A Five man defensive formation for empty hand and melee weapon encounters.

Okay, forget fiction or supposition. If I have to defend a piece of God’s Gray Earth with five local dudes, this is who and how.

The formation is a W with the bottom of the letter facing the enemy.

The linebacker is at the intersection of the two Vs that make up the W.

The leads are Dante and Oliver, both welterweights who have each KO’d numerous opponents in the same brawl, have grappling titles under their belt and have certifiably “sick” power. The leads are at the front contact points within arm’s reach. Dante [actually KO’d every guy in a bar during a fight. The girl he was with said he downed ten dudes.] has the better hook so he is left. Oliver [who KO’d three dudes in one fight and two in another] has the better right so he is right. Both of them have heads like bricks. I would put ski masks and driving gloves on them.

A step back, behind each of their outside heels, would be the guards, strong men, Mescaline [a stocky Jiu Jitsu stylist] and Erique, [the strongest man I know], who is good with weapons and countermeasures. Each of these fellows will have something to use as a shield or ram, such as a bar stool, folding chair or coat. It is their job to keep our leads from getting blind-sided and back stabbed and to identify knifers for the linebacker and then cover him as he takes them out.

The linebacker will be the only armed guy, someone like myself or Charles who can KO a person with a light stick without swinging it, just with a short chop. It is this man’s job [armed with a simple stick, cane or long flashlight] to restore breaches, guard the rear and take out armed threats.

A sixth guy gets added to the rear of the linebacker as a reserve.

A seventh man should form another reserve giving two second line defenders.

I like short boxers for the hollow point leads and stocky grapplers for the flanks. Really big guys get hurt too easily and obstruct vision for the linebacker. Use real big dudes as reserves. The opposition will tend to pick tall men for leads and these will have easily accessible chins for our guys while they hit our guys on the top of their bullet heads.

A good formation for an 8-man unit is the Macedonian double-wedge, an egg-shaped formation that bulges in the middle and tapers to a rear point. You just put a three men wedge on the back of your five-man wedge.

A ninth man is added as a backup to your two leads, a guy that will touch each of them from behind to keep cohesion and if one falls he steps in. At points when your two leads are winded the backup could advance to true point, or when one is winded or hurt switch places.

With ten men just back two wedges together.

For bigger units work in multiples of 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.

How you work this depends on your human material. For instance, if my seventh guy is another boxer, I’d use him for point backup, but a basketball player goes in reserve with a garment for shielding and a brick to throw.

Recall that ancient and medieval cavalry used wedge and egg-shaped formations because they expected to end up plowing into and through enemy formations and didn’t want additional drag. Football experience is a real asset here. Just think what an 11-man NFL squad could do to 50 average assholes? I would encourage larger men, when called upon to strike, not to punch, but to charge and push, tackle and throw, putting bodies under the feet of the standing enemies.

The important thing to remember is the positions:

1. -Leads [punchers]

2. -Guards [defensively armed pushers]

3. -Linebacker [offensively armed striker: if you have a minor league pitcher, give him a bag of lacrosse balls and crouch when he yells “heat!”]

4. -Reserves [taller guards, with handheld coats to shield against rocks, knives and chemicals and put out body fires]

5. -Backup [all around fighter]

The linebacker and backup are leadership positions.

Oh, Paleface, this was for information purposes only! Don’t do this, ever! Somebody might get hurt.