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Coming this weekend, Part 2 of my Rifle Platoon Leader series: Platoon Scouts

 

This post will cover:

  • Platoon Scouts - purpose
  • Scouting and Platoon Movement Techniques
  • Scouting Techniques in relation to:
    • Close Terrain
    • Open Terrain
    • Scout Movement
    • Cresting a Rise
    • Flank Scouts

Here is a small snippet from the upcoming post.  Enjoy, and watch my blog for this post either Saturday or Sunday.

 

 

Scouting Techniques:

 

I try to always have scout teams operate in pairs, this allows them to mutually support each other.  The best method is to only have one team moving at a time, with the other sitting still to best “hear” and perhaps spot any enemy activity.  The moving team should move in either a rush (Fast) from one close terrain feature to the next, or slow (Hunt) from one to the next.  The rate of movement for your scouts depends on:

·   how quickly you want your platoon to advance

·   how secure you feel with regards to enemy contact

·   the type of terrain your platoon is moving through

 

Close Terrain:

 

When moving through woods or other very close terrain (like built up areas) I will often have many more than two scout teams in front of the platoon and the platoon will follow the scouts at a close distance (three or four action spots).  The rule of thumb is to try to maintain visual contact between your scouts and the leading elements of the platoon formation.

 

Use Hunt almost exclusively when scouting through close terrain.

 

The goal is to be able to scout the entire width of your movement zone and uncover any enemy presence well before the main body encounters it.  That will allow you time to determine a course of action with regards to that contact and keep you from blundering into an enemy ambush.

Edited by Bil Hardenberger
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Looking forward to reading more. Will you include tips and tricks about hedgerow scouting as well? Often, it's a weird mix of "close" terrain and very variable distances to potential contacts.

Oh yes, some good information about scouting hedgerows would be helpful!

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Rifle Platoon Leader - Part II Platoon Scouts is posted.  I hope you guys enjoy this one.. it is a subject that I find too important to skimp on.. so it ended up a tad longer than I expected, sorry about that.   ;)

 

Next up is the Platoon Attack, and then a tactical problem scenario.. that will take a little longer to prepare, so I will probably break the attack post into at least two parts.

 

Scout-11.JPG

Edited by Bil Hardenberger
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I'm not sure how to understand the technique for coming up against a hedgerow. You say you rush up close to it, but then slow down and move very carefully closer in several waypoint steps, using HUNT.

 

I understand that being close to the hedge means enemy units further down the hedge can't target you (due to angle), but if there's an enemy immediately behind the hedge to your front, they will surely spot you when you are that close.

 

And when they spot you while you're walking slowly closer, you're completely without cover at extremely close range, and they are sitting there in great cover. If you rushed right up to touch the hedge, you'd get even closer, but at least you would have the same cover as they have in the moment they spot you.

 

Of course, getting up against the hedge means you can get fired on by other enemies further behind it. Is the trick while walking slowly closer that you _hope_ you will spot them first, and you _hope_ that you will win the ensuing firefight even though they are the ones behind the cover? Or is there something I'm forgetting here?

Edited by Bulletpoint
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If there are enemy that can see you, your scouts will usually end up taking fire. If they make it to the point where you don't want to declare yourself to enemy further away, there won't be troops directly to their front, because if there were, they'd already be dead, or surviving by cowering in the long grass out of sight. Scouts entering the space between two hedgerows aren't really there to scout the one they're approaching by looking behind it, they're there to draw fire so your overwatch can get spot and get suppression on the enemy. If your enemy is canny and has target arcs set so your scouts/bait need to get close before they're fired on, the first burst will probably stop the scouts in their tracks.

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I'm not sure how to understand the technique for coming up against a hedgerow. You say you rush up close to it, but then slow down and move very carefully closer in several waypoint steps, using HUNT.

 

I understand that being close to the hedge means enemy units further down the hedge can't target you (due to angle), but if there's an enemy immediately behind the hedge to your front, they will surely spot you when you are that close.

 

And when they spot you while you're walking slowly closer, you're completely without cover at extremely close range, and they are sitting there in great cover. If you rushed right up to touch the hedge, you'd get even closer, but at least you would have the same cover as they have in the moment they spot you.

 

Of course, getting up against the hedge means you can get fired on by other enemies further behind it. Is the trick while walking slowly closer that you _hope_ you will spot them first, and you _hope_ that you will win the ensuing firefight even though they are the ones behind the cover? Or is there something I'm forgetting here?

 

The hope is that you will get some UI contacts from your overwatching units, remember they are in place prior to the scout team moving into the open field between hedgerows.  If so then you will have a general idea of approximately where the enemy units on the opposite hedgerow lie.  Without that information you must apply some suppression fire against the enemy held hedgerow (target briefly) before sending your scout into the open area and on to the other side.  That will hopefully allow them to successfully cross the open area.

 

Move Fast through the open field.. then switch to hunt as the scout then makes its way slowly up the enemy held hedgerow to try and uncover any unidentified enemy units.

 

Does that help?

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Seems I misread it. Thought you said slowly 'up to' the hedgerow, but I'm fact you said 'up' the hedgerow, as in 'along' :) Makes better sense now, apart from using HUNT. I find that command often makes my scouts stop even though there's no apparent contact. To clear the hedge I use many short QUICK movements with pauses of 5-10 seconds.

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...using HUNT. I find that command often makes my scouts stop even though there's no apparent contact....

Try putting a "relevant range" Target Arc on 'em. While you're moving along the hedge, you're not really interested in the next hedge, yet, as I see it (and should probably be moving along 1AS away from the hedge, in order to see through it to the AS adjacent to the hedge on the far side, but not be seen by distant troops beyond the hedge), and can't spot/engage things very far along your current one, as you're close to it.

 

Edit: Oh, and beware gaps. Plotting a Fast AS past the places you can be seen from afar can save lives.

Edited by womble
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Try putting a "relevant range" Target Arc on 'em. While you're moving along the hedge, you're not really interested in the next hedge, yet, as I see it (and should probably be moving along 1AS away from the hedge, in order to see through it to the AS adjacent to the hedge on the far side, but not be seen by distant troops beyond the hedge)

 

That makes some sense, but won't that cost you the massive cover bonus of actually touching the hedge?

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That makes some sense, but won't that cost you the massive cover bonus of actually touching the hedge?

The cover bonus only applies to things shooting at them from the other side of the hedge. If they're scurrying along in Hunt mode with their shoulders brushing the foliage, they'll (IME) be quickly spotted by anything further away (in the next hedgerow, I mean, not something half a click away), possibly drawing fire and thus, indeed, needing the cover, and probably Cowering in it, and therfore not continuing their scouting job. If they're Hunt-ing along a hedge, looking for the defenders just the other side of that hedgerow, yes, they won't have the cover of the berm, necessarily, but that's true if they're advancing on unspotted, lying-in-wait enemies too, so it's a risk you're already taking with them. Against the AI, if your scouts make it to the other hedge (or 1AS short) you can be pretty sure they'll have been fired upon by any enemy in that hedgerow, and your overwatching fireteams will have applied some suppression. Against a human, it's a big game of "chicken" with the TAs: how close will he let you get before he decides your scout team has seen too much?

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The bit about hedgerows was tacked on at the last moment and I never spent the extra time to create a set of graphics to support it as I wanted to get this thing posted.  

 

I'm going to rip that section out of the Platoon Scouts post and we will re-address hedgerows at a later time and in more detail.  I think it inadvertently complicated the subject.  Plus, it deserves its own post.

Edited by Bil Hardenberger
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