Have you had a gunfight recently?

[Dangerman009]

The last one I was involved in was Friday, using guns firing 6mm plastic BBs of course. And that was one of half a dozen or so in the last month.

Here's what I've learned: Just about everything that is practiced and taught goes right out the window when an adversary with a gun comes around the corner right in front of you. Sight picture? What sight picture? Point the gun and shoot! You can also forget about a proper grip, stance and counting shots too. Sloppy trigger/excess take-up/over-travel/etc., who has time to notice when there's 1-4 people trying to shoot you? Shoot fast and shoot often! then run for cover and reload.

I think this is an invaluable training aid that is often overlooked as a childish pursuit. But don't take my word for it, get a gun or two (don't forget the safety glasses) get a friend, go in your basement, back yard or wherever and shoot it out. See what happens, then post your results here.

 

[Ron James]

Dangerman, I learned these things 40 years ago the hard way using real bullets.

 

[DAVIDSDIVAD]

IMO, airsoft is worthless as a "training" aid, though that's not to say I haven't enjoyed it in the past

Still, I once "pwned" 2 guys with rifles and 3 guys with handguns by doing a somersault/ roll in front of them, then proceeding to wave a micro uzi in their general direction while holding down the trigger.


Fun for playing chuck norris; worthless for anything resembling training.

 

[Shadow 7D]

That is why point shooting is still taught even thought "universal stance" or weaver practitioners will out score on paper, if your not trained to get your weapon online and engaging. I have seen it often in training when a single person goes rambo, shooting, moving and communicating with the rest of his team, and virtually by himself pins down multiple opponents because they can't shoot without exposing themselves.

first line of the Special Forces medical handbook, paraphrased, the best medicine is preventive medicine, and that starts with firepower superiority.

While I don't CC, as I haven't been in practice for a long time, and its hard to have a bad shoot if you have to take thier weapon first. I was taught to shoot three rounds, first is from low carry to center hold, bang, moving sideways up to a Fairbaines with two hands on the gun eye level line of sight, bang, plant to weaver or universal whatever. Never had to use in "real life" but has worked great with paintball, gets the first two shots off really quickly and usually I even get hits, then the aimed follow up and move again.

 

[YammyMonkey]

In any force on force evolutions you'll only get out of it what you the other roleplayers put into it. Good scenarios or skills drills can be very helpful. Playing around as David did is worthless as training. Just like going to the range with a specific set of drills & goals is one thing & making a pile of brass is another.

From a buddy of mine after taking Tactical Response's The Fight FOF class:

If you have never done force-on-force.....Do it!

It is critical to your training. Your training does not really start until you start training force-on-force.

All the other courses are analogous to a carpenter learning how to use a hammer or a saw. Obviously, you need to know how to use tools to make say a piece of furniture, but just knowing how to use the tools does not ensure that you know how to make a damn thing. In fact, it is pretty safe to say, you don’t.

It is exactly the same with firearms training. With the non force-on-force classes, you have just learned how to hit a nail with a hammer; that is about it. Maybe you have much better control with that hammer and don’t smash your finger, maybe you can now hammer faster than ever before, maybe you have learned to focus on hammering to the point the distraction don’t affect your ability to hammer, maybe you even learn how to quickly retrieve your backup hammer when you drop your primary hammer.

But you still can’t build a damn thing.

Force-on-force uses your skills and actually teaches you to apply them in real world situations. It is much harder than you think. It is also much, much more rewarding than you can imagine.

Take force-on-force and you will learn to build a house!

-shattuck

 

[mbt2001]

Here's what I've learned: Just about everything that is practiced and taught goes right out the window when an adversary with a gun comes around the corner right in front of you. Sight picture? What sight picture? Point the gun and shoot! You can also forget about a proper grip, stance and counting shots too. Sloppy trigger/excess take-up/over-travel/etc., who has time to notice when there's 1-4 people trying to shoot you? Shoot fast and shoot often! then run for cover and reload.

It is virtually forgotten anymore, but the primary reason that the Samurai would use kata is to clear their mind and concentrate on drawing their sword and acting perfectly. With all of the force on force training being pounded these days, most people forget to clear their mind and "focus on their one purpose".

That is the point of kata and why you should practice drawing and firing (with snap caps) daily. Draw from concealment, fire fire fire, move to cover. Concentrate on your sights and so on. Their where whole schools (still taught today) focused solely on the art of drawing the sword.

Force on force training will someday be shown to be the farce that it is. The reason I say this is because you cannot recreate a desperate situation and it ultimately teaches bad tactics. In a street encounter there is only one rule. Kill or be killed. So there can be no recreation of this environment in a training simulation. What we do recreate is a semi stressful situation based on rules. The abiding concern for the people involved in the simulation is not to break the rules. That becomes what they focus on instead of their one purpose.

That of course is my $0.02.

 

[mgkdrgn]

Dangerman, I learned these things 40 years ago the hard way using real bullets.

With CCR's "Run Through The Jungle" ringing in your ears? ;-)

 

[Corporal K]

Kill or be killed. So there can be no recreation of this environment in a training simulation. What we do recreate is a semi stressful situation based on rules. The abiding concern for the people involved in the simulation is not to break the rules.

I agree. I think that far too much time is spent "training" for scenarios that will never happen. When IT happens IT is likely to be in your face, very violent, and over in seconds, one way or the other.

 

[Rellian]

My father-in-law has been a LEO for twenty years (give or take). What he drilled into his kids more than guns was situational awareness. Know what is around you and what is being done around you. As far as firearms, all he ever says on that subject is 'correct fundamentals'. Every discussion about situations and tactics for him comes back to correct fundamentals.
As was noted in another thread here today, if you find yourself in a situation you will regress to the lowest level of your training. If you have practiced correct fundamentals often until they are second nature you will be able to perform properly under pressure.
These things will not guarantee that you will come out unscathed (or even survive), they just raise your odds (perhaps even exponentially)
I have found this principal to be true in most any aspect of life. And I respectfully disagree with dangerman. yes, you may loose cognitive focus of the fundamentals in a high stress situation, but if you have practiced regularly and correctly, muscle memory and habit will cover it for you.

 

[Dangerman009]

Let me just start out by saying it: I don't know everything.

"Know what is around you and what is being done around you. As far as firearms, all he ever says on that subject is 'correct fundamentals'."

I agree.

"yes, you may loose cognitive focus of the fundamentals in a high stress situation, but if you have practiced regularly and correctly, muscle memory and habit will cover it for you."

I agree.

I feel I need to quantify a few of my previous statements.

"Just about everything that is practiced and taught goes right out the window when an adversary with a gun comes around the corner right in front of you."

I may have been a little overly dramatic here.

"Sight picture? What sight picture? Point the gun and shoot!"

Point shooting (or whatever you want to call it) is something I've been practicing for years, ever since I first read an article about it. When I was fifteen I had a Daisy '94 and learned to shoot down a row of empty shotgun shells from ten yards without missing or using the sights. I should also say I went through a package of 1500 BBs a week.

"You can also forget about a proper grip, stance and counting shots too."

Now that I think of it, in my "Gunfighting Experience" (term used used very loosely) as I would advance around a corner with a pistol or rifle I had a correct grip/ stance. When I would be doing this the other players would flee from me. This may have had something to do with the fundamentals or with the fact that the oldest one was fourteen.

"Sloppy trigger/excess take-up/over-travel/etc., who has time to notice when there's 1-4 people trying to shoot you? Shoot fast and shoot often! then run for cover and reload."

Now, when I would suddenly be ambushed or surprised I would run for cover, glancing at the target and shooting with one hand. I do stand by my statement of not noticing the trigger or being able to count shots.


"Dangerman, I learned these things 40 years ago the hard way using real bullets."

Ron James, where did you get your experience?

 

[Hostile Amish]

Gamo and Crosman pistols are decent when training for SD. The .177s fly pretty flat, and sting upon impact.

 

[mcdonl]

Yes... it went like this... "Why do you need another gun?" "I dont" "yack yack yack, blah blah blah..."

"Thanks Dear, be back later...." - I WON the gun fight!

 

[John Parker]

Gamo and Crosman pistols are decent when training for SD. The .177s fly pretty flat, and sting upon impact.

They also tend to penetrate moving at 400 fps...

 

[amflyer]

Force on force training will someday be shown to be the farce that it is. The reason I say this is because you cannot recreate a desperate situation and it ultimately teaches bad tactics. In a street encounter there is only one rule. Kill or be killed. So there can be no recreation of this environment in a training simulation.

I guess I would disagree with this statement. What good is endless training in drawing your gun (sword) and practicing sight alignment if when you get that far you realize that your gun has jammed, your arm is red and all floppy, or your booger-hook is missing. We train our muscles to take over for the mind when the time comes that the mind is a bit preoccupied.

 

[gondorian]

I've done a bit of airsoft and would like to add that you can develop BAD habits just as easily as good ones. For example, I've done a lot of airsoft shooting with an M4 and when I first got a chance to shoot a real one I found I was doing bad things like not being as careful as I should have been with my muzzle. At the same time I found it very easy to shoulder and that I was very fast at bringing it up when I wanted to. From then on I decided to follow all the gun rules when using my airsoft guns, so now I think I get better practice. One think you can definitely learn a lot about when airsofting is camouflage and concealment, as well a stalking and movement techniques. Really airsoft is only as helpful as you and the others you play with make it.

 

[Shadow 7D]

Funny, while you can develop bad habits, why does the military, law enforcement and private companies (front sight, blackwater) spend millions on MOUT sites, shoot houses, and virtual trainers?

isn't shooting the BG on the screen while not hitting the little old lady with the shopping cart a type of force on force, or are you saying that paintball and airsoft have not value other than recreation,

if so, to expand on that line, what value does going shooting hold?

 

[ShadyScott999]

1. Alertness
2. Decisiveness
3. Aggressiveness
4. Speed
5. Coolness
6. Ruthlessness
7. Surprise

If you use this so called force on force "stuff", you better at least know Col. Coopers principles.

Learning and living these seven rules will defiantly increase your life expectancy.

 

[LWYM425]

DangerMan,
Perhaps a lot of these comments are coming from people who haven't done the whole airsoft version of capture the flag. Because they probably owned real guns at a younger age than you or me (just bought my first and am in my twenties).

I just did it for fun without any thought of self defense- it was literally more capture the flag then SD tutorial.

However, I think there are valuable things to gain if you and +1 "opponents" have non-automatic pistols.

If you hear something "bump" in the night and have to clear the rooms in your house, what better practice is there than having some one simulate a break in?

+1 for you DangerMan

 

[mbt2001]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3SdWn-Imfk

I typed a lot of response, but I decided to show a video of what I was talking about. Shoot houses and the like I don't think of as force on force. I guess this is where language and context matter.

 

[DAVIDSDIVAD]

There is absolutely nothing to be learned from airsofting.
no matter what.
ever.

I'm going to go ahead and respond to shadow's strawman.

The military uses high quality training equipment using high quality settings, using high quality tactics.

 

[John Parker]

The military uses high quality training equipment using high quality settings, using high quality tactics.

Well...'high quality' is a bit of a stretch. Generally we only get something like 40 blanks and a MILES system that is 20 years old and won't zero, no matter what. It's a joke. Simunitions are fun as hell, though their use is much, much rarer.

 

[Shadow 7D]

Yeah, we did, gotta love those POS paintball guns that chewed everything except the dry (hard) proball. Running through the woods practicing squad, team and platoon movements (area LL on Ft. Bragg). Or freezing my butt off in -56f weather in fairbanks kicking doors, or clearing engineering tape "houses" and rock drills in the desert.

7 years in, 82nd, RIP, 1-40 cav, 4/25

I have seen alot of "Advanced" civilian training setups, and a lot of the "high speed" military training was no more than using field expedient means. AND don't even get me started on MILES, that is a POS that trains nothing except how to cheat.

 

[30mag]

I don't think that gunfights have changed much since the age of the Colt Navy.

Being able to rip your pistol out of the holster in a tenth of a second is not much use if you're just gonna spray bullets.
The most important thing is to keep cool.

It seems to me airsoft would just condition you to get excited about 'gunfights'.

 

[DAVIDSDIVAD]

Well...'high quality' is a bit of a stretch. Generally we only get something like 40 blanks and a MILES system that is 20 years old and won't zero, no matter what. It's a joke. Simunitions are fun as hell, though their use is much, much rarer.

Won't argue there, but 20 year old MILES is better than a bunch of guys shooting tiny, bright orange plastic balls at eachother

 

[66912]

9 years ago. Recent enough for me thank you. I spent three months in the hospital. There were no winners in that one, but only one left to remember it.