Royal Army College

Lesson Overview

The last lesson prepared a patrol: its purpose, type, orders, and rehearsals. This lesson is about running it on the ground. A plan rarely survives intact. Tired soldiers cross real country where streams run wider than the map suggested, an unmarked fence appears, and now and then something goes wrong. The conduct of a patrol is the set of disciplines that keep it together, secure, and in control through all of that, so it does its task and comes home accounted for.

Three disciplines make this up. The route, broken into manageable legs with checkpoints, timings, and the rendezvous and rally points where a split patrol re-forms. The drill for crossing a danger area, any place that briefly exposes the patrol, done the same way every time rather than improvised at the obstacle. And the actions-on, the rehearsed responses every member knows by heart so the patrol reacts as one without waiting for orders. For the Royal Kaharagian Army these are not the dramatic part of patrolling. They are the quiet safety net that keeps a search line or a relief task orderly, and that keeps the section in hand on the rare day a patrol meets trouble.

Each discipline is a method: a thing done the same way every time, in named steps in a fixed order, so it can be carried out by people who are cold, soaked, and frightened. A method that only works when everyone is calm is not a method but a hope. So this lesson teaches how each is done, step by step, with its common faults. The skills are confirmed on the ground and, in the RKA, rehearsed under the controlled stress of airsoft military simulation before they are certified in person.

By the end you will be able to describe how a route is built from legs, checkpoints, and rendezvous and rally points; explain and conduct the drill for crossing a danger area; list the standard actions-on and say what each is for; and explain how a defensive force reacts to contact and, far more usually, breaks contact, always within the Rules for the Use of Force.

Key Terms

Leg: a single section of route between two checkpoints, short enough to navigate accurately and to control as one bound of movement.
Checkpoint: a recognisable point on the route, used to confirm position, mark progress, and report; some checkpoints are also reporting lines for the radio.
Route card: a written breakdown of the route, leg by leg, recording for each the start and end checkpoint, the bearing, distance, estimated time, and any note such as a danger area or rally point. It is carried, ticked off, and used to control the patrol from a distance.
Rendezvous (RV): a pre-arranged point where members of a patrol meet or re-form; named in orders and moved along as the patrol progresses, so there is always one behind and one ahead.
Rally point: a fallback point, identifiable in poor light and defensible for a short time, to which the patrol withdraws if split or after breaking contact; the emergency rendezvous (ERV) is the rally point used when everything goes wrong at once.
Waiting time: the agreed period a soldier or part of the patrol waits at a rally point before the senior member present decides the next action; settled in orders, not on the spot.
Challenge and reply: the agreed pair of signals, a spoken word and its set answer or a light or whistle pattern, by which a soldier approaching a rally point is recognised as a friend before being brought in.
Danger area: any feature that briefly exposes the patrol, such as open ground, a road or track, a stream, a bridge, or a track junction, where an observer could see the patrol or a threat could engage from advantage.
Actions-on: the rehearsed drills, agreed and briefed before step-off, that the whole patrol carries out without further orders when a named event occurs (contact, casualty, civilians, lost communications, a separated member).
Immediate action (IA): the first, instinctive part of an action-on, done in the opening seconds before any order, such as taking cover and shouting the direction of a contact. It buys the seconds in which a considered decision can be made.
Breaking contact: the disciplined withdrawal of a patrol from an engagement to a rally point, used when fighting is not the task, which for the RKA is almost always.

The Route: Legs, Checkpoints, and Timings

A route is never carried in the head as one long line. It is broken into legs: short sections between recognisable checkpoints, each a single controllable piece of movement. Legs are kept short enough to navigate accurately and hold the section together, which in close or broken country may be only a few hundred metres. At each checkpoint the patrol confirms where it is, accounts for everyone, observes before moving on, and where ordered sends a brief report, so higher command always knows roughly where it has reached.

To build the legs, the commander reads the ground and lets it choose the checkpoints. A good checkpoint cannot be mistaken for anything else nearby and stays recognisable in the visibility the patrol expects: a stream junction, a corner of a wall, a lone building, a sharp bend in a track, the foot of a distinct spur. A vague checkpoint ("the edge of the wood") is no checkpoint at all, because two soldiers will place it differently. Each leg runs from one hard feature to the next, its line chosen to use cover and dead ground rather than the easiest path, keeping off skylines and the centres of open lanes. The aim is a leg both navigable and survivable: the patrol can hold direction and distance to the next checkpoint, and it is not the obvious line a watcher would expect.

The route card turns this into a controllable patrol. Before step-off the route is written out leg by leg, recording for each the start and end checkpoint, the bearing, the distance, the time the leg should take, and a note of anything that matters: a danger area to cross, a rally point that becomes current, a place to slow and observe. On the ground the card is ticked off as each checkpoint is reached, so the patrol always knows which leg it is on and how the timings are running. A simple route card looks like this:

   ROUTE CARD  (section patrol)
   --------------------------------------------------------------
   Leg | From -> To           | Bearing | Dist  | Time | Notes
   --------------------------------------------------------------
    1  | SP wall corner -> CP1 |  040 deg | 600 m | 12 min| SP, radio check
       |   (lone tree)         |          |       |       |
    2  | CP1 -> CP2            |  075 deg | 400 m | 10 min| TRACK = danger area
       |   (track junction)    |          |       |       |  RV1 becomes current
    3  | CP2 -> CP3            |  010 deg | 500 m | 12 min| slow + observe spur
       |   (sheepfold)         |          |       |       |
    4  | CP3 -> EP             |  330 deg | 700 m | 15 min| RV2; report at EP
       |   (footbridge)        |          |       |       |
   --------------------------------------------------------------

Timings let the patrol be controlled from a distance. The commander plans a realistic time for each leg, allowing for the ground, weather, load, and halts, then holds to it rather than rushing to make up minutes. To estimate a leg, allow a steady walking pace for the distance and add time for slope and going: a stiff climb, thick vegetation, or deep mud can easily double the bare flat time, the effect Navigation and Fieldcraft warns of when it says the map measures the ground flat. Arriving together, on time, at the right checkpoint is worth far more than arriving early, strung out, and breathless. Timings also protect the patrol: if it does not report when expected, higher command knows to act, and the lost-communications drill below fills that silence. As Lesson 01 put it, the patrol is judged first by whether it stays in hand, and a route built from legs, checkpoints, and honest timings is how it stays in hand.

Rendezvous and Rally Points

A patrol must always have an answer to one question: if we become split, right now, where do we meet again? The answer is the rendezvous and rally points, briefed in orders before step-off and updated as the patrol moves. An RV is a pre-arranged meeting point. A rally point is a fallback the patrol withdraws to if it is broken up by an obstacle, an accident, or a contact; the emergency rendezvous, the ERV, is reserved for the worst case. A good rally point is identifiable even in poor visibility, reachable by more than one route, and defensible enough to hold for a short time while the patrol re-forms.

The discipline is that there is always a rally point behind the patrol and one ahead of it. As the patrol passes each, the commander nominates the next, so that wherever a soldier is on the route they know the nearest place to go. Keeping one behind as well as ahead matters because trouble can break out to the front or come from behind, and a soldier must be able to fall back to a known point either way without thinking. The commander confirms the change at each checkpoint ("rally point is now the track junction behind, the sheepfold ahead"), and the moment spent making sure every soldier has heard it is never wasted. A rally point nobody can name is no rally point.

On arrival a soldier waits in cover, observes the approach, and does not announce their position; others are brought in quietly by the agreed challenge and reply, so a friend is recognised before being admitted and a stranger is not. The mechanics are worth fixing in the mind. The first soldier in takes a covered position watching the likely approach and waits silently. As each further soldier appears, the one in position gives the challenge, a quiet word or an agreed light or whistle pattern, and waits for the set reply before signalling the newcomer in. A waiting time is set in orders, often around half an hour for a short patrol and longer for an extended one; if a member is still missing at that time, the patrol does not search blindly but reports them to higher with the last known position and the time of separation, and acts on the orders given for that case. This is the logic taught in Signals and Field Communication for keeping a patrol joined up, made physical on the ground.

Crossing a Danger Area

A danger area is any place that exposes the patrol for a short time and where a threat, if there is one, could engage from advantage: open ground, a road or track, a stream, a bridge, a track junction. The danger is not only enemy fire. On a Kaharagian search or relief task the danger area may simply be the point where the patrol could be seen, bunch up, lose people in the dark, or step into a hazard. So the crossing drill matters on every patrol, not only when contact is likely. It exists to make the exposure brief, observed, and the same every time, rather than a scramble decided at the edge.

Why is the crossing the dangerous moment? Because to cross, the patrol must do the three things it otherwise avoids: it comes into the open where it can be seen, it gives up cover, and for a few moments it is divided, some across and some not, unable to move or react as one. The drill exists to shorten that divided, uncovered moment and to keep watch over it while it lasts. A patrol that treats a track as just another step will bunch at the edge and stroll across, which is exactly how a patrol is caught at its most exposed.

The drill, in plain terms, is halt, secure, cross, regroup:

Halt and observe. The patrol stops in cover short of the danger area, far enough back that it cannot be seen from across it, and goes quiet. The commander moves up with one soldier, studies the danger area and the ground beyond, listens, and chooses a crossing point with cover on both sides and short sight lines from anywhere a threat could watch: a bend, a dip, or a stretch screened by a wall or bushes is better than the open straight that is easiest to walk. The commander also fixes where everyone will gather on the far side.
Secure the far side, or post watchers. Watchers are posted on the near side covering along the danger area, one looking left and one looking right down its length, because that is the direction from which the patrol could be surprised while it crosses. The commander then crosses first with one soldier, takes up cover on the far side covering forward and along it, and only then signals the rest to come. Now the crossing is watched from both sides at once.
Cross in a controlled way. The patrol crosses in pairs at intervals, not as a bunch and not as a single unbroken stream. A pair crosses quickly but under control and, on reaching the far side, does not keep walking but takes up a covered position and covers the next pair across. Crossing in pairs means there is always someone with each soldier and never a long line strung out in the open. The near-side watchers cross last, called in and covered from the far side, so the danger area is watched until the final moment.
Regroup and account for everyone. The patrol gathers at the named spot, in cover, and the commander confirms by a quiet head-count that every member and every key item, weapons or training devices, radio, medical kit, is present before movement resumes. A crossing is not finished until everyone is counted; only then does the patrol move off and the commander nominate the next rally point.

                       "DANGER AREA"  (track)
   =============================================================
        ^                                            ^
   [W]--+ watcher                          watcher +--[W]
        | looks LEFT along track          looks RIGHT |
        |                                             |
        |   pair 1 ==>     pair 2 ==>     pair 3 ==>  |   cross in pairs
        |   (one at a time, controlled, not bunched)  |   at intervals
   -------------------------------------------------------------
        \                                             /
         \   [C]<- crosses first, covers far side    /
          \                                          /
            ( o o o )  REGROUP + HEAD-COUNT          near-side watchers
             account for every person and item       cross LAST, covered
             before moving on; then name next RV      from the far side

A stream, a wide field, a bridge, and a junction each adapt the same drill. For a stream the weapons and radios are checked for water first, one soldier crosses to test depth and footing before the rest follow, and pace is regulated so there is no loud splash. For a wide open field the patrol may cross in short bounds rather than one crossing, with the watchers placed along the most likely threat side. A bridge or a junction is treated as a danger area in its own right, because both are obvious places to be watched and both funnel a patrol into a single line. The faults are always the same three, each with the same correction. Haste, which turns the crossing into a bunch: corrected by crossing in pairs and finding cover on the far side before the next pair moves. Watchers pulled in too soon, leaving the danger area unobserved at the worst moment: corrected by making the near-side watchers cross last, called and covered from across. Pairs that cross and keep walking, so no one is counted: corrected by the rule that a crossing ends only with a head-count at the named spot.

The Actions-On: Reacting as One

The actions-on are the rehearsed responses every member knows before step-off, so that when a named event happens the patrol reacts as one body without waiting for the commander to think aloud. They are agreed in orders, repeated back so each soldier can state them, and rehearsed until they are habit. Surprise removes the time to plan, so the plan must already be in everyone's muscle memory. Every action-on has the same shape: a short immediate action done in the first seconds by instinct, which buys time, followed by a considered response once the commander has read the situation. Knowing that shape lets you carry out any action-on, even one you half forget under pressure: do the immediate action, make the situation safe, then act on the drill. These are the standard actions-on every Kaharagian patrol carries.

Action on contact. The immediate action is to take cover and, if it is lawful, return fire, while the soldier who saw the threat shouts its direction so the whole patrol orients at once ("contact front"). Members not able to engage take cover and watch their own arcs, so the flanks and rear are not abandoned while everyone stares at the contact. The contact report goes up the chain at once (see Signals and Field Communication), and the considered response, win the firefight then manoeuvre or, far more likely, break contact, is set out in the next section.

Action on a casualty. The immediate action is to win or break clear of the immediate danger first, then treat and move the casualty under the drills of Combat First Aid, and pass the casualty report so evacuation can be arranged. The order matters: a patrol that rushes to a casualty while fire is still coming down, or while a hazard is still live, often makes two casualties where there was one. So deal with the danger, reach the casualty under cover, give the immediate life-saving care taught in Combat First Aid, then pass the casualty report up the net with the where, the what, and the how-many that lets help be sent. The commander keeps the rest of the section secure throughout: the casualty is one task, not the whole patrol's.

Action on meeting civilians. The immediate action is to stop, stay calm, lower the profile of weapons or training devices where the situation allows, and be courteous. Civilians are not adversaries; they are the people the RKA serves, and on most Kaharagian tasks they are the very reason the patrol is out. The considered response is to speak briefly and plainly, explain only what is proper to explain, give help or directions where that is the task, and note any interaction worth recording. What may and may not be done, and the minimum-force rule, are set by the Rules for the Use of Force, not by the mood of the moment. A patrol that meets a frightened or angry crowd holds to courtesy and lawful restraint because that is both right and the thing most likely to keep the situation calm.

Action on lost communications. The immediate action is to try the simple checks taught in Signals and Field Communication and to alert the commander. If communications cannot be restored, the patrol follows the lost-communications drill set in orders, usually to continue the task and report at the next checkpoint or on return, while higher command, hearing the silence, begins its own procedure against the timings it was given. The drill is agreed beforehand, with the exact action and any fallback means written into orders, so no one improvises and so higher and the patrol read the silence the same way.

Action on a member becoming separated. The immediate action belongs to the separated soldier: stop, work out the nearest current rally point, and move to it by the safest line, observing on the way. There the lost-member procedure runs as the rally-point discipline already described: the soldier waits in cover and is brought in by the challenge and reply, while the rest of the patrol accounts for the gap at once and holds at or moves to the same rally point. If the soldier does not arrive within the waiting time, the patrol reports them to higher with the last known position and the time of separation rather than scattering to search. This is the danger-area and rally-point discipline doing its real work, which is why those points are confirmed at every checkpoint.

Reacting to Contact, and Breaking Contact

It must be said plainly: the RKA is a small, lightly armed, defensive and humanitarian force, and its patrols search, observe, and reassure far more than anything else. The reaction to contact is taught not because the Army seeks fights, but because a patrol ready to react is a patrol that stays in control if something goes wrong. Breaking contact and withdrawing is the honest default for this Army; closing with an enemy is not what RKA patrols are for, and the drill exists so that, if the worst happens, the section comes away safely and lawfully.

The sequence has three parts. The first is take cover and return fire if and only if it is lawful: in the opening seconds every soldier in a position to do so gets behind the nearest cover and, where the Rules for the Use of Force permit, returns fire into the indicated direction while the contact is shouted so the section orients together. Those first rounds are about gaining seconds and making the threat keep its head down, not about precision. The second part is to win the firefight, building steady, aimed, effective fire onto the threat until the patrol holds the upper hand: a section firing fast and blindly empties its magazines for nothing, while one firing steadily and on aim dominates with far less ammunition. The third part is the decision: with the firefight in hand, the commander chooses between manoeuvring against the threat or, far more likely for the RKA, breaking contact and withdrawing.

Breaking contact is the standard Kaharagian response, and there is no shame in it; it is the correct answer when fighting is not the task, which for this Army is almost always. The method is a covered withdrawal by parts, so the section is never all moving and unable to fire at once. One fire-team gives covering fire from cover while the other withdraws a short bound toward the nominated rally point; the team that has moved goes firm in cover and takes up the fire, and the first team then withdraws under it. The two teams leap-frog back like this, always one firing while the other moves, until the section is clear and re-formed at the rally point. Two rules keep this safe. The rally point is chosen and named before movement begins, because a break-contact without a known rally point simply scatters the section. And the firing team and the moving team must never be in each other's line of fire: the covering team holds a position from which it can engage without shooting across its own moving comrades, and the bounds are kept short enough that this stays true. That single discipline, never firing across your own moving people, is what keeps a break-contact from costing the section its own.

The whole of it, the decision to fire, the decision to break, the conduct of every member, is bounded at all times by the Rules for the Use of Force and the Law of Armed Conflict: minimum force, no more than the situation lawfully requires, fire opened only when lawful and stopped the moment it is no longer needed, and a readiness to hold fire as disciplined as the readiness to return it. For a humanitarian home-defence force this is not a footnote to the drill; it is the drill's reason for being so controlled. Lesson 01 said the disciplined section is the one that can hold its fire as surely as deliver it. The contact drill is where that is tested, and breaking contact cleanly, lawfully, and accounted for is the outcome the RKA trains toward, not closing with an enemy.

In Practice: A Search on the Saddle Track above the Village

A Kaharagian section is tasked to search the high ground above a village for a hill walker overdue since a storm the night before. There is no enemy; the work is humanitarian. The commander still builds the route properly: a route card breaks the climb into legs between a lone tree, a track junction, a sheepfold, and a footbridge, each with a bearing, a distance, and an honest time that allows for the slope and the wet going, and a rally point is nominated behind and ahead at each checkpoint and confirmed aloud so every soldier can name it.

Where the path crosses the open saddle, a clear danger area in the wind and failing light, the section does not stroll across in a knot. It halts in cover short of the saddle, the commander picks a screened crossing point and names the regrouping spot, two watchers go out looking left and right along the saddle, the commander crosses first and covers the far side, the section crosses in pairs, the watchers come across last under cover, and the commander counts every soldier and every item in the lee before going on. When one soldier slips on wet scree and twists an ankle, the patrol does not crowd him: it makes the spot safe, applies the Combat First Aid drill, and passes a casualty report for a quad-bike evacuation while the rest of the section stays secure. Later the radio dies in the cloud; the section tries the quick checks, cannot restore it, and follows its lost-communications drill, continuing the search and reporting on return, while in the village the control room reads the silence against the timings and begins its own procedure. No shot is fired and no enemy exists, yet every discipline of this lesson keeps the search safe, orderly, and accounted for. That is the ordinary face of actions-on in the RKA, and it is why they are drilled by everyone.

Check Your Understanding

Explain why a route is broken into legs with checkpoints and timings rather than carried as one long line. What does a route card record for each leg, and what does honest adherence to timings give to the patrol and to higher command?
Describe the four stages of crossing a danger area in your own words, including which way the near-side watchers face and why, and why they cross last. Why does this drill matter on an ordinary search or relief task, and not only when contact is likely? Name two of the common faults and how each is guarded against.
List the standard actions-on a patrol carries, and explain the purpose of each. For the action on a separated member, describe the lost-member procedure, the part the rally point and the challenge and reply play in it, and what happens if the soldier does not arrive within the waiting time.

Reflection (write a short paragraph): Breaking contact and withdrawing to a rally point is the right and disciplined answer for a defensive force, yet the instinct under sudden fire, or under the shock of a missing comrade, is to do something dramatic instead of the drill. Think about why the RKA rehearses these actions-on until they are habit, and what it asks of you personally to carry out a quiet, controlled drill, holding your fire within the law, when your heart is pounding. How does doing the rehearsed thing, rather than the dramatic thing, protect the people beside you and the people the Army serves?

Summary

A route is built from short legs between recognisable checkpoints, captured on a route card that records each leg's bearing, distance, time, and notes, with honest timings; the patrol confirms position, accounts for everyone, observes, and reports at each, and arriving together on time matters more than arriving early.
The patrol always has a rally point behind and one ahead, confirmed at each checkpoint so any soldier can name it; arrivals are brought in by the challenge and reply after a set waiting time, and the ERV is the rally point reserved for the worst case.
A danger area is anything that briefly exposes the patrol, because crossing it means coming into the open, giving up cover, and being briefly divided; the drill is halt and observe, secure the far side or post watchers (facing along the danger area), cross in pairs, then regroup and account for everyone by a head-count. It matters on every search, not only in a contact.
The actions-on, contact, casualty, civilians, lost communications, and a separated member, each run as an instinctive immediate action followed by a considered response, and are rehearsed so the patrol reacts as one without orders; they cross-reference Combat First Aid, Signals and Field Communication, and the Rules for the Use of Force.
Reaction to contact is take cover and return fire only if lawful, win the firefight with steady effective fire, then manoeuvre or, far more likely for the RKA, break contact by fire-teams leap-frogging back to a named rally point, never firing across the moving team; the whole is bounded throughout by the Rules for the Use of Force and the Law of Armed Conflict, with holding fire as disciplined as returning it.

The Conduct of a Patrol: Routes, Danger Areas, and Actions-On