These skills and techniques enable soldiers to maintain their own security while gaining advantage over the enemy.

Soldiers must master fieldcraft in order to ensure their own and their section’s survival on the modern battlefield.

For example they must; use their eyes and ears to find the enemy, without being detected themselves; make the best use of ground and cover, by day and night; judge distances accurately; recognize and indicate targets, understand fire discipline and follow fire control orders; and move silently, with or without weapons, stores or equipment.

Fieldcraft training emphasizes the basics even when used to teach or demonstrate more advanced lessons. For example, personnel practising individual movement should be properly camouflaged. Soldiers must be taught that fieldcraft is a 24–hour–a–day concern.

Fieldcraft training is complimentary to weapons training. A soldier should be trained concurrently in marksmanship and fieldcraft.

Covered in this guide:

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

SECTION 1 GENERAL

• Definition
• Scope
• Training

CHAPTER 2 FINDING THE ENEMY

SECTION 1 DETECTION

• Why Things are Seen
• Shape
• Shadow
• Silhouette
• Movement
• Spacing
• Position
• Texture
• Colour
• Scale
• Noise
• Shine

SECTION 2 SEARCHING GROUND

• Normal Method
• Close Country
• Minimal Light Conditions
• Seeing Through
• Visual Inference
• Off the Line of Vision
• Personal Factors

SECTION 3 NOISE AND MUZZLE FLASH

• Flash to Bang
• Crack and Thump

CHAPTER 3 ENGAGING THE TARGETS

SECTION 1 JUDGING DISTANCE

• General
• Unit of Measure Method
• Appearance Method
• Conditions That Affect Estimation of Ranges
• Other Methods of Determining Range
• Aids to Judging Distance

SECTION 2 TARGET INDICATION

• Basic Indication
• Arcs of Fire
• Reference Points
• Clock Ray
• Hand Span Method

CHAPTER 4 INDIVIDUAL MOVEMENT

SECTION 1 METHODS OF INDIVIDUAL MOVEMENT

• The Kitten Crawl
• The Leopard Crawl
• The Stomach Crawl
• The Monkey Run
• The Roll
• The Walk
• The Run
• Turning

SECTION 2 INDIVIDUAL TACTICAL MOVEMENT

• Looking Through Cover
• Shadows
• Skylines

It gives you the ability to locate animals effectively.

You must treasure this gift and respect the animals by being non–intrusive. Getting too close to animals can cause serious disturbances including: abandoning young, disturbing nesting grounds, damaging foraging areas, and may even cause the animal’s death.

For example, in winter, many animals are severely stressed to gather enough energy to stay alive. Escaping from a human presence could rob them of enough energy that they can no longer sustain themselves. Always remember that you are only a visitor into their habitat.

The most important part of nature observation is relaxation. Observation and stalking require you to slow down and settle yourself. It is akin to a moving form of meditation. Animals can sense when you are agitated, anxious or fearful and will disappear.

When you settle yourself, you can move among animals without them sensing your presence. You must press yourself to use all of your senses all of the time or they will become atrophied.

Although centered around animal observation this document could easily be interpreted for any tracking application. Good sound, timeless techniques.

This document covers how to evade police dogs and other tracking dogs and  separates myth from truth by explaining why the strategies seen in the movies don't work.

A useful piece of knowledge in this guide to evading tracking dogs.

Before deployment on a mission the team must learn the dog and visual tracking capabilities and tactics the enemy may use in the operational area.

An effort must be made to study terrain and vegetation types, local movement patterns, including those of civilians and domestic animals in order to best use the terrain and situation to the teams advantage.

This document details the techniques and tactics imperative to losing tracking units.

In order to remain viable forces, all units must be capable of adequately camouflaging themselves and their equipment.

To ignore a threat’s ability to detect our offensive and defensive operations on the battlefield can only result in disaster. In order for units to survive on the battlefield, they must be well versed in camouflage concepts and techniques.

Camouflage is as important as marksmanship, maneuver, and mission. It is an integral part of the soldier’s duty. Camouflage not only encompasses individual efforts, but those efforts conducted by the entire unit, such as movement discipline, light and noise discipline, litter control, dispersal, cover and concealment, deception, and smoke operations.

Everything the soldier or his unit uses on the battlefield must adhere to the principles of camouflage if they are to survive. Survivability is the goal. The unit commander must encourage each soldier to think of survivability and camouflage as synonymous terms.

Training soldiers to recognize this correlation will give them a better understanding of the need to be proficient in camouflage techniques.