Student Review: Combined CRCD / Combat Patrol 29 Jun – 3 Jul: Wattage

Max: Wattage already reviewed the initial day of the class:

Note that after 1 September there have been some changes: CRCD has gone to 3 days, Combat Patrol remains at 3 days, and the combined class is now 6 days. TC3 is now an optional standalone class, RMP has been incorporated into the new first day of CRCD. This post details it: ***New MVT Class Structure***

Student Review: Combined CRCD / Combat Patrol 29 Jun – 3 Jul: Wattage:

First off, I want to say that Max’s knowledge is impressive. He can stand up and instruct on any of the subjects in the class at length and clearly from a place of experience and as an expert in the field. He, along with his AI, Chris, were able to give us what I believe the perfect system to learn: 1) Tell them what you are going to tell them, 2) Tell them, 3) Go out and actually do it, 4) Come back and review the lesson, correcting mistakes, praising good actions. This was exactly the SOP for all of the CRCD/CP and as someone that also instructs clients and does camps albeit in a different arena, I appreciate his ability to clearly articulate the concepts and lessons, along with his expertise. From Day 1, he took a group of diverse individuals that had never worked together, had vastly different skills and fitness levels and turned us into a fighting squad on Day 5. Going from simple fire and movement lessons and engaging the “Ivan” targets by ourselves, to learning to fight forward and fight back as buddy pairs and then as two buddy pairs to complex peal maneuvers with enemy engagements at the front and to our side, we learned a lot in 5 days. At the end of the CRCD, it culminates in a complicated(to us anyhow!) squad attack in which there were three different simultaneous elements engaging targets and we not only executed it perfectly, but did it with safety and precision. And let me tell you, it was just freaking BADASS too! When 12 guys open up with the AR’s at the same time, and start the assault/maneuver, if I was the enemy…. I would have been shitting my pants because we were rolling them up quick.

The first day of Combat Patrol was mainly theory, which was great as not only did it set the stage for the next two days and Max imparted vital information to us, but it was also a nice respite from running around in the woods all day. Max gave us some great information about what we needed in our patrol packs and that helped us to pack for the following day. Day 2 introduced us to the principles and actions of patrolling with squad movement, packing all our gear up with inspections by Max and Chris and then we rucked to our Patrol Base. Once at PB, we set up camp, complete with sentry duty, and total silence among the squad. After dinner(MRE’s-Yum!) was finished, we headed back to the pavilion for our night recce mission instructions. Each patrol was given an objective and then had to be back at the pavilion by midnight. My patrol didn’t have any night vision, and that only added to the excitement of moving through the woods in the pitch dark! We were very excited when we got two guys to within 20 yards of our objective without being seen (well, Chris saw us, but only because he had to use “cheater” high tech FLIR!) and got important intel to bring back to the squad that evening. That night was a night of sentry duty, not much sleep and a beautiful night sky filled with stars. Day 3 put all of our skills to the test and I won’t spoil it for it for you, but it really showed us just how much we HAD learned over the 4 days and also how well we worked(sometimes not so good) in the chaotic “contact” environment with little sleep and fatigued bodies.

For me, these combined classes were the perfect combination of classroom theory, gun fighting, patrolling actions and physical work. It allowed me to see just how much I didn’t know about combat(never having serving in the military), small unit tactics and gun fighting skills and then improve on these. It also put together all of the things I had read about in Max’s book, “Contact” and see how they actually are implemented in the combat environment. It’s very clear now that I need a group of guys that have these skills in order to survive a SHTF situation, and I also now have some of the skills needed to either protect my mountain of “Mountain House” or bug out and fight out of contact. I will still be absorbing the massive amount of knowledge that Max and Chris heaped on us for a while, am re-reading “Contact” as well to solidify the instruction and I have already signed up for the December CRCD in order to keep my skills honed! Thank you Max and Chris for giving your hard earned knowledge and for your valuable time, it’s very clear that you truly care about our future.

-Wattage

Max: I have commented on some subsequent changes that we implemented to the Combat Patrol class in this post: ‘Update on the Combat Patrol Class Curriculum.‘