DIY militia manual: tactics, shovels and YouTube videos

The armchair militia trained by YouTube and a shovel

A guy opens a thread to teach tactics to anyone who wants to "found a militia to defend ourselves if the shit hits the fan." What trinc is not an academy course: it is a mix of training videos posted on YouTube, classic manuals —Rommel, Applegate— and confessions from people who did their military service thirty years ago and now want to remember how to build a defensive position. The result is a home archive of tactical prepping, with more enthusiasm than hours of real training.

From the reverse slope to grazing fire

The thread starts with loose lessons: camouflage, rifle and pistol shooting, bounding overwatch, interrogation techniques, combat mindset. Little by little it gets down to business. Defense on a reverse slope is discussed —occupying the slope hidden from the enemy to gain concealment—, the difference between a topographical crest and a military crest, and why it is advisable to stagger crew-served weapons at different heights so they support one another.

On machine gun fire there is an exchange that sums up the tone: it is argued that grazing fire covers more area than fire from height, because the bullet keeps flying after the first impact, and that the real purpose of the machine gun is not to kill but to prevent the adversary from moving. The practical conclusion drawn: first the exposed and hidden zones are studied, then the crew-served weapons are placed, and finally the riflemen cover the gaps.

The gear that really matters

Between one lesson and the next, the anecdotes appear. A list of a soldier's priorities circulating in the thread puts the toothbrush, the spoon and the entrenching tool first, ahead of even the weapon. Someone says he swapped his long-handled Russian shovel for a folding one because it hit his heels when running. It is the kind of detail that separates theory from the real backpack.

Nostalgia for the draft also creeps in: one user recalls his time in the second company of the third battalion of the Príncipe number 3 regiment, in the 1991 intake, and drops the obligatory catchphrase: "Si vis pacem, para bellum." Another asks for material in Spanish and is told there is little of quality, apart from some training videos from Spain's former conscription service and the book Infantería al ataque, in which Rommel recounts his experiences as a lieutenant in the First World War.

Training in three weeks from the living room

The most ambitious part comes when someone asks for a plan to do "military service in three weeks from home," with theory and airsoft and IPSC practice. The thread promoter's answer is to promise a schedule to "train your band of guerrillas." There is no evidence in the material that this plan was ever published in full.

The thread also opens up to reflection on the defense model. The usefulness of military instruction in schools is raised, as is that of a three- or four-month compulsory service limited to basic training —without barracks life— and the need for a voluntary reserve of combat units instead of administrative staff. Ukraine's civilian population preparing to resist an invasion is cited as a mirror, contrasted with what is described as the ineffectiveness of the international community.

Against the enemy within

It is not all technique. The promoter clarifies the scope: the goal is not to form a conventional army or prepare against another country, but to learn to defend oneself "against anyone who wants to walk all over you." And he adds the thread's least epic diagnosis: "our worst enemy is ourselves." The phrase sums up the underlying skepticism about the ability to get organized.

Added to this is the most frequently repeated doubt: without a real structure, all this training falls short. The answer is that there are no shortcuts to mastering something so broad. The video archive is there, available, with the warning that these are theoretical classes and the usual outcome is falling asleep watching them.

The final image remains: an armchair militia debating military crests and minefields while the reference manual is still that of a German lieutenant from 1914. Tactics can be learned. The logistics of having someone on the other side, not so much.