Due to several decades of operational application during “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland, the British developed an excellent standard in covert rural surveillance. CROPS UK offers a manual on covert rural surveillance.
“Covert Rural Surveillance” is a tradecraft manual dedicated to modern military techniques and covert tactics for rural surveillance operations. With over 560 pages, in excess of 1500 color images and diagrams, it offers unrivaled insight and quality to this unique subject. This manual has been designed, to enable the reader to carry it under the ‘top flap’ of their CROPS Bergen or other pack for immediate reference should it be required. It also contains a number of blank documents such as: Surveillance Logs / Reconnaissance Report Template / Replenishment Cards / Sketch Sheets and File Notes used on operations that can all be photocopied and used during your surveillance.
The rural environment is by far the most challenging, requiring the utmost of personal discipline and the aim of this manual, is to make your operations successful every time. The content of this manual has been taken directly from the author’s Covert Rural Surveillance Course syllabus.
Subjects covered:
• Introduction to surveillance
• Planning & Preparation
• Clothing & Equipment
• Rural communications
• Navigation
• Field Craft
• Patrol Skills
• Rural hide construction
• Logging & Reporting
• Triggers (static follow)
• Sketch Maps
• Panoramic Sketching
• Observation Skills & search
• Close Target Reconnaissance
• Methods of Resupply
• Digital Still & Video Imagery
• Deployment of Covert Camera Systems
• Eavesdropping
• Operating from Buildings
• Winter Operations
• Law & Legal Issues
Covert Rural Surveillance is a highly recommended tradecraft manual, which is currently been used by a number of overseas specialist units as the comprehensive training guild for this subject available anywhere.
www.crops.uk.com/training-manual
Looks good, but not cheap. $89 with shipping and PayPal conversion fees to the US. Should be worth it if it lives up to the descriptions. Of course, the alternative is figuring all this stuff out on your own–that could be REALLY expensive LOL.
Should have mentioned that $89 for 560 pages (thicker than a ream of paper) doesn’t seem excessive.
Received my copy last week. Although all the themes mentioned in the decription are covered the manual does not quite live up to the standard I’m accustomed to seeing here at the SSD site.
Ville,
Could you elaborate a bit more on why you think it doesn’t live up to standard? (I’m curious as a potential buyer).