Free Patriot Dawn: The Resistance Rises by Max Velocity Page B

conducting his initial reconnaissance. It was in the same forested area as Zulu, up on the high ground, and it had a farm house, some outbuildings and a large barn type building that would be good for a training location. It was about five miles away from Zulu, the only route between the two being a small trail.
    Although many of those that would be trained at this new camp would be the fighters whose families were at Zulu, this plan to separate the locations worked better because it kept the activity away from Zulu. This would also create a firewall between any new recruits, potential spies however well vetted, and the families.
    They agreed that Jack would take over the establishment and running of this training camp once he had settled his family at Zulu. They agreed to call the camp, ‘Victor Foxtrot’, which stood for Valley Forge, a name which they considered appropriate.
    Bill had recruited a group of volunteer fighters that was about three platoons strong at this point and which he hoped to continue to recruit to get it up to strong Company strength. The concept was to hide this force out at the training camp in the wooded hills and train over the winter, beginning operations in the spring once training was complete.
    Bill and Jack both realized that they were fighting an irregular Resistance campaign and the Regime had the upper hand in terms of surveillance assets and firepower, and they would have to organize and operate accordingly.
    The br oad concept was to train up a force based on a basic cell structure that could come together to coalesce into larger formations in order to allow the Company to concentrate force as appropriate. A system of dispersal and cell level small team IED operations, infiltration, and also concentration of force into larger groupings when necessary
    The Company would begin to conduct operations as soon as they were ready, but in a most careful way. Strategically, they would aim to harass, disrupt and dislocate Regime operations with the initial aim of preventing the pacification of the sector.
    If they could establish that, they would increase the pressure on the Regime safe zones to demonstrate the weakness of the Regimes legitimacy as the provider of ‘safety and security’. This would be accompanied by an information operations campaign in order to attempt to wake up the people and generate support for the Patriot cause.
    The focus of the Company training would be on small unit insurgency operations, attacking the Regime where it was weak. Force on force pitched battles were to be avoided. The Company would be trained to operate as small teams but with the ability to mass up to Company level in order to concentrate overwhelming force against key targets as necessary.
    The big focus was on counter-surveillance, avoiding detection.
    This would mean surprise attacks from ambush positions in order to temporarily overwhelm damage and destroy the enemy, before exfiltration to fight again another day. This would mean that both team members and leaders in the unit would have to develop an aggressive and independent way of thinking that would allow them to conduct operations as a small group, or come together and mass as a larger team.
    Bill told Jack that the group he had so far was a somewhat eclectic bunch, a mixed bag of loyal Patriots, some of whom were better prepared than others. Many were veterans, others were not. They had all volunteered and were willing to put the required effort in. He had a core platoon sized group, of just less than thirty fighters, that he had been working with for some time, and they would be the baseline for the new unit.
    Jack s role was to be as a lead trainer. Jim was also going with them along with the latest bunch of recruits and family members who were with them at the farm.
    Jim Fisher had been a Special Forces NCO, an ‘18C’ special operations engineer, an expert at explosives and demolitions. Jim had deserted before joining up with Bill. He