Lowcountry Regional Training Group log
Last night, we went and worked on one-man clears, IR only. It was freaking dark. Overcast, middle of nowhere, stuff blocking most of the windows of the no-longer habitated houses, which have no power. No illum at all. Great time.
1) slow down. It’s not a race, and if you’re doing it with NVG, its because you’re trying to be slick. If you want to go faster, use white light. Even so, if you’re doing it solo especially, no need to rush.
2) while you’re slowing down, don’t hesitate in the door. This is obviously a generic pitfall for CQB, but darkness makes everything a little more awkward. Clear as much as you can, then move decisively into the room, if it makes sense to go in. DECIDE to do things and go places, instead of just bumbling through. Just like any other time.
3) Illum. There’s a lot of ways to go about this, most of which have some risks. Like being compromised. I’ll name some ideas to jog the creativity. Stick an IR handheld light on your helmet, vertically in the back. I prefer that over facing it forward because its not pointed anywhere near my pistol dot, and because it diffuses nicely. You can also more easily pull it off than one of the ARC Rail thingies. More on this in a bit. I use a Modlight 940 for this, but I’m pretty sure most any IR source will work. If you do the next trick, you can leave the helmet light off most of the time.
You can also put a small keychain sized beacon on your boot laces. You’ll be amazed at how much that helps. And it compliments your helmet light when you use it, kinda like foglights in concept. Puts the light where you need it to not trip, and you can get away with a very small signature and still see. It also reduces your signature from outside windows. Yeah, you’ll be illuminated to anyone with NODs, but its not quite as severe as if they could directly see the light source. I use a Nite Core IR strobe, but on constant instead of strobe mode.
IR chems exist, use them if necessary. Hypothetically, they can even be thrown, as can a Modlight. Although it really doesn’t make sense to create all that noise.
Another thing you can do is place a(n) illumination device(s) near the windows of the structure to backlight the rooms. Or, even on a windowsill. There are obvious tactical limitations to this idea. If you weren’t doing this alone, (lets be serious, one man clearing an entire building under NVG is an unrealistic scenario) you could have the dudes outside on security help you out. Handheld illuminators pointing at the windows, or even just turning on the amber corners on a vehicle a will make your illum inside more than zero percent.
Its rare to have illum quite this bad in a US home, and this whole thing was contrived to add a fun challenge.
4) Its easy to find yourself hanging around windows and doors that you shouldn’t, just because tunnel vision. Don’t. If you have a plan, this is less common.
And now the story of how I got murdered in the first 5 minutes of the first run on the first house due to my own folly and never seen or heard from again:
One of the rooms has a huge glassless window connecting it to an adjacent room. I didn’t remember this because I haven't been to this site in like 15 months. It was kinda weird because it was a garage, and there was 4-5 steps to get into the rest of the house. So the window was huge, but above eye level. No idea what purpose it once served. But I didn’t know this yet. Anyway, I made my initial entry via an unlocked side door (right side, viewed from the street) into the garage and cleared it and some sort of weird large center-fed closet. The garage was also center-fed. Ok, next? Well, the door into the house has plastic over it. Hmm. Also, it has the aforementioned steps with a railing. And there was a spider. Nah, lets go back out and try again. That part was the right choice. So I work my way around the outside again to the back. This thing has four outside entrances. Don’t forget you can clear a huge percentage of an American Dream without actually entering. I waltz in the backdoor and clear the rest of the house without doing anything particularly stupid. I worked counterclockwise, so the last room I entered was the one adjacent to the garage. It was corner fed, and the entrance I used was across from the door to the garage. OK, its clear. Thats the door to the garage... lemme go over there and double check..... wait... where’d that window come from? Already knowing that I screwed up earlier, I walked to that window and endexed. Looking out into the garage, I was like “damn.” It was the perfect ambush position.
Learn from my mistake. Pay attention, and don’t forget to look up.
