Did I do it wrong?

[mljdeckard]

Saturday, I had the pleasure of using a 'training holiday' as a refresher course for basic squad tactics. (Bear with me, I think this applies to all of us,)

I am the last man in a six-man squad. We are walking through a villiage with known hostile activity. I am watching the rear, the squad leader is one man in front of me. (We are both guard/reservists who have been out of the game for a while.)

As we are walking down both sides of the street, an armed man runs back and forth between our lines. He is not taking any hostile action. We watch him, and keep moving. Gunfire erupts from all sides. We take cover on the side of the street, and there is a BG to my 8:00 popping up and firing over a retaining wall. I return fire. After a couple of shots, the guy who was running between us before comes and sits down next to me at the 'end' of our line. I am aware of him, but I continue to engage the guy who is popping from behind the wall. After about four seconds, the controller declares me and the squad leader dead. We (duh) should have done something about the guy beside us, it was a security kill.

In the after action, they explained that we should have A: stopped the guy BEFORE the action started and questioned him, and B: engaged him on sight when he plopped down behind us. (This was pretty loose for infantry training, open commu nication, and impossible odds, everyone dies.) I countered that, A:, he ran through us twice, and we didn't do anything, he STILL wasn't shooting at us, he could have been a good guy for all we knew, and B: If I have the choice of returning fire at someone who is shooting at me, or dropping that acquisition to engage another guy who hasn't yet shown hostile action, I'm going to keep firing at the guy who is shooting at me. "ALWAYS keep your eyes where your weapon is pointed", right?

In retrospect, the guy in FRONT of me, the squad leader, should have engaged that target while I continued to watch the rear, but NOTHING says that I should have moved to the guy in the rear. Does anyone disagree?

 

[COPATCH]

It happens.....my only thought would have been, Is the guy wired ? Dual engagement: Point man on runner / Rear on fire threat & Sweep? Yeah, that's about how I'd go with it.

 

[Lonestar49]

Speculating only

...

Hmmm, my only thought is, maybe they saw this guy and considered him as a suicide bomber, hidden beneath his clothing, and it represented an explosion that killed ya both, or use of his exposed hand gun, hidden knife, etc.


Dunno otherwise, except I would agree that you were engaged, and that was first and foremost, your area of concern. And, that The front Squad leader saw him before, as did the rest of you, or most of you, and did nothing about him in those moments (guessing here) that he did not act because he observed the runner as not a threat, possible good guy escaping an area of a threat, thus not acting in regards to him in the beginning, as you pointed out.

Well see,


LS

 

[psyopspec]

As a general rule, don't let anyone in your perimeter (consider it a roving perimiter when patrolling). Had it been real-world you'd have been able to give the guy a verbal warning, or if he was non-English speaking and you didn't have an interpreter, keep positive control of your weapon while giving him the "back up" signal. How much warning (if any) a potential threat gets naturally varies given appearance and demeanor, plus your ROE (though shooting in defense to a threat is always a go). As I wasn't there, and given the tendency of some training to be awash with ambiguity, I can't really suggest anything else.

 

[Titan6]

Anyone running towards you while you are in a fire fight (except your buddy) is bad news and needs to be stopped. Maybe he ran through you guys twice and nothing happened but you were not then shooting were you? If he was friendly he should have been running in the other direction as soon as the shooting started. That he did not is a good clue he was not friendly to begin with. When in doubt; trial by courtmartial or burial with full honors, your option.

 

[psyopspec]

As an afterthought...

or use of his exposed hand gun, hidden knife, etc.

Possessing small arms or blades doesn't make him a good/bad guy. If the rules of engagement dictated exclusively that we light up anyone who was visibly armed, we'd have an even bigger problem in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

[Lonestar49]

Ah.. but was this Miltary or Civil/LEO Course?

...

I was thinking more of a home front type scenario, here in the States.


I agree, if in WAR zone in Middle East, indeed, tough call, no dress codes, better to shoot first, then view results.


Meaning no disrespect for life, but LEO's have a fine line to observe before they can shoot an unknown armed person in an instant killing zone situation, yet, they have to make such a decision in such a case as above.

Not an easy job/task for either combat zone, here on US soil, or abroad.

Believe me, I'm here just for the converstion, and learning, not to have an agrument.


LS

 

[Caimlas]

My reasoning:

1) If you're in a gun fight, anyone there not seeking cover is either for you or against you, in which case you have to assume that since he wasn't for you, he intended harm.
2) If you're in combat, and you're presented #1, it is in your best interest to neutralize him, period. Maybe if you're playing paintball or something like that, it doesn't matter. But in real life, you have no save games or restarts. You've only got that one token.

Anyway, being as it's training and not Real Life, your perception of the situation, as well as the situation itself, was different than it would be in reality. In reality, you'd have a different mindset (if only slightly) that every second and motion counts 110% towards you taking your next breath. And you'd likely be able to sense the intent and hostility level through someone's body motion, expressions, etc. a bit better than you would with just a scenario actor.

 

[BullfrogKen]

Usually training has value, sometimes it does not. Other times it is simply nothing more than silliness or it teaches detrimental habits.


The goal of good training is to teach something. A skill . . . a tactic . . . a concept. So, what was the scenario designed to teach? Your trainers should have pointed it out.


Sometimes the foolish acquire positions which permit them to lord that position over others. Perhaps the question is not - "Could I have done better?"; but - "Could the trainer have designed better?"

Ask yourself if the scenario had something worthwhile to offer before you fall into the trap of solving a silly problem.

 

[mljdeckard]

This is pretty much what I was thinking.

It is a military course, but we are MI linguists. This course was designed to overwhelm us. We were walking through ambushes in between other MI related tasks. (We did better than most of the other teams.) The opfor were insurgents.

I talked to the squad leader about it, (after the holiday weekend,) and we agreed that the most important thing would have been to have more than 20 minutes to get to know the squad and designate some roles and parameters.

I agree that anyone who approaches during a gunfight should be regarded as hostile, (in a similar engagement I was 'kidnapped' by unarmed participants), but I still didn't have the opportunity to engage two targets. If I had either killed or lost track of the first one, I would have moved to the other, but we're talking about six seconds.

Oh well. Everyone dies in these things in less than 30 seconds anyway.

 

[strambo]

Well, if I'd have shot the guy who materialized beside me one night during a confusing (turned out to be friendly fire) incident, I just would have murdered a civilian. Every situation is different. The purpose of intense training isn't to give you exact answers to exact situations because no doubt what you experience in combat will not exactly reflect a particular training "scenario".

The purpose of intense training is to get you used to thinking and performing in effective ways under stress. Of course you discuss mistakes and make improvements, but the main point is to improve your thinking/decision making under stress, not so you have the "exact" answer if that happens again.

I was only in one ambush over here...they fired RPGs and PKMs at us but the enemy were so pathetic in their skills that I didn't even get an adrenaline dump (not bragging by any means, it was my 1st true combat experience...they just sucked). I have trained in far more stressful/chaotic situations than that. So, hopefully that means if I ever really get in the S@#t, I will still perform well and be able to think because I have been prior exposed to very stressful training. My subconscious has already "been there, done that."

Just my humble opinion.

Oh well. Everyone dies in these things in less than 30 seconds anyway.

Sounds like poor training put on by instructors with ego problems and a poor understanding of how to conduct proper training. Too bad.

 

[psyopspec]

1) If you're in a gun fight, anyone there not seeking cover is either for you or against you, in which case you have to assume that since he wasn't for you, he intended harm.

Actually, people are more likely to freeze if they suddenly find themselves in a gunfight. I've seen this in soldiers as well as civilians, and unless you're familiar with the person, you don't know what they're going to do under stress (and they likely don't either). This could include running for cover, standing in place with mouth agape, losing control of the bladder, running around like chicken w/ head cut off, etc. So let's say they take an option other than running for cover - what if it's someone who isn't visibly armed? Teenage girl? Mother holding a baby? Are you still going to shoot?

My contention is simply that in real life it's often more complicated than it seems. strambo put it quite eloquently:

The purpose of intense training isn't to give you exact answers to exact situations because no doubt what you experience in combat will not exactly reflect a particular training "scenario".

The purpose of intense training is to get you used to thinking and performing in effective ways under stress. Of course you discuss mistakes and make improvements, but the main point is to improve your thinking/decision making under stress, not so you have the "exact" answer if that happens again.

 

[marksman13]

I've noticed these "everyone dies" type of training scenarios alot lately. Anybody mobilzed out of Camp Shelby? Those guys were horrible about throwing those no win types of tasks at us. The stress training is good when it is included in a balanced training regimen, but it can get rather ridiculous and discouraging when it happens too often.

To answer your question. I know for a fact in actual combat that armed individual would not have gotten close to my patrol. I believe the proper response in a training environment would be to 1.)give verbal and visual commands to halt including raising your weapon. 2.) Order the individual to the ground. 3.) Send two team members up to confiscate his weapon and search the individual. 4.) If the individual appears to be a threat or intel asset, detain him and if available call for a mounted unit to pick up the detainee. If you are reasonably satisfied that the individual is not a threat, releasing him is really up to your discretion. If at any time durring this process the individual becomes non compliant or threatening take action at your discretion.

In a real life scenario, the individual would have recieved one verbal warning as I was putting him in my sights. If he failed to stop he would be off to see his maker. I'm not trying to come off as a Rambo, but if it comes down to an Iraqi with a weapon and possibly one of my guys the Iraqi loses everytime. Harsh reality of war.

 

[strambo]

Yes, I mob'ed out of Shelby...and I won't speak of that place again.

 

[marksman13]

I'm from Starkville, MS. We do all of our field training down there. The place is a complete crap hole.

 

[Titan6]

I have served as an OC on several occasions from entry level officer training to units preparing to deploy. I can tell you I never have any no-win situtations. Some are a lot harder than others but all were winnable and won at one time or another. The most successful units generally had the most dynamic and decisive leaders. Units that froze up or did not take needed actions did not do well. Before you blame your trainers or pass judgements on their personalities give some deep thought to how your unit reacted.

Ask them how many units have been successful at the scenario and what they did to succeed. If the answer is none than you probably have a valid gripe.

Caimalas has the right answer though. Training is just that. When it for real you have to be a mind reader but it will be easier as the enemy will be getting ready to kill you instead of pretending to kill you as they may have done to 50 units prior to your arrival.

 

[marksman13]

Titan6, good point. I never said that all OCs were that way, but there definately are some out there who wish they were drill sergeants. I have been in scenarios where even when tasks atttempted by the book OCs still made things fall against us. I understand that in the real world stuff happens and I could understand if these scenarios played out occasionally. Sometimes, however, trainers come in with a chip on their shoulder for whatever reason, and it makes training frustrating and unrealistic.

I do believe that the OP should have taken some type of action as soon as the armed individual presented himself. I can see why the OCs killed them, but some situations are set up to be impossible. I can understand why OCs sometimes kill off leaders who did nothing wrong just to see how the other team members react in his absence. I can even agree with wiping out a team in some dastardly occasionally to show that Murphy's Law is always in effect, but these types of confidence killers should be used sparingly in my opinion.

 

[Titan6]

Getting rid of leaders is a very effective way to see if the unit SOP is for real or eyewash. But most of the time I have seen units get themselves wiped out all on their own (''LT, did you really mean to charge that dug in MG position over 200 meters of open ground?''). Training value drops when the unit repeatedly can not win and they tend to get frustrated.

True there are a number of trainers that just want to go home, fail to enforce standards and have big egos or simply are not the best, but the majority work hard to provide realisitic training.

 

[psyopspec]

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