Some Ranger Pix

It's got me buggered why Infantry Battalions (in all countries) don't have visual and scent tracking platoons. Seek out and close with the enemy. It's in the job description, yet we pay this skills lip service at best.

We don't have specific platoons for visual or scent tracking but each member of Reconnaisance Platoon is trained in tracking and we do conduct tracking excersises. We are by no means experts at it but some guys get pretty good at following spore.
 
It's not even a full weapons squad, just a two-man gun team. You can tell the picture is of the overwatch/blackside element, as there is also a sniper to their left (our right)
What does "blackside" refer to?
 
It's kind of hard to explain via a written post, and without getting into the intricacies of mission planning, but suffice it to say that it is the containment element of a raid.

On a side note.... I have NEVER seen a gun team carry a 240 on a real world mission, let a lone a tripod of all things! Our gun teams were always two man elements, the gunner had a Mk 48 and he had an AG that carried an assault pack full of linked 7.62. My guess is that some of the more large scale hits they have done up in the boonies have required the use of a more traditional support by fire position.

That fucking sucks to be in a gun team if that is the case.... those off-set infils that had you moving 10-12k at night through the mountains at 7-8k AGL sucked WITH OUT a tripod, etc., can't imagine doing it with.
 
Here are some photos of a 240, and even a Goose gun:

33049vs.jpg


v61bw7.jpg


dvkef5.jpg
 
We don't have specific platoons for visual or scent tracking but each member of Reconnaisance Platoon is trained in tracking and we do conduct tracking excersises. We are by no means experts at it but some guys get pretty good at following spore.

We were the same, recon and snipers held about 90% of the qualified visual trackers in the battalion. From what I'm reading in the regiment magazine recon is losing its way a bit, so I'm not sure how they're going keeping the skill set and keeping the guys who have it, I know none of they guys on my course, students or instructors are still serving.
 
It's kind of hard to explain via a written post, and without getting into the intricacies of mission planning, but suffice it to say that it is the containment element of a raid.

On a side note.... I have NEVER seen a gun team carry a 240 on a real world mission, let a lone a tripod of all things! Our gun teams were always two man elements, the gunner had a Mk 48 and he had an AG that carried an assault pack full of linked 7.62. My guess is that some of the more large scale hits they have done up in the boonies have required the use of a more traditional support by fire position.

That fucking sucks to be in a gun team if that is the case.... those off-set infils that had you moving 10-12k at night through the mountains at 7-8k AGL sucked WITH OUT a tripod, etc., can't imagine doing it with.
Man, those new tripods they got just as I etsed weigh like 7 lbs. It's just like carrying an extra 100 rounds.
 
bro, my last deployment in eastern afghanistan when 'they' made the call that all offset infils had to be atleast 5k away...I was cutting weight in any way I could possibly find. That 7 lbs gets pretty damn heavy after 12k up in the pass.
 
bro, my last deployment in eastern afghanistan when 'they' made the call that all offset infils had to be atleast 5k away...I was cutting weight in any way I could possibly find. That 7 lbs gets pretty damn heavy after 12k up in the pass.
Yeah I hadn't thought about that. Astan is a different ball game from Iraq.
 
Fuck being part of an SF team, or 240 team as you lads call it, in that kind of terrain.

Same goes for that cunting Carl Gustav too.
 
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