Light Fighter Support Operations Course

An advanced echelon (ADVON) of eight students, organized as two teams of four, moves into an area ahead of a light surgical team. The surgical team can treat patients, but it cannot carry its own sites, communications, power, security, landing zone or transport. The ADVON sets all of that up before the surgical team arrives.

Each team has a team leader, and the Alpha team leader directs the whole ADVON. The teams reconnoiter the sites and set primary and alternate routes, a linkup point, rally points and a landing zone. They stand up two sites: a mission support site (MSS) that serves as the team base and net control, and a medical post with the landing zone beside it. They secure both sites, keep them in contact, receive a patient at the linkup and move the patient to the medical post, and recover a drone resupply. The operation ends when the ADVON hands the working medical post to the arriving medical team.

The scenario is a support operation in a semi-permissive area, where authority is present but weak, services are unreliable, and the population is neutral to cooperative. A medical support operation is used because the same tasks hold in a natural disaster and in non-permissive and hostile areas, so the course can be tailored to civilian, law enforcement and military students.

You leave able to run a support element: plan, move to, stand up, secure and keep talking a small team’s sites, communications and power, then support a medical handoff and a resupply. In practice, you can:

• Turn an order into a plan, then brief and rehearse it.
• Plan and drive primary and alternate routes, keeping a count of people, kit and vehicles at every move.
• Run a written communications plan with primary, alternate, contingency and emergency means (PACE), and switch means on a timed rule.
• Operate the team’s radios, satellite link and TAK common operating picture, and pass the standard reports.
• Power a site from batteries the team sourced, and read the load and the runtime.
• Set early warning on a site and run the response when it alarms.
• Measure a site’s three signatures: its radio signal, its pattern of life and its body heat.
• Conduct a linkup, package and move a patient, and assist medical staff with bleeding control.
• Mark a landing zone, request a drone drop and recover the payload.

SOC is a practical application course. It is not an advanced course, and it is not written for a true beginner.

• The web series (recommended, not required). The Techno Guerrilla web series teaches the technical skills. The onboarding packet covers the basics.
• The onboarding packet. After sign-up and payment, you receive the onboarding packet as a PDF. It teaches the fieldcraft the series does not, in checklist form: the comms plan, radio procedure, reports, briefs, movement, the linkup, the landing zone, site security and field power.
• Knowledge checks. Each series module has a short online knowledge check, and the packet has one more. The checks are open book, every answer is explained, and retakes are allowed.
• Readiness checklist. The packet ends with a readiness checklist. You initial every line and sign the attestation.
• The in-brief check. The instructors check the knowledge checks and the signed checklist at the Day 1 in-brief. If you have unfinished work you still attend Day 1 and complete it before the Day 2 report time. There is no entry exam.
• Personal requirements. You are 18 or older. You drive your own vehicle and hold a valid driver’s license and your own vehicle insurance. You can lift about 40 pounds, for litter lifts, comms setup and moving batteries, and some movement on foot is possible. You sign the course release and give an emergency contact.

Day 1, Saturday (0800 to 1700)

1. 0800–0830In-brief and safety brief.
2. 0830–1000Stop the Bleed course.
3. 1000–1100Lectures. The instructor shows and explains each system the teams will run: the equipment, the network and comms plan, power and how the team sources it, the medical post, linkup procedures, drone drop requests and landing zones (including larger drone frames and helicopters), route planning for ingress and egress, and signature management.
4. 1100–1230Hands-on round robin with all the kit. In pairs, you rotate through radio, network, phone, spectrum analyzer, and power and patient-handling stations.
5. 1230–1300Lunch.
6. 1300–1330Mission brief. The order is issued.
7. 1330–1415Planning. Each team turns the order into a recon plan.
8. 1415–1645Recon and sourcing, alternating with the build lane. One team drives the real routes to the sites while the other builds, then they swap. On the drive the team maps its routes, uses open-source information and a spectrum analyzer, and walks the sites. The teams buy parts with team cash at local shops and pick up a pre-placed cache. In the build lane the team builds the field power system and the tripwire alarm.
9. 1645–1700Recover. The teams count people and kit in, share what the recon found, and receive Sunday’s timings.

Day 2, Sunday (0500 to 1400)

Times after 0615 move with real drive times.

1. 0500–0515Report, headcount and checks.
2. 0515–0615Rehearsals: the confirmation brief, a rock drill and a full dress rehearsal.
3. 0615–0645Ingress by vehicle.
4. 0645–0815Establish the MSS and the medical post: power, communications and the tripwire alarm at each site.
5. 0815–0900The planned drone drop. The instructor flies a real drop to the landing zone; the team requests it and recovers the payload.
6. 0900–1000Linkup and patient transport. The team meets the party bringing the patient, a staff volunteer, and carries the patient to the medical post in a team vehicle.
7. 1000–1045Treatment at the medical post. Staff treat the patient with real medical equipment, and you assist at Stop the Bleed level. Staff who are EMTs work at EMT scope only, under the state and local regulations and EMS organization that govern them, guided by a physician medical director.
8. 1045–1130Handoff of the medical post. The team hands the working post to the arriving medical team, and the instructor calls the end of the exercise.
9. 1130–1230Breakdown and egress. The teams collapse the medical post, close up the MSS and drive out.
10. 1230–1300Move to the after-action review.
11. 1300–1400After-action review. Each team reviews what was planned, what happened, and what it will change next time.

Every student takes the Stop the Bleed course on Day 1: a presentation, then hands-on direct pressure, wound packing and tourniquet application. Students who complete it receive a Stop the Bleed course completion certificate. It is a certificate of course completion, not a certification.

Each team builds a site’s 12-volt power system: a deep-cycle battery box, its fuse and outlets, and charging from the wall, a vehicle and solar. The team also buys and tests used power-tool battery packs on its recon drive and uses them to charge handhelds and phones. The battery box is a two-person carry.

Multimeter, laptop, civilian clothing, headlamp with red and white light, work gloves rated for utility work, closed-toe shoes (boots or protective toe preferred), a discreet backpack (black, grey or similar), dry socks and spare gloves.

What is provided

• Two team communications kits, each with a satellite link, a base radio, a travel router, handheld radios and a spectrum analyzer.
• A phone for each student, loaded with TAK and the team’s chat applications.
• The self-hosted servers the team works on, running before class.
• Build parts and tools for the field power system and the tripwire alarm.
• Stop the Bleed training equipment, and the real medical equipment used on Day 2.
• The drone and its pilot for the resupply drop.
• Sourcing cash for each team.
• The onboarding packet and the student guide, as PDFs on the issued phones.

Lodging and meals

You choose and book your own lodging. You provide your own meals and water for both days.

• The course runs rain or shine.
• Tuition is non-refundable. Supplies and logistics for each class are purchased in advance.
• You may roll once into the next class, with at least 30 days’ notice before Day 1.
• Each class has eight seats and two hold slots. A hold slot is not charged until its holder moves into one of the eight seats.
• Before you pay for a seat, you read and accept the course release. You sign it again on paper at check-in.

The full terms: terms, shipping and refunds.