Amazon Affiliate Link: Dragon Days
I just finished another H John Poole book on small unit tactics, Dragon Days.
Dragon Days discusses China's influence and operations in East Asia, including Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, and provides some teaching on unconventional warfare tactics that could blunt Chinese tactics and operations. As people interested in preparedness, the ability for a small unit to secure a large area safely and influence any hostile force's plans is something we should study.
As a reminder, H John Poole is one of very few Marine commissioned officers who resigned their commission to become an NCO. Poole wanted to get more involved in teaching tactics at USMC School of Infantry East, so he became an NCO. Eventually, he was commissioned again. Poole was an infantry company officer in Vietnam, and his experiences there led him to want to make Marine Corps training better. He presently runs a company that offers training to military units iin intelligence and unconventional warfare tactics.
The great thing about this book is the same as Homeland Siege and Tequia Junction, he uses the first half of the book as an intelligence brief. Reading Dragon Days, I feel better briefed about the Area of Operations (AO) to be discussed than I ever was in the military or as a contractor. In this one, he briefs you on the Chinese and Islamist influences in the AO, and how the two seem to coincide. He points out that it is highly likely that the CHINESE are behind the Islamist movements. He gives briefs on the insurgent and political situations in Burma, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Nepal, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. While the information is dated (written in 2007), you will at least know the players and positions. It's a good shelf reference for that aspect alone. He opens the book with an excellent chapter on the "Sino-Islamist Connection".
As always, while his book is geared to how a single US squad could better operate in Asia (mostly Afghanistan) on it's own without support, those same skills would be of GREAT benefit to a small group of people attempting to run security operations in a Without Rule of Law situation or a group resisting a tyrannical government (wherever that might occur). The second half of the book is dedicated to tactics.
Part Two is about how a small unit could conduct counterinsurgency and is geared towards a squad operating with Afghan or Iraqi police, but it serves two purposes for us. First, it gives you insight into how a counterinsurgency operation against YOU would be run, and therefore give you ideas on how to stay ahead of it (in Minecraft, Feds). The second purpose is that those same tactics would allow a small group to conduct defensive operations, just like I talk about in TW-03.
Part Three is the small unit tactics that squad would use. While Part Two covered strategy and thought process, Part Three is all tactics and "actions on". One of the best chapters is where he discusses how the Japanese and the Viet Cong/North Vietnamese Army were able to sneak so close to their opponents and then seemingly vanish. The answer is the opposite of our SOP, drop most of the gear and get more in tune with nature. Most Viet Cong sappers were unarmed or armed only with a knife while infiltrating a US base.
Another pair of excellent chapters are where he discusses how to conduct both rural and urban escape and evasion. US forces talk about it and give it cursory coverage because we tend to never withdraw, imagining it as cowardice (it's not). Poole points out that a small unit hiding among a vastly superior opposition (like, say, resisting tyranny) would need very good E&E plans. It's better to evade than to die in futile fight. He illustrates how the NVA exfiltrated an entire division from the Hue City Citadel and the US Marines had absolutely no idea how until many years later.
Not only does the book give solid E&E tactics, he devotes two chapters to preparing escape and evasion routes ahead of time by pre-working the environment to create the E&E lanes for later use in a hurry.
The use of safe houses and building hidden rooms is discussed, but you'll have to buy the book to find out how.
Now, I've never met H John Poole, and he doesn't know I'm doing these reviews. I get nothing from this, other than a few pennies if you buy the book from my affiliate link above. This is my unbiased recommendation: Buy the book for the tactical training contained in it like the others. The intelligence information really helps me for the CFC Show and the Privy Council, but it would just be "nice to know" stuff for the average guy.
Next, we will be doing another double review. We're going to review Tactics of the Crescent Moon and Militant Tricks. In these two, H John Poole analyzes the tactics of the Muslim insurgent and how he is able to evade and resist much more technologically advanced enemies. There might be a lesson or two in there for the civilian preparedness market.
