I remember this clearly from training, and I definitely heard it used by others in Bn. But joining here made me look through my best book from recruits, and I can't find it anywhere. Anyone who has more recently been in, are these still used?
3 Pillars of the Parachute Regiment
Fitness
Fieldcraft
Marksmanship
As far as advice on the forum goes: lots of fitness advice, and marksmanship isn't something you can really practice in the UK. So that leaves fieldcraft.
What advice do trained blokes have for potential recruits to get a headstart in fieldcraft? Obviously with more people living in urban environments these days, the traditional green skills are less familiar and often pretty hard for people to pick up just during training. Advance competence in fieldcraft is as much of an advantage in depot as fitness.
My top suggestion to get started: go walking at night with no light, preferably in the country if possible.
Much of your most difficult nav and fieldcraft is going to be done at night. Moving, navigating, just seeing accurately at night is a real skill that comes with experience. With that experience you will physically see things differently to someone who is inexperienced, particularly when tired - this is to do with how your brain translates incomplete images in darkness. Inexperienced blokes tend to hallucinate or see things that aren't there: this leads them to get lost, become confused, and move loudly.
Being comfortable moving around at night, particularly in difficult, dark areas like woods, is a big advantage that will show you as a bloke with squared away fieldcraft. The only way to do this is to practice, even if you feel a bit stupid going for night walks just because. When you end up being consistently picked by your peers to be lead scout, it will pay massive dividends - there's a good chance that guy wins top recruit.
Tips:
- Learn to see by defocusing your eyes. Night vision works using the parts of your retina on the edges, not the parts directly pointed at something. Look off to the side to see a thing more clearly at night, and move your focus around it to build up a picture.
- Learn to connect familiar objects by day with how they look at night. This builds up a database of images in your mind that allows you to see things accurately at night, which limits hallucinations. The pale faces of your enemy sneaking up on you in the dark are probably actually sheep, and your mate in helmet cam hasn't been taking a piss for 30 minutes, that's a tree (both real examples)
- Learn to estimate sizes to identify what objects are. The man in a light top hanging around that tree in your target area 300m away is either 3ft tall, or, more likely, another sheep (also real example).
- Practice counting pace while you move, it's the key skill to knowing how far you have traveled in the dark.
- Practice walking with your weight on your back foot, and placing your front foot carefully. This is quieter, and when you inevitably put a foot wrong, means you are less likely to fall noisily forward, rather than more quietly back (a.k.a. the 'patrol collapse').
- Learn to fall over quietly and safely (to the side, up the incline, on the weight you are carrying rather than fighting it). Ditches get everyone sooner or later, the scheming, tricksy bastards.
- Observe how sound travels further at night, and identify the kind of sounds you make that are obvious indications of a person moving. Equally, observe what covers sound (running water, for example) and how to use it to move quietly.
- Observe how animals react to your presence, and how to reduce or react to startling them, or avoid routing through where they are likely to be.
3 Pillars of the Parachute Regiment
Fitness
Fieldcraft
Marksmanship
As far as advice on the forum goes: lots of fitness advice, and marksmanship isn't something you can really practice in the UK. So that leaves fieldcraft.
What advice do trained blokes have for potential recruits to get a headstart in fieldcraft? Obviously with more people living in urban environments these days, the traditional green skills are less familiar and often pretty hard for people to pick up just during training. Advance competence in fieldcraft is as much of an advantage in depot as fitness.
My top suggestion to get started: go walking at night with no light, preferably in the country if possible.
Much of your most difficult nav and fieldcraft is going to be done at night. Moving, navigating, just seeing accurately at night is a real skill that comes with experience. With that experience you will physically see things differently to someone who is inexperienced, particularly when tired - this is to do with how your brain translates incomplete images in darkness. Inexperienced blokes tend to hallucinate or see things that aren't there: this leads them to get lost, become confused, and move loudly.
Being comfortable moving around at night, particularly in difficult, dark areas like woods, is a big advantage that will show you as a bloke with squared away fieldcraft. The only way to do this is to practice, even if you feel a bit stupid going for night walks just because. When you end up being consistently picked by your peers to be lead scout, it will pay massive dividends - there's a good chance that guy wins top recruit.
Tips:
- Learn to see by defocusing your eyes. Night vision works using the parts of your retina on the edges, not the parts directly pointed at something. Look off to the side to see a thing more clearly at night, and move your focus around it to build up a picture.
- Learn to connect familiar objects by day with how they look at night. This builds up a database of images in your mind that allows you to see things accurately at night, which limits hallucinations. The pale faces of your enemy sneaking up on you in the dark are probably actually sheep, and your mate in helmet cam hasn't been taking a piss for 30 minutes, that's a tree (both real examples)
- Learn to estimate sizes to identify what objects are. The man in a light top hanging around that tree in your target area 300m away is either 3ft tall, or, more likely, another sheep (also real example).
- Practice counting pace while you move, it's the key skill to knowing how far you have traveled in the dark.
- Practice walking with your weight on your back foot, and placing your front foot carefully. This is quieter, and when you inevitably put a foot wrong, means you are less likely to fall noisily forward, rather than more quietly back (a.k.a. the 'patrol collapse').
- Learn to fall over quietly and safely (to the side, up the incline, on the weight you are carrying rather than fighting it). Ditches get everyone sooner or later, the scheming, tricksy bastards.
- Observe how sound travels further at night, and identify the kind of sounds you make that are obvious indications of a person moving. Equally, observe what covers sound (running water, for example) and how to use it to move quietly.
- Observe how animals react to your presence, and how to reduce or react to startling them, or avoid routing through where they are likely to be.
