• The information on this portion of the handout is taken directly from a brief given to the 4^th Combat Engineer Battalion. It addresses the engineer role in force protection, but it also provides valuable information to consider when establishing your medical facility regardless of size.

PROTECTIVE MEASURES AND TECHNIQUES:

Basic Considerations:

• Eliminate potential hiding places near facilities
• Provide an unobstructed view around all facilities
• Site facilities within view of other occupied facilities
• Locate assets stored on-site but outside facilities within view of occupied rooms of the facilities
• Minimize the need for signs or other indications of asset locations
• Minimize exterior signs that may indicate location of assets
• Provide a 170 foot minimum facility separation from installation boundaries
• Eliminate lines of approach perpendicular to buildings
• Minimize vehicle and personnel access points
• Eliminate parking beneath facilities
• Locate parking as far from facilities as practical
• Illminate building exteriors or exterior sites where assets are located
• Secure access to power and/or heat plants, gas mains, water supplies, and electrical service
• Locate public parking areas within view of occupied rooms or facilities
• Locate construction staging areas away from asset locations
• Locate facilities away from natural or man-made vantage points
• Locate facilities critical assets within areas that do not have exterior walls, when possible
• Minimize window area
• Cover windows next to doors so that aggressors cannot unlock the doors through them.
• Secure exposed exterior ladders and fire escapes
• Design building layout so that there are no areas hidden from view from control points or occupied spaces
• Arrange building interiors to eliminate hiding places
• Locate assets in spaces occupied 24 hours a day, when possible
• Locate activities with large visitor populations away from protected assets, when possible
• Locate protected assets in controlled areas where they are visible to more than one person
• Place mail rooms ib tge perimeter of the facilities
• Provide emergency backup power generation for critical activities/ facilities

• Planning is geared for defeating the vehicle not the driver
• Provide exclusive standoff zones for facilities
• Use passive vehicle barriers (examples provided )

• Use speed control obstacles:

Countering an Exterior Attack Checklist:
 

• Provide a 50 ft standoff zone around facilities
• Provide a 30 foot clear zone around facilities
• House critical assets away from the perimeter, exterior of facilities
• Place assets below grade or underground
• Provide entry foyers
• Arrange furniture so people are out of site of windows
• Minimize exterior access by blocking some of the existing doors

Ballistic Attack Checklist:

• The minimum level procedures should be implemented as well as those listed below
• Site facilities on high ground when possible
• Block direct site line to sensitive areas of the facilities using one or more of the following:

• Arrange entryways to elliminate site lines
• Provide  drapes and window shades to use at night
• Provide fragment retention film on glass windows and skylights
• Cover skylights when there are potential site lines through the roof

Forced Entry Attack Checklist:

• Provide unobstructed view around the facilities
• Site facilities away from installation boundaries and areas open to the public
• Site facilities within view of other occupied facilities
• Use screens or vegetation to conceal assets located on site but outside of any facilities
• Denote boundaries with fences or freestanding walls
• Conceal and lock access ports to utilities
• Illuminate building exterior where assets are located
• Minimize shrubbery or other landscaping higher than one foot above finished floor height of buildings
• In higher threat times periodically move assets around different locations in the facility
• Limit access to protected areas

Mail Bomb Prevention:

• Locate mail rooms away from main facility entrances, areas of high population and critical assets
• Provide bomb disposal container in the mail room
• Place the mail room on the perimeter of the facility
• Use a central mail handling facility that is separate from protected facilities

Supply Bomb Tactic Checklist:

• Park vehicles away from the loading dock areas
• Site facilities so that loading dock areas are away from other facilities or high density population areas
• Place supplies so they are at least 8 feet from facility walls to provide a standoff distance between bombs and walls
• Locate assets away from recieving areas
• Provide a separate facility for handling and recieving supplies