AAR: Brushbeater RECCE Course (“Scout Course 201”), aka Woods Ninja Course

Greetings, Partisan Brothers!! It’s been a good while since I last posted on American Partisan, but it’s been a rough and challenging time for me on multiple fronts, and that’s kept me very tied up. I’m really looking forward to getting back to writing fitness and health-related posts in the not-too-distant future! For now though, I’m back on AP to post an After Action Report for the Brushbeater RECCE Course, which ran from 10 October to 12 October 2022.

With all the stuff happening on my end, the time finally came for me to head down south to the Brushbeater NC training site once again, this time for the RECCE Course, which was being offered to the public for the first time. I very much looked forward to a change of pace and scenery, and for this particular Brushbeater training event, I had the immense pleasure of having one of my best bro’s from home come with me to experience the magic of a Brushbeater training course for the first time. My good bro and I had worked quite a bit of Brushbeater training material (based on my previous course work) back home, so this trip definitely promised to be a good and very productive event!

Let me say ahead of time: this AAR reads more like a story than a brief, to-the-point AAR, so pull up a chair, grab some coffee, and take the time to read a good story about a damn awesome training event hosted by Brushbeater Training & Consulting. I’m confident y’all will enjoy it!

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10 October 2022: RECCE Course, Day 1 – Scout Course Review; Formations; Fire & Maneuver; Ambushes

My bro from home and I arrived at around 0800 on the morning of 10 October, the day after the Scout Course had ended. This Scout Course’s class was the biggest ever, from what I heard – 31 participants! So there were still plenty of leftover Partisans around preparing to get into the RECCE Course (aka Scout Course 201, with 25 Partisans) as a seamless follow-on.

So what exactly is the RECCE Course? In the words of NC Scout (paraphrasing):

“The Brushbeater Scout Course is Small Unit Tactics 101, and the Brushbeater RECCE Course is Small Unit Tactics 201; the RECCE Course is specifically designed to answer a lot of the questions as to why you do certain things, via experiential learning.”

As with the Scout Course (which I’d taken in March 2021 at the same NC Site), the RECCE Course was broken down into academic and field-based modules. NC Scout began at promptly 0900 by welcoming us all; Mike of Von Steuben T&C was also participating, and was on hand to lend his seasoned insights to the overall event, which was a nice bonus. NC Scout began with a quick overview of what the course would cover topically. He then immediately got into a classroom review of terrain analysis (OCOKA) and basic patrolling principles as a setup for the follow-on evolution module covering Fire and Maneuver, which brought us out to the field of the training site in full kit.

I’ll say ahead of time: the weather during the event could not have been better: a bit chilly at night (high 30’s to mid-40’s), and pleasant during the daytime (high 60’s), and with the bonus of a really beautiful peaking of the fall foliage as the backdrop surrounding us at the Brushbeater NC training site.

With a group of 25 American Partisans attending the RECCE Course, we truly had sufficient manpower to get multiple teams of good size into the field to work the training, which was really ideal for small unit training. As in any field training course, it was also interesting to see the varied gear and setups Partisans were rocking for the event, which offers food for thought later on (and usually, additional spending lol). The class soon formed into what would later become our two permanent Teams for the course, and NC Scout started us off with a review of hand / arm signals, while introducing us to new patrol formations, signals, and concepts that offered additional options and flexibility to our team-based tactical toolkit.

In addition to the new and interesting tactics taught, we detoured into the very critical and sobering topic of drones and their deployment on the modern battlefield. The group got some good insight on the matter by course participants and NC Scout, and we also covered some actual tactics to help mitigate the drone threat, as learned from the current conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and certainly from the Russia-Ukraine War.

Next up, NC Scout reviewed basic Fire and Maneuver (“F&M”) Battle Drills, as taught in the Scout Course in the previous days, and then merged the F&M basics with the new patrol formations he had just introduced; the teams took turns drilling the shift from patrolling to taking contact. Each iteration got smoother, as we were able to drill and watch the other team drill multiple times. Also of note, the Team Leaders (TL’s) that originally volunteered for the job in the beginning remained in those roles throughout the course, which was cool because it was interesting to watch their evolution and learning curve improve throughout until the course’s finale.

Having covered the Battle Drills and new formations, we were ready for the next training evolution, which covered raids and ambushes. Once again, there was a review of the ambush methods taught in the Scout Course, after which NC Scout rolled out new, advanced ambush techniques, and took the time to cover the important elements of and best practices for the ambushing process; these techniques offered yet more adaptability by providing new, more advanced tactical options that went well beyond the “101 Level” of Small Unit Tactics (“SUT”). Attention was given to explaining and then drilling flanking movements by the different team elements (Assault vs. Support by Fire), as well as working the coordination of inter-team movement during the assault process (see student’s diagram image below for an idea).

Student Diagram of Fire and Maneuver Drills

Again, it was really gratifying to watch improvements from one “rep” to the next for each group, and learn each time. Drilling without radios for inter-team communications also highlighted a lesson that we were to learn much more severely later in the RECCE Course: COMMS ARE LIFE!!! While drilling, the team elements had a bit of a rough time trying to communicate for F&M coordination after the simulated ambush began; this was due to the dispersion of team members over around 100m, which showed the value and importance of inter-team radio communications. Radio comms remained a fixture of the upcoming training modules, and their importance was highlighted again and again… and again, until the end, as I’ll explain soon.

Our group of Partisan bros worked the new F&M skills until around 1815 or so, by which time our hungry group of warriors was ready to refuel and unwind a bit. Needless to say, NC Scout had a nighttime ambush course module lined up for us starting at 1930, this time as a Force-on-Force field exercise using blanks provided by the course; use of blanks definitely adds a nice layer of thrilling multi-sensory realism to an already exciting training event. We all then kitted out in our nighttime setups, and I must say, there was a lot of nice STANO gear on display, which was cool to look at. I was looking forward to testing my own gear and setups in this rugged setting, and this was my chance – one of the many benefits of taking a field training course, for sure.

The nighttime field ambush exercise was productive, where we all got a light taste of night patrolling as well as being ambushed. My Team was first to patrol, and the first hard lesson (of several) was learned, as we relied way too much on thermal imaging enablers, which left us a bit on the undisciplined side during our patrol. The end result was that we missed the opposing force altogether and got cut up in classic fashion because we simply hadn’t taken proper care with the basics of patrolling: quiet movement, staying out of sight, proper spacing between members. Lessons learned: DON’T SKIP THE BASICS AND DON’T RELY ON TECHNOLOGY!!!

Hungry to settle the score (so to speak), our Team then ambushed the other Team’s patrol very effectively by situating ourselves quite well using OCOKA principles, and so we were able to “get even” with the opposing team with a vicious surprise, thus regaining some lost pride in an atmosphere of friendly but intense competition – as befitting of Partisans getting after it and training seriously.

That night’s training wrapped up at around 2230 hours, and all of us were pretty spent from the long, action-packed first day. Some Partisans hit their tents while others hung out for however long, with the next training day starting at 0900.

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11 October 2022: RECCE Course, Day 2 – Recon Comms; Recon Patrols; Raids; SNAFU’s

Just like the day before, NC Scout began the course with an academic module on Reconnaissance Communications, “where Team communications meet up with Small Unit Tactics”, according to NCS. Speaking personally, one aspect of Brushbeater SUT courses that I value most is that they always heavily integrate radio comms somehow, to add a layer of truly critical realism to the overall training experience. Where the Brushbeater RTO Courses are an excellent immersion in radio comms, the Brushbeater SUT-based courses then incorporate the comms work into the tactical action for realistic, integrated training. The neat thing is that even those Partisans who haven’t taken the RTO Courses certainly get enough comms skills to “chew on” from the Scout and RECCE Courses such that they acquire functional and repeatable comms skills nonetheless.

The module on Recon Comms reviewed tactical reporting concepts (ex., SALUTE Reports), and specifically covered digital radio work in the field with the use of off-the-shelf comms gear: Baofeng handheld radios; downloadable digital radio messaging apps; Walmart tablets; and readily obtainable interface cables. As taught by NC Scout, this array of comms gear would add to our team’s comms security by cutting down on the need to use voice comms altogether; this made perfect sense, considering the exploitability of voice by SIGINT. Instead of minutes and minutes of exploitable voice comms that can be direction-found, we could now put out large amounts of encoded, hard-to-exploit data transmitted in a brief burst lasting mere seconds. Basically, this Recon Comms module took a portion of the digital handheld radio skills covered in detail in RTO Advanced Course and applied them to the dynamic battlefield environment.

Digital Radio Comms Setup

Following the classroom lesson, we had practice time for every Partisan to get hands-on time with the tablets + radios + cables for the remainder of the morning, followed by lunch. In hindsight though, we all probably should have spent more time and been more serious working the practical exercise that morning, as it might have mitigated the bad outcomes of that afternoon’s follow-on field exercise, as you’ll soon see.

After lunch, we had another classroom instruction module focused on the craft of reconnaissance, specifically the different types of recon patrols, once again filling in some of the blanks of subjects introduced in the Scout Course. The evolution process of the RECCE Course was just constant, with each module building upon the last in smooth succession. NC Scout unloaded his acquired expertise on the craft to the assembled Partisan warriors, and we were introduced to recon patrol methods such as the “Clover Leaf” and “Successive Sectors” methods, all of which now made good tactical sense, as presented. NC Scout also emphasized the absolutely critical importance of recon’s function in general, for intelligence-gathering and follow-on decision-making purposes. We were all looking forward to working the recon craft’s methodology in the field shortly after!

We also got into an interesting side discussion about sustainment loads and gear, and NC Scout shared his thoughts about what to carry where and how much, based on his experiences while serving in the GWOT. It was definitely good food for thought for me (and probably everyone else), with my mental gears grinding throughout the course to assess the viability of my own setups.

With the conclusion of the academic recon patrol module, the Partisans then suited up and headed out on the afternoon’s field exercise. Pretty much from that point on, with the main body of RECCE Course SUT “theory” having been completely covered, the RECCE Course was entirely field-based, hands-on training. It was now time for us to bring together all the SUT and comms lessons learned thus far into one full-spectrum integrated field exercise.

The field exercise began at around 1345, and my Team was to conduct the first iteration of the “Area Patrol” type of recon patrol using the new formations and methods learned, as well as the new recon comms techniques described above. NC Scout gave us the basic operations orders, as well as an azimuth to follow towards our objective. We were to get eyes on the objective and gather info to burst out in a SALUTE Report to the Tactical Operations Center (“TOC”) via digital radio comms, which was to be followed by a two-element raid on the objective using F&M techniques.

From the start, my awesome Team was very careful with our movement, and we treated the exercise like the real thing. I was up front on RECCE detail with another Partisan (a dentist in real life) that had brought a really nice pair of binos to use for observation, and our recon team of four painstakingly moved through the thick vegetation towards our objective, using the Clover Leaf Method, to gather information for our SALUTE Report… and that’s when the extended-length shit show began.

Due to caution, our four-man RECCE team took an extremely long time using the Clover Leaf Method to get thru the thick brush and then close enough to the objective. Still, recon was able to get a only partial visual of the objective to gather intel, which left us with incomplete information. Worse yet, our Team RTO tasked with running the tablet was having technical issues, and was unable to get our SALUTE Report back to the TOC at all, despite keeping at it. Not good.

So there we were, hours into the Area Recon Patrol Exercise with no comms with the TOC, despite the RTO’s best efforts. Finally, despite having no comms with TOC, our TL made the decision to execute the raid. He had those riflemen with LPVO’s and magnification serve as the Designated Marksman Riflemen (“DMR’s”) for the Support by Fire Element, whilst Team members with 1x red dots served as the Assault Element. I was with the DMR’s, and getting over to our chosen location for support by fire took a good while too, since we were working hard to remain concealed through really thick brush.

Finally, by around close to a late-as-hell 1900, just as our DMR’s were lining up to lay down a minute of hate on the OpFor as Support by Fire, we heard just one single shot of carbine fire, and suddenly received the order to “EndEx” by NC Scout. All the participants (OpFor and my Team) then met up in the open field where NC Scout was located, at which point NC Scout rather firmly stated that, had that been a real mission with lost comms, the recon patrol certainly would have been killed or captured. We could detect NC Scout’s mild irritation with the loss of comms, the vast time lost, and us going on our own program despite all that, but he used this outcome to hammer home the main point: COMMS ARE LIFE, and if you don’t got ’em, you can’t do the mission. Period! There are countless examples that affirm this concept, from the historical to the very recent. But it was definitely a good “teachable moment”, since the best lessons are often the most painful, right? Unfortunately though, due to the very long time consumed in the afternoon exercise, the other team didn’t get a chance to go that afternoon.

Chowtime was next, and most welcome after the lengthy time spent in the field; we were fixing to pick back up at around 1930 for the nighttime Area Recon Patrol Field Exercise. This time, my Team would be defending our position, and the other Team would be doing the Area Recon Patrol, sending a SALUTE Report to TOC via digital radio, and then conducting a raid on us, and that would be the main event of the night. Once again, we got into our nighttime gear and brought whatever enablers we had among us; our Team also had trucks we could use as part of our defense of the open field. The defending Team broke up into two elements, with a security element hidden in the woods and the other patrolling the field and guarding the parked trucks, which were serving as a semi-hardened position from which to defend.

The night was rather chilly and foggy, and the moon was as bright as could be up in the sky. This time, the OpFor raiders took their time in setting up, and moved quietly and effectively through the woods to maneuver around us while we froze our asses off and were bored as can be – an injection of realism into our situation. Standing around definitely makes you feel good and cold, and when you add boredom… it’s pretty realistic. Hours went by, and there was just nothing going on. We ran an LP/OP the entire time, ran perimeter patrols, and scanned with our enablers, but the OpFor raiding team was really doing a great job at their Area Recon Patrol. After around 3 or so cold, boring AF hours, NC Scout (serving as TOC in each run of the field exercise) notified us that he’d received an OpFor SALUTE Report. Even still, nothing happened for a while and we were growing restless. We even tried “recon by fire” to bait the OpFor, but they weren’t biting.

Suddenly at around 2345 hours, from across the field at around 300m from our position, the OpFor Support by Fire Element opened up hate on our semi-hardened position from behind the wood line for a minute or two, at which point the Assault Element popped a smoke grenade (which was really cool, by that way), and came rampaging through the wood line from a second direction to overrun us with a classic L-Shaped Ambush. Our Teammates hidden in the woods were not able to get on the scene fast enough to help, and we were destroyed. Nice and simple, and perfectly executed! As NC Scout had pointed out over and over… sometimes, less is more. Lesson learned: KEEP IT SIMPLE – especially when operating at night! Despite my being on the Team that was overrun, it was just so cool and interesting to see it all go down using such a rich mix of tactics and gear.

Needless to say, it was daaaamn late – around 0030 by the time we got back to the clubhouse, where NC Scout conducted a brief AAR. We were all pretty whipped by now, but feeling good all around about the way the night had gone, and all looking forward to the final day of the RECCE Course, which would be starting not long at all from then LOL. As usual, some bro’s ripped it up with a few more beers, but I just went right to sleep haha.

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12 October 2022: RECCE Course, Day 3 – Successive Sectors Method; Raids; Woods Ninjas; Victory

Late night or not, the course resumed at the usual 0900 on 12 October. Now, the assembled Partisans were ready for the capstone event of the RECCE Course, which was to conduct multi-team, multi-objective Area Recon Patrols and follow-on raids, this time using the Successive Sectors Method. In this final field exercise, the two Teams (composing all the course participants) would join forces to take two objectives simultaneously. For this exercise, NC Scout brought in some of his awesome local colleagues to serve as OpFor; these Partisans were a mix of veterans and friends of NC Scout’s, so they were not going to be easy pickings for us whatsoever. The prospect of a good challenge and the use of all the lessons of the RECCE Course learned and drilled to that point was very exciting to our group of seasoning Partisans, and so we got into our gear and got ready.

By now, our Team Leaders had cut their teeth quite a bit in their continuous roles as TL’s, and the Teams themselves were able to develop a really substantial level of fluidity and coordination amongst themselves after several days of continuously working with the same people and TL’s. It was both interesting and very satisfying to watch team cohesion and leadership development take shape before our eyes all throughout, with Team members stepping up for Assistant Team Leader and other roles more and more. In this way, all the Partisans participating were as ready as they could be for the final mission exercise.

Because of time constraints (i.e., 10-hour drives back home for me and some other participants), the mission was set up to be completed within 60 minutes from the time we got to our Release Point until the objectives were completed. NC Scout created a pretty gripping scenario that pitted us against enemy forces that were getting ready to cause mass casualties with a major attack on the local town (I won’t give away too much, eh?). There were a good number of OpFor split up over two locations (16 total, with one group being a Quick Reaction Force), and we had to neutralize them at the same time in 1 hour or less, before they initiated their mass casualty attack.

Once the briefing was over, the two Teams got together to compose our Operations Orders and Signals Operating Instructions. We were also to send TOC a SALUTE Report as part of Area Recon Patrols on both objectives using the Successive Sectors Method, and then take out both objectives simultaneously before they could wreak havoc on the local friendly civilians. After working out the various details among ourselves, the two Teams were ready to execute the plan, at which point NC Scout brought us to our Release Point, and the operation was on!

The thrill of the exercise was amplified a lot by the stress of time constraints – accomplish the mission in 60 minutes, or thousands die. Got it! The two Teams sprung into action and proceeded towards our objectives using our budding skills sets, and once again, I was on RECCE detail with the same Partisan dentist glassing with the top-tier binoculars; we worked well as the two-man recon element. Also, I had on my homemade ghillie “cobra hood” and was giving it a run, whilst the Partisan dentist had on a bangin’ late fall-pattern woods camo suit as well. The rest of my Team were creeping like ninjas, all “swift, silent, and deadly”, moving intently through the woods towards our objective. The radio comms were also working well, as were the SOI in general, and so we were able to coordinate all elements with comms to the smoothest degree yet.

That’s when things got really high-speed, literally! As our full Team got closer to the objective, the RECCE dentist and I broke off and carefully low-crawled up ahead to just behind the tree line; he was observing and I was watching his back for a bit when suddenly, one of the OpFor who was doing perimeter patrol in front of the wood line came in our direction, paced around for a bit, and then decided to just sit down in his seat and hang out! My recon bro and I looked at each other and were like “oh shit!”, and we wondered how long the sentry would just sit there and maybe even spot us eventually. Time was short, and the clock was a-ticking.

Then suddenly, from the corner of my eye… with his carbine placed to his left side, the mild-mannered dentist rolled sharply to his right at lightning speed and then lunged at the seated sentry with an imaginary knife, “stabbing” him repeatedly until the sentry was “neutralized”. Yes, that’s right – an SF Operator’s wet dream, a KNIFE KILL! It was so freakin’ bad ass! After the simulated woods ninja slayer action, the “dead” sentry then stepped out of the fight, which altered the plan dramatically.

Having legit neutralized one of the OpFor, the timetable now had to be accelerated, since the OpFor might move to attack the local town ahead of schedule after they discovered the loss of their personnel. Both Teams briefly discussed the matter on the radio and, now knowing the location of the enemy, decided to go for broke and move on both objectives more or less immediately. At the agreed-upon signal, both Teams opened up our simultaneous assaults, with both Teams utilizing Fire and Maneuver with Assault and Support by Fire Elements to take their objectives. You could hear small arms fire crackling all around between the two opposing forces, as well as the commands being shouted by the Team Leaders to their members. Solid, crisp lines of our Assault and Support riflemen fired on and overran the objective in an organized, tactical fashion, shifting fire at the appointed time while the other element Assaulted; the other Team could also clearly be heard in the distance neutralizing their objective.

All in all, the multi-team raiding assault lasted around six or seven total minutes, and as my Team pushed through our objective, we received confirmation over voice comms that the other recon Team had also pushed through their objective, and were about to emerge from the wood line to our west, and that we should cease fire. As the final sounds of gunfire trailed off, the other friendly recon patrol Team came out from the trees just as NC Scout was rolling in on his very own, personal Brushbeater STRIKER Truck (no lie, see photo below), and the signal was given by NC Scout to “EndEx”, at which point we all converged in the middle of the field. One look around at the assembled Partisan warriors showed a sense of exhilaration and great pride – our well-deserved spiritual reward for training hard, being serious, and the putting time in to learn and make it all happen that way.

Toy Representation of the Brushbeater STRIKER Truck

NC Scout pulled up to our joint group and hopped out of his STRIKER Truck, and let me tell you… Scout was just lovin’ it. Where just the day before, he was in a more corrective trainer mode, at that moment, NC Scout seemed pleased as can be with the outcome of the final exercise. He praised us all for the way we had conducted the Recon Patrol and the follow-on raid, and then pointed out some things that went particularly well during the exercise and noted that, with all the gunfire going on and seeing the assault action working like a well-oiled machine, he had witnessed a true “Symphony of Destruction” (a great compliment that old, die-hard metalheads – like many of us are – can really appreciate). Everyone was definitely feeling a sense of accomplishment.

We then all headed back to the clubhouse to unload and do a brief AAR, at which point NC Scout also noted that this had been the first time in any of his courses that there was a simulated knife kill like that, and that he could still see the dried blood on Doc the Woods Ninja’s blade LOL. The whole RECCE Course, ending with that awesome final mission success, was just epic, and we all had some good laughs in our final discussion / AAR. We ended the AAR with a brief prayer given by one of the Partisan participants that the Almighty’s blessings be with us going into the dangerous and uncertain future. With that, NC Scout bid us all farewell, and we broke off to do our own thing and head home.

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And there it is! A bit more of a story than an After Action Review as I first confessed at the beginning, but I really wanted to give a more in-depth idea of what the Brushbeater RECCE Course was all about than just a list, and without giving away the farm on what all it covered. It goes without saying that the RECCE Course is a necessary follow-on to the Scout Course. As the “Scout Course 201” that the RECCE Course really is, the immersive nature of the RECCE Course adds a ton of “tactical meat” to the Scout Course’s heavy foundational portion of Small Unit Tactics, and takes the SUT skillset to the next level up (at least). Of course, these skills are only as good as you work them, but me and my dude from back home who attended are super fired-up to dig right in locally – these skills may become immediately useful sooner rather than later, right?

Thanks for reading, Partisan Brothers! Until the next time.