Unconventional/Low Visibility Shelter

Well AFAIK, specialized troops can build inside enemy territory hidden underground shelters that can hold a whole squad for at least a week, and you could walk on them without noticing.

Those are dug or partially dug shelters with a hard top and a hatch. They have some ways to protect from air detection (notably IR and heat detections), and possibly some system to lure dogs away but all details are classified (seriously). Plus this is a purpose made shelters, that means they pack all the necessary tooling.

In E&E scenario, you'd probably be on the move, which means no too elaborate shelters. Digging a small trench, and covering yourself with scraps of surrounding material (grass, leaves,... seen it in a SAS tv report) might be a good quick option, but you'd probably simply try to sleep in some ground depression instead. Any kind of shelter making generates some noise, movement etc, that could reveal you.

I read that average space blanket somewhat protects from heat detection, and that three are some prupose made space blankets meant to cut the heat radiation emissions.
 
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I know that low-visibility shelter construction is one of the first things they cover in detail in Wilderness 1 at OFA. I have not been to the courses there but have heard rave reviews from others, and I am dying to get out there and train with them:

http://www.oregonfirearmsacademy.com/courses/wilderness.htm (Basic Wilderness and Urban Survival for a Potentially Hostile Environment)

http://www.oregonfirearmsacademy.com/courses/wilderness 1.htm (Wilderness Survival for a Potentially Hostile Environment Level 1)
 
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2 ideas-
1) use the large root ball from an uptruned tree and build a debris hut
2) Use a G.I. ripstop poncho and build two diagonal shock corded poles to form a "boat"- very quick, light nad low vis/low drag.

Besides soil- things to avoid FLIR get complicated and best not discussed in public.

Buddy of mine had a good idea in E&E school. He ran across a huge mass of wild rose and green briar- he found a rabbit trail going in and belly cralwed deep into the mass, nipped branches until he could sit in comfort. Only crawled out for water at night and ran a tiny fire to boil water just after dawn while mist was burning off river. If dog alerted, many handlers might be inclined to think a rabbit had set the dog off. He made it through course unfound but then again, that was 1965. :)

2Door
 
I don't think I'm giving away any country's national secrets suggesting a shell scrape (Ravaillac's post reminded me - it's been a while!). It's a 'shallow grave', just big enough and deep enough to get one's body below the surface of the ground. The idea is that incoming arty rounds will explode up and out, so unless it's really close, you'll be able to pop up after the barrage and continue the fight. Unless it's an incendiary or airburst round...lol

Covering it with local foliage will give you concealment and insulation ought to reduce you IR signature. The obvious problem is site selection: creating any hollow will collect cold air and rainwater. A seasonal creekbank might be a good starting point as well.
 
NoFair said:
When I was in the army there were very few tricks. One just tried to stay hidden and not freeze to death while doing so.. Norway is somewhat chilly most of the year..

Good clothes, wool inner layers, good boots and something like a bivy bag was usually the way to get some comfort. Fire is out and chopping down trees too noisy.

Long term observation hides were usually dug in below ground. The bathroom was a plastic bag:D

Sverre
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I don't claim any first hand knowledge about Norway, but my Goddess is half Norwegian. She's the only one in her family who speaks it, and her late father fought the Nazis by intercepting (and decrypting) radio traffic in the woods in the winter...Brrr. He must has been pretty tough. (Thanks for your service Pedre.:thumbup:) You too Sverre.

So I know when you say it gets "somewhat chilly", you mean in the summer, because IIRC ~2/3 of Norway is above the arctic circle. Chilly is the understatement of the year.:) Thanks for your information about low visibility in Scandinavia.
 
Ravaillac said:
Well AFAIK, specialized troops can build inside enemy territory hidden underground shelters that can hold a whole squad for at least a week, and you could walk on them without noticing.

Those are dug or partially dug shelters with a hard top and a hatch. They have some ways to protect from air detection (notably IR and heat detections), and possibly some system to lure dogs away but all details are classified (seriously). Plus this is a purpose made shelters, that means they pack all the necessary tooling.

In E&E scenario, you'd probably be on the move, which means no too elaborate shelters. Digging a small trench, and covering yourself with scraps of surrounding material (grass, leaves,... seen it in a SAS tv report) might be a good quick option, but you'd probably simply try to sleep in some ground depression instead. Any kind of shelter making generates some noise, movement etc, that could reveal you.

I read that average space blanket somewhat protects from heat detection, and that three are some prupose made space blankets meant to cut the heat radiation emissions.
Click to expand...

Pay dirt! Thanks for all of that. That was some of what I was interested in. I'm learning a lot from you guys. Not just information, but also I'm learning what it takes mentally to E+E. A mind is a terrible thing.:D
 
Brian Jones said:
I know that low-visibility shelter construction is one of the first things they cover in detail in Wilderness 1 at OFA. I have not been to the courses there but have heard rave reviews from others, and I am dying to get out there and train with them:

http://www.oregonfirearmsacademy.com/courses/wilderness.htm (Basic Wilderness and Urban Survival for a Potentially Hostile Environment)

http://www.oregonfirearmsacademy.com/courses/wilderness 1.htm (Wilderness Survival for a Potentially Hostile Environment Level 1)
Click to expand...

Darn. Now I want to go too. And you can't beat the price. If I went once, I'd probably have to go a couple of times to really soak everything in. Thanks Brian.:thumbup:
 
lmalterna said:
2 ideas-
1) use the large root ball from an uptruned tree and build a debris hut
2) Use a G.I. ripstop poncho and build two diagonal shock corded poles to form a "boat"- very quick, light nad low vis/low drag.

Besides soil- things to avoid FLIR get complicated and best not discussed in public.

Buddy of mine had a good idea in E&E school. He ran across a huge mass of wild rose and green briar- he found a rabbit trail going in and belly cralwed deep into the mass, nipped branches until he could sit in comfort. Only crawled out for water at night and ran a tiny fire to boil water just after dawn while mist was burning off river. If dog alerted, many handlers might be inclined to think a rabbit had set the dog off. He made it through course unfound but then again, that was 1965. :)

2Door
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This is why the Native Americans stress storytelling. It is a uniquely human form of wisdom-compression and transmission. That story goes to the heart of several E+E/life lessons, IMHO:
1) The enemy (rabbit) of my enemy (dog) is my friend
2) If you can't defeat the dog, defeat the handler
3) Blend in with and understand nature
4) Sometimes the trainee and the trainer exchange places
5) A country boy can survive (they should make a song about that:) )

I just want to hypothetically thank you guys and gals with active clearances who can neither confirm nor deny having participated in this discussion. By all means honor your contracts, just as I am honoring mine. :) But I am learning that a good story from 1965 can be both entertaining and instructive in a very positive and relevent-to-2008 sense. Thanks 2Door
 
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DeadeyeLefty said:
I don't think I'm giving away any country's national secrets suggesting a shell scrape (Ravaillac's post reminded me - it's been a while!). It's a 'shallow grave', just big enough and deep enough to get one's body below the surface of the ground. The idea is that incoming arty rounds will explode up and out, so unless it's really close, you'll be able to pop up after the barrage and continue the fight. Unless it's an incendiary or airburst round...lol

Covering it with local foliage will give you concealment and insulation ought to reduce you IR signature. The obvious problem is site selection: creating any hollow will collect cold air and rainwater. A seasonal creekbank might be a good starting point as well.
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I see another lesson being reiterated. Keep covered. Keep moving. Pray a lot. Mindset isn't everything; it's the only thing. Thanks DeadeyeLefty.:)
 
something else that i was thinking about, along the same lines as my earlier post.

find the most inconvenient spot you can possibly find. climb up to a ledge on the side of a cliff. swim to an island in the middle of a river. go somewhere that dogs don't want to go and that their handlers don't want to go. go somewhere that people wouldn't even think to look, because it is so inconvenient that noone would ever hide there (ala the briar patch story before).

also, if you can, use something small and light for cooking like a pop-can stove. no smoke, no appreciable noise, almost no light. no stir fry either, but it will do fine for heating water and soups.

don't depend on "camo" patterns to keep you hidden, as at a distance all patterns just look like a big blob of solid color. if you are forced to hide in plain site, disguise your head and shoulder silhouette. as i understand it, this is what animals and humans use to recognize people the most by. break up your outline and use foliage from around the area so that you don't look out-of-place.

please take note that none of these things are learned from any kind of formal training, just some intense hide-and-seek as a kid.
 
siguy said:
find the most inconvenient spot you can possibly find. climb up to a ledge on the side of a cliff. swim to an island in the middle of a river. go somewhere that dogs don't want to go and that their handlers don't want to go. go somewhere that people wouldn't even think to look, because it is so inconvenient that noone would ever hide there (ala the briar patch story before).
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That is advice much more sound than it may look like at first glance. If you want to hide from a specific someone (or large group of 'someone'), one option is to hide where they most likely won't look for you. Like, smack in the middle of their camp under a couple of huge trees. Yeah, I've done that - wasn't combat, though, just exercise. But exactly that has been done very successfully by men much better than me, during the Winter War, for example. It's not just one group of Finnish 'army rangers' that while being pursued by Russians behind enemy lines decided to hide right in the enemy's camp. Sometimes they'd even sneak out to borrow the enemy's own campfires, without them having the slightest idea. Dangerous, yes, but it worked, and it was certainly ballsy. :eek: Just remember, though, that it's most often a pretty good idea to make sure you can quickly get out if they somehow do spot you...

Story time aside, I'll just point out again that if you're geared up (=clothed up) correctly for your mission, then you will not need shelter as in "shelter from the elements", but you will more likely need shelter as in "shelter from visibility." This gives you more options, because you won't need a shelter that is particularly warm or dry as compared to the surrounding environment. Those who have walked in Scandinavian forests will know that it's not difficult to find a good hiding place around here.... So, natural cover. Not much beats burrowing under snow or crawling inside one of those enormous conifer thickets where you can't see more than half a foot ahead of you. It may not be comfortable at first, but you'll get used to it. At least I did. Of course, things will likely be more annoying in a desert or some barren place like that where there aren't even any rocks around to hide under.

If you're evading someone, the lighter your shelter is the better it is, in the sense that it takes less time to "make" and less time to break down without leaving obvious traces. If you're really escaping from someone in immediate pursuit, you don't want to chopping and digging around - that makes a hell of a lot of noise for anyone with half a brain to hear.

Quite frankly, the stuff I used to do as a kid, playing with my friends, still works in a more serious context. Hiding isn't hard. Looking for someone who knows how to hide, though, really sucks, even if you have an entire airwing of support trying to find your guys for you with fancy, flying tech. :D
 
Siguy and Elen:

So another good point is "home field advantage." Knowing your area is a major advantage. If you have walked the land before you have to evade for real you can find places that planes can't see and dogs can't go. And if the pursuers are using too many people, there's a chance you can double back and blend in with the group. I like it.:thumbup::thumbup:
 
littlehairy,
yes that is a good point. if someone were to come looking for me in my woods, they would have a mighty hard time of it.

and blending in with pursuers is a very good idea if possible. good in the dark or in winter gear where faces are often obscured. in military settings it might be more difficult because of uniform differences, but in the case of a search party made of civilians etc...

actually i once saw a show at a friend's house where this murderer would go and volunteer in the search group for his victims. the twisted bit was that he was the guy handing out soup and would put pieces of his victims in it...but that's besides the point. it took the cops a long time to figure out who he was, since he was always right there in plain sight.
 
siguy,
You've reminded of something else by your (and others) comments here...when I was a kid, I played "war" with my friends. Heck, who didn't want to play war? It wasn't only about going "bang bang you're dead" (although that was pretty great). It was a total mind game. We learned from each other how to hide, how to ambush each other, how to utilize the terrain, etc.. There were no rules, so it was like a free-form laboratory for E+E. The loser learned from the winner, and everyone's game improved. Kids have their own kind of wisdom when it comes to learning complicated things really quickly.
 
playing is a great way to learn valuable lessons for real life...

this is evident in all animals, from cats to humans...
 
Imagination and thinking out the Box ,tree trunk hollow, up in the air , open trench or enclosed.
Dig in at base of large plant. Open a passage in heavy growth and close behind you.
Hide in plan sight depending on location.. cardboard box ,dumpster car trunk
 
Elen said:
Looking for someone who knows how to hide, though, really sucks
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Actually, if you look at SAR stuff, even looking for someone that activiely tries to be found can be very complicated.
Some years ago, a small plane (cessna type) crashed not far from where I lived, it took them several days to find the wreck, and while it is large wooden area, it is far from real "wilderness".
 
Ravaillac said:
Actually, if you look at SAR stuff, even looking for someone that activiely tries to be found can be very complicated.
Some years ago, a small plane (cessna type) crashed not far from where I lived, it took them several days to find the wreck, and while it is large wooden area, it is far from real "wilderness".
Click to expand...

Very true, very true. The world easily starts to look like a small place if we stay in the cities for long, but when you go out there in the wild, you quickly realize that a man is a really small thing and the world is actually ridiculously large. Finding one guy from the wild, even if you know roughly where he is, is complicated stuff, even with the best tech toys. And then, if he doesn't want you to find him and knows the terrain well, bottom line is pretty much that you're not going to find him unless you luck out.
 
There's lots of useful information in the various military manuals. Survival, Evasion & Escape is one I've got, and the manual on Sniping covers camouflage, concealment and building hides in addition to the specialized marksmanship topics. There's copies of these online, too.

A ghillie suit is great for concealment, but looks like a bad idea in warm weather. There's modern 3-D camouflage suits for hunting that should have a similar benefit without the bulk and insulation.
 
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