 Hello everyone Dylan Schumacher, Citadel Defense and we are going to start a series on Minuteman Tactics. Now that's going to be fun and exciting because let's be honest in general there are not that many tactics videos on YouTube. So I want to talk about what this series is going to be about what we're going to cover and then why we're doing it because I think the why is always much more important than people give it credence for. So the first thing why are we going to make this series? Well, the big reason we are going to make this series is because every time that I've seen videos on tactics on YouTube, which we're going to talk about what that word means, but every time I see those videos that I can think of I've only ever seen a carbon copy of what they do in the United States Army or the Marines That's it. They someone flipped open the Ranger handbook pointed at CQB and said okay well the first guy goes here and the second guy goes here and these are your points of domination and that's it that's how you do CQB, you know done moving on and I think there's a lot of danger in that thinking the first and in my opinion the most obvious problem is that the tactics that we use in the Army are built around the capabilities that they have in the Army They have the giant corporate structure of the United States Military to support how they do these tactics, right? They have the different weapons and equipment and that of course informs their tactics and how they do stuff Well, you don't have all of that so not all the time But there are some modifications that need to be made and I don't think anybody really thinks that through that I've seen the second thing and and maybe the less obvious point is you have to remember that the United States Army or the Marines your average grunt your average fighter is 19 maybe 20 maybe 21 years old, right? A lot of these things are built for some 19 year old from New Jersey Who's never even seen a gun let alone fired one and now you're going to integrate him into a fire team And you're supposed to put him out on the front to shoot bad guys, right? Like there's different safety checks that they have and there's different Modes of operation and modes of control and modes of leadership management that they have because you have a 19 year old Who doesn't know anything and so he requires a little bit more oversight now in your crew? Maybe you have a 19 year old but more than likely you have some middle-aged guys Who are probably a little bit more put together as far as their skill sets go and their safety goes God? I hope so if not let's talk about that and and so you are coming from a different place You have people who choose to do this in their free time who spend their money to buy their own equipment and training and Practice together. That's a totally different genre. That's much more akin to a Special forces type setup with highly motivated highly skilled individuals not to say that minute men are the same as special forces That's not what I'm saying at all. There's some significant differences there However, it's more akin to that than it is to just some grunts Who's just there to serve us a couple years because you know, he wants his college degree and This is a way to pay for it and he doesn't really care the big differences in control leadership and tactics and motivation And so that needs to be taken into account So when you start to look at those differences in context It seems to me that what we need is a better understanding of tactics for the minute man We need a better understanding of what differences there are what our context is what that's going to look like to us What are most likely available equipment? What are all these things and how should that therefore inform our tactics? And so that's why we're going to make this series. So the next thing I want to talk about is what are Tactics, what does that word mean what I thought it meant when I first started reading and researching and what I think a lot of people Think it means is they think it means battle drills, right? They think it means I'm gonna do this and then I'm gonna move over here You know, I'm gonna pew pew pew. They're gonna say moving. I'm gonna say move They're gonna move then they're gonna pew pew pew and then we're gonna have that conversation. I'm gonna move that's tactics That's not tactics. That's a battle drill Now do you need different battle drills in order to accomplish some battlefield movement? Yes, of course, obviously in order to be effective on the battlefield you need battle drills That's why we have them. However tactics. I think is a real simple definition. It's a common-sense solution To a battlefield problem a common-sense solution to a battlefield problem So we are gonna talk about battle drills in this series, right? Because naming this series Minuteman battle drills just doesn't have the same ring to it as Minuteman tactics Everybody gets all excited about that word. However, you need to understand that in general Tactics are a battle or a common-sense solution to a battlefield problem. And so you might have Different tactics that you employ at different times your tactics will evolve and change as you get into whatever conflict you get into You'll have some maybe go-tos, but at the same time you'll have some other ones that you have to make up and adapt and use Right adapt improvise overcome Right, so there are different things that you're gonna have to do and I don't want us to get stuck in this thinking Because I think most of us get stuck here where it's like well These are the the tactics that we use and everything else is anathema and stupid and doesn't work And I'll get you killed and all this other stuff and we need to be much more thinking outside the box Tactics has an art and a science side to it The Marines talk about this very effectively that there is both an art and a science side to tactics And we need to take both of those into account And you can't just be all science like just the battle drills and what we do and and you can't just be all Art like hey man, just Lucy you see right you have to find that balance About sometimes need to be more artistic in the situation Sometimes you need to just do the battle drill and and there are different situations that dictate that and that all comes down To you and your intelligence and you're thinking in the moment, right? So we don't want to get stuck in this world where we only think that tactics are what the book says It's in the manual. That's it. That's what a tactic is everything else is garbage and I'll get you killed. That's not True and and if you're like listen, who's this guy and what are all his qualifications? And who is he to tell me what tactics are if you've been following this channel for a while You know that I read a lot if you don't haven't been following and you're new here You can go look at my tactical book reviews I read a lot of books on top of that if you're wondering what kind of classes as you bend you because I'm not a military or Police guy that that's not my background at all I have all the classes I've ever been to on my website You can go check that out and at the end of the day you're like this guy's full of shit I don't want to listen to him. You don't have to good for you if however You are interested in adapting what the standard military tactics and battle drills and stuff like that are To your context as just an everyday guy, then I think this series is gonna be for you So I would like you to think of this series as kind of like a collegiate course right like a Grandmasters course or whatever those those things are called We are gonna basically do that and we're gonna have a textbook and our textbook is going to be max velocities Tactical manual small unit tactics. I picked this book for a couple reasons one He writes it towards everyday people so he out of all the tactical books I've read he has that bent of like how is this like more for everyday people now I think there's still some things we're gonna we're gonna tweak and change and whatever because Everybody gets their own nuance and it's my YouTube channel. So I get to do what I want However, this is gonna be our textbook and this book has about 10 chapters in it Has a couple of appendices that we're not gonna cover and stuff like that But we are I'm going to lecture through each chapter in this book and I'm going to use this book as a guide So depending on how deep you want to go you should order this book on Amazon. I think it's 30 bucks If you haven't read this book, you should anyway, it's really good We are gonna use this book as kind of our starting point in our manual. There'll be some stuff we cover There'll be some stuff we don't cover I'm not gonna read the book to you but I am gonna use the chapters as guidelines and as Buckets to talk through information if you don't want to read the book and just want to listen to me talk You can do that too but you will definitely get the most out of this thing if you read the book in in Conjunction with the actual lecture as we go through the course. I will pull in different other source materials I will do the best I can to reference those back to the source materials Sometimes I won't get to do that because I don't remember where it's from and or it's kind of an amalgamation of things and whatever But I'll do the best I can to reference you back to the original materials So that if you are interested like me and you want to go read the footnotes, then you can do that I'm gonna make several assumptions as we go through this series the first assumption I'm gonna make is that you are a competent gunfighter and What I mean by gunfighter there is you've been to a class or 10 you understand how your gun works You know how to fix it when a malfunctions, you know how to take it apart and clean it You in general are squared away with your gun You shoot with your buddies sometimes and have a general understanding of how to not shoot your buddies, right? There are some basic core competency skills That you have that you can feed them into your tactics, right? You are not a complete new person if you are a new person. That's fine Go take a class conveniently enough. I teach classes come see me. We'll have a good time. However I'm making the assumption that you've taken some classes that you understand how the gun works that you Grasp basic safety really well that you're able to have these core competencies Otherwise don't go out and do this stuff without that disclaimer, you know, never do any of this stuff ever This is just for academic reasons blah blah blah one of the other assumptions I'm making is that in general you're squared away with your kit if you have not seen my Minuteman gear series go ahead and watch that That'll take you deeper into the kit world But in general, I'm assuming that that's kind of squared away And you got your mags placed right and your water and your sustainment kid and in general you've got that under control We all know that kit is a never-ending battle and it's we're all just we're all chasing the dragon Let's just be honest. What are the other assumptions? I'm making like I mentioned earlier is that you and your guys lean more towards that Special forces kind of deal. You're not just a bunch of young kids who don't know what they're doing who need extreme Leadership and oversight over you rather you are generally competent You have some guys that you would trust with your life that you know, they can shoot you know They can move you know that they are gonna not accidentally do something stupid But you trust them to make decisions Because a lot of the ways we're going to talk about this is letting those people be individuals and lead and think and act and Not having this extreme oversight Over them often how the manuals call for it. We're not going to necessarily have that extreme oversight and and Real micro management of their actions here because we are assuming that the people we're working with are a little bit more seasoned Are a little bit smarter a little bit able to more think on their feet? Because they're a little bit older in life and maybe they've done this before they thought about this for before and or they They choose to get together to learn to do this So they're not people that you need to micromanage and just to be trigger pullers But rather they are thinking fighters I am assuming you and your crew are a bunch of thinking Fighters and therefore our tactics are going to look a little bit different and our battle drills are going to look a little bit Different I look forward to joining you on this series as we discuss Minuteman tactics do brave deeds and endure