMY

Introduction.

It is possible to bring «coherent collective microdirection» to the tactical microterrain, giving specific missions and orders at battalion or company level. The units used will be light infantry, reinforced with material and experts (engineers, mines, mortars, anti-tank, anti-aircraft). The lower tactical unit will be the section with 2 or 3 squads of 3 to 5 men and their supports. She will receive a direct and simple mission, however dangerous, difficult and laborious. The operating time and available equipment will necessarily be short and light, unless the equipment can be bring forward at a protected . From the time of departure or crossing our own lines until their extraction or disengagement should not pass more than 40 hours. And, it would be preferable not more than 24 hours for an individual mission.

Operations.

The combatant’s means are: the terrain, with which he must melt and blend for his basic operations: march, attack and defense; the grenades are a part of his organic «heavy fire». Completing or replacing the 60 mm mortar, when the combatant is at the distance of subreptitious penetration or infiltration.

And the mode or manner of actions must be guided by harmony in the system «friend, enemy and ground» and the serenity and silence of the combatants. Thus, for example, harmony requires that in the infiltration of an enemy position the effect of camouflage on the advance of the fighter be respected. A shrub or bush cannot move forward or change position in such a way that it is shocking to one of the elements of the enemy’s security or combat advanced.

The attack.

Rather than attacking from afar, favoring the use of enemy heavy fire (artillery, mortars, aviation), the combatant must subreptitiously slide to more or less depth in the enemy’s tactical rear. To attack there operational or tactical targets: command and communications centers; warehouses, trucks parks and vehicles and general logistics equipment; barracks, heavy weapons and observatories of all branches. Depending on the type and the entity of the enemy unit attacked.

In a major attack, the section can advance 2 or 3 teams or raid squads. And, for a thorough reconnaissance of the enemy position, it can send 1 or 2 groups or scouting squads. The advancing sector or band of the section can reach 150 ms.

The enemy, in this subreptitious attack, can defend itself by changing the structure of its security zone. By increasing surveillance positions, it will further strengthen it. But, its security will not have improved qualitatively. Effective protection will come from superimposing that network of sniper pits and defense nests, a network of patrols without a fixed route. To hinder or detect and prevent the work of concealed, patient and silent penetration of the attacking groups.

The defense.

In defense, the fighter will do the same, but almost the other way around. It will melt and blend with the surrounding micro-terrain. Hiding as much as possible their battle positions and fortifications to the more numerous and/or technological enemy. Dissipating the tactical trail of their strong positions, both for combat or support.

Japanese in Battle. Enemy Methods

If fortified redoubts are used, they must be camouflaged and covered and partially excavated in the ground. Around them, there will be a swarm of shooters or pairs of them, covering its approaches at the appropriate distances. It is good to be able to maintain a crossfire, which distracts the attention of the enemy on the origin of it.

In urban areas, the light infantry will create a series of defense positions articulated in defense zones. The use of sewers and tunnels shall be continuous for concealment, protection and subreptitious maneuvres. The positions of direct heavy fire (anti-tanks, machine guns, light guns) will be embedded inside the buildings, controlling the rebuffs.

FM 7-8 Chptr 6 URBAN OPERATIONS

On a block, some buildings will be defended by pairs of fighters and others by sections. The movement of the fighters between and across the floors for tactical opportunity will be decided by the defenders. Access to the lower floors from the streets shall be obstructed and protected by booby traps and/or fire from other positions. The courtyards and lots can be suitable for the deployment of anti-aircraft and indirect heavy fire positions.

The mines, barricades, cuts and obstacles will be «interruptions covered by fire«, which break the enemy impulse. The «relative hidden heights» of any urbanized area and the twists and turns of the streets and tracks hide us and break enemy units. Our indirect artillery can register approaching routes and parks and squares, to disrupt enemy advances, concentrations and deposits.

Our tactical actions will seek to: override the enemy impulse; prevent it from encircling and surpassing our units; erode their advances from various sides; destroy their armored and transport vehicles; block their entrances to buildings from terraces and top and bottom floors; and advantageously anticipate their intentions and attempts.

FM 7-8 Chptr 6 URBAN OPERATIONS

All our efforts seek to make that the enemy, with our defense deployment and with the technics and tactics we use to make it work, lose all its numerical, technological, and fire and tactical motion capabilities advantages over us.

If we can have a «detached mobile group» outside the urban perimeter, that is not located by enemy reconnaissance or its air or ground units. It could harass, ambush, erode or attack, as the case may be, the enemy in its tactical rearguard. Their offensive actions must have the operational objective of weakening and disrupting enemy tactical capability. And with this task in mind, the various opportunities to fight against small enemy units and their supports of all kinds will arise. Another premise of their action is that our «detached group» must keep its security, always avoiding an unwanted encounter with the enemy, its premature detection and being surrounded by it.

The marches.

There is a third category of actions that are marches. These would be to the combat, between our own near or far positions and retrograde, with enemy persecution or not. The march to the combat, especially at the near and medium distances, aims to reach the combat positions of each branch with the enemy. Protecting and maintaining the combat and tactical movement capabilities of all units. To make the enemy feel, without any reduction, all our fighting capacity: fire, shock, infiltration.

Here, it is also necessary to get melt and blend with the march terrain. It can be different according to the sections of the route. Protection is the primary condition of our march, as we have not yet begun combat with the enemy. And, without it, we will have squandered and thrown away our opportunities and scarce military means.

Every march with the possibility of an unwanted encounter with the enemy is a march to the combat. And that possibility will define the security and concealment needs of our «marching groups«.

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CHINDITAS ADVANCING ON NONHOSTILE GROUND

The reconnaissance of our routes must be sufficiently advanced, depending on our knowledge of the route and the enemy and their characteristics. That reconnaissance will be supported by a “vanguard with fighting capacity”. And considering always that its mission includes avoiding the fight with the enemy, except our rejection in a suffered ambush. The hidden and silent features of our fight strongly advise it.

Protection is a necessary element of surprise. Which is a cheap and effective multiplier of the combat capabilities of our light and lean units. Since the enemy tends to not «combat readiness» for most of the time. But this is a desirable and natural thing: lions rest more than 2/3 of their daily available time. And since the enemy needs a «time of detection and alert» to prepare to fight, he has to maintain an advanced security in an effective deployment. That guarantees him to count on such «essential time«, so as not to be surprised by our attack incursion.

The technological weakness of our deployment will be amply compensated, with the concealment, the longer running time, the security of this, the careful and necessary reconnaissance and use of the ground, which gives us that desired fusion with it.

Employing the most favorable terrain to advance: its folds, unevenness and concealment; and dragging to cross over waterlogged lands or near to the enemy and difficult to cross terrain; and the creative and varied camouflage; and making use of the concealment that gives us the night, as a natural reinforcement of our actions. To leave as little tactical footprint as possible for the enemy.

In the cities, there are means of concealment, which gives us their layout, their elements and their construction, the parks, the ditches and the sidewalks. Along with the metropolitan railroad system, the general sewer system and the tunnels of circumstances that we can excavate or reinforce.

To advance through the slopes, it is important to use our side or slope of the relative military crests. Considering that, the enemy will deploy on its side. And, whether or not advance some security, branches observers or forces near them. The distance to the ridge is important and different for the types of fighting. If the defender is somewhat separated, he could be attacked with grenades. And if it is very separately, this means leaving the attacker the domain of the subreptitious approach. Somewhat close, may allow you to detect the assailant and beat and reject him with grenades.

The Command Conduction.

The conduction of these units must include and then inspire and reflect the complementary and continuous character of their «essential polarity«. And that it acts in its conception, development, doctrine, implementation, equipment and training, logistics and support, marches and execution of missions and tasks.

Let us remember, now, that they are regular or semi-regular units, which protect themselves and fight, in a characteristic and singular way, with a greater or better equipped technologically enemy. And, employing in its dialectic war any form of fight (attack, rejection, retardant defense) or maneuvers. And acting partially and to the appropriate degree, as an irregular unit, confusing and merging with the tactical terrain.

Whereas, if we insist too much on a form, conception and implementation, the dynamics of the processes underway can end up moving us away from good doing and even from success. All this has to do with quantum mechanics, Heissenberg’s indeterminacy principle and Hobber’s principle, as natural and ultimate regulators of processes.

Thus, the direction, mode and realization of our means and objectives must be guided as the pilot of a small boat guides it. With the objective on the horizon and employing small course corrections to resume the initial and successive intentions.

Flowgram and Balance processes, actions and facts in the fight of light units in an different or extraordinary way.

Centralization // Coordination // Delegation

Authority // Information

Terrain // Terrain and Micro terrain

Strategy and Operations // Implementation

Intentions // Contingencies

Means // Chances

Organization // Error’s correction and prevention

Reinforcements // Carrying out

Intelligence // Reconnaissance and Intelligence application

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