Training Plan Part 2a

———-Brief Interlude for a Rant about Target Selection———-

There is a common belief among many trainers that you have to use “humanoid” or photorealistic targets for “combat training.” This is a persistent belief that, as far as I know, is based on the same flawed SLA Marshall “research” from World War Two that has convinced most of America that killing bad people is “unnatural.” We “need” humanoid” and photorealistic targets, in order to “overcome” our “natural, innate reluctance” to kill other people. It’s Pavlovian Operant Conditioning.

I’m only going to say this once, so pay attention: IT DOES NOT MATTER WHAT TARGET YOU USE, AS LONG AS YOUR MIND IS RIGHT!!!!

There is a reason that the best trainers out there switch back-and-forth between bulls-eye targets, silhouettes, colored dots, and even index cards. IT DOESN’T MATTER!!! What matters is that you can, on demand, place a shot—or every shot—in as small a place as you have determined is necessary. I tend to rely extensively on basic buff-and-white IPSC standard silhouettes, when I am teaching classes. To make smaller target zones, I use 3×5 index cards and/or a Sharpie marker pen. In large part that is because I end up hauling a lot of stuff around the country with me when I travel to teach. I don’t feel the need to carry eighteen flavors of targets as well. I also come from a background that favored improvisation for achieving training goals in austere conditions. I am all about the “making do” mindset. My personal favorite target for training is a simple IPSC silhouette with a 3×5 index taped or stapled on it somewhere. In the center of the index card, I draw a circle around a quarter ($0.25 coin) with a Sharpie, then fill in the outline, as an aiming point.

If the only targets you can get your hands on are basic little bulls-eye targets from Wal-Mart’s Sporting Goods section? You’ll be just fine. Don’t sweat it. Even better, for about $5.00, you can buy a package of 3×5 index cards, a roll of masking tape, and a Sharpie, over in the Home Office section, and you won’t run out of targets for a year or two.

If you WANT to drop the funds to buy super-duper, ultra high speed, photorealistic targets of Islamic jihadist “tangos” to make you feel all Tier One JSOC Jedi? More power to you. You’d be better off spending that money on ammunition though.

———-End of Rant———-

With the rifle/carbine, I like to start out shooting a group at 25 or 50 meters, followed by a “real” group at 100 meters (my optic is engineered to be zeroed at 100 meters, after all). I am looking for a legitimate two minute-of-angle group. If your personal or group standards mandate a 4MOA group, then that should be your goal. If your group standards are less stringent than 4MOA, you need to find a group that is more serious. If your personal standards are less stringent than 4MOA, you need to straighten up, and set some legitimate standards for performance.

With the pistol, I shoot my groups at 10 meters and 25 meters. I legitimately expect a three-inch or better group at both ranges. I also practice, and recommend, either after shooting your groups with the pistol, or alternating on different range trips, shooting these groups with the pistol strong-hand only and weak-hand only.

It is important to point out that there is a distinct, critical difference between precision and accuracy, and group shooting is where you have the opportunity to validate both of these, without the pressure of time constraints. Shooting a tight, 2MOA group, that impacts eight inches from the anticipated point-of-impact is precise, but it’s not accurate. Shooting a 10MOA group the center of which is dead center on the intended point-of-impact is accurate, but it’s not precise.

A precise group that is not accurate may be indicative of a sight misalignment, like my earlier reference, or it may be a matter of you making the same mistake every time (“Glocking” the trigger is a good example of the latter). Your group shooting should focus on achieving the perfection in both.

Task: “Snap Shooting”

The first shot you fire in a gunfight really will set the stage for the rest of the gunfight, for better or worse. It needs to be delivered with precision and accuracy, but it also needs to arrive in time. Snap shooting is the best method I know of to achieve that ability level. It is so important, the first month of each quarter, I will devote my entire range session weekly to nothing but snap shooting. I will literally, spend an entire hour—or two, when you count pistol—doing nothing but shooting single shot snaps (draw to first shot break with the pistol).

The hardest part of building speed and accuracy is getting into a good, solid firing position, with an effective grip on the gun that will allow you to break an accurate shot, as fast as possible. A very dear friend who happens to be a long-time instructor down at Gunsite, once pointed out to some mutual friends we were coaching one day, “it’s not about shooting faster. It’s about shooting sooner.”
That is SPOT-ON! It is going to take you—as an individual—a given amount of time to break the shot, without disrupting your sight picture/sight alignment in the process. That time will vary from individual to individual, and while it SHOULD get faster with practice, at any given moment in your development as a shooter, that time is non-negotiable. Trying to go faster means you mess up and miss. It’s going to take you the time it’s going to take you, to break an accurate shot.

What you CAN do however, is move faster getting to the point of breaking the shot. That practice is best achieved during dry-fire. The key to this, of course, is that your dry-fire “shots” have to be legitimate. Hitting the designated/desired position, and then yanking the trigger, without paying attention to the fact that your sights just jumped six inches on the end of your muzzle, is not doing you any good. It’s going to be detrimental. It will mess your shooting up. Dry-fire is only valid if it’s valid.

For my live-fire visits, with the rifle, I start on the 100M line. On the timer, I will fire an entire magazine, one shot at a time at the target of the day. For my snap shooting, I’ll generally shoot steel, because I’m lazy and don’t want to bother walking downrange after every single shot to note hits and misses and tape targets. I start the quarter shooting an eight-inch steel plate, and over the course of the month, if I am making my time goals, I’ll reduce the size of the steel to six-inch plates. (My long-term, ultimate goal is a sub 1 second snap shot, from the standing at 100 meters, to a four-inch plate.)

It’s important to point out that I record, in my shooting log, the time for every single shot. I note any misses as well. At the end of each range trip, I will average out those times to find my “par time” for dry-fire training for the next week. If I miss more than three shots out of a magazine, I know I’m pushing too fast and will deliberately slow down, taking my time. If I miss more than five shots, I’m obviously having a really bad day, so I’ll just turn the timer off and focus on slow, deliberate aimed fire from that position and distance for the duration of the magazine. Generally however, on an eight-inch plate, I’m at the point that I can consistently get 100% hits at speed. My average, on demand par time runs between 0.85-0.9 seconds.

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Training Plan Part 1a

Being Mindful
When you push to the point of making mistakes, then it’s time to stop and pay attention to what your failure point is, and start “being mindful” of how to fix the problem. I used to tell people to “slow down,” but found that simply telling them to “slow down,” didn’t fix anything. They still made the exact same mistake, they just did it slower. Instead, it’s about shifting your mental focus from “going fast” to “think about what you need to do.” Calling it “mindfulness” makes it sound like some sort of New Age, Zen, Hippie stuff, but it’s really not. Focus on the process, including the overarching reason for the process (killing someone before he kills you or someone else) and what you need to perform in order to achieve the purpose. It’s training for performance, rather than outcome. If you perform correctly, generally, you’ll achieve the outcome you are seeking.

Be In the Moment
This is closely tied to the mental-spiritual concepts we’ve talked about in some of my more recent articles. Sometimes, on your live-fire days, especially, you need to just relax, and shoot a scheduled drill without trying to push your limits. This is about just shooting the drill accurately, and seeing how you do. Don’t push yourself faster than what you feel you’re capable of doing flawlessly. Often, shooters—especially eager novices—feel like this is an utter waste of valuable, limited training time. There are two distinct reasons I believe that taking the time to just be in the moment is absolutely critical, though.The first is for your psychological resilience. Just like making advances in PT means occasionally backing off, lowering the weights, or slowing down your runs, to let your body recover, and avoid physical burn-out, your brain needs that rest from constantly pushing at its extreme limits occasionally too. This is why I cycle my training through the yearly quarters, and this is why we occasionally just chill out and shoot a drill to “see what we can do.”

The second reason is the “spiritual” part. When the time comes and it’s on you to “beat the bad guy,” you’re either going to be able to do so, or you’re not. Nothing you can do, in the moment, is going to change your skill level. You’ll either be good enough, or you won’t be good enough. If you’ve trained enough, and the other guy hasn’t trained as hard, or as smart, as you? You’ll probably be okay. Ultimately though, you’re going to have enough on your mind, ranging from “OH CRAP! THAT DUDE HAS A GUN AND IS SHOOTING PEOPLE!” to the cognitive process needed to process data and determine if you can take a shot or not, or if you need to move to take a shot, etc. Your body is going to receive the command to execute, and it’s going to do what it is capable of doing, predicated on your training up to that point, at its own pace. If you’ve let it do so in training, then two things result: A) you have mental confidence in your body’s ability to do what it needs to do, and you can focus on your information processing, and B) if you do feel yourself getting panicked into a rush, you can let yourself “be mindful” of the process, by focusing on performing, rather than worrying about the outcome. You really cannot miss fast enough to win. You can, however, miss fast enough to hit somebody’s six-year old kid nearby. Continuing to “push” yourself to push past the boundaries of your ability at that point will NOT fix the problem. You cannot fix the problem of smoking a kid by then shooting their playmates as well.

Speed
Drills come in two basic, distinct flavors, when it comes to time metrics. Some, like your marksmanship and core skills drills, will be set up in a specific way, and should generally always be set up the same way. These are drills designed to determine specific time and accuracy metrics, and this consistency in set-up allows you to assess improvements in your performance. In this article series, this type of drill will have very specific standards metrics, for both time and accuracy. The standards provided are all realistic, reasonable metrics, readily achievable in reasonable time frames; by anyone sufficiently motivated to train regularly (we’re talking like 10-20 minutes every day for dry-fire, and 45-60 minutes every week or every other week for live-fire range trips. Really, if you can’t slice 15 minutes out of your day to gain proficiency with your firearm, you have no business carrying a firearm any-damned-way!).

Many of the application skills drills however, are not designed to be set up in a specific way, and doing so actually detracts significantly from the value of the drill. This, of course, means that comparing time metrics from one set-up to another is largely pointless. For these, a general time frame of how long it should take competent shooters to complete the drill will be noted, but the best metric you can take note of on these are things like time to first shot/hit, split times between shots (how well are you managing recoil and driving your gun back on target?), and how clear your communications are between partners, or how correctly you executed your decision-making drills.

Conclusion
This is intended to be at least a four-part article series. Part Two will cover the drills I use for dry-fire and live-fire training to improve marksmanship, under the description provided in this Part One. Part Three will cover Core Skills and the drills I use for those. Part Four will cover Applications Skills and some of the drills I use for improving those. Part Five will be an actual layout of a quarterly training plan for pistol, carbine, or both (we’ll see how tired I am of writing this series by the time I get there…) In the meantime, I seriously urge you to consider some of the conceptual ideas covered in this Part of the series, as you go about whatever practice you are currently doing. I feel obligated to point out that being able to achieve a given task or skill component correctly, consistently, is a prerequisite to “pushing” your ability, however. If you can’t hit an eight-inch plate from the standing with your rifle at 100M, then there’s no point in trying to push to hit that eight-inch plate from the standing with your rifle at 100M, in <1.0 seconds. If you don’t have the basic motor pattern of your speed reload drilled in, so instead you fumble it regularly, then going faster is NOT going to fix it. Pushing can only come after you’re able to perform the skill on demand, under a time constraint. I’ll share one of my “Mosby’s Maxims:” “If you can’t do it on demand, then you can’t do it on demand.” So-called “game players” are an imaginary construct of people too lazy to show up and do the work. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Training Plan Part 1

Developing a Practice Plan, Part One, By John Mosby

(One of the most frequent questions I get asked in classes is, “How do we practice this stuff when we go home?” The short, easy answer, of course is simply to follow the appropriate POI course outlines in the appendices of Volumes One and Two of The Reluctant Partisan. They are laid out in a manner that allows you to use each block of instruction as a practice session. If you lay out the fundamental skills needed to complete each block, and use them for dry-fire practice, then when you go to the live-fire range, you can simply shoot the table of fire for that particular block. In a couple of months, you’ve worked through the entire program, and—hopefully—seen some impressive improvements in your skill set.

During the last block of classes however, I was asked at least once, in each individual class, to post an article specifically on how I set up my annual training plan and break it into cycles….This is the first installment of a Five-Part series on the subject. –JM)In short, I divide the year into four quarters of three months each, and then I work through a three-block cycle, with each month dedicated to a particular training block. The quarterly training cycle includes three basic training blocks that, for the sake of convenience, I will label “marksmanship,” “core skills,” and “application skills.” Most of my regular training is my daily training focused on dry-fire training in the marksmanship and core skills blocks. That is because these are the foundation of skill, and if those two blocks are dialed in, the application is cake.

A typical live-fire training session will be composed of shooting 2-3 repetitions each of 2-4 specific drills designed to focus on elements of the current block of emphasis. An efficient training session, of course, should be set up in such a way that requires minimal shifting of the range set-up. A) this saves time, making my training more time efficient, and B) especially on public ranges, the less trips I need to make downrange to change the set-up, the safer I am from some knucklehead trying to show off for his wife or girlfriend shooting me out of stupidity. I’ve got a lot of stuff on my plate, and I want my range trips to be effective, but I also need them to be efficient, so I make a concerted effort, if it’s a “working” range day, to be done in 45-60 minutes, at the outside (A “working” range day is when I’m there focused on my personal skills. A “non-working” range day is when I’m teaching the wife—although I generally try to maintain the same time constraints then—or when I’m at the range with friends and we’re just shooting different drills for fun and to spend time together, building frith (Fellowship/Comradarie/Team)

Every shooter with any length of experience is aware of some famous drills, has likely shot some of them, and probably has a favorite or two. It’s critical to understand however, that it is not this drill or that drill which is important. A properly designed practice drill is not about recreating specific combat situations. Instead, it is designed to achieve a specific training purpose. Generally, this is to measure your current level of skill and test your training progression, or to improve your skill. If a drill—no matter how well-loved—is not achieving that for your particular training focus, it’s pointless for anything beyond ego gratification.

Marksmanship

This block should focus on your ability to make progressively more difficult shots, at progressively faster speeds. Many shooters fall prey to the lazy hubris of believing since they can shoot an “acceptable” group, at a given distance, they are “good enough.” A popular one in “prepper” circles is the 4MOA standard of The Appleseed Project (Meanwhile, at the last rifle course, in AZ, I was publicly berating myself for shooting a 2” group at 50M, from the squatting position…until I realized we were actually shooting at the 100M line for that iteration). That’s just not an acceptable mindset in the real world of gunfighting. You should ALWAYS be striving to improve your accuracy and speed. Speaking objectively, there is no such thing as “accurate enough” or “fast enough.”

The balance between accuracy and speed is always going to be contextually subjective (that’s non-military speak for METT-TC dependent, by the way…).It’s subject to range, target presentation, and—above all—the limits of your personal skill and ability. This is why so much of your training time should emphasize making “impossible” shots in “impossible” times (Miss S, did you catch that?).

Core Skills

Core skills are those fundamental gunhandling and shooting skills that—along with marksmanship—are…wait for it…core to effectively prosecuting a fight with a firearm. This includes things like your drawstroke, or the presentation from ready with your rifle, reloading and other malfunction clearances, target transitions, and the other skills that will allow you to make each shot you fire a conscious action that occurs in a deliberate manner, but fast enough to solve the problem you are confronted with.

Application Skills

Application skills are those skills that allow you to translate your marksmanship and core skills into actual gunfight problem solving skills. This includes things like movement, use of cover and/or concealment, effective communication for working with a partner, safeguarding a principal like a non-combatant bystander or family member, while prosecuting the fight, and—the single most important skill in all of the gunfighting world—discrimination shooting with good, solid, accurate, rapid-fire thinking and decision-making under duress.

Critical Training Concepts

Perhaps the most critical training concept that you need to understand is that you’re going to mess up. That’s WHY we practice! Lots of shooters—and I’ve had a lot of them in classes—have this ridiculous notion that if they mess up in training and practice, that they’re a failure. It’s as if they mess up, such as blowing a shot, or even shooting a “no shoot,” in practice, that they are somehow indelibly imprinting training scars into their neural motor pathways. Incorrect! You ARE going to make mistakes. Even the experts make mistakes. THAT’S WHY WE PRACTICE!!!!!!

Make your mistake. Then, analyze why the mistake happened, and determine how to fix the deficiency, and then move on. That’s the point, people. Seriously. The first two times I fired for qualification in the Army, I failed to qualify and had to shoot it again (actually, the second time was as a private in the Ranger Regiment, and I had to shoot the qualification table FIVE TIMES that day before I finally managed to meet the standard!) Fortunately, I had good mentors who taught me to take the time to analyze the problems, and figure out how to fix them. Over the course of the rest of my career, I managed to never shoot less than Expert, and honestly? I’m ten times or more a better marksman and all-around shooter now than I was when I was a soldier.

Pushing Your Limits

Your dry-fire and live-fire practice should be about getting better. That means you generally have to push yourself to perform any given drill harder than you feel comfortable. If you’re not pushing out of your comfort margins, you’re simply not going to improve. When you push, you’re going to make mistakes. You’re going to blow some shots. You’re going to fumble and drop magazines during reloads. You’re going to trip, fall, and face plant in front of people (don’t ask…). You’re going to shoot “no shoots” as you push to go faster on discrimination shooting drills. The point is to push yourself to your failure point, and then to fix whatever deficiency created the failure. The majority of your training, both dry- and live-fire, should be of this type. It’s critical to understand though, that it’s not just a matter of “go faster!” You’re trying to determine when and how to move faster, but you’re also trying to determine how to modify your techniques to allow you to make the shots you need to make, in the times you need to make them.

It may be about accepting a “good enough” sight picture to get the shot you need to make. It may be a matter of changing where or how your reload magazine is carried to improve the efficiency of your biomechanics.

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Limits and how to overcome them

Know Your Limits, by Molon Labe

In these times, there are many activities that we must train to be able to do, many skills we must know, and many tasks we are forced to accomplish to sustain our lives and those who we care about. In the days ahead, there will be even greater and more difficult things that we will have to do should a collapse or failure of civility occur to any degree in our area. Many things that are abhorrent to us may become required in order to righteously protect what is ours.

Taking lives in the defense of our lives, our property, and more importantly in defense of our friends and family, may well be absolutely necessary. This is a topic which is often neglected today but clearly shown in Holy Scripture. However this is one of the only skills that you cannot afford to do without or make a mistake. Realistically, you may not have to utilize the skills of a warrior more than 1% of the time, and probably less than that. But if a mistake happens during that 1%, you, and those you care about and are standing in front of, won’t live to enjoy the other 99%.

You must realize that I am not talking about going to the rifle range on a nice sunny day and excelling at punching holes on a non-moving paper target with all the time in the world. Certainly there is a place for that, but the best shooter in the world will not survive a violent conflict or be able to protect his family when the time comes if that person has not made the conscience decision beforehand that he or she will drop the hammer on that other living, breathing human being. That they will plunge that knife into the enemy’s neck, or bring that chair over their head, and repeat with savage fury until finished. If it isn’t in you to go up to that edge and know that you will, for a certainty step off and take that reprobate’s life from him, even as he comes at the unexpected moment to take yours, then you will not survive.

This cannot be overstated: Hesitation kills. Remember that! Most gunfights are over in less than four seconds. It has been stated many times over that a failure to plan is a plan to fail, and that is true. So the question is; what have you determined to do when the time comes that those you love are in danger? Even if you never have to endure a failure of society or go through a war zone, make no mistake, this is a cruel world and scumbags are everywhere. I’ve had a friend killed by a Muslim with a pistol at point blank range. A few of my friends have encountered men with lethal intent and had to defend their lives or die trying; they have survived and their enemies are either in the ground or in prison. None of these men had gone looking for a fight or had done anything stupid which should have been avoided. I’ve survived a potential violent conflict the best way, by keeping my eyes open and with the help of the Lord, escaping the narrow confined room where I should have been killed. In that case I didn’t have to snap the enemy’s spine or use my knife, but if I had, would I have been ready? If it quickly came to a “him or me” situation, could I have fought intelligently and fiercely? I hope so. I was young at the time, but I had already crossed that line in my head a hundred times before.

On a side note, you don’t have to be in a bad spot to be targeted by bad people. Sometimes they follow you. Or like in the case of my friend, they come to your door out of nowhere with a gun and a bag full of cutting tools and implements associated with torture. Had my friend not been the man that he is, he and his wife and two children would have been a sad memory instead of a shining example in our community. The point here is that you will not be able to decide when the moment of truth is: It’s going to choose you. And statistically, that means it will be up close and personal (and probably very dark, to boot).

Know Your Limits
In your mind, you have to know your limits. You have to know how far you are willing to take it and how much you are willing to risk to protect those you love. Ask yourself, are you willing to take a bullet, stop that bat swing with your arm, or get hit by that vehicle for someone you love? For principle? For right? No matter what the cost? Run through scenarios in your head, and know personally how far you will take it, for what, and why. For me, the idea of living the rest of my life knowing that I could’ve bit the bullet and saved someone I love dearly, but didn’t, is more horrible than death itself, regardless of how frightening the circumstances may be. What if it’s a little girl, or even perhaps one day, my own little girl? My mom, dad or sister? No, the preservation of their lives and the lives of my friends is more important to me than my own. And on the day, when that dirt bag has captured them and seeks to extinguish their life by the most barbaric means possible, or when those Religion of Peace types begin gutting, crucifying, beheading, raping, (fill in the blank), to someone I care about, in that situation time-is-life. Remember this, as Douglas MacArthur stated, “In war, you win or lose. Live or die. And the difference is just an eyelash.”

So let me now ask you. How fast can you get your shot off reliably from the method you carry? If it isn’t carried on your person, are you sure you can get to it, get it out and running before the gunfight is over? Remember from the first to last shot in a gunfight on the street, it’s going to be over in 2.5 to 4 seconds. When you’re slipping backwards in the dark and rain, that isn’t very long. If you intend on using an edged weapon or blunt instrument, how fast can you cover distance and disable your opponent, and how sure are you that you will be able to take down that threat? What if you are caught without a weapon? Do you have to resort to picking something up or can you kill with your bare hands? At what point in the fight will you draw your knife or gun, and why? If you take a single hit from a pistol caliber, you have perhaps as much as 95% chance of walking out of there alive; not so if you are stabbed in the neck. And never discount the method of making distance via your feet, sometimes referred to as the Nike Jitsu technique, if it is an option to you. If you are fired at while running away from an urban gang member with a pistol, statistics show you have a very good chance of not getting hit. Obviously, that isn’t always an option, from either a moral or strategic standpoint.

This is what you must know: You will probably not die from a single gunshot wound or knife slash. People survive them every day. If you are dealing with an opponent with a gun, the gun is probably going to go off; you may get hit. Knife, yes, you’re going to get cut, it’s not the end of the world. Pipe-bat-chain, yes, you’re going to get smacked and yes, it’s going to hurt, but that’s why we have casts and splints. The point is to keep fighting. It’s not over until you are dead, have given up, or have won. If you die, your worries are over. If you give up, you’re as good as dead, or you may have to endure a fate worse than death. But if you resign to fight until you can’t fight any more, or until you’ve no one left to fight, you’ve already won. Because if you do all you can and fail, it’s not truly failure. Failure is refusing to try.

Now if you know you’re going to fight and fight until you can’t fight any more, then what are some things that can help prepare you for that day and stack the odds in your favor? You must know your limits. That is, your current limits. Let us remember what Bruce Lee said once, “There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level.”

I know that I can draw my pistol and get a center mass hit reliably in under one second with movement in my open carry rig. Add 2/10ths of a second from concealment. I know that my carbine speed reload is on average 2/10ths of a second slower than drawing my pistol, but that if I have more ammo in my Redi-Mag, then I’ll take that extra time to get 30 rounds of .223 in the fight, versus 11 rounds of .45 ACP. I know that I can speed reload in pitch dark as fast as I can in the light, maybe faster. Sound impossible? The truth is that if you can perform an action without using conscious thought, if it can be controlled, regulated and maneuvered by using subconscious thought, it will be faster, smoother and more efficient. And this brings us to the next point.

Practice, Practice, Practice
Whatever action you may be called on to do when time is life, you’ll want to practice it until it can be done without conscious thought. The simple truth is that the better you become at subconsciously running your gun, then the better you’ll be able to use your conscious thought for solving problems. In conflicts there will always be problems that must be solved, obstacles to be overcome. One thing about guns is that sooner or later, (and probably sooner rather than later in battlefield conditions,) your gun will have a malfunction. So, can you clear your weapon’s malfunction quickly, no matter what kind it may be? How quickly? Can you do it without thinking about it, and keep your head in the game, thinking about the next move while you’re doing it? Make no mistake, this will take time and practice. A few inert rounds and some time spent with your weapons systems, off and on the range, dealing with malfunctions could very well save your life when it fails to go bang on the day. If you are carrying more than one weapon into the field or on the street, you need to know how quickly you can solve the problem, and at which point you swap to your alternate weapon or method. There will be no time on the day to stop and think, “Oh, yeah, NOW would be a good time to go to my back up!” It must be done via muscle memory or you’ll skip a beat, miss a step and be even further behind the power curve.

Don’t forget that your mind is your greatest and first weapon. It is the thing that drives all else and we want to keep it clear and have as few problems as possible to solve. So work with your gear and decide what your standard operating procedure is before it comes to it, and then practice it until it becomes instinct. When deciding your method in handling different situations or weapon systems, try to never go with a particular technique just because someone else said to, no matter how good or knowledgeable that person is, because people don’t always have the same body mechanics or application for any given situation. No, you’ll want to develop your own method based on good reasoning. If there’s a good reason behind why you’re doing what you’re doing, then at least you’re doing something right. But don’t stop there; look to see if you can find a better reason to do it any other way. Follow the 80% rule. You want to practice what is going to work for you 80% of the time or better. Ask yourself when you are doing your next dry fire practice or shooting at the range, or anything that may need to be accomplished during critical moments, “Is this going to work for me when it’s wet, when I’m tired, when I can’t think, when my lungs are working overtime to suck in some vital air, when I’m scared out of my wits?” And train to reality. Reality isn’t sunny and 75 on level ground with no pressure. Reality is dark-cold-scared with everything on the line and no do-overs.

How well do you perform when your heart is pounding at 145+ beats per minute, your legs and arms are smoked and your mind is struggling to find the answer to the current problem? Test yourself and know that at that point, the head shot at 25 yards is stupid with that pocket pistol, or manageable with that shotgun. Know that your speed reload falls to pieces if you go too fast, so you can slow it down, take a breath and think through the problem. If you train through enough stressful situations, running as fast as you can, then you’ll find where you melt down and where you need to be to keep things running quickly but smoothly. One important point to remember is that “You can’t hit by missing.” This means that if you’re going to miss, slow it down, correct it, move up, slow your heart and breathing or just man up and dig deep and do whatever needs to happen to get the job done right.

But don’t go faster than you can. I learned this lesson crystal clear when I was about 15 years old. I remember expending an entire 20 round magazine at a full-size steel through my rifle at 200 yards and never once hitting it because I was frustrated and was shooting way too fast; a shot that I should have hit the first time if I had slowed myself down a couple seconds. This was a stupid mistake that could have meant taking an innocent life through negligence down range on the day, because every missed round is a liability. But the point here is that if you shoot, move or operate too fast for your level, you’re doing no one any good. So if you find yourself missing, slow it down and get your hits. Again, this comes back to knowing your limits. Don’t go faster than you can on the street, means that you hit that failure point on the range, in training, so you won’t make that mistake on The Day. So where are your limits? Do you know them? Do you know if you can hit that half a head hiding behind your best friend when he/she becomes a hostage? It’s all on you.

Train hard. Fight harder. Live for God and do your best; leave the results to Him because they are His anyway. Love those you should and be ready to kill those who need to die. And always know your limits.

https://survivalblog.com/know-your-limits-by-molon-labe/


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Shooting from a down position

When it comes to practicing “Man Down Drills” or “Injured Man Drills”, we need to remember that we will not always be healthy and in the best position to engage.

I recommend that you practice this with something other than your firearm to begin with, I would start off using, blue guns or perhaps air soft or air guns before attempting to draw and fire at a live range from the ground. It is best to practice shooting from this position with both your primary and secondary weapon systems (Rifle and Handgun). Just as those positions prove to be accurate after getting used to them, gun handling from a weakened position is an acquired skill. These drills need to be performed in your tactical gear and kit, there is no need to have your pack on, but have all your other gear on, remember you have to train the way you fight, because you will fight the way you train.

The next level would be to practice drawing while headed to the ground instead of after the fact. Again, be extremely mindful of muzzle direction and safety at all times.

To learn how to fall properly, I would recommend at minimum a brief enrollment in a martial arts school specializing in Judo, jujitsu, Aikido, Hwa Rang Do or some of the more traditional martial arts which teach nothing but how to roll, fall and recover from the same for the first few weeks.

Drawing from the ground, shooting from the ground and even practicing how to fall and recover can reveal shortcomings about gear and training. For example, an open bottom holster may get caked in mud or snow; this could cause a malfunction or barrel obstruction, so if you only have an open bottom holster, think about placing some duct tape over the barrel, or do not worry about it.

The most advanced stage would be moving to an advantageous position or perhaps engaging targets not just in front but to the back and sides. This would require a very specific and purpose built range to accomplish that safely, but could be replicated with air soft or pellet guns as mentioned previous for safety’s sake.

The best thing to do to gain a higher level of proficiency is to get off your butt, go to a place you can do drills like this, and actually do them. Practice going to the ground, drawing, and shooting acuratly, perform mag changes, and engage targets from different directions. I know this is hard if not impossible to do at a range, but if your range will not let you do this, find a place in the woods you can, or just practice in your backyard, or living room with an unloaded gun. Remember, even if you cannot go full bore and actually shoot, do what you can, you will still be better off than if you did nothing.

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Building Your SHTF Combat Overwatch Rifle

By: Brandon Smith
http://www.alt-market.com/articles/1557-building-your-shtf-combat-overwatch-rifle

After several years in the Liberty Movement working with various survivalists, you begin to realize that there are as many viewpoints and opinions on self defense tactics as there are people. This is because each individual survivalist’s environmental circumstances are a little different, and unique problems call for unique solutions. That said, there are certain universal elements that every survivalist should consider, and certain pieces of gear that can aid us greatly regardless of our particular situation. I believe the concept of the “overwatch rifle” is one of these universal elements, and an often overlooked combat necessity.

Preparing for a fight, in general terms, is about understanding one’s own weaknesses better than one’s opponent. This means rigorously examining your capabilities and rounding them out as much as possible. Are you strong in close quarters but terrible at a distance? Are you able to engage an enemy regardless of his position, or, do you have to risk closing the gap while he waits comfortably for you? Are you ready mentally and technically for surprises?

The overwatch rifle is not just a tool, it is also a strategy, and when I refer to “overwatch”, I am referring to a guerrilla methodology, not the standard military usage involving sniper support.

This strategy revolves around adaptability, movement, and creative offense. You have to be physically fit and ready to move quickly from one engagement to the next in a sequence that creates the utmost advantage for you and your team. You have to be willing to move from a rear supporting role to a forward scouting role at a moments notice. Sometimes, you have to operate at the very center of it all, coordinating supporting elements and removing obstacles in their path.

Not everyone can serve this role within their team. The overwatch rifle does not automatically make a survivalist overwatch ready. It is the man that makes the rifle effective, not the rifle that makes the man effective.

But before I discuss overwatch rifle design ideas, I want to address a question that ALWAYS comes up when I write an article dealing with any defensive measures:

“Who do you plan to fight?”

The question often insinuates that there is “no one” to fight and that such prepping articles are based in “paranoia”, or, that the enemy will be so technologically advanced that it is “foolish” of us to believe that we can fight them.

My answer is simple – I will fight anyone who attempts to undermine my individual freedom and safety, the individual freedom and safety of the people I care about, innocent citizens, and even future generations I will never meet. Anyone who suggests that such threats do not exist - foreign, domestic, and internationalist - must have been living under a rotting log for the past several years (or they’ve been mesmerized by Facebook and “reality” television, which is very similar). The superiority of these very real threats is irrelevant. I’ve been a fighter for most of my life, and I know well that the biggest and most intimidating opponents are often the easiest to topple in the end, as long as you have the will to press forward, and the intelligence to engage them in a way they cannot predict.

If you are an enemy of liberty and the constitutional philosophy of natural law, then you are my enemy, and if you push me, I will push back. Count on it…

This principle goes for tyrannical political systems as well. When a society loses its ability to regulate and restrict government, when all authority is derived through backroom brokered deals between the money elite and puppet politicians on both sides of the aisle, when individual liberties are deemed expendable in the name of illusory “collective safety”, and when the establishment proclaims that the only way for the public to be prosperous is for the bureaucracy to be prosperous, a war is soon at hand.

The elites will never walk away quietly and neither will we. There are Americans who still respect the virtues of freedom, and there are people in this world whose only goal is to dominate and enslave. We are at a dangerous impasse, and I believe there may be only one way left to fully resolve it…

Of course, when one discusses citizen armament and preparation for combat, the assumption is that every survivalist has already undertaken the correct prerequisite steps to make himself an effective fighter. Before anyone even considers combat preparedness, they should have already:

1) Stockpiled ample food and water.
2) Stockpiled proper medical and emergency first aid.
3) Stockpiled ample ammunition.
4) Chosen a retreat location and hardened their home for defense.
5) Been diligent in their personal health.
6) Trained their bodies for the most terrible rigors imaginable.
7) Trained their minds to be psychologically ready for combat.
8) Trained to control the jarring fight-or-flight response caused by the influx of adrenaline.
9) Fired hundreds if not thousands of rounds through each of the weapons they intend to use in combat until they know them intimately.
10) Studied the history of combat tactics and war strategy (especially asymmetric warfare).
11) Built up a community of like minded individuals who are also prepared.

If you have not at least begun to pursue all of these goals then you are not ready to pull the trigger. Period. If you don’t respect yourself enough to prepare in a practical way, the enemy certainly won’t respect you either, and why should he? You’ll be the punchline of a sad joke, the bullseye on the target, and just another notch in his rifle stock.

If you have at least initiated preparations in all of the above areas, THEN it is time to take a look at your rifle setup…

The Overwatch Concept In Asymmetric Warfare

The term “overwatch” is most often applied when a sniper team is placed in a supporting role during a major offensive. However, the concept has expanded into other areas, especially where guerrilla warfare is concerned, and I would like to use the broader definition here. A person on “overwatch” could be a sniper, or a general team member who is able to place precision fire almost anywhere on the battlefield at vectors difficult for the enemy to spot. This means being in a central position covering not one sector, but all sectors of fire, and striking the enemy from one angle while he is distracted by another.

Being in an overwatch role would mean a certain freedom of movement. You are often designating your own targets and your own fields of fire as you go, and as your teammates push forward. But, it also means you have to be highly adaptable, quick thinking, creative and imaginative in your strategy, and be willing to cause enough damage during a fight to sometimes draw the majority of enemy fire. You become the fulcrum of your team’s initiative.

Ideally, you would want every person you work with to be able to fill the overwatch position, and be able to think in terms of creative combat. The overwatch strategy is meant to stall an enemy advance, destroy enemy sniper positions, create openings in enemy lines, and thus, create targets of opportunity for other team members.

Designing Your Overwatch Rifle

The weapons system you use for overwatch will depend greatly on what you find works best for you as an individual. However, here are some issues you need to take into consideration before building your weapon:

Short Range, Medium Range, Long Range: Your overwatch rifle must be able to engage targets at almost any range (between 0 – 800 yards would be ideal). You must also be able to shift from medium and long range opponents to close range surprise attacks quickly and efficiently.

Penetration And Distance: The caliber you choose should not only be able to travel long distances, but also maintain strong penetration ability at those distances.

Precision: The rifle should fire consistent groups of less than 1 MOA (at least 1” groups at 100 yards).

Frequency Of Fire: The more fire you can put down range quickly and accurately, the better. This means semi-auto rather than bolt action.

Adaptable To Optics: The weapon should have a rail system that accommodates a number of optics, making it adaptable to almost any situation. Or, at least modifiable for a rail.

Rifle Systems

I have found that the .308 military caliber tends to be the most practical for overwatch requirements. The bullet has long range capabilities and far greater penetration than the AR-15’s .223 caliber, or the AK-47’s 7.62 × 39 caliber. The AR and AK are great for close range, room-to-room fighting, and some medium range targets without cover, but they have many limitations and are not useful for overwatch. I have also chosen .308 rifles that are semi-automatic, and that can be fitted with comprehensive rail systems. A common complaint concerning .308 tactical rifles is that they are "too heavy" and slow to aim. All I can say is, if you can't wield the weapon effectively, do some push-ups until you can.

Here is a short list of possible rifle platforms:

AR-10
FN FAL
Springfield M1A
FN SCAR
FNAR
Saiga .308
Heckler & Koch PTR-91

I’m sure there are few more that could be added here, and I recommend all readers carefully research and fire the weapon they are interested in before purchasing it (especially at today’s prices).

Optics

Next, you need to devise an optics system that allows you to engage at a distance AND up-close and personal. There are many ways of setting up a rifle for this, but most involve a combination of a scope and red dot, or a scope and iron sights. Here are some ideas…

Variable Scope: A variable scope, as opposed to a fixed power, makes it possible to shift your focus from a wider field of view to narrow longer distance shot with a twist of a dial. But such a scope alone will not enable the kind of speed you will require for overwatch. Buying a cheap hunting variable is also not advised. Make sure the glass is good, and the body can take a beating. Spend the extra cash…

Mini-Red Dot / Variable Scope Combo: Mini-Red Dots are very versatile and new mounting systems make it possible to tie one to your scope at any angle you wish. Some mounts place the red dot directly above the scope, but this often forces the shooter to sacrifice his cheek weld in order to take aim. I prefer angled mounts to the side of the scope. A very quick shift of the rifle to the inside and you can immediately fire without ever taking your cheek away from the stock. Red dots have no magnification, and thus no vision box. Both eyes can be used to target the enemy, and your peripheral vision can be utilized to acquire the next target before firing at the first. My favorite mini-red dot sights are made by Trijicon and Aimpoint, because of their proven durability in the field.

Pre-Designed Multi-Mounts: Multi-railed ring systems like the Burris P.E.P.R. Mount create a solid platform for you to attach a scope and red dot package to your rifle quickly and easily. Many of these systems are meant for AR-15 enthusiasts, but I have seen them adapted for use on .308 caliber rifles.

Short Dot Variable Scope: Short dot scopes (or CQB scopes) usually come in the 1-4 or 1-6 power variety. The concept was to make a single optics system that combined the speed and wide field view of a red dot with the magnification of a variable scope. Some of the more affordable short dots are made by Burris, Leupold, Vortex, and SWFA, and even these models can be pricey. If you have the cash, they are an excellent investment. Many models include an illuminated reticle that can be used in combination with night vision. Short dot scopes are popular in 3-gun competitions because of their versatility, and are beginning to see more use in the military. They can be very effective for overwatch purposes. I recommend 1-6 scopes in second focal plane, which prevents the red dot reticle from being magnified as power is increased, causing a loss of precision.

Night Vision: Overwatch includes nighttime operations. The tactical rail on your rifle should be long enough to accommodate a scope and a night vision system. Or, a red dot and night vision combo. Quick-detach mounts like those produced by LaRue Tactical are perfect for switching out sights and scopes quickly without losing your zero.

In any lopsided contest to the death, the less technologically advanced opponent must inevitably turn to asymmetric warfare; meaning, he must fight smarter, and be more effective with fewer tools at his disposal. He has to turn his weaknesses into strengths, and make the smallest weapon devastating to his seemingly invincible enemy. Taking on the role of overwatch rifleman means you must understand all the intricacies of asymmetrics, and be able to apply them in real time in the midst of a battle frenzy. It is a very ugly mission.

Above all, you have to have the will and the courage to stand against what you know are incredible odds. You have to be unwavering. You have to have a clear understanding of why you picked up that rifle in the first place, and maintain a deep belief in your cause despite the seeming impossibility of the task before you. Otherwise, fear will be your guide, and the fearful can never provide adequate overwatch.

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Combat Rifle – Basics to help keep you Alive

I have always been a little wary of the term ‘gun fighting.’ I trawled YouTube and the internet in general before my training course to get an idea of what people were up to and therefore what may be in people’s heads when they showed up to my courses. There is a lot of ‘tacticool’ and a lot of ‘Hollywood’ out there. In my opinion, there is altogether too much standing on square ranges, engaging targets from a standing position, as if they are not shooting back and as if they are not potentially in depth or cover and able to take you out as you stand there. Some of it seems very impressive but in my mind much of it is almost in the category of ‘circus trickery’ carbine mastery - showing off. Although there is a lot to be said to being awesome with your carbine, most of this lacks tactical application and if you don’t have all day every day to practice, you will be missing out on good solid basics and putting yourself at great risk.

Some of the instruction also appears to incorporate drills almost for their own sake that appear to have been invented as ‘something to do’ on what are otherwise very limited ranges.

I see a lot of this training as an equivalent to boxing training by just punching a heavy bag. It’s not punching back, and I can stand there and hit it all day, looking good. When it starts to hit back, you need to think about moving, duck and covering….

What you need to focus on are very good basics. I will attempt to explain some of this below:

Reaction to Contact: This can be covered by RTR, which stands for:

Return fire

Take Cover

Return Appropriate Fire.

What does this mean? It means that once you come under fire, or see the enemy, you immediately bring reactive fire onto the target in an attempt to kill, disable or at the very least distract the enemies aim at you (if you miss close!) You then take cover. You then adopt a fire position and bring accurate fire onto the enemy. This is the first part of your reaction to contact and will be followed up depending if you are alone, or with others, and whether you are in an offensive or break contact mode. So, basically, what you do next all follows from your initial reaction of RTR.

When you train with me, I will drill into you not only the initial ‘R’, but also the ‘Take Cover’. This can simply be in the form of reaction drills where the target comes up (front. right, left or rear), you go from a ready to a fire position and engage with a controlled pair. But MOST IMPORTANTLY you then go into cover, which can be simulated on the basic range with a step to the left or right and taking a kneeling fire position, following up with a steady aimed shot from the kneeling, or prone position, to simulate the final ‘R’.

It’s a 360 degree battlefield. In any situation you cannot afford, if you can avoid it, to be hit by a rifle round. That is penetrating trauma and particularly in a post-collapse situation your ability to either fight the resistance campaign, or protect your family/tribe, or both, will be severely curtailed or over. Done. So let’s get away from standing ‘gun fighting’, however fast you can run your gun.

However the thing to note about the RTR procedure is that the initial ‘R’, the initial return fire, is also optional. In a close quarter engagement you will need to react fast and get accurate fire onto the enemy. That works in a situation where you both see the enemy and they are close enough for you to get a quick accurate shot or two off into them before taking cover. It’s a judgment call. Many times, either in a wooded or longer range or even desert environment, you will come under contact and not initially locate where the fire is coming from. In such a situation returning initial fire from the standing position may get you killed. You could fire into likely cover, but that is best done from the last ‘R’ i.e. Return Appropriate Fire after having taken cover.

Therefore, if you come under contact from an unknown location and cannot effectively return initial fire, to try to do so will leave you standing there effectively frozen on the enemy’s ‘X’: Far better to skip the initial ‘R’ and just move straight to Take Cover. Once you have done that, either alone or with your tactical element, you can scan and attempt to locate the enemy before going into your follow on drill as appropriate.

The most effective reaction I have seen of this unseen enemy situation  is exemplified by a team coming under fire from a range of 100-200 meters where the enemy was not immediately obvious, the team immediately bomb-bursting and zigzagging into cover, followed by locating the enemy, communicating this, and bringing accurate rifle fire down upon them.

If we go back to the initial ‘R’ then we will see that the reaction is a balance of speed and accuracy as ranges increase. You will train and know yourself what distance you are effective out to. At close ranges you will be best to use the point shooting method, looking over the sights, and immediately engage the guy before he hits you. As ranges increase, you will be moving to your sights with quick reactive controlled pairs, until you find that you need to hesitate and acquire the target for just that faction of a second longer. You will know where your skills are at and you can work to improve that. There will be a point, where you either don’t see the enemy after the first contact, or they are at a longer range, where you will know you are best to simply get into cover before returning fire.

So, second in importance to being a good reactive shot is the overwhelming importance of TAKING COVER. Russian conscript troops train to assault by exiting their APCs and running towards the enemy positions firing their AKs on automatic from the hip. And that is supposed to happen after a massive bombardment designed to leave no one alive to assault. I have seen pretty much that level of skill on the internet videos out there, the difference being that the standard US Civilian is firing from the shoulder as he does the Hollywood line walking towards the targets.

When you move from individual reaction drills to fire and movement, you are using a combination of cover and accurate fire to maneuver, either towards or away from the enemy. You may be crawling, moving in ‘dead ground’ out of sight of the enemy or conducting short rushes covered by your buddies. However, whenever you are not moving, you are in a fire position in cover. If you are not firing or moving, you are in cover. I always train from the very basic level that if you have any stoppage on your weapon, from an empty magazine to an actual stoppage/malfunction, you are at least getting down onto one knee to simulate taking cover. If you are on a movement lane then you will actually take cover.

If you happen upon a chance contact, let’s say it’s out there in the woods, and you deal with the first guy or two with your well drilled carbine skills, you simply don’t know where the rest of them are. Don’t stay up on your feet going all Hollywood. Take Cover. If you are with a team, at least two of you, which I hope you are, then you will go into fire and movement either to assault forward and clear, or to break contact back out of there.

This leads me onto a related topic, that of ‘bounding overwatch’. I take issue with how bounding overwatch is mistermed and also with some of the ‘tacticool’ madness that I see creeping in. Ok, so here it is:

Fire and Movement: This is the principle where movement under enemy direct fire is achieved through the combined use of suppressive fire and cover. If there is no cover (think billiard table) then you rely solely on your suppressive fire to allow maneuver. The principle of fire and movement (or maneuver) can be summarized by the words “no movement without fire.” This applies at any element from a pair up to a battalion. It’s not the size of the elements that matters, it that fact that they are fire and maneuvering.

Bounding Overwatch: This is where you are not actually firing at the enemy. There is no enemy seen but you believe the threat to be high. You are placing elements in position to provide potential fire support. So think of it like ‘dry’ fire and movement. Again, it does not matter what size elements you have, from two buddies up to two platoons. Think about having to move over some open ground and you think there may be enemy in the area: you place an element down in cover on the hill to give potential fire support. You then move an element across the open ground, they take up fire positions, and the original cover element then moves up. If at any time it goes hot due to enemy contact, you are immediately going into fire and movement. In this sense, bounds taken in bounding overwatch can be further than the usual “I’m up, he sees me, I’m down” short bounds usually done during fire and movement.

Ok, so now we have established the difference between fire and movement and bounding overwatch, we can now see the utility of being able to switch between the two and also use bounding overwatch as a way to conduct a high threat move or clearance through or towards an objective. Watching some of the prepper shows, I saw some tactical madness with buddy pairs ‘moving tactically’ in an exaggerated half crouch back to back. Front guy walking forwards, rear guy back to back walking backwards, moving slowly in the open. NO.

This is where this kind of madness creeps in. Nobody is supervising this and it just spreads because people think it is the thing to do. Let’s go back to our solid basics. If you and a buddy had to move through an area where you had to clear, or move to an objective where there was a high threat of enemy contact, what would you do? Bounding overwatch right? Yep.

But what about covering the rear, I hear you say? Well, you are moving through and over the ground so you are covering that ground and the rear is the ground you just covered. You check rear anyway as you are moving, but you don’t walk backwards. This was learned from years of experience on patrol: it used to be done, for example on endless long patrols by the British Army, but you just don’t walk backwards anymore. You will trip and fall. Turn and look, then resume. There is nothing wrong with coming together in your pair for a halt, and placing one covering front/flank, the other rear/flank. That is a basic security formation for a halt.

So in summary, what has this article been about? It’s been about the need to build a good solid foundation of basic skills. I have said this before, and I chuckle to say it again, but that's all there really is: good solid basics, practiced until they become slick second nature drills. Don’t be misled by tacticool snake oil salesmen. Learn to run your gun in the standing, kneeling and prone positions, learn to use cover with your fire positions; learn the importance of taking cover.

One final thing: PT. PT is crucial. Fire and movement under enemy direct fire is an anaerobic activity – you will not be able to suck in enough oxygen to make it comfortable. However we are all training to survive here and you may be older or in not such good physical condition. This does not disbar you from these techniques. Yes, when conducting rushes during fire and movement the faster you can cover that ground the less likely you are to be hit. But there is an important distinction between speed and momentum.

Momentum is keeping up the pressure on the enemy by the use of accurate suppressive fire that is killing the enemy or making them keep their heads down in cover, allowing you to maneuver. If you can locate the enemy and generate such suppressive fire you will allow yourself to move. You may be able to move in a steadier fashion, talking account of your slower speed and utilizing adrenalin to spur you through it. On my ranges, if you are less physically capable, I will not exhort you to efforts beyond your capability. At the very least, this would compromise safety. You will do the techniques at a steadier pace, and take away the fact that you need to work harder on your PT.

Max Velocity

Live Hard, Die Free

Marksman/Observer Team (Tips)

Unit Organization 

The marksman/observer team consists of two men, both fully qualified marksmen, or sniper in some cases. If they are a Designated Marksman (DM) team then they will both be qualified DM, if they are a Sniper team, then they will both be qualified snipers.

In order to function effectively, however, one will shoot (the marksman/sniper) while the other watches the objective (the observer/spotter). These two will rotate duties on a regular basis during a engagement.  In most cases with sniper teams the observer/spotter is the more experienced member, because he is the one making all the wind, elevation, and other calls to the marksman/sniper, all the sniper has to do is ensure he agrees with the calls from his spotter then make the shot.

From this point on in this post I will be using the term marksman to refer to both a DM, and a sniper, and the term observer to refer to both the observer and the spotter.

Compatibility, a readiness to share, and a willingness to rotate duties are necessary qualities of the marksman/observer team members. The member with the most experience should be in charge, but his primary task is to educate his partner and elevate his skills on a par with his own so they can rotate jobs completely yet suffer no decline in compatibility. 

Duties and Responsibilities:

Marksman / Observer 

1. Writes Operations Order Obtains and prepares any special gear
2. Coordinates with other units Leads in normal movement
3. Leads in stalking movement Follows in stalking movement
4. Follows observer in normal movement Shares in the construction of the "hide"
5. Selects "hide" location Draws sketches and range cards
6. Detects and announces targets Shares range estimates with marksman
7. Adjusts scope for wind, range and angle Identifies targets by priority
8. Shares range estimates with observer Estimates wind
9. Decides engagement priorities Backs up marksman’s shot
10. Engages human and material targets Operates radio
11. Records information
12. Coordinates other teams
13. Operates diversionary devices

Due to liability, police snipers do not rotate weapons. Each marksman/observer should have a rifle assigned exclusively to himself. The marksmen/observers must also rotate/rest/share, or they won’t be able to last during a long-term engagement. Most marksman shots are fired only after all viable options have been expended. 

Marksman/Observer Selection 

What does one look for in Marksman/Observer candidates? Being a good marksman involves three main skills; – marksmanship (duh), fieldcraft, and tactics. The candidate should have experience, interest, or a demonstrated aptitude within at least one of these areas. Training will round out the other two remaining skills. 

Marksmanship 

When it comes to marksmanship, the candidate should be at least an expert rifleman. He had better like shooting, because to hone and maintain marksman-level skills he must shoot frequently. The candidate should have an interest in firearms and technical subjects beyond the common layman, a natural curiosity about things like ballistics, bullets, and optics.
Hunting experience is especially useful because the sniper candidate already will have learned the consequences of inaccuracy or sluggish reflexes. 

Fieldcraft 

Fieldcraft includes skills such as wind estimation, camouflage, and observation. Hunters of elusive game can become excellent marksman, but may not ever have what it takes to become a sniper, there is a huge difference in a DM and a sniper. Bowhunters are also excellent candidates. Sportsman also learn to read the weather, see tracks in a natural setting, understand field maps, observe live game, and move to avoid being seen. 

Tactics 

An appreciation for tactics can only be developed through their study and application. Marksman must take the survival tactics that have been learned in basic training, police school and range training and build on it in a way that will benefit field operations. Extracurricular study of military tactics is also advantageous and is encouraged for all candidates. The marksmans ability to hide from and deceive the enemy is paramount to a successful mission. 

Sniper Operations: 

Overall Mission of the Cover Element

1. Establish an inner perimeter to contain the threat. Containing the threat to one location will hopefully expedite its resolution and prevent additional persons from hindering or becoming involved in the operation.

2. Cover the movement of an entry team. The inner perimeter personnel provide security for the entry team as they move into position for an entry should an entry become necessary.

3. Provide intelligence attained to assist the tactical team in their primary goal of saving lives. While on the perimeter you become the eyes and ears for the tactical team as they conduct their planning elsewhere. Any information regarding the situation, activity, descriptions, etc. should be passed forward to assist in planning and decision making. 

4. Eliminate a High Value Target (HVT)

Tactical Considerations of the Cover Element 

Equipment:

All items necessary for prolonged operations should be taken into positions upon initial employment. Consider the time and effort spent moving into the area undetected, then having to leave the area to get something which was forgotten. The more movement, the greater the chance of detection. 

Radios: – 

Ensure extra batteries are available. Also have frequencies and call-signs for all necessary communications during the operation, and are capable of being operated as near to silent as possible

Night observation devices:

–Ideal for some situations. Extra batteries are a priority. 

Movement: 

Cover and concealment:

The shortest route usually is not the best route. Use terrain and/or existing structures for protection 

Avoid detection:

We never know what effect our presence may have on a suspect. If it might have an adverse effect, don’t be seen. 

Suspect (enemy) vs. Sector:

Both members of the team must be aware of their priorities when the suspect is in the sights.

Sniper’s responsibility:

The sniper will maintain target acquisition on the greatest threat. 

Observer’s responsibility:

The observer will monitor other suspect(s) or hostage(s), movement of the entry team, and the rest of the sector, and be ready to provide fire support himself if the need arises.

Planning and Tactical Setup: 

Avenues of Approach 

Once the Sniper Teams have been assigned or chosen their position, they must then consider routes that will take them to that location. 

The following is a list of those considerations: 

1. Avoid moving directly through or on the subjects position
2. Utilize terrain that offers good cover and concealment. Cover is protection from small arms fire. Concealment is protection from subject observation.
3. Use terrain which will allow you movement during the hours of darkness. Try to avoid rocky areas or areas of heavy vegetation.
4. Don’t automatically dismiss difficult terrain. This may be your best choice of approach in terms of cover and concealment, especially during daylight movement.
5. Avoid silhouetting yourself. Stay off skyline and low on rooftops.
6. Avoid areas that may afford the subject a field of fire on you. Such as open, flat areas, (i.e. open fields or playgrounds).
7. Stay within the perimeter. This will prevent contact with locals and the media.
8. Plan an alternate approach in the event that your primary cannot be navigated. 

Detection

You need to keep in mind who could be watching you. Two ways that you can be detected are:
a. Direct Observation, and Indirect Observation
b. Direct Observation 

In order for the subject to shoot you, they must have an idea of where you are. The subject may have access to binoculars or other sight enhancing items. A telephoto lens on a camera will work well. 

Indirect Observation 

Television - This might be a media event, so be aware of cameras.
Night Vision - Hope that your adversary does not have access to this technology.
Smell - The subject may detect your odor, so don’t wear cologne.
Sound - Remember that the subject can hear you approaching if your noise discipline is poor. 

Concealment and Cover 

The best way to avoid detection is by utilizing concealment and cover. There are six factors which will give you protection from subject observation. 

They are: 

Shape - From any distance your outline will give you away. Change you shape to match that of your surroundings. 

Shadow - Stay in the shadows and don’t allow your own to be seen. When it comes to your position, only you and your shadow should know. 

Shine (or texture) - Beware of smooth surfaces such as watches, weapon barrel, glasses. Smooth surfaces are areas that reflect light. 

Color - Blend in with your surroundings. Bright colors attract unwanted attention.

Position or Setting - When choosing your position, make it appear as though nothing is out of the ordinary. 

Movement - Motion naturally attracts the eye. Even a little movement at an inopportune time will warrant attention. 

Rules for Day Movement 

1. Movement must be slow and well planned.
2. Avoid disturbing animals such as dogs and birds.
3. Take advantage of noise such as wind, rain, or vehicles moving.
4. Cross roads which provide the most cover and/or concealment. Use ditches and wood lines. Attempt to minimize the amount of time you are in the open. 

Rules for Night Movement 

a. Move by bounds. Stop, listen, then move again.
b. Take advantage of other noises.
c. Avoid running. This causes noise and increases anxiety.
d. Preserve night vision. Don’t look at lights.
e. Avoid silhouetting..
f. Avoid dry brush and tape loose equipment. 

Thanks to Bender for some of the information.

Engaging moving threats

Engaging moving targets, an essential part of Dynamic Marksmanship


I just wanted to talk a little more about engaging moving targets, and give some ideas on how to make moving targets that you can do yourself.

The first idea is to string a cable or good rope between two trees that have a safe impact area behind them. Take your cable or rope and tie one end of it about 8-10 feet above the ground, then take place a simple pulley on the cable. Go over to your other tree and tie this end of the cable about 3 feet off the ground.

Then you can attach a target to the pulley. Then attach a rope, string or such (550 cord works well) to the cable on the low side of the pulley in such a way that when you pull on the cord it comes off the cable, thus releasing the pulley to begin it's decent to the other tree.

Take the cord out to about 100 yards (or whatever distance you can muster) and use that as your beginning shooting position.

From that point you can pull the cord, releasing the target, as the target moves you practice engaging it until you have that method down. Then try it standing to start, pull the cord, then drop to another shooting position, practice until you master all shooting positions.

Then move on to more dynamic engagements. Pull the cord, then run up to another shooting position and engage the target using all shooting positions.

You can get as advanced as you want. You can pull the cord then engage the target as you are moving towards it, away from it, sideways both directions, and any other way you can think of. The more you practice the better off you will be in any situation.

You can also practice using your primary or your secondary, or a combination of both.

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Dynamic Marksmanship

Dynamic Marksmanship

First off let us take a look at what is wrong the static training that most people use for their “training”.

Problems

Threats are not "static" - they are dynamic, they move quickly and are very difficult to hit accurately under stress.

The most effective way to respond to a threat is usually not via static methods - the operator must make himself a difficult target by moving. For maximum effectiveness you must learn to hit and hit well while moving.

Many times you will find yourself behind the power curve from the beginning - often your presentation and first shot must be delivered while moving to concealment, or preferably cover.

You need to keep in mind that multiple threats are common in many situations - you must move while engaging the threats effectively in order to avoid being accurately engaged yourself.

Threats are seldom easily incapacitated, even with good hits - if you are not under cover after you have made some good hits, you may still be in danger.
You fight exactly as you train. If you fail to train with movement, during or after engaging the threat you will fail to do it when the actual situation presents itself.

The goal of Dynamic Marksmanship training is to equip you with superb marksmanship ability while simultaneously employing dynamic movement and tactical techniques.

Tools for Dynamic Marksmanship

Engaging threats on the move - and actually hitting.
Engaging moving threats.
Engaging moving threats while you are moving.
Engaging bobbing and weaving threats.
Engaging threats while moving to and arriving at cover.
Engaging threats from behind cover.
Engaging threats with minimum exposure time.
Training to avoid repetitive exposure at the same place.
Train to move immediately after shooting.

You can be sure that Mr. Murphy will show up when you least expect it, and when you really do not want any more problems. You are already under stress; then something happens to your primary. Then you have to have trained on immediate action drills, and or transitioning to your secondary.

You can enhance your odds of survival by having trained and practiced over and over until it is second nature. Supposedly it takes over 10,000 repetitive motions to have your action be instinctive.

So my final words are TRAIN, TRAIN, TRAIN, then TRAIN some more. Take the time to train enough so that it becomes instinctual. Purchase good quality primary (Long arm), and secondary (Sidearm) firearms, use good quality ammo, and take the time needed to take this process seriously, it may very well save your life, or the lives of someone you care about.

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