Run Silent Run Deep: The Insurgency Primer to Submerging Under Your Enemy, by GuerrillaLogistician
Part Three – Guerrilla Navigation – Learn the Basics because Murphy is Watching
Part Four – “Guerilla Unit Sonar” – The SIGINT Specialist
Reference 9B – Maneuvering
Facing overwhelming odds, your small unit deftly maneuvers in its home waters. Your team has objectives that should be accomplished, and part of that capability stems from its knowledge of the area. It slides through the black darkness of the wee hours of the night. It shows little to the enemy and is constantly vigil to ensure no stray sounds give its position away. It lies in wait; it ensures that when it attacks, it can win decisively and disappear as quickly as it appeared. Each time your unit leaves the safety of its home base, it knows that only limited help is available, which means it must be capable of picking the right time and target. It also must not attack things they could easily defeat or destroy any rescuers attempting to save it. Your Guerrilla Unit is following a submarine’s core principles, but technology hasn’t allowed your unit to dive under the dirt like Scrouge McDuck in a vault full of money, so what can you do?
We will start with what we should protect and possible things to attack. This will expose the subsurface world and allow you to maneuver undetected by those on the surface. Any of your military folk or SCOUT alums have heard the acronym SWEAT; sometimes it is SWEATMC (my preferred), and other times it is SWEAT-IR.
| SWEATMC | SWEATIR | |
| S | Sewer | Sewer |
| W | Water | Water |
| E | Electricity | Electricity |
| A | Access (bridges, roads, paths) | Academia |
| T | Transportation | Trash |
| M/I | Medical | Infrastructure |
| C/R | Communication | Reconnaissance |
I wrote down both acronyms for a specific reason. While the concepts are widely discussed, everybody has a different flavor on this subject. An LRS team using the SWEATMC concepts looks at things differently than an engineering battalion. This acronym is only a base layer of a more in-depth concept that needs to be understood from a fighting standpoint and a critical logistical and sustainment standpoint. While the concepts of a partisan break these things down to more of a localized, if not personal, issue, any partisan in any country should understand these concepts. Not only do they need to know how to defend against the same weaknesses that their enemies have. I will try to show you how you must expand your understanding of things and realize how intricate your environment is. Whether you live in a rural setting or an urbanized hellscape of concrete, there is a significant overlap.
Very few people think beyond one or two portions of the acronym. While I can’t show you every city, the concepts are universal. Like any reconnaissance operation, you must do your homework and observe what you can. Let’s start by doing a quick search for a town called Dodge City, Kansas. If you simply search “Dodge City drainage system” in Google, you will visit a website for Dodge City with a map section. This map has everything you want to know about the underground utilities of the city in question. You have a GIS map, printable maps, and historical data all at your fingertips, or so you would think. The map has every maintenance hole in the city and tells you how the sewer system runs. While the S in our acronym is sewer and can be important, there is a critical feature that is ignored by this mapping system and can be found somewhere else. Any local in town with the quad already knows about this transportation access and waterway. Contrary to what some websites say, the Arkansas River in this location almost doesn’t exist even when it rains. Yet when it rains, water must go somewhere. North of the train tracks, the ground slopes up to Boot Hill and continues as the city sprawls northward. As the quads, dirt bikes, and pedestrians walk and ride down the dry Arkansas River for fun, they pass storm drain runoff tunnels. Sometimes, these tunnels are too small to fit in, and other times, depending on the age of the city and its infrastructure, can still be a place where sewage runs into. Not only that, but the environment in these tunnels can also collect toxic fumes from time to time, depending on the length and what is being drained into these systems.
While this isn’t water as in something drinkable, it is an integral part of your city’s infrastructure and could be a key access point. Historically, Dodge City had a Hispanic population that lived outside of the town and passed under a bridge to come into the city; nowadays, that Hispanic village is all but a footnote in history, and everyone travels by vehicle or walking. But the concept in the 1800s still holds true to this day. Traversing under infrastructure is an easy, secluded way to travel. This may mean that logistics trains that you may need to facilitate, the movement of guerrillas, and even communications can all reside in this area. While ignored by the population, these areas can be frequented by everyone from teenagers to the homeless, so be aware of this. Regardless of how you find these access points, knowing if these locations are worth checking out can be very important. Even with a map in hand, sometimes the underground structures you see aren’t always what they appear, and othe