used to, or heard about, in the army. There was no badge collecting here.
The fact was that the course would be hard, but the purpose would be to effectively train the volunteers as fighters in small unit and insurgency tactics, from team to company level. It would not be Ranger School or Special Forces Selection, but it would be realistic, challenging, and it would produce fails and voluntary withdrawals. The training course was not set up with the express aim of doing this, but naturally not all personnel would be suited to the role.
The plan was that those who did not make the grade would be dealt with delicately and kept on side, being given duties more suited to their abilities. Some would be rotated back to the guard force at Zulu, closer to their families.
The basic organizational concept was based around four man teams, each team split into two pairs. In each team, one pair would be the IED specialists, the other pair would be a cover team selected for their ability to shoot well. The volunteers would be selected for their talents and allocated to specialties as appropriate. This would facilitate the deployment and infiltration of these small four man teams to conduct independent operations.
At the next level up, the teams would become fire teams, two fire teams to a squad, making an eight man squad. An additional squad leader could be added as the ninth man if one was available. Three of those squads would make a platoon, with a headquarters element added.
At the company level, Jack also intended to create a fire support platoon, within which he hoped to have machine-gun and mortar squads. He would work the details out as the personnel and equipment became available.
Their first challenge would be to identify who exactly they had to train. This would involve interviewing everyone. From this, they would make initial allocations into teams. It would also allow them to identify those with experience and potential leaders.
There was an element of identifying potential instructors also, so that they could ‘train the trainer’ and spread the burden – there was no way that as they got up to company level operations they could run the whole program themselves, monitoring everyone. So there would be a phased element to it, as they ‘trained the trainers’ and allowed these instructors to work with new recruits as they were phased in.
The allocation of teams and leaders would be reviewed, amended and reorganized as necessary. No doubt there would be problems and personality clashes a s time went on. Some would be solved; others would result in reorganization and even removal of personnel.
If teams were working, then the priority would be to keep them together to maintain small unit integrity. Teams would not be reorganized simply for the sake of it, only if personality clashes or leadership failures needed to be addressed.
However, again they were adamant that they must deal with people in a fair manner and not squash too many egos – they did not want disaffected fighters informing or defecting to the Regime. In fact, Jim was adamant that if he got the feeling someone was really bad news, he would take care of them himself. Given the safety issues at stake, Jack did not raise too much complaint about this.
Over the next few days, the fighters already recruited by Bill started to arrive in small groups, transported in by the Resistance movement network utilizing multiple routes and modes of transport. Some came up the trail from Zulu, just as Jack and Jim had. Others arrived in small convoys; still more had been dropped off a distance away and hiked in through the woods with a guide.
There was a hard core group that filtered in as the first arrivals. They were the original platoon sized group, three squads and a headquarters element that had been working with Bill as an ad hoc militia grouping since before the collapse.
This group was mostly veterans and had been training together for a while. Jack was
The fact was that the course would be hard, but the purpose would be to effectively train the volunteers as fighters in small unit and insurgency tactics, from team to company level. It would not be Ranger School or Special Forces Selection, but it would be realistic, challenging, and it would produce fails and voluntary withdrawals. The training course was not set up with the express aim of doing this, but naturally not all personnel would be suited to the role.
The plan was that those who did not make the grade would be dealt with delicately and kept on side, being given duties more suited to their abilities. Some would be rotated back to the guard force at Zulu, closer to their families.
The basic organizational concept was based around four man teams, each team split into two pairs. In each team, one pair would be the IED specialists, the other pair would be a cover team selected for their ability to shoot well. The volunteers would be selected for their talents and allocated to specialties as appropriate. This would facilitate the deployment and infiltration of these small four man teams to conduct independent operations.
At the next level up, the teams would become fire teams, two fire teams to a squad, making an eight man squad. An additional squad leader could be added as the ninth man if one was available. Three of those squads would make a platoon, with a headquarters element added.
At the company level, Jack also intended to create a fire support platoon, within which he hoped to have machine-gun and mortar squads. He would work the details out as the personnel and equipment became available.
Their first challenge would be to identify who exactly they had to train. This would involve interviewing everyone. From this, they would make initial allocations into teams. It would also allow them to identify those with experience and potential leaders.
There was an element of identifying potential instructors also, so that they could ‘train the trainer’ and spread the burden – there was no way that as they got up to company level operations they could run the whole program themselves, monitoring everyone. So there would be a phased element to it, as they ‘trained the trainers’ and allowed these instructors to work with new recruits as they were phased in.
The allocation of teams and leaders would be reviewed, amended and reorganized as necessary. No doubt there would be problems and personality clashes a s time went on. Some would be solved; others would result in reorganization and even removal of personnel.
If teams were working, then the priority would be to keep them together to maintain small unit integrity. Teams would not be reorganized simply for the sake of it, only if personality clashes or leadership failures needed to be addressed.
However, again they were adamant that they must deal with people in a fair manner and not squash too many egos – they did not want disaffected fighters informing or defecting to the Regime. In fact, Jim was adamant that if he got the feeling someone was really bad news, he would take care of them himself. Given the safety issues at stake, Jack did not raise too much complaint about this.
Over the next few days, the fighters already recruited by Bill started to arrive in small groups, transported in by the Resistance movement network utilizing multiple routes and modes of transport. Some came up the trail from Zulu, just as Jack and Jim had. Others arrived in small convoys; still more had been dropped off a distance away and hiked in through the woods with a guide.
There was a hard core group that filtered in as the first arrivals. They were the original platoon sized group, three squads and a headquarters element that had been working with Bill as an ad hoc militia grouping since before the collapse.
This group was mostly veterans and had been training together for a while. Jack was
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