BASIC INFANTRY KNOWLEDGE – OR STAYING ALIVE FOR THE CAUSE Dear Ukrainian and Syr

BASIC INFANTRY KNOWLEDGE – OR STAYING ALIVE FOR THE CAUSE

Dear Ukrainian and Syrian friends.

There is a difference between ‘cover’ and ‘concealment’.

Concealment is something that prevents an enemy from seeing you, or at least from seeing you completely. Things that could commonly be used as cover include the walls of normal wood frame houses, trees and foliage or car bodies. Cover just prevents you from being seen. It offers no protection from being SHOT.

Cover is something that prevents an enemy from (easily) shooting you. Unfortunately, cover is actually pretty rare in the world. Most things we think might stop bullets wont. You can be shot through most block and mud walls built cheaply in the third world. A bullet will pass through a tree two feet thick and kill you. You can shoot through nice plates of steel as if it’s cardboard. The best cover in the world is a wall of reinforced concrete with a triple layer of sandbags behind it, but we don’t see that very often. What will stop a bullet? Piles of dirt are the best, and a firing position in a ditch, depression or behind a hill is great. Next to that, SOLID concrete or brick walls are good, as are the engine compartments of vehicles (especially large trucks.) Standard brick walls are okay as are large trees (two feet plus). Beware, because things will “break down” after being hit with many rounds. It is absurdly easy to just shoot through a concrete wall or saw a tree in half with not very many rounds.

Now, you know, a spot to shoot from is equally as scarce. SO when you feel all manly shooting at nothing, all you are doing is giving away your position. And so the spot you just shot from is ‘used’. It means “shoot here”. So every time you use a spot to take a shot, you have to go find a different one.

You see, the smart guy is lying somewhere in the dark, without any light behind him, where he can see down an entire street, and where there is behind some cover. From that bit of safety he’s waiting for a ‘sucker’. So a few of his friends shoot at your position to bait you into puffing your chest, and sticking your head out of the same spot the second time, and – poof. You’re dead.

Just because you can’t see them, doesn’t mean they can’t see you.

I hope that helps. Because the daily stream of videos in my inbox where some guy gets shot because he was firing OVER a wall providing only CONCEALMENT rather than AROUND a wall, from behind COVER is really depressing.

BTW: Americans come at night, in the dark. The dark is awesome concealment.

Thanks. Yeah. I know. It won’t do any good. It’s just cathartic.