Essay On Military Patrol

Prepper Journal: Patrolling Once the SHTF

The military will tell you that a patrol is an organization and is not a mission, so a patrol is a noun, and not a verb. A patrol is typically an independent organization put together for a specific purpose.

Military patrols might be organized to gather information on the enemy or more specifically designed to engage the enemy. However, before engaging anyone, a patrol would likely have intelligence on hand that was gathered from previous patrols.

There is Safety in Numbers

As a Prepper you may want to organize a patrol to move safely through an area for example, but before marching off, you have to establish who the leader is and secondary leaders.

The leader directs the patrol and assigns duties/tasks based on individual skills and training. The patrol leader will be

aware of all training that the individuals within his or her patrol organization has.
Patrols can be organized to conduct raids, ambush the enemy, or to provide security to a group moving through an area, or even to provide security at a specific structure or geographic location.
The reason for the patrol is important, and it must be established before moving out, because specific training and skills will be required for specific mission requirements.

The patrol must be able to provide its own security, navigate through unfamiliar terrain, and provide emergency first aid to anyone injured and be able to communicate, with command and control, and to record/gather information so it can be analyzed later.

Everyone must know established hand signals and be aware of any ad hoc signaling procedures established for a specific assignment. As a Prepper, intelligence gathering would likely be the main objective in most cases, but your patrol would have to be prepared for virtually any situation to include engaging others.

You cannot just wander willy-nilly, rattling gear, smoking cigarettes or even eating, there is a direction the patrol moves in whether you know the final destination or not. Distances must be maintained from others in the event of an attack. This prevents one hand grenade or other explosive devices from injuring the entire patrol, and distance from others may make it more difficult for a sniper to engage targets as

quickly.
Certain patrols are organized to retrieve wounded, deceased or to rescue personnel lost or stranded, so given the mission the patrol itself may become engaged in the same situation that caused the injuries to the ones you are retrieving for example.
Taking direct or indirect fire as you patrol with a Prepper group would be an extreme situation and not likely to ever happen. However, you would want to stay covert in many cases particularly during Martial Law.
You will want to conduct surveillance if for nothing more than to assess any damage to the local infrastructure, and to do it without notice you would need some training moving about as a group. As stated earlier Prepper groups are not a democracy, someone has to be in charge, someone has to assign tasks and set the mission requirements.
Each person would need their own supplies, firearms, ammunition, and communication device that is compatible with command and control or in this case with the leader and others within the group. As the leader it would be your job to make sure everyone was outfitted with the needed supplies and the needed amounts of supplies. You cannot let group members decide, and if they think they have the right they need to go form their own groups and patrol organizations.