Hiking in the jungle is TIRING !

[Heavy Metal]

Well....

[Smuckatelli]

On the Pacific side was the Empire Range complex where we went to the "field". We were set up in a mortar position at the edge of some kuna (elephant) grass. Can't fire a mortar through a jungle canopy, right? It was a night-fire mission and in between calls I had pulled a couple of boxes that the rounds came in together to lay on. After a few minutes I started itching.....WTF? I took my jungle fatigue shirt off and took out my OD green flashlight. Lo and behold I had set those boxes in the middle of a trail of ants. It had apparently disrupted them for a short period but those little bastards resumed their march.....right up over the box, into my shirt, and out the other side! I was frantically swatting them off me in case they were "Ranger Ants", which had HUGE heads with these pincher things on them. Fortunately for me they weren't the dreaded Ranger Ants but were persistent nonetheless. I had respect for those little critters after that. Kinda like the Viet Cong of ants!

Here's a no shitter lesson that I learned there: clp will stop the ants. Before setting up, look for the ant trails, this works both day & night. If there is a trail within three feet of where you plan to harbor, draw a half circle blocking it. Check once an hour, once the traffic build up gets heavy, complete the clp circle. They wont cross the clp line but it will take hours for them to make a bridge and save the trapped ones. Repeat as necessary. Word of caution, clp doesn't have an effect on your hands but if you place it anywhere else on your body, it BURNS.

[ptmccain]

Jungles are a major pain...

Imagine hacking your way through inch by inch, step by step, with no trail but the one you have to hack out with a machete.

[ptmccain]

Well....

I'm surprised this did not come up earlier...well played, sir.

I say if you are going to Rock, then go big, or go home.

[ABNAK]

Jungles are a major pain...

Imagine hacking your way through inch by inch, step by step, with no trail but the one you have to hack out with a machete.

From a military perspective that isn't the most "tactical" way to move! Rather noisy. However, that's the way most conventional units do it in jungles.

LRRP's, Recon, SOG, et al, tended to pick (as opposed to hack) their way through more quietly. Slower moving for sure, but much more stealthy. Carefully and slowly move a little ways. Stop. Listen for a minute. Rinse and repeat.

[ptmccain]

Agree...was simply commenting on the difficulty of moving through a jungle where there is no path, not even an animal path, to follow. I got a **tiny** taste of it surveying through Florida dense scrub country. We had to hack a "line" as far as necessary to shoot angles for section and subdivision property markings, several miles away from our truck. The nice "surprises" included snakes all nicely coiled up and wasps' nests. But nobody was shooting at us, so it was all good, relatively speaking.

[Smuckatelli]

Agree...was simply commenting on the difficulty of moving through a jungle where there is no path, not even an animal path, to follow.

We did that on Tinian, we had to constantly replace the point man because hacking through the bush leads to exhaustion very quickly.

There in lies the problem; The bad guy knows trails, even animal trails offer the least resistance.....the best places to set up an ambush. Hacking through the bush is noisy, exhausting, and time consuming but as long your rear security does it's job you are relatively safe until you hit a danger zone.

You could hack through bush for weeks and avoid enemy contact.....but then again you could have the same results by never leaving your living room.....

[ptmccain]

Tinian? Do tell!

Sent from my SPH-L720 using Tapatalk

[Moose-Knuckle]

From a military perspective that isn't the most "tactical" way to move! Rather noisy. However, that's the way most conventional units do it in jungles.

LRRP's, Recon, SOG, et al, tended to pick (as opposed to hack) their way through more quietly. Slower moving for sure, but much more stealthy. Carefully and slowly move a little ways. Stop. Listen for a minute. Rinse and repeat.

That and someone can track you easier when leaving a nice mowed path.