Not sure where to start with this. Tracking is near and dear to me. I've done it my whole life. I've done it for game and I've done it for other reasons in war zones. I'm going to do some exercises this weekend. If you guys dont mind I would like to keep this thread open and post various pics and techniques I use or have used for pursuit tracking, area denial, prevention of IPB by hostile forces, and countering hostile efforts to patrol a given area.

I beg and plead other trackers to post. This weekend I'm doing a weight variation of same print evaluation on various soils self test with a second party. I'm going to take as many pictures as I can. We are going to be taking known weight potential hostile equipment such as mines and radios and comparing sign left both with and with out. I think we will have dirt, grass, mud, field, and timber settings depending on weather.

Cool, looking forward to your posts.

If you are still reading it is time for you to Google baseline for foot size comparisons to height and weight of fit fighting age males in your area. Remember, nobody tracks cooks or supply sergeants. Those guys are fat and staying home. That 200 pound size 9 isn't a lost cook, that's a short guy up to no good.

Tag...
this is something I've always wanted to learn

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Let's start with the questions we want to ask ourselves before we even start actually tracking.

Why are we tracking them?

What brought them into our area of responsiblity? Going after an enemy patrol is going to be different than going after someone like downed aircrew or bailed out vehicle crew. The same can be said even for different types of patrols. Things will need to be done differently if tracking a recon patrol vs tracking an assault element.

Do you have reason to believe they are expecting to be tracked?

Do you know what level of skill the target has?

How well equipped are they?

How was the trail found? Did you find it or did another patrol find it?

How well can hostile forces access your area of responsiblity? If they have poor access how long can a hostile patrol operate unsupported?

What are the most likely ways for hostile patrols to infiltrate and exfil the area. Helicopter? Trucks? Walking in? Horses?

What needs to be done once hostile forces are found? Observation or assault?

What friendly assets are in the area that would be of interest to hostile forces? A COP, a FOB, a road? What are they likely targeting? What is their patrol objective?

How often do friendly forces operate in the area?

Everybody poops.

Human waste can tell you a lot about who you are after, including target skill level and discipline, as well as health.

If you can determine the amount of time the target has been in the field you can surmise if they have had to go, so to speak. For example If you are after a small group and find no evidence of human waste you are likely after a higher skill level and better trained breed of patrol that is packing it out so as not to leave sign.

If you do find it was it buried? Was it buried in a way so as to conceal its location? Does it look healthy? Did they wipe? What did they wipe with? A healthy poop with a good clean up job that was buried well was left by a guy with better morale than a guy who is sick and wiped with the back of his tee shirt and didn't cover it. If the guy is sick why is he not being extracted? Are they unable? Are they poorly led?

If you are able to identify the sick guy by his foot prints check your notes and see if he recently shed a lot of weight. If all of his gear was spread to other members of the patrol you may not have noticed if they picked up extra weight. Check this with changes in direction. Did they change direction because they are trying to avoid ambush or did they change direction because they are now making a beeline for an extraction site?

Social media

For a myriad of reasons you will want to take a camera when you are tracking. I'll get into more later but for this post let's talk about social media. In this day and age ISIS fighters are posting pictures of their cats on Twitter. Almost everyone has an online presence, including the guys you're after. Even if you can't make actual contact with your target if you are able to get detailed photos you would be amazed at the amount of info a skilled investigator can find about that person.

You might get lucky and get a photo of a guy that sucks at persec and his dumb girlfriend posted all over Facebook about where he is and who he is with.

Tagged. Where's that "like" button...

OST

Interesting stuff. Thanks OP

Gear

There is no gear that will make you a better tracker. Literally the most important piece of gear is a stick. Beyond that a baseplate compass, a good mgrs map, a 500 lumens flashlight, and a radio. Beyond that your basic patrol gear is probably overkill.

Tag for more.

Gonna add something the folks in KY and on south-yonder may not think about.

Sublimation of snow, as the natural weathering, evaporation or solidification of snow after fresh snow fall, or over time.

Snow starts layered and fluffy laid down in a uniform way most of the time. From the point it falls it starts to compact and the crystals merge and become rounded.  Very "old" snow that has been through several day cycles is more like a snow cone and will be more like tiny chunks of ice. A good check is to pick up handfuls of it on a glove or sleeve and see how well you can look through the grains. The more you can, the older it is usually.

All snow when disturbed will start the clock on the sublimation and morphing, and with practice you can compare the type of snow already present to the track and make guesses about how long the mark has been there, especially if you have been out in it yourself.

In general, the sharper the edges on a track and the more fluffy the "splash" is, the younger the track is.  Make new tracks yourself and check the differences between them and old tracks, and then extrapolate.

This is a good thing to do with kids as you can go out and make shapes in the snow one day, and then do it again and then later days compare the tracks.

Judging tracks in snow is always a relative thing. These are older than those.  If you were out in the weather and know when you made tracks, you can put days / hours timeline on them.  The next time it snows where you are, don't just play in it or curse at it, figure out how it "lives" and get familiar with snow track aging. Especially be able to spot the difference between a couple hours ago and a couple minutes ago.

I was a police sniper for a number of years. Tracking is one of the many skills I trained in for rural operations. It is a great tool for allocating resources. Even if you only track someone for a short distance it gives you their general direction of travel which allows you to not waste resources on where they aren't likely to be located.

There is no hunting like the hunting of men...

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Interesting video.

It is, I find the "Urban" tracking interesting.

tagged.

Anything new to this?