Thoughts on Insurgencies # Whatever Targeting by CARVER

CARVER is an accronym used for targeting. In this post I am going to go through it in plain language laymen will understand. If you want more formal stuff as well as the scoring matrix click here. Use this method of targeting to look at potential options from your pattern and link analysis.

CRITICALITY- Obviously the point of attacking a target is to hurt the group whose personnel or equipment (infrastructure, etc) you are targeting. No point in going to all the risk and hassle to conduct an attack that will hardly impact the enemy. Lets say you destroy the enemies resupply of underwear, so what. On the other hand if you blow up their fuel it will hurt. This is one significant problem with the 'Shoot the enemy Joey's in the face' plan. Joey is a fine upstanding young man but he is not critical to the mission. 

ACCESSIBILITY- Sure it would be nice to kill the enemy President while he has dinner with all the top military leaders and the head of their intelligence agency but that event is probably very secure. No point in planning a mission where you can't reach the target, execute the mission and successfully exfiltrate. To me this is the reality check question.

RECUPERABILITY- How quickly can the enemy recover, repair or bypass the damage? No point in damaging a city road if they can take 2nd instead of 1st. On the other hand knocking out a bridge might take them months to fix, making a 20 mile trip to mess with your safe area into an 80 mile trip and giving you freedom of maneuver for awhile. Recuperability is another reason the shoot Joey in the face plan sucks. Sure folks will get bummed, they will have a ceremony for him, etc but there is a negligible impact on the big picture. 

[If you haven't picked it up I do not think much of shooting the enemies junior soldiers as a plan for success. Insurgents cannot risk their lives for a stupid goal of killing some 20 year old kid who only matters to his family and buddies. I am not saying there isn't a reason to engage the enemy in combat, just do it towards a goal. Attack to deny the enemy freedom of movement, harass them and push them out of an area or to capture supplies, for propaganda purposes, knife them in dark allies to put fear in their hearts or whatever. Sort of like exercising if you can't clearly state the reason for doing something it's probably good to question it.]

VULNERABILITY- Can you destroy the target with skills or weapons the team possesses? Not much of a point targeting things you cannot destroy or damage enough to meet your goals. Any redneck could knock a cell phone/ radio tower offline. On the other hand a steel and concrete bridge is a bit harder and the right equipment (explosives, det cord and detonators) really help. 

EFFECT- What will the impact of this target be on the political, military, social, economy and in particular the civilian populace? This relates to criticality; how I separate them (maybe wrongly so) is that criticality is the effect on the enemy while effect is on the larger situation. Example, You knock out a bridge that limits regime movement within the AO so it is an obvious criticality win. However this also prevents farmers from getting their crops to market easily and the flow of normal goods/ services are adversely effected. The end result is the economy being seriously hurt which makes lots of otherwise sympathetic people angry with your group. 

AND RECOGNIZABILITY- In realistic combat conditions or bad weather can the folks executing the mission quickly and accurately identify the target? Grabbing a 6'3" skinny teenager with short hair and an earring wearing a baggy t shirt, shorts and sneakers at a high school basketball tournament is going to be problematic at best. 

Well I hope this gives you something to think about. Use
pattern and link analysis then CARVER and, assuming a decent foundation in small unit tactics, there is reasonable chance of success.

I hope you enjoy this post and have a wonderful Friday.

Intelligence Analysis Tools- Patterns and Links

There is so much that goes into intelligence that it is not going to be covered in a single post. Today I want to talk about managing intelligence (information really) and making sense of it.

Obviously any good organization is working hard to find out information about their surrounding area, people and of course enemies. Snipers are doing over watch and pattern of life analysis on high payoff targets as well as whomever happens to be around. Patrols are  tracking enemy movement/ operations and actively engaging key leaders (both hard and soft power*) as well as the populace at large. Aside from the standard listening shop keepers are noting when soldiers come in to buy 2 cartons of smokes instead of a pack or two and weeks worth of snacks instead of something to tide them over till dinner chow. Retirees and other folks with a decent reason to be hanging around near key choke points are counting numbers and types of vehicles that cross their path. All sorts of folks are sitting in coffee shops, restaurants and bars listening to the chatter. A few pretty girls, potentially willing to 'take one for the team' (sorry I couldn't resist) are spending time with the rank and file and well as key leaders when the opportunity arises. Tech geeks are listening to radio frequencies. They probably can't pick up the encrypted stuff but the walkie talkies used for admin stuff on base might be interesting to listen to. Some computer folks will probably be doing their thing also. The point is that any organization with a few members and a semi decent axillary plus a few basic resources will quickly get overwhelmed with information.

As we have seen in the last few years in intelligence the issue isn't so much the gathering of information but rapidly analyzing it, figuring out it's meaning and passing that info through command channels to the shooters. What we will discuss today is a framework for this analysis. A series of products that can be created to make sense of all the chatter by slicing it up in terms of time, individuals involved, events and space. It is important to note that these products are largely looking at the same information just from different angles.

First we will look at time. The two products we will talk about are the threat wheel and the event timeline.

Threat Wheel- I could not find a good picture of this. Imagine a bicycle wheel. The spokes are the hours of the day so obviously there are 24 of them. Next we are going to make concentric circles from the inner hub all the way out to the rim. These are days. The amount can vary by what you are doing but a month isn't a bad place to start. Every action goes onto the threat wheel. You place index the appropriate time to the day and mark what it is. A could be ambush, B could be bombing, c for snap checkpoint, whatever works.

The point of this tool is to see fairly short term patterns. Example Cool Guy in black helicopters conduct raids between 1 and 3 in the morning while conventional guys hit at more like 6 in the morning. Checkpoints get set up about 7 in the morning and run till 1 or 2 in the afternoon. You get the idea. It is important to realize that your insurgent forces actions can affect the threat wheel. If you run operations in the morning then they will look for you in the morning, raids will be conducted in hours of darkness when they suspect your force will be resting, etc.

It also might not be a bad idea to keep a threat wheel (maybe call it a friendly forces activity wheel or something) of all of YOUR actions. The reason is to avoid setting patterns that can be targeted. The other guy will be looking for those patterns to set up an ambush or drop some bombs so you better not set any obvious ones.

Event Timeline- This is just that a timeline. It is better for longer term stuff. Showing how two sides got to fighting or whatever. These are good for seeing big picture patterns. These typically focus on months and years while the threat wheel is more about days and weeks.

Example: A fellow I know was an intelligence officer who worked in South America in the 80's. He ended up advising a friendly Banana Republic in their fight against an insurgent communist group. When they looked at it this group had a pretty set pattern for moving into an area. They would send a few guys in to look around and ask questions. What were the local grievances, who were the power players, that type of stuff, next they would damage the roads, bridges and train tracks (isolating the objective) which inconveniences the people and made them dislike the police and army who could not stop this. After that they would conduct a few attacks hurting a few people and destroying most of the police vehicles to stop the lazy police from patrolling and they would move into the jungles outside the city in force. Some folks would then come in and talk about how the regime was corrupt and incapable of providing basic services. By the time they got to actually going into town the police were incapable of maneuvering, it was difficult for regime reinforcements to get there and the people were largely on their side. Information like this allowed the regime to much more effectively mass their forces (instead of guarding everything) and defeat the insurgents. Remember that patters will be exploited by people who find them. End example.

Next we are going to look at people.

Association Matrix- This is a pretty simple document. It is a triangle with a bunch of names going down the angled side.

The point is simply to show which players know each other. Here is an example.Typically one symbol will be used for suspected association, another for confirmed association and a third when one of the parties is dead.

Activity Template- This is a simple square divided by lines. On the left side we have the names of all our players from the association matrix and on the bottom we have a whole bunch of activities. Some will be key events like Regime puppet forces assassinating a local power broker and others will be broad like 'intimidation' or 'information operations'.

The same known, suspected, KIA code (the examples from the FM don't have it but it's smart to include so you don't get all whipped up about finding a connection to then realize one of them is dead) will be used here. The point is to link our players with activities. This can also feed back into our association matrix. If Bob and Jim are both confirmed to have participated in the death squad that offed a town council member they know each other. Be sure to adjust the association matrix accordingly.

Next we put this stuff together.

A product omitted from the manual but useful none the less is an Intel Analysis map overlay. Taking the people and activities and plotting them onto a map. Think of it like a threat wheel slapped onto the map. You can also incorporate a variety of other useful info like ethnicity, religion, income as needed, whether an area is pro regime, neutral, contested or pro insurgent and whatever other info you deem pertinent. I do not think this is necessarily essential but it depends on how many visual learners are in your target audience.

Link Diagram- The link diagram shows activities, players involved and the connections between them. An event will be a square, people are circles, confirmed connections are solid lines and suspected ones are dashed lines. You can use another key system but this one works fine and is easy.

The link diagram is really what all of the work we have done is building up to. It should (if you have a decent amount of info) graphically depict who is doing what and the connections between them. Also this is where this whole process really starts giving back to you.

This process is pretty helpful for managing a lot of information during a complicated situation. If you haven't figured it out yet Insurgencies are complicated situations. The Regime has conventional forces, paramilitaries, auxiliaries, folks actively and passively supporting it. Local power brokers are out doing their thing and supporting one side or both, sometimes switching back and forth as conditions change.  A variety of thugs and criminal organizations exploit the vacuum to ply their trades. The insurgent groups have a slew of loosely organized, sometimes even competing, groups, auxiliaries and supporters.

I said before that this analysis is a way to manage information. That is the most basic function for sure but it also brings up questions when you see the picture more clearly. Seeing everything put together will make connections or holes in your information become much more apparent than if they are stuck in a huge stack of reports. This will lead to new PIR (Priority Intelligence Requirements) to answer the questions that come up. Is a person who seems to be involved with every cell but not directly in any operations a courtier, some sort of specialist (explosives, commo, medical, etc) or a leader? Is the Mayor a Boss Hog style crook, a Grey Man, playing both sides or a full out regime stooge? Are the local chapter of the Masons running a pro regime death squad?

The relationship between intelligence collection and operational command is a complicated one. Way more than can be addressed in a paragraph. Simply put the Commander will give guidance on operational plans which will be supported by intelligence collection. Intelligence collection will then lead to focusing or adjusting the operational plans to suit the situation. I guess you could say that operations drive intelligence and intelligence focuses operations. Done right it is a positive feedback loop of butt kicking.

*Hard power would be established positions of authority, not necessarily of arms, such as tribal leaders, mayors, police chiefs and whatnot. Soft power folks can be just as influential but do not have a formal title parse. Think village elder, influential businessman, religious leaders and such. Their power is just as real but varies more depending on the individuals involved. If you have ever seen a Mayor make a 180 degree policy turn overnight after the town doctor and Preacher spoke against it you have seen soft power.

For further info refer to http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/policy/dod/part4_ct_analysis_course.htm , http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/policy/dod/ct_analysis_course.htm and FM 3-07.22 particularly Appendix F where the example images came from.

I hope this is interesting to a few of you. Anyway happy day after Christmas.

Red Dawn 2012 and Random Thoughts Theiron

I saw the new Red Dawn this weekend and had some random thoughts that didn't quite fit into the review format. In no particular order:

1) However unlikely a Chinese North Korean invasion might be getting out of town before travel was restricted would be a matter of a minutes not hours. Grabbing your family (if they are home), some bug out bags, weapons and go boxes then getting on the road would be about the best case you could hope for. There is no way you could load up a dozen guns, 20 ammo cans full of 9mm, .38 special , .223, .308, a years supply of food, boxes of camping gear and clothes even if that stuff was organized and ready to go, let alone if it is strewn all over the place. This is a compelling reason for people worried about the Chinese North Koreans invading or who for whatever other reason have a concern that is best suited to bugging out (lets not argue this point here) should probably have a large percentage of their stuff already at that location.

2) For me personally it was a harsh reminder to always wear functional clothes outside of the home. Footwear more specifically wearing sturdy serviceable shoes instead of beach wear on my feet when away from home is the right answer. I just plain need to suck it up and do better.

3) This was a reminder to think about the stuff I carry around every day. In general I am pretty happy with my current plan. I always have a knife and a lighter and have a pistol, reload and light whenever possible. The light could be addressed as my LED Lenser just sucks batteries without even really being used. They are going dead after 5-7 days and if the light is used for more than 10 minutes over that time it would surprise me. I think there has to be some sort of a draw keeping the juice flowing. Probably going to replace it with a Streamlight or Surefire whenever my crazy (my 'crazy fund' not talking about our overall finances) fund builds back up a bit. My EDC bag also has a bunch of goodies and it is either on my back, sitting next to me or in the car.

4) Going along with #1 having a plan with family and close friends is important. If I think we are meeting at the cabin and they think we are going to deer camp there could be a problem.

Well those are my thoughts on that.

Movie Review: Red Dawn 2012

Even though it came out when I was a toddler when it came out the original Red Dawn was a big part of my formative years as a teen and early 20 something gun toting redneck soon to be survivalist. I cannot count nights revolved around a case of beer, some booze and watching Red Dawn with my buddies. Watching it, talking about what we would do and even making a few preparations because of it. So naturally I had to see the new Red Dawn.

The Remake of Red Dawn has faced some adversity. It was sucked into a black hole due to financial issues at MGM. After filming the invading nation was changed from China to North Korea. It isn't too hard to mentally insert China every time they say North Korea anyway. So it finally came out and I went to see it.

I will try to keep the spoilers to a minimum but if you are dead set about seeing this movie without any sort of a notion of what happens then it would be smart to read this after you see the movie, not before. 

Red Dawn 2012 has naturally been brought into the modern era. The loose scenario that starts things out is based around current situations and some plausible continuations of them. Kind of the same start as the original with today's threats really. The location was changed to Spokane, Washington which is (for the inland American West) a pretty big city instead of the small town of Calumet, Colorado. I always thought in the original it was Montana but cannot recall why. Another notable difference is that the older brother is a Marine with combat experience.  More on this later.

There were a variety of other fairly small changes. Broadly speaking the 2012 version was true to the original. It was not a carbon copy but the broad strokes were similar with enough changes to make it contemporary and interesting. Also there was a scene (may have been more that I missed) where they poked a bit of well intended fun at the original. Well played.

To the usual format.

The Good: Making the older brother a Marine with combat experience made the whole plot a lot more realistic. The odds of one person with real experience being able to field a team of fighters that could do some damage and stay alive is much higher than a whole crew of amateurs doing the same. A departure from the original for sure but not a bad one. There are a whole lot of veterans of viable fighting age around these days so it is pretty realistic anyway.

Naturally coming along with a person with combat experience the group conducted some training before beginning to go all Wolverines on those evil Chinese North Koreans. There was even a pretty cool montage about it. Some basic training combined with somewhat competent leadership makes the groups success seem more plausible than it might have in the original.

 Also the way the group operated, was supplied and sheltered was more plausible than in the original. It meshed with a variety of historical patterns of various guerrilla groups. Not that the original was weak here as it didn't really focus on tactics anyway it is just that this one was just a bit stronger here.

The characters seemed a bit more 3 dimensional in the 2012 version. There were some sidelines of various human interactions that made the characters seem a lot more human.

The Bad: Without getting into details I think the Wolverines ability to freely enter and exit Spokane was a bit convenient. The totalitarian folks in China North Korea know a few things about population and resource control. They would probably issue some sort of passport or ID card very quickly and use them to restrict (and if the system is electronic track) freedom of movement.

The Ugly: To keep up with today's hyper action movies the level of up close and personal violence as well as close calls was pretty high. At one point a Chinese Korean soldier was blazing away with a frickin Ma Deuce AKA .50 caliber machine gun from CQB range at one of the Wolverines but somehow did not kill him. I wouldn't say these few incidents detracted from the overall movie but they certainly annoyed me.

Overall Assessment: I liked this movie and think you will also. If you are into slightly cheesy patriotic action movies you will enjoy Red Dawn 2012.

I have some general thoughts but will probably let them mull for a day or so. Folks who made it out to the movies for Red Dawn please let me know your thoughts in the comments section.

Black Friday and Red Dawn Review Coming Up

Did some virtual black Friday shopping. Picked up that bottle and cooking kit combo as well as a wool blanket and (treating myself) a Trade Knife from the Pathfinder Store. They are running a 10% sale until Monday the 26th.

I was pleased to see that Brownells is running a sale. You can probably guess what was ordered.

Tonight is Red Dawn night for Ryan. There may be a review tonight and if not almost surely tomorrow.

So You Wanna Be a G?

The topic of armed paramilitary groups has always been a subset (or maybe they are separate with some overlap but let's not overthink it) of the survivalist movement. In the 70's and 80's folks talked about fighting off Soviet invaders Red Dawn style. After the fall of the Soviet Union the concern shifted to some sort of UN invasion. The latest concern seems to be more domestic in nature. Since I do what I do for a living there are a lot of things I do not talk about. To paraphrase Glen Beck "I believe everything that I say, but I don't say everything that I believe." This topic partly falls into that arena. It directly leads to some areas I choose not to talk about. Also it doesn't especially interest me. Maybe somewhat because of what I do for a living the kinds of skills and attributes needed to conduct small unit unconventional operations are largely already present.

For no particular reason I can think of this topic interests me today. Maybe it is the fact that a capable survivalist and a potential guerilla are both grounded in the same basic skills, I don't know. In any case I got to thinking about the sort of skills and capabilities and logistics one needs to develop in order to be a reasonably viable potential guerilla.

#1 Physical Fitness. I should not have to explain why this is really important. There is no way you are going to be able to fight anybody unless you are in some resemblance of decent physical shape. One of the funniest moments I can recall on this part of the web was when a man who could only be described as morbidly obese talked about how he plans to overwhelm (whoever it was) with "hit and run tactics". His fat ass couldn't hit and run the 2 blocks from his usual super sized ultra McFatty lunch at McDonalds to Baskin and Robbins for a post lunch milkshake; let alone outrun a bunch of 18-25 year old's who run multiple times a week, if not daily. Physical fitness or a lack theirof goes a long way towards establishing legitimacy as a potential or actual guerilla/ partisan or lack theirof. There is a sort of running joke that a militia is a bunch of fat guys sitting around calling each other Colonel. If I was a slightly different person with a very different life looking to join some sort of group and I got there to see they made group buys of extra extra fat multicam uniforms/ body armor/ chest rigs I would do a quick 180 and move on.

Aside from being a foundation for everything a tactical athlete such as soldier or guerilla does the reason I put physical fitness as number #1 is that it takes a long time to develop. There are no shortcuts. Physical fitness is truly a slow cooker concept requiring consistent, if not perfect, effort over months and even years. If you spend a week and a half or so at a premier tactical school you can become pretty good with a pistol and a rifle and probably learn some basic tactics. In a day you could buy a good pistol and rifle, as well as a .22, a shotgun, a "precision rifle", body armor, night vision, a chest rig, a ruck and camping gear, cases of ammo and boxes of mags as well as a years worth of food for your family. It would be a heck of a bill that very few people can afford but it could strictly speaking be done. Physical fitness does not work that way. There is no rush turkey fried/ pressure cooker way to significantly speed it up. When you realize that you need physical fitness there is unfortunately no way you can develop it in a manner timely enough to be useful.

That means you have to start yesterday. If you are too heavy then stop eating junk and have some discipline with portions. Start walking until you can work in some short jogs. Jog a telephone pole/ 100 steps/ a block then walk one. After a bit jog 2 and walk 1. Eventually cut out the walking from all but the longest runs. Take that backpack you bought and fill it with stuff then walk around. Do body weight exercises and lift stuff. In a slow and progressive manner add reps and sets to the body weight stuff and a few pounds at a time to the lifts.

#2 Build basic skills. Learn to shoot. Learn first aid and CPR. Learn some basic camping skills like starting fires, cooking over fires or backpacking stoves, building a shelter, land navigation etc all.

#3 Acquire basic weapons and equipment. We could talk about this one for a dozen blog posts but let's not get bogged down. Buy a fighting rifle and pistol. Get a setup to carry mags and ancillary stuff. At least one .22 is very useful and if you can afford it a shotgun and some sort of scoped precision type rifle are nice to have. Obviously you need plenty of ammo, mags and some prone to fail spare parts. Get sufficient wet and cold weather clothing, gloves, boots and headgear to operate in your region during the worst it has to offer. Get basic camping gear like a backpack/ rucksack, a sleeping bag, some sort of shelter like a bivy or tent, a water filter and all the little stuff in between.

#4 Acquire food, fuel, batteries and other logistical necessities. It is highly unlikely that you will be able to play Guerilla all day long then run out for a pepperoni pizza and a 6 pack of tall boys. If you are worried about running to the hills to play Red Dawn then it would be prudent to have a bunch of food, medical supplies, batteries and some fuel set aside to meet those needs. Also the kind of times when fairly normal folks are shooting at some sort of organized group are chaotic enough that even if you are not a G normal commerce will likely be disrupted.


Once you have this stuff it is prudent to put some consideration into where and how it will be stored. Unlike somebody with a more survivalist outlook your plan is probably not to stay at home (or your alternate location). If things are bad enough that you are playing G a basement full of food, while a great thing to have, may not cut it. Particularly if you have to leave in a hurry be it in a car or on foot having all your stuff in one place is problematic. Having some stuff at your home, more at some sort of bug out location/ basecamp and the rest in a couple caches around the area you plan to operate in is a much better answer.

#5 Build better skills. This was almost part of #2. The reason it is not is that while it is absolutely true that people are more important than stuff without some basic stuff it is pretty hard to do much of anything. I am pretty confident about the outcome of a gunfight between my boringly average self and just about anybody if I have a gun and they do not. If a guerilla war went on long enough there would be some extra stuff floating around but for awhile (and much more so without a convenient outside benefactor) things would be aweful tight. I would not say that a man without a rifle (and all the support stuff he needs) is exactly useless but he is a lot less useful than another shooter. In Afghanistan early on the Muj had to turn away volunteers who did not have weapons because they couldn't arm them. Now is the time to look at filling holes in your skillset's. Anyway.....

Getting some sort of professional firearms training from a fighting oriented school is an aweful good idea if you can possibly afford it. Medical skills are pretty darn important too. The new TC3 training and it's associated spinoffs are very worthwhile quality training.

#6 Find some friends. The whole lone wolf/ Rambo/ Chuck Norris/ Arnold one man army of death and destruction thing makes for a great action movie but that doesn't translate to real life. You need friends who are like minded and can work with you toward some sort of common goals. A sniper needs or at least can really use a spotter and local security. It is pretty hard to ambush a group by yourself, at most you can probably harrass them. Everybody needs somebody to pull security while they sleep and watch their 6 o'clock or help them should they get injured.


#7 Train with your new friends. People without an understanding of basic individual and team movement tactics as well as squad and platoon sized operations likely greatly outnumber those with an understanding of these things in most groups. If you somehow happen to have folks with meaningful experiences in these areas you all need to get onto the same page. Some of the most tragic accidents in military history come from ad hoc groups of otherwise trained individuals working together. If Bob zigs when Jim think he is going to zag or Tom is halfway down the wall when Rob thinks he should be at the corner people get shot. Training together will get everybody onto the same page, work out the kinks and build group cohesion.


#8 Develop plans. Based on your area, the local players and whatever sort of worst case scenario you guys see happening you can start to plan. Like any fight eventually it takes on a life of it's own but right away having a plan is priceless. Also the process of developing a plan leads you to see all sorts of interesting stuff like specific training or equipment or other preparations that should be made. Obviously doing things like making explosives or breaking federal firearms laws would be pretty foolish. However you can do all sorts of other stuff. Walk the terrain in your area to confirm or deny what map recon tells you. If you wonder how long it takes to move from Anderson butte to the ridgeline above Highway 25 then pack a lunch and go find out. If you wonder whether Deer Creek can be crossed on foot during the spring runoff go find out.

#9 Take advantage of your group's purchasing power. Make group buys to save money. I suspect if you call a school and ask them what kind of discount you get for filling the whole class they will work with you. Depending on your group dynamics consider the purchase of expensive or specialized equipment that is not practical for an individual but make sense for a group. Take advantage of the economics of scale which can be achieved. Renting a piece of specialized equipment you will only need for a short time is much more affordable if several folks can use it during the minimum time.

#10 Develop those around you. Some discretion is essential here but the more prepared that your extended family, friends and buddies are the better. Also a few may go whole hog into it and become assets. Also this is a great place to find and develop useful folks who could fill a more auxillary type role.

Note: One and two should be done successively as in one after another. You need to get started in physical fitness today (though you can pursue other things while developing your fitness) and work on basic skills until that requirement has been satisfied. They are really the basis for everything else. Three and four should probably be worked together. Six could really be done whenever but obviously has to be done before seven. The rest are somewhat more flexible, just use common sense.

A Valid Question

Chief Instructor said...Question: What's the deal with the chest rigs? I honestly have not even considered them as part of my preps. If I'm on foot, I'll have a backpack. Is the idea of the chest rigs that you can have easier access to magazines? Is that it or am I missing something? They seem like they'd be used if you had a bug-out location and were patrolling the grounds. Are there other uses?

 

Answer: Chief Instructor,  Look at it this way.  I know you do some defensive pistol shooting type competitions. Would you consider keeping the spare mags you need during a course somewhere in a back pack? I don't think so. You almost surely have them in a mag pouch so you know where they are and can get at them in a hurry. Makes sense right? 

 

I think every pistol should have a holster, a belt and a mag/ speed loader pouch in addition to a cleaning kit, mags and ammo. With that pistol you need a place to carry it except your hand which means a holster and then you need a belt to put it on. Don't want to have to try and stuff it in your pants awkwardly. You also need something to hold spare ammo in lest you find yourself riffling through a backpack. For each pistol a holster, belt, mag/ speed loader pouch as well as mags/ ammo are ancillary equipment.

 

Why is a rifle any different? You need a hands free way to carry it as well as something to store spare ammo and whatever else you may need. I would say chest rigs or an LBE or whatever sort of setup you prefer is part of the basic ancillary gear for a rifle (along with a sling, cleaning kit, mags, ammo, etc).

 

As for my preference for chest rigs in particular. They are what modern professionals use for a lot of reasons. Sort of how quite a few police departments use Glocks and not many  use 1970's era Ruger or Smith and Wesson semi automatics. Chest rigs are very ergonomic and you can wear them and run or whatever. Very hard to change mags at more than a snails pace if they are buried in a backpack while given a little bit of practice a chest rig is really fast. So part of it is that they are a necessary piece of equipment to get the most out of whatever rifle you have. As for their exact niche as a prep....

Does a chest rig fall into the Blackhawk Down/ Red Dawn category? Maybe. Admittedly it would have to be a pretty dark scenario for you to need a chest rig and a rifle. However like so many low probability high impact events when you need it you really need it. I bet there were a few average Joe's in the LA Riots or Katrina who would have liked a convenient and quick way to carry spare ammo. If things are so screwed up that you are grabbing a rifle or a shotgun you need a good way to carry ammo (and other stuff) for it.

Also as criminals operate in more larger more organized and violent manners the need to prepare for a nasty and prolonged gunfight is there. Truly this is probably the most realistic niche for this type of gear. Yeah at 10 feet in the living room it will not take long for an outcome but if people get behind concealment/ cover or there are multiple tango's you might shoot a lot more than you imagine. If you consider the possibility of having 3-4 armed tango's a couple spare mags would be awful nice.

For whatever my advice is worth I think you should have a chest rig or an LBE or a set of whatever type web gear suits you as part of the ancillary gear for each defensive rifle you own.

Chief, I hope that answers your question.