outnumbered combat

wyzguy -

What are the light conditions? Full moon, partial moon, overcast? Are the bad guys carrying flashlights or anything highly reflective? I assume your guy is a good shot by Army standards, and has some experience in night combat. I assume the barn is lighted, and some of the light spills out into the yard (since the bad guys will need some light to find his ammo stash).

Without knowing more, I'd say keep them close to the house. He knows where the three bad guys are, and he has a longer-range weapon than they do, which gives him standoff (he can hit them before they can hit him). Have him overwatch their most likely exit from the barn and pick them off as they come out. He should be able to get one of them that way, maybe even two. If they have to remain close to the barn and/or the burning house, they have some cover (but not much--an M16 will punch through a wooden wall easily enough) but no night vision. They can't see him, but he can see them.

If/when they get away from the house, he probably needs to get out of the trees. If it's a ranch, there'll be open ground away from the trees, so he needs to get into the open where he can see them coming--and draw them with him, if his object is to kill them. It's his ranch (I assume), so he knows the terrain; find a good hiding place where he can see them coming and use his standoff again.

Of course, if they're smart, they'll figure out what he's up to and go get some more friends. If he manages to take out two of the three, I can pretty much assure you the last guy is not going to keep coming like they do in the movies.

If there's no moon, and it's dark as four feet up a bull's @ss, he's better off trying to split them up and go close-range with the knife and pistol. Or disappear into the woods, if he's of a mind to escape.

Can't say much about the fieldcraft; just remember, it's to his advantage to keep still as much as possible. Stay in the darkest places, try to keep visibility of the light places, and watch and listen. It's very hard to move silently in most types of terrain, especially if you're untrained--the sticks in the path probably aren't necessary.

Hope this helps.
HN

Of course, remember that he tears the sleeves off his shirt and makes a headband out of them.

He'll set the M16 with a trip wire so when someone walks out from the bar, it'll shoot 'em. Meanwhile, he'll slip in the backside of the barn and slice one guys throat with an OVERSIZED logging/fighting knife. The last guy he'll taunt till he finally kills him with a punji stick trap.

As the smoke settles, his old unit commander will fly in a special ops hot air balloon and save him from the sheriff who was the bad guys 3rd cousin.

Buuuuuuuuuuut...............I'd probably do it differently myself.

Stay close

wyzguy said:

Thanks, HN. Great stuff.

Re: light conditions - I was thinking overcast.

Ranch: The owner is now dead. For story purposes, the Bad Guy (Angel) will keep coming. It fits the character. Sarge would run if he could but he'd be on foot. Police will be looking for strange people shortly (burning ranch house will raise some questions) and he needs to get this finished ASAP.

Reinforcements: Nobody for either side. This is it.

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I think he'd want to stay close and get it over with fast. First, they have to worry about each other and he knows anybody else is the enemy. They have to cross-check mentally since their buddies could be making any noises they hear. He'd want to kill them before they settle in and get their bearings on things.

I think he would stick with the m-16 but expect to kill at very close range since his approach would be by ear. He would move slowly and steadily, but not so slowly as to lose the slight triangulation you get in your hearing from moving at a steady pace.

Trees and stuff are important for their shadows. He wants to stay in those and kind of drift on the edge of the range where he can hear them and they can't hear him.

Once he got the first he would probably hit the dirt since there might be some hopeful shooting by the other side. At that point with a little luck he could probably get one more, if they did some hopeful shooting. The last would be a toss-up since things would be pretty even at that point.

Vanatru said:

Of course, remember that he tears the sleeves off his shirt and makes a headband out of them.

He'll set the M16 with a trip wire so when someone walks out from the bar, it'll shoot 'em. Meanwhile, he'll slip in the backside of the barn and slice one guys throat with an OVERSIZED logging/fighting knife. The last guy he'll taunt till he finally kills him with a punji stick trap.

As the smoke settles, his old unit commander will fly in a special ops hot air balloon and save him from the sheriff who was the bad guys 3rd cousin.

Buuuuuuuuuuut...............I'd probably do it differently myself.

Click to expand...

Of course, if he has the zero-backblast RPG, he doesn't need any of that tripwire-knife-punji stick stuff....

He'll still need the headband, though.

HN

wyzguy said:

Hey Vanatru. That sounds great. I'm sure glad I have experts helping me.

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I'm there for ya brother.

Another reason he'd stick with the M-16 is that he's got better range and accuracy than the guys with the Uzis. Ballistic advantage, it's called in some sniper circles. Like HN said, he'd try to take out one (or more) from distance, confusing them and moving after each shot to keep his position obscured as much as possible. Time of year makes a difference, too. Overcast in Montana with snow on the ground isn't as dark as overcast without snow.

wyzguy said:

The location is a ranch in Montana. It's night.

What kind of fieldcraft would he use? I had imagined him putting branches on the path to alert him if someone stepped on them. Would that work? Would it be used? I'm sure training focusses on never getting into this situation but what do you do if you're in that situation?

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How familiar are the others with the area? Can he do a Crocodile Dundee on urban dudes, or do they have equal knowledge of the environment?

What's on the ranch in the way of livestock? Can he hop a horse and head for the hills? Can he spook some livestock as cover?

What season? In winter he could be in a position to fade out and let the cold take care of them. They can't stick around either ...

I am not intimately familiar with the Uzi, but here goes:

An Uzi is essentially a machine pistol, and as such has pretty much the same range as a standard pistol. You've got to be pretty good to hit a man-sized target past twenty or thirty meters with a pistol--really good to hit anything past fifty meters. Of course, the Uzi has a high rate of fire, so that compensates somewhat for its inaccuracy at longer ranges. But past fifty meters, it's luck as much as skill. An Uzi chambered for .45 caliber (standard Uzi is 9mm) would probably have an even shorter effective range because the bullet is much heavier and drops faster.

A rifle is a long-range weapon by design. It fires a smaller bullet at a much higher velocity, which gives it a much greater range--a good marksman can reach out and touch somebody at 500 meters with a stock M16. And it's no less effective close up than a pistol, although harder to maneuver in tight spaces.

Of course, the darkness takes away a lot of the range advantage unless the good guy has some sort of night sights. But even without those, fifty yards against a backlit target is an easy shot with an M16. With an Uzi, not so much.

HN

I say screw all of this tactical stuff. He is out numbered and out gunned. He needs to outthink them. He needs to use psychology, some internal dialogue where he runs thru what he knows about these guys, and we need to hear it, ie

I think it is interesting for you to show how he figures out how to kill them, then after, he can evaluate the success of the plan, ie

I find this stuff more interesting than the actual blood and guts.

If the fire is going to attract attention ... keep them pinned down until the locals arrive, then leave after the locals take care of the bad guys.