Hello, my name is Arthur. I have dedicated my life to saving others from hardships and war by teaching wartime tactics to citizens for civil defense purposes. The article I've written today comes from an example of convoy operations. However, it really could be used in many other scenarios. The most important thing to take away from all of this is 360° Security.

What is 360° Security

Although this should be self-explanatory, I'm gonna briefly define 360° Security to help give you a better idea of what I'm talking about. 360° Security is when you've got eyes in every direction looking for danger. This is important because it makes it very hard for your enemy to catch you by surprise.

Certainly 360° Security is used in every form of warfare. You never drop your guard. This applies to every scenario - inside, outside and even during convoy operations.

Real Life Example of 360° Security Gone Wrong

In the video below I'll share an event that actually happened. I hope that you remember this lesson when war hits. (If the video isn't working, no worries - I've shared it with you in the article as well.)

An Overeager Commander

First off, an overeager commander had pushed across the border and captured a small area. As a result, he was anxious to go further into the countryside. In order to do that, he sent out a small recon convoy to clear a safe route for his tanks.

Their primary purpose was to conduct Bridge Classification. That is to say that they had to check the structural stability of each bridge along their planned route of travel. They were looking to make sure that the bridges were strong enough the handle the tanks and that they had not been weakened to collapse under the weight of armored vehicles.

The Opposing 4 Man Recon Team

The recon convoy was scouted out by a small, 4 man recon team. (Might I add that 2 spoke English and 2 spoke another language. As a result they were limited to communicating via hand signals.)

When they discovered the convoy, the opposing soldiers decided to try a simple guerrilla attack to cause a little bit of havoc and possibly deter them from advancing. What actually happened was a result of when the convoy failed to keep their 360° Security.

360° Security: Proper Bridge Crossing

For you to fully understand how badly this convoy screwed up, I'm first going to have to explain how a bridge crossing is suppose to be done.

The first thing that happens is that the front vehicle pulls to the side and guards the 3 0'clock position.

Next, the second vehicle takes up the 9 o'clock position.

Note: The turret faces the 9 o'clock until the 4th vehicle crosses the bridge and takes over the 9. Then they move the gun turret to cover the 6 o'clock position.

Following that, the third vehicle crosses the bridge and takes up the 12 o'clock station.

Then the fourth vehicle crosses the bridge and covers the 9 so that the second vehicle can focus on the 6.

This leaves you with 2 trucks on one side of the bridge and 2 trucks on the other side. This way, your dismounts can work safely to assess the bridge without worry of an ambush.

Convoy Screw Up

Now this convoy started out crossing the bridge the way they were suppose to with 360° Security. However, ONE truck got diverted and that 360° Security was lost.

Now the fourth vehicle decided that the hill across from them, approximately 300 yards away, was a bigger unknown threat than their current sector. So they drove that direction to check out what was on the other side of that hill. As a result, they exposed the 9 o'clock position. (The very direction of the opposing recon team.)

As a result, the other vehicle on that same side of the road decided to orient their gunner to the 3 o'clock position. Effectively turning their back to the opposing recon team.

Target of Opportunity

Now this recon team decided to take this target of opportunity to their full advantage. (Even though they were only armed with 2 rifles, 2 pistols and limited ammunition.)

Since no one was watching their direction, they ran across the road and took over the first vehicle they could get to. Then they killed everyone inside, pulled out the bodies and oriented the gun on everyone across the bridge. (To include the dismounts inspecting the bridge.)

The next thing that they did was take out the truck on the hill.

The Devastating Result

The attacked convoy suffered:

Over 70% Casualties
3 Trucks Completely Destroyed
The convoy commander was the only one uninjured with several wounded, no transportation and now behind enemy lines

The enemy had acquired:

one crew served weapon
one RPG with numerous rockets
hand grenades
4 AK47s
a couple of pistols
tons of ammo
their communication system & frequencies (which were then used on another attack)

The Following Attack

Because of the first successful attack, this recon team was then able to take the rest of their guys and drive back the invasive force. In doing that, they took out 2 tanks with the RPG rockets. Then engaged numerous dismounts with the automatic crew served weapon, AK47s and hand grenades. On top of jamming their communications by amplifying the signal from the hand-held radio they had acquired.

Moral of the Story

All of this chaos was the result of ONE dude who failed to maintain their side of 360° Security.

It doesn't matter what excuse you've got, NEVER drop the 360° Security. You don't know what could happen when you fail to watch every avenue of attack.

The convoy had no way of knowing that there were 4 soldiers conveniently hiding behind the bush right beside them. Had they kept their guard up despite doubt of trouble, they never would have experienced such a terrible defeat. Think of all the people that were killed as a result of this.

More Free Wartime Tactics

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Thank you, and God bless.

- Arthur

Kit Arthur

About the author

Arthur is the founder and CEO of Tackleberry Solutions. He created this business to teach others realistic wartime tactics based off of personal experience and training. This is contradictory to other tactical instructional classes that focus on the shooting aspect for "tacticool" looks and "accuracy" instead of real-life wartime scenarios. - Arthur has dedicated his life to saving others from hardships and war. His core belief is that the only answer to surviving mass devastation is by being prepared & working together. His goal is to teach that concept to as many people as possible.