Dirty Tricks

[dragoon500ly]

Thought I'd toss this one in and see what comes up!

My demo instructor encouraged his classes to develop as many different ways to use "that stuff that goes boom"...

Here is one for an ambush that he taught us.

The patrol sets up in a standard "L" formation, at the far end of the killing ground, a marker (c-ration can, lighter etc) is left on a branch. Instead of emplacing Claymores along the line, they are emplaced in the overhead cover, tied to branches and so on. They are aimed so as to fire straight down and of course camouflaged.

Takes advantage of the human nature of not looking up when walking, something to distract the eye for a moment...

Another trick was to lay out a triple row of concertina wire...to include empty cans with a couple of pebbles in them...the trick was that the wire was rigged at either end pull/release detonators hooked to fougas barrels. Hold the wire to cut it, and when the tension was taken off the wire....

One last trick...anyone every take the time to look at photos of M-48 tanks in Vietnam? If you look closely you will see two brackets welded in front of the sprockets and another two welded near the tow pintles on the bow of the tank. The tankers would mount Claymores on these brackets and then run the wires into the driver's hatch. The NVA/VC would almost always attempt to board a tank because of the habit of the TCs riding with their hatch open...as the enemy approaches the tank, the driver would use the clacker...

[Panther Al]

Was doing some training back in the day, and I took the time to pester a demo guy on the nature of some of the ways you can set things off. Never actually got the chance to set this up and have it go off, though not for the lack of effort finding an excuse. Set up along a trail: String a line of claymore's along the side, and totally conceal them from sight, and daisy chain them up: don't string a trip or anything else to them towards the trail itself. At the bend of the trail, about the distance from closest claymore should be about as far as you'd expect a patrol to hole up while someone fiddles with a trap at the bend (And the reason why you picked that section) set up another, this one getting a trip set up. Conceal it, but don't get anal. You want it found.. well, better to say you wouldn't mind. Go ahead, and if you have one, set a toe popper under it. Looks like a booby trap, andit is, but it is there to focus attention on this end of the trip. On the other end, attach a a push pull igniter, and attach the daisy chain to that. If they don't see the trip, all of the claymore's get set off. If they spie the trap, and disarm it baddly, the toepopper goes off, and sets off the claymores. If they cut the wire, or otherwise remove it, the claymores go off... either way, odds are, the claymores go off.

Of course, you can always set them off in other ways if you have some metal mesh, a few sheets of paper, and a good shot with a good rifle.

[dragoon500ly]

This one came out of Vietnam. Not really a dirty trick as, creative use of locally acquired material.

Hollywood would have you believe that all a demo expert has to do is slap a couple of sticks of C4 onto the massive highway bridge and you get this massive explosion and the bridge comes tumbling down...

IRL, dropping a bridge usually involves a few hundred pounds of explosive, carefully placed and tamped for maximum effect.

A Special Forces team had the mission of crossing the border into Laos and dropping a road bridge on the Ho CHi Minh Trail. The team wnet in with enough explosives to do the job, as well as a few hundred plastic bags that were to be filled with water and used as tamping. During the HALO jump, the bundle with the plastic bags went missing.

The SF went on and secured the bridge, wiping out the platoon of NVA that were guarding the bridge as well as a small convoy that was crossing the bridge.

The SF demo people then placed the charges and then used the bodies of the garrison and the convoy to tamp the charges.

One has to give credit to the demo people...along with a check mark for the yuck factor!

[Legbreaker]

I LIKE it!
A body would be almost perfect for tamping, and you don't have to worry about digging a grave later! :P

[Targan]

This exect scenario has been used in my campaign, bodies being used to tamp explosives.

[Panther Al]

Not to mention fresh bodies make excellent field expedient cover against small arms fire - as has been found out overseas by many a trooper. Just make sure to strip them of anything that might go boom first.