Friday, July 6, 2012

Hunter Killer Teams


A four man Special Forces team (Blow and one other American with two Montagnard soldiers) served as a cross border hunter-killer-recon team, in Kontum, Viet Nam, in 1972.

In Grozny the Russians ended up resorting to the same "Hunter Killer Team" tactics that US forces applied during the Surge in Iraq. Conversely the insurgents in both Grozny and Iraq started doing the same thing back.

A hunter killer team is a minimum of 3 personnel. A primary shooter, a spotter or heavy weapon operator, and security. You see a HKT is a modular concept. US forces liked to send a Fire Team as a Small Kill Team, or a 3 man Sniper team consisting of Sniper, Spotter, and Automatic Rifleman.

The insurgents liked the mix of sniper, RPG gunner, automatic rifleman/machine gunner, IED man. Different mix for different cells.

This is combined arms warfare broken down into the lowest elements possible. As few weapon systems as necessary working in a synergistic effect with operators to achieve more than any single man/system alone.

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