Picture this: cold Baltic wind cutting across a pine corridor, wet soil underfoot, and a convoy pushing through a narrow forest road. If you’re setting an ambush with partners who speak three different languages, the only thing that matters is clean planning and even cleaner execution. That’s the focus today—how U.S. Army Green Berets integrated with allied forces in Lithuania to build a tight ambush that actually works under pressure. The video below walks through a joint-force ambush in May 2025—what it looks like, why it works, and where small mistakes turn into big problems.

Terrain, Timing, and Teaming with Allies

Successful ambushes begin long before first contact. In Lithuania’s dense woodlands, terrain is both an asset and a liability. The Green Berets in this scenario leverage concealment from tall pines and undulating ground to seal off a linear danger area. The key decision: choose a chokepoint that forces the enemy to compress, slows their options, and maximizes fields of fire. With allied units in the mix, every position—from security to support-by-fire—gets mirrored with clear responsibilities, simple language, and hand-signal redundancy.

Rehearsals and Simplicity

Joint operations demand ruthless simplicity. The ambush plan is built on clear sectors, preassigned contingencies, and a single initiation method that everyone can identify despite accents or comms quirks. The team rehearses actions on the objective: initiation, suppression, lift-and-shift, and break contact. Nothing fancy—just consistent reps until timing becomes muscle memory. That’s how you prevent fratricide and maintain momentum when the first round cracks off the line.

Kill Zone Control

Controlling the kill zone is about geometry and tempo. Primary and secondary support-by-fire elements bracket the road, with overlapping sectors that avoid crossing fires. Claymore standoff, pre-sighted intersections, and hard triggers keep the initiation clean. Security teams are there to catch flankers and block rear elements, not freelance. The Green Berets in this training use terrain to cut off escape routes while allied units anchor lateral boundaries—simple, lethal, controlled.

Comms and Deconfliction

Comms are a force multiplier when they’re quiet, short, and unmistakable. In a multinational stack, go-to phrases are agreed upon in the brief. Prearranged brevity codes and loud contingencies—whistle signals, IR strobes, visible flags—backstop radio failures. Everyone knows the rally points and the withdrawal direction. Everyone knows the no-fire lines. If it’s not briefed, it doesn’t exist.

Initiation Criteria

The best ambush is sprung once, at the right time. The team establishes hard criteria—vehicle count, lead vehicle position, confirmation of high-value target, or a named area of interest hit. No one chases a partial opportunity and wastes surprise. The initiation is deliberate, violent, and briefed to the second.

This video captures a U.S. Army Special Forces-led ambush with Lithuanian partners in May 2025. Watch how they build the ambush from reconnaissance to withdrawal, and note the quiet details—hand-and-arm signals, sector discipline, and how the team collapses the site cleanly.

Watch the full video above for detailed insights and demonstrations.