Scenes From The Scout Course

The Scout Course is a small team tactical course which develops individual and team skills in a real-world tactical environment. Students begin with a marksmanship course that takes their skills as Riflemen to the next level, engaging man-sized steel targets at 500 meters with the AR-15. From there, they learn to stalk and evade, ambush and raid, day and night, working against an experienced OPFOR constantly hunting them to give the most realistic combat experience possible. This course is lightyears beyond simply running battle drills- it teaches tactics through real-time successes and failures.

Camp Ware in the distance. 100% off-grid, cedar tobacco barns built in the early 1800s and named for one of General Greene’s Revolutionary Partisans buried on the farm.

These hills have eyes. Students are awaiting clearance to initiate fire on targets and conduct their raid.

Simulated FARP as an objective for the raid.

OPFOR guarding the FARP

Where are they? Even with basic camouflaging skills a small team can vanish in the bush.

Always use the worst terrain as a force multiplier- students move in through thick briars to their final firing positions to cover their infiltration.

Thermal protection- a GI Casualty Blanket, covered with a camo net and ‘vegged up’- vegetation added.

Field expedient camouflaging on a student’s weapon.

PSA GF3 AK as an OPFOR weapon with an East German blank firing adapter. Muddy and beaten up, running just fine.

Waiting in ambush position.

Final firing position in place.

Student pulling security on the ridge for a linear ambush and preparing his own concealment.

By NC ScoutPublished On: March 31, 2020Categories: NC Scout, Tactical, Training8 Comments

About the Author: NC Scout

NC Scout is the nom de guerre of a former Infantry Scout and Sergeant in one of the Army’s best Reconnaissance Units. He has combat tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He teaches a series of courses focusing on small unit skills rarely if ever taught anywhere else in the prepping and survival field, including his RTO Course which focuses on small unit communications. In his free time he is an avid hunter, bushcrafter, writer, long range shooter, prepper, amateur radio operator and Libertarian activist. He can be contacted at [email protected] or via his blog at brushbeater.wordpress.com .

8 Comments

Matt Bracken March 31, 2020 at 09:09

Looks like fun! I couldn’t see anybody in most of the photos….which is the point!
Anonymous March 31, 2020 at 14:44

5
Hawkeye April 2, 2020 at 09:02

One of the best classes out there. It’s a must. ????
Anonymous April 4, 2020 at 09:47

4.5
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[…] the Scout Course, the students learned the basic requirements for Air Mobile / Air Assault units and their […]
tickbait April 10, 2020 at 21:27

Scout class changed the way I look at walking in the woods. I’ve been on more than a few western style spot and stalk hunts, and it’s a lot like that. Let me back up, class started with the basics. Marksmanship was the foundational skill, and everyone was good to go after the first day. We practiced shooting from 25 yards out to 500 yards. We practiced shooting from difficult positions. We learned how to to take coordinated shots, as a team. I’ve taken dozens of shooting classes over the years, and this training was top notch.

Day two is when things took an interesting turn. We started to learn how to walk in the woods, and we learned how to stalk in the woods. We learned to walk as a team, stalk as a team, take contact and retreat as a team. Ambush as a team. It was hard, physical work. But the work was necessary. We were briefed on best practices; how to do it and why. But that is 1/3 of the learning at best, it’s executing where the 2/3rds kicks in. It’s no longer academic, but starts becoming muscle memory. You stop thinking about steps, you’re just doing them.

Then came the best part, Opfor. I have no idea what that means, but i took it to be the bad guys. Luckily, our bad guys were seasoned and really elevated our game by killing us on a regular basis. I died many ways, doing a variety of stupid things. Each time I died, a lesson was burned into my brain. Mistakes were not made twice. My favorite deadly mistake of the weekend came from a teammate, who was intent on spotting an Opfor ambush. I was skeptical that he could spot them, and truely it’s a low odds proposition. But somehow he did. His next move was to point towards them so I knew. Opfor saw that, and smoked him. Then they smoked me as I was bounding towards the line in an rather unstealthy manner.

Next round, again my teammate was determined to spot the Opfor ambush. Again I was skeptical. The only thing different this time, when my teammate spotted them, he just started shooting. No need to point and explain. I figured out what was happening pretty quickly after the first shot was fired. We won that round. But it was the rounds we lost where the learning happened. And I am happy to report that we lost on a regular basis in Scout class.

Worthy footnote, the campfire stories were awesome. The kind of people who show up to this sort of event in the middle of a pandemic are pretty great. So fair to say that I highly recommend this course.
- NC Scout April 10, 2020 at 21:36
  
  Many thanks on the kind words- I’m going to post this as a standalone.
Scout Course Student Review | American Partisan April 11, 2020 at 06:00

[…] review is coming from ‘Tickbait’, one of the students from the last Scout Course. While he’s elaborately describing how many times they got messed up, they also did a heck of […]