Amazon Link: Terrorist Trail

As promised, I just finished Terrorist Trail by H John Poole.  For those not already familiar, H John Poole is America's foremost thinker on small unit tactics.  His training group has trained a lot of US military units, in particular Marine units.  Poole was a platoon leader in Vietnam, then resigned his commission in order to enlist as a sergeant and teach at USMC School of Infantry East.  He eventually was commissioned a second time (unheard of) and retired. 

Terrorist Trail was written in 2006 during the height of the insurgency in Iraq.  The purpose of the book was to brief small unit leaders enroute to Iraq on the source of the foreign fighters that were pouring into Iraq.  

He traced a route from the Beqqa Valley in Lebanon, a Hezbollah/IRGC (Iranian Republican Guard Corps) stronghold, through Jordan and then along the Euphrates into Sadr City.  Based upon experience I'd say he was 100% spot on in his assessment.

The book places the blame not just on Hezbollah and the Iranians, but on the TRUE funder of all this: CHINA.  Poole points out that the fighters are being trained at camps in Sudan.  Sudan is heavily controlled by the Chinese.  Chinese oil companies (the CCP) run Sudan's oil fields.  The largest contingent of peacekeeping troops from the UN in Darfur: You guessed it, CHINESE.  I've been making the point that China uses it's role on the Security Council to deploy troops all over the world, which begins mass migration of Chinese into these nations.

Poole dives deeper and exposes the Chinese and Maoist influences throughout Africa from the 60s until the present day.  He gives fantastic historical recaps of every bush conflict there.  He dives very deeply into the fall of Rhodesia, orchestrated by the Chinese and the fall of Mozambique, also orchestrated by the Chinese.  If you are interested in the history and operations of the RLI and the Selous Scouts (PAMWE CHETE!! - which is Shona for "All Together" or "Gung Ho" in Chinese - where have he heard this before?) this book is for you.

As far as small unit tactics, there is only chapter that deals with that.  It goes into detail on tracking in an urban environment.  That material is pulled directly from Combat Tracking Guide by John Hurth.  It used to only be handed out during his class (where I got my copy), but it is available here: Combat Tracking Guide.

If you are solely interested in learning Small Unit Tactics, I wouldn't say you need this book.  If you are a history student, interested in Rhodesia, or interested in intelligence information on Chinese methods, I would buy this.

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Amazon Affiliate Link: Gung Ho by H John Poole

I know, it's been a while.  It's time to get back to studying and then applying (the most important part) small unit tactics.  The best place to learn them is from America's foremost thinker on small unit tactics and unconventional warfare, H John Poole.  Poole was Vietnam USMC company commander who resigned his commission and enlisted in order to teach small unit tactics to young Marines to try and reduce casualties, much like Lord General Baden-Powell did with his Boy Scouts before the Second Boer War.

This time, I read Gung Ho, an analysis of the teachings of Evans Carlson, James Roosevelt, and Red Mike Edson, the founders of the Marine Raiders in WW2.  Carlson had served as an adviser to Mao Tse Tung during the revolution and subsequent resistance to the Japanese invasion.  He took the teachings of Mao on guerrilla warfare and began training Marines in Mao's idea of "Mobile Warfare", which we now call "Manuever Warfare", and it is the specialty of the USMC.

Carlson developed the idea of a Raider squad being composed of 3 four-man fire teams and a squad leader.  This format was later adopted Marine Corps-wide and is still in use today, because of Carlson's experimentation.  It alllowed greater flexibility.  Carlson is most famous for "The Long Patrol", a 29-day patrol through the jungles of Guadalcanal during the darkest days of WW2.  By using Maoist mobile warfare tactics and individual initiative instead of following battle drills blindly, the 2nd Raiders killed 500 Japanese during the patrol, while only losing 16 men.

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Hoplite Industries sent me a new helmet to test, they claim sourced from a different factory.  I take them at their word, but the helmet is identical in both outer appearance and suspension system, right down to the fake Team Wendy W pad inside.  China is like that though, there might be 5 different state-owned businesses all making the same product with slight quality variations.

You can find this helmet at: Hoplite Helmet

You can read about our testing of the first batch elsewhere on this site, but hey failed to stop a 44 Magnum Soft Point.

This helmet was tested using a 9mm 147 Jacketed Hollow Point fired out of a Ruger RXM at about 15 yards.  As you can see from the pictures, the helmet stopped the round.  The dent on the inside did not exceed the thickness of the padding, making this helmet truly a Level IIIA helmet.

I like the easy to adjust helmet suspension.  The mounting plate for NODs is stiffer and a bit harder to lock in than on my USNV FAST helmet, but it does work and is sturdy.

This is good lower cost entry level ballistic helmet for those just starting out.