This document provides an overview of combat tracking techniques. It discusses how tracking can be used by cavalry troops to follow insurgents and gather intelligence. Tracking is defined as recognizing and interpreting changes in the environment to determine where someone or something has traveled. The document outlines several situations where combat trackers could be employed, such as pursuit, IED detection, and locating arms caches. It also provides examples of successful tracking units from Rhodesia and South Africa. The document aims to demonstrate how tracking skills can help military units in operations against insurgents.

1. COMBAT TRACKING
OVERVIEW
as instructed by
Centurion Training Group
SPQR

2. What good is visual track
interpretation to
a Cav Trooper?

3. “A set of tracks tells a story. It has a
beginning, a middle and an end – a
bulletin board in the dirt.”

4. LOCARD’S PRINCIPLE OF TRANSFERENCE
• “Where ever you go, what ever you do, you take
something with you and you leave something
behind.”

5. Most people could follow this trail…

6. …but would you notice these?

7. Tracking Defined:
Tracking is the process of recognizing and interpreting changes in
the natural state of the environment to determine where someone
or something has traveled.
It does not have to be in the woods, it does not even have to be
outdoors (document cache, Fallujah, 3RD Recon BN, Col. George
Bristol).
“…Tracking, simply put, is a reactive effort to close with and apprehend or
destroy a fleeing quarry, whether terrorist, escaped criminal, or illegal
border crosser who attempts to outrun and/or outwit friendly forces or the
instruments of law and order….” David Scott-Donelan

8. “Tracks are clues, the most clues a
perpetrator (insurgent) will leave behind
– one every thirty inches or so and as
conclusive as fingerprints.”
Sherlock Holmes

9. Tracking Misunderstood
Two Kinds:
Visual Tracking
Olfactory (scent) Tracking
What good is it to the Cav?
More to the point – why should you train under CTG?

10. THE AIMS OF COMBAT TRACKING
1. By the use of individual and team skills, techniques and tactics, conduct a
follow-up and annihilate:
 Armed Aggressors
 Insurgents, Infiltrators or Terrorists
 Enemy patrols, Recon teams, and Snipers… in a speedy and aggressive
manner.
2. By the use of patrolling and reconnaissance techniques, locate and follow
tracks of insurgents or aggressors and destroy them.
3. During follow-up activities place such pressure upon aggressors so as to
drive them into own forces ambushes or prepared positions.

11. THE AIMS OF COMBAT TRACKING
4. Locate, identify and interpret tracks left by aggressor
activities.
5. To ascertain the direction of flight of insurgents so as
to better concentrate blocking forces more effectively.
6. To recognize and calculate strengths of aggressor
patrols and formations.

12. THE AIMS OF COMBAT TRACKING
7. Use anti-tracking skills and techniques enabling
recon teams and snipers to move in and out of
denied or hostile territory without leaving footprint
evidence which may alert the enemy to our own
forces presence or intentions. (*It was this
particular use that seemed most applicable to the
past Cavalry students CTG taught.)
8. To maintain contact with a fleeing or retreating
enemy.

13. SITUATIONS TO EMPLOY COMBAT
TRACKERS
1. Pursuit to Contact.
2. IED Detection at Range.
3. Locate arms caches.
4. Recovery of wounded personnel.
5. Counter surveillance.

14. SITUATIONS TO EMPLOY COMBAT
TRACKERS
6. Information/Intelligence collection.
7. Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR)
8. Maintain contact with a fleeing enemy.
9. Back-tracking to source.

15. SITUATIONS TO EMPLOY COMBAT
TRACKERS
9. Routes: infiltration and investigation.
10. Counter drug operations.
11. Sensor placement/site selection.
12. Area interpretation and analysis

16. SITUATIONS TO EMPLOY COMBAT
TRACKERS
13. Forensic analysis. (MP/CID)
14. Border patrol: corridors and routes.
15. Clandestine ops - movement to recon, sniping
or hide position.
16. Location of mortar/rocket firing sites.
Would a tracker have found this sooner…
or been able to clear it of IEDs before they
moved in?

17. Selous Scouts (Rhodesia)
Koevoet (Southwest Africa)
During their 7 years of existence, the combat trackers of the Selous Scouts, Army of Rhodesia (1973 – 1980)
accounted for 67% of operational kills of terrorists for the entire Rhodesian military. They varied in strength from a
military.
company sized to short battalion sized element. The had no organic AFVs, no artillery, and no aircraft (though they
could call for support). The vast majority of kills were made by boots on the ground the old fashioned way, almost
always in squad sized elements—with rifles and grenades, typically against 1:1, 1:2 or 1:3 odds. This is typically
attributed to: strong NCO corps (1/4 ‘stick’), innovative techniques and self-initiative (Drake shoot, pursuit over borders)
and the ability to follow their enemy wherever they went and kill them.
During their existence, Koevoet (a specialized unit within a civilian police agency) consistently had kill and capture
rates far exceeding their military counterparts, including SOF units; primarily this is due to the incorporation of trained
visual trackers in every element. If you couldn’t track and couldn’t shoot, you couldn’t go. After the murder of a family
in 1979, 30 Koevoet trackers followed a band of PLAN rebels 200+ km over 5 days, stretching 2 days of food and
water, fearing resupply would spook the terrs or the rotor wash would ruin the spoor (very light spoor). At the end of
(very
the 5TH day they killed 8, captured the rest and recovered intel that led to subsequent successful operations. This was
not a fluke or a particularly exceptional operation, it was typical for over a decade. (Note: read Koevoet! by Jim
Hooper)

18. The uses of Combat Tracking within the US
Military today.
“Tracking is one of the best sources of
‘immediate use intelligence,’ information
about the enemy that can be put to use
immediately.”
US Army Manual – FM 17 - 98. The Scout Platoon
…and yet it is NOT taught with frequency (if at all), or with any accuracy, and the tracking style that is taught
now is predicated on the 7-step jungle tracking originally taught by the Brits for service in Malaysia (and
fhe U.S. in Vietnam), rather than the team track method taught by CTG—methods currently being used
and proven in Iraq and Afghanistan, and based upon proven Rhodesian techniques…

19. GLOSSARY OF
TRACKING TERMS

20. SPOOR – For example, ‘following
the spoor.’ Spoor means a set of
tracks laid upon the ground and
visible to a tracker. Spoor is
totally interchangeable with the
words ‘tracks, set of prints, or sign.’

21. FOLLOW-UP – For example, “The
follow-up commenced at first light.” A
follow-up is the physical act of a
tactically trained tracking team,
following a set of tracks on the ground
made by insurgents or the enemy.

22. TRACKING-TEAM – When tracking or
conducting a follow-up of armed and
dangerous insurgents, a five-man team is
employed. A Tracking Team consists of a
Tracker, two Flank Trackers, a Controller
and a Rear Security Tracker.

23. Quarry – Used as an alternative to
‘insurgent,’ ‘target,’ ‘suspect,’ or the
‘pursued.’

24. Time and Distance Gap – The theoretical
distance which insurgents could move over
the ground between the time of the incident
and the time which the Combat Trackers
arrive to commence the Follow-up.

25. Conclusive Evidence – Tracks or other
evidence, left on the ground, that are
indisputably left by the quarry.

26. Substantiating Evidence – Evidence left on
the ground which is inconclusive in itself, but
taken into account with other evidence is
considered as likely to have been left by the
quarry.

27. Active Track – Follow-up conducted while
the quarry is still on the move ahead of the
tracking team.

28. Passive Track – Follow-up conducted when
the tracks are ‘cold.’ Normally used for
intelligence gathering purposes or to look for
base-camp sites and other evidence of insurgent
activities.

29. Action Indicators – Foot, body, equipment or
weapon marks left upon the ground indicating
that a certain identifiable action has taken place.
A skilled visual tracker can look at action
indicators to determine everything from the
number of insurgents being followed to whether
they’re armed with rifles or PKMs or RPGs.

30. • If he knows what he’s looking for, the imprint of these weapons at rest (or if deployed
by a prone shooter), can tell a visual tracker what kind of armament he may be facing.
RPG-7s, for instance, have a very unique and easily read signature on each end of
the weapon—which a tracker will see if the insurgent either rests for a moment and
sets it butt-down in the sand, or gets sloppy and allows the point to drag. A shooter
than goes prone will leave specific rubs and compression from the pressure of the
knees, elbow and ultimately the bipod or the magazine of the weapon, etc.

31. Track Line – The continuous line of observable
clues visible to the tracker indicating the path of
the insurgents being followed.

32. Lost Spoor Procedures – A systematic and
sequential set of procedures designed to relocate
the spoor when it is lost. Commencing with initial
procedures conducted by the Tracker, lost spoor
procedures escalate into ever increasing search
patterns using the entire team, but, with the
proviso, – only if the Controller considers it safe
to do so.
The last Cav students taught by CSC utilized lost spoor procedures so effectively that
they conducted a follow-up in the fastest time we’d had to date, tracking two subjects
with a 40-minute head start over extremely difficult and rocky terrain (first having to
locate their quarry’s starting point). It had been over a month since the last previously
recorded precipitation. They ultimately caught up to and engaged the two subjects
after a five-klick track with numerous direction changes and several attempts to
counter-track and erase signs of passage.

33. Contamination – tracks and disturbances
made from anyone or anything, other than the
quarry, that obscures or completely obliterates
the quarry’s spoor. Examples: other peoples
tracks, animal sign, vehicle tire tracks, etc.
To be successful in their mission Trackers
must do their best to ensure that contamination
is kept to an absolute minimum.

34. Natural State. – the established, natural state
of the ground unaffected by any tracks or sign.
The tracker seeks any changes or disturbance to
the ‘natural state’ which may indicate that the
quarry passed that way.

40. These boot prints are several days old; they were placed
when the stream was still flowing.

41. Snuff (Skoal, Copenhagen), Chewing Tobacco (Red Man, Levi Garrett)
and other oral eject (chewed gum, sunflower seeds) are often the easiest
examples of sign by which to track or follow American troops.

44. (FAUO) Taliban incident, Afghanistan late ’05
(FAUO) Al Qaeda incident, Pakistani border, Feb. ’06
(FAUO) RPG Attack, FOB in Afghanistan
Joie Armstrong Murder
Koldodski Murder
Counter-ambush in Al Anbar province May ‘06
IED detection at range, backtrack to counter-ambush
Ultimately, it’s not voodoo, it’s not even all that
difficult, but it does require training and it does
require practice—and it can kill “them what
need killing” as easily as it can help keep
soldiers alive (the most important one).

45. Questions?

46. Acknowledgments
• Centurion Training Group would like to extend our deepest thanks and
appreciation to our mentor, David Scott-Donelan of the Tactical Tracking
Operations School, who has taken the Rhodesian tactics he learned in 30
years of counter-insurgency warfare in Africa, and melded it with modern
technology and lessons learned. CTG teaches a basic Visual Track
Interpretation class with Mr. Donelan’s blessing; TTOS does instruct a 100-
hour, two-week Combat Tracking course for those who are interested.
TTOS is on the web at www.combattracking.com.