Small Arms fire: Don't hide behind a car door!

[stanc]

They are using effective fire to dominate the targets, since being shot repeatedly with no misses pretty much screws up your position, sight picture, etc.

I'm quite sure that's true, but doesn't it work both ways?

It's rather easy to dominate targets that don't shoot back, but in the real world, the bad guys would return fire, if they didn't actually initiate it.

The exercise struck me as very "optimistic" in more than one respect.

For one thing, it assumes that neither of the good guys are wounded or killed, despite being significantly outnumbered. By my count, there were at least nine bad guys, and if only one or two of them were even halfway decent shots...

For another, the good guys are wearing hearing protectors, something they wouldn't likely be doing in reality. Thus, after firing SBRs numerous times inside the car, wouldn't they be pretty much deaf for some while afterwards (if not permanently)? How likely is it they would be able to hear each other call "Moving!" or anything else, except an incessantly loud ringing in their ears?

BTW, what's the rationale for after engaging the target to his direct front (from within the car), each good guy then proceeds to engage the target that had already been shot several times by his partner?

[LRRPF52]

The guy supervising that particular team drill has over 22 years of experience in Special Operations units, to include being directly involved in the Battle of Mogadishu on Oct 3-4th, 1993, 5 years of deployments to Iraq as a key leader of one of the world's premier CT units, and who knows what other exploits that will never be known outside a certain realm. He has participated in numerous real-world firefights involving two-way small arms fire, and has many lessons to share about what works, and what doesn't. Basically, after reviewing different staples of light infantry practices and doctrine, the unit he was with realized that much of what is taught gets people killed quick, and was conceptualized by peacetime soldiers with little to no combat experience. Some examples that directly relate to the comments...

Win the race to get effective rounds on target, not to find cover (hide)...especially when no cover exists.
While cover may not be available, continue to use concealment of movement and your position whenever possible.

As far as ear pro goes, Peltors/electronic ear pro with enhanced hearing features and noise gates are standard kit for SF and CT units with short-duration or vehicle-borne mission profiles, and have been so for a long time. Your ability to communicate is preserved and improved with Peltors and integrated comms routing, as those models have, so you can have your individual radio wired into the headset, along with the boom mic if you want. Integrated comms/hearing pro is something that most conventional units lack, and soldiers' hearing suffers from it greatly. I have tinnitus and significant hearing loss really bad as a result of this, and it sucks when you can't even hear your watch alarm beeping, while someone across the room from you is asking where the noise is coming from.

Units that conduct practical shoot training have been winning gunfights against numerically-superior forces for a long time, especially when dealing with foreign soldiers or insurgents who have limited marksmanship experience. The drill in the video is a more advanced immediate action drill template from which small units can develop their marksmanship, movement, and communication procedures. The gentleman conducting this particular training shoots like a raped ape, and doesn't miss. I have had the pleasure of shooting and competing with him, and he is really a phenomenal shooter to watch, with loads of helpful techniques and insight that even seasoned marksmen can learn greatly from. Cases in point...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVGPEgRZwIw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaCpO...feature=relmfu

The rationale for continuing to engage targets that are still standing is to establish the habit of shooting until the threat is down, versus the "double-tap syndrome". Once you have displaced to a new position, anything standing still gets saturated with accurate fire until it's down. As the targets didn't have reactive features in the Street Fighter Video, they were still engaged until verbal agreement and commo was passed that they were down. This is common with units that shoot that often. Within the CT units in the US, an average day involves at least 350-500 rounds downrange per individual weapon, to include sidearm and carbine. High volume schedules are also maintained with grenade launchers, belt-fed weapons, anti-armor weapons, and anything in the inventory really. One serviceman in those types of units will put more rounds through target with just his sidearm in a week than an entire Infantry Platoon will in a month with all their weapons, if the Infantry Platoon even goes to the range that month.

These types of units have heard and asked more what-ifs than all the internet forum threads combined, since this is their profession around-the-clock. That drill was fairly simple, compared to some of the ones involving coordinated vehicle movement with forced dismount and shooting, while at night. Ensuring that you're aware of who your friendly forces are while in the heat of a close-in fight is best built upon from basics, and actual footage of real-world encounters would be difficult to distinguish by even experienced operators, without continual replays and synchronized audio, with commentary by one of the participants.

[hm2 clark]

I get StanCs point . The vidio shows good training,... for the last war. The next may be different.

[LRRPF52]

That particular drill is more for vehicle-mounted personnel operating in a low-profile, LE, or PSD role, which will always be applicable. Open warfare with military vehicles involves crew-served weapons in turrets. Stan's points are legitimate questions about the what-if's surrounding CQB out of the vehicle when encountering a numerically-superior force, who most likely have initiated the contact. One thing you will notice is that organizations with a higher level of experience often feel or recognize when the crap is about to hit the fan, and will initiate the contact themselves, although IED-initated ambushes are next to impossible to anticipate.

Either way, the drill is just a template from which to work when conducting Immediate Action Drills from civilian vehicle designs. These drills are normally elaborated upon with casualty evac under fire, and night iterations, after react-to-contact from front, left, right, and rear have been honed to an acceptable standard. None of the training guarantees 100% survival for everyone, it just increases its likelihood significantly.

[stanc]

The gentleman conducting this particular training shoots like a raped ape...

No kidding. He can fire five aimed shots in less time than it takes me to shoot one round.

[LRRPF52]

That's what happens in a unit with an ammo consumption that is unbelievable to even military logisticians. They also don't ever practice missing, as that sends you out of the unit. The Commander has to be able to look the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs or President himself in the eye, and say that his people WILL put a bullet in the face of bad guys, and not any friendlies. It may sound cliche, but they train to that standard, and any deviation from it is a ticket out, so much so that the foreign unit they were modeled off of looks to them now as an example of marksmanship proficiency, training, and execution.

If anyone cares to look up Viking Tactics and their training schedule, I would highly recommend taking any of their courses that you're eligible for.

http://www.vikingtactics.com/

If you get a chance to attend one of Kyle's courses, you will walk away with more practical information on shooting than you would normally accumulate in a lifetime, and he is a very down-to-earth teacher with uncommon saturation of experience. I just enjoy watching him shoot, because you just see targets becoming lead magnets faster than you would have previously thought possible. He also has some excellent products, especially the VTAC sling and his light mounts.

[ibgp3]

"I get StanCs point . The vidio shows good training,... for the last war. The next may be different."

It's the Generals that train for the last war. I doubt that effective shooting will ever go out of style.

[rkflorey]

One other problem with using car doors as cover is that the "V" where the open door meets the car/A piller naturally draws fire. We did alot of testing with new LE recruits that had little or no firearms experience and found their hit percentage went up (40-50%) when they were told to engage a target placed in that area. K

[appleseed-kdc]

Very interesting video. Target is a 60 liter barrel, (roughly 15 gallons.)

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=462_1306094689

I'm a little bothered by the way it is presented, but the results are plausible.

http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/thebuickotruth.htm