Road Movement Planning

This past weekend, I spent some time with a group of like-minded folks working on secure vehicle movement. Having been there and done that on a few occasions, I can report that the guy who led the class really knew his stuff. We capped the day with a practical exercise by actually doing a secure movement.

The class and exercise got me to thinking. We cover this in TW-03 Defensive Operations, but most people haven’t sat down and actually developed a plan, let alone rehearsed the movement. At some of the executive protection courses I’ve had to take, we practiced the skills and immediate action drills dozens of times, but has your group?

The Ultimate Tactical Handbook recommends you plan on this:

Gather up your belongings to leave the land, you who live under siege.

Jeremiah 10:17

Many groups have a generic plan that goes something like this: If things begin to collapse, we’ll meet at Mike’s office parking lot and then convoy the 3 hours to the retreat location. That’s it. No communication plan, no linkup recognition plan, no order of movement, no strip maps/checkpoints, etc. We’re going to flesh that out a bit today.

For the record, this will be the topic of a future TW volume, Secure Vehicle Movement, along with 3 and 5 day courses, because it’s that important. Sure, there are scenarios that would render most vehicles inoperable, but those are very low likelihood. We should train for vehicle use.

When you are linking up, your plan needs to consider a few things. First, who is responsible for security of the link up site? That’s huge and everything we do in preparedness needs to consider security. Next, how will you recognize your team as they approach? Sure, you might know their vehicle, but some type of radio authentication challenge or visual recognition sign needs to be given (like color of the day displayed on the hood). Someone else could be in their car.

Once everyone arrives, your plan needs to have already decided the order of movement, or which vehicle goes where in the convoy. As folks arrive, you need to work on staging those vehicles in that order right away. It’s easier to do it as folks arrive than it is to wait and then try to jockey the cars around (ask me how I know). Every vehicle needs to know every route, not just the lead one, and that’s where a “strip map” or a map of jsut the route, comes into play. Each vehicle needs one.

Cross-loading critical gear is another big point. Your team needs to make their own decisions on what that is, but let’s use medical gear as an example. If your team doctor shows up with the team’s bulk medical gear, spreading that gear out among ALL of the vehicles could prevent the loss of it all if the doctor’s car has to be abandoned on the way. Do the same with all your critical gear.

Having a communications plan that incorporates radio communications between all the vehicles, a special channel for a scout car (if you use one) to communicate with the movement leader, and perhaps other dedicated channels as you need is critical. This plan should be established NOW by team SOP, rather than trying to create one on the fly in the parking lot as society crumbles around you. TW-03A is a good plan to set up that plan.

You need a plan for refueling. Right now, on a road trip, you’d just all roll on into the Love’s or Pilot truck stop and do what needs to be done. Folks would spend 20 minutes fueling, using the restroom and buying snacks. In an event where power may be out and there may be rioting or hostile parties, you need to consider a more secure plan. For example, during the Iraq invasion, there were long lines at Iraqi gas stations. Any security detail that waited in those lines was at risk, and if you cut the line, you’d face a hostile crowd. The solution was to roll in, take over the gas station completely and establish security before refueling. There was no running in to buy a sandwich or use the restroom. Once the vehicles were fueled, they started rolling slowly as the security elements reboarded.

On that note, you need a food/water plan. Each vehicle will need food and water for hte occupants so that no stops need to be made.

You also need a destination arrival plan. You can’t just roll straight into your facility. It may have been overtaken by looters or occupied by squatters. Once you get near, either establish radio communications with your “caretaker team” (in my plan that’s my parents/aunt & uncle) to confirm all is well using an authentication plan or send a dismounted team to creep in and look around first. If you’re making contact with a resident caretaker team, have a “duress” word that they can slip into the authentication conversation in case they are being forced to try and lure your in.

Once you’re inside the location, you’ll need to stage the vehicles for emergency egress BEFORE unloading them. Yes, BEFORE, because we need a bugout plan for our bugout location.

As you can see, there is a lot that goes into this. We’ll be putting out a book on it and offering classes, but we also offer planning consulting as well. Contact me for information on helping you develop a plan or if you’d like a professional review of your plan. I’m also available to come out and teach this topic, along with many others, to your group. Did you know I also offer radio programming service? Pay the shipping both ways plus a fee and I’ll set up your radios.

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