"Combat" course for qualifying?

[rocsteady]

I am taking a course this week, "Officer Survival school" that the FBI gives to local LEOs (free of charge by the way) and we have been doing some combat courses they had set up all week.

One example: two shooters start at 50 yd line, do ten burpees then run down to a patrol car parked about 10 yds from targets, shooters enter the car, buckle up and then, when given the "go", each shooter opens his/her door and leans out to engage two square steel plates with two hits each, then the they combine to take down six steel plates, exit the car, move to the rear of the car and then across the 10 yard line to a mailbox where each shoots from kneeling to take out similar steel, then move to a wood frame door opening, quickly visually clear and enter engaging steel again. Now they sprint back to the fifty yd line to engage punching bags held by other officers. When instructor decides it's time, they sprint back to the 10 and are knocked to their backs by instructors (onto gym mats) and each finishes off 6 more steel plates.

My question is do any LE agencies use courses like his for quals as opposed to the normal paper target-type qualifying everyone is familiar with but really doesn't involve anything that resembles an actual shooting event?

P.S. Our FBI agents and police officers have a paper target, static shooting quality four times a year.

[Cmm46]

I dont think so. My dept shoots paper and its a pretty easy qual. I think if they did it like you described people would get hurt and a lot wouldn't qualify. I'd love to know more about this FBI course though.

[T2C]

We shot paper targets for quals. We had one night stress shoot per year and the course of fire could be modified at the will of the diabolical Range Officer running the qualification. When I ran the shoot, we did a lot of PT in between target engagements. It's practical and good training.

[mark5pt56]

I think there's a sticky with various departments qualifications. In Virginia, DCJS (Department of Criminal Justice Services) has a menu of accepted qualifications. An agency can have other exercises to induce stress and enhance key points that need to be addressed. One needs to really have some thought when designing a course verses just having a jack fest for time.

What's funny on qualification courses is when an agency goes from manual target control or the old school whistle to a computer program and turning targets!

To address the actual qualifications, you could relate the shooting standards to other topics like driving. Big difference between passing the driving test to obtain a license verses driving in the real world under adverse conditions, evasive maneuvers, etc. It's just a minimal standard, some more in depth than others. That's why we have training schools for driving, shooting and defensive tactics/various arts. Of course the schools are intended for ALL who either wish to enhance their effectiveness or are required to.

[SeriousStudent]

......

To address the actual qualifications, you could relate the shooting standards to other topics like driving. Big difference between passing the driving test to obtain a license verses driving in the real world under adverse conditions, evasive maneuvers, etc. It's just a minimal standard, some more in depth than others. That's why we have training schools for driving, shooting and defensive tactics/various arts. Of course the schools are intended for ALL who either wish to enhance their effectiveness or are required to.

Dang, that is an awesome analogy. I have a couple of friends at work that I have been begging to take training. I even offered to pay for the class and ammo for one of them. But they think passing their CHL test is enough.

I'm definitely going to use that driver's test example with them.

Sorry for the threadjack, but that was a great point.

[rocsteady]

That is a great analogy. I'm going to borrow it too.

CMM, for the week we did combat shooting, simunitions training in an Army facility that was a four story mansion built expressly for sim training inside, low light shooting and flashlight work using it as a combat multiplier, etc. Finished up Friday with some fun competitions.

We shot a couple different courses including our bullseye course, our old pistol qualifying course which is usually shot from the 25 yard line and in, we did from the 50 yard line and stuff like that.

So the most fun one is called "the walkback". We all (23 of us) lined up at the 7 yard line with our "Q" targets up. They have a little "body box" and a smaller "head box" that was the focus of the drill. The tower would call out where to put a round or two and the time such as, "when the targets turn, put one round into the body box in " x" seconds". So it would happen, everyone would take one shot and then the instructors would check and anyone who missed would get tossed. They do it like an umpire throwing a manager out of a baseball game and the person who got "tossed" has to leave the firing line and step back out of the way. We did a few different rounds, eliminated a few, then moved to the ten where it got more difficult with multiple shots in less and less time. So we moved back to the 15 yard line and continued.

At the end of the day, we got together and were presented with certificates of completion of the course, DVD of pics from earlier in the week, a class list and a 8x11 group/class photo.

Top three shooters in the class, highest overall average in all the scored/timed events, were brought up to pick from toys like flashlights, rifle bags and holsters. I had a very good week, learned a lot and picked up a fenix 210 lumen light that is the size of a lipstick!

Great week, I highly recommend it if you have the opportunity.

[rocsteady]

Another course we ran for time and misses was set up like this:

Start with ten pushups then move to starting line and wait for timer to start you off; sprint along the 25 yard line to a position that required you to shoot from the prone through a wooden cutout, then three rounds in each of first two targets, hop up and sprint to cover at the 15 yard line, about halfway back toward the side of the range where you started. Here you got off three rounds strong side kneeling and three rounds off-side kneeling, then reload on the move or from behind cover on the way to a wooden "hallway" set up at the five yard line that was opposite from your first shooting point. Had to visually clear one side and then enter the "room" with a buttonhook type move and on the other side were four "bad guy" targets that got three rounds each.

The fact that it was timed got everyone amped up to get through and put some extra stress on each shooter. I was moving pretty good and had no misses going into the last four and then proceeded to put a pretty nice group, on the last target, right next to his head...all three missed.

[Turnkey11]

I dont think so. My dept shoots paper and its a pretty easy qual. I think if they did it like you described people would get hurt and a lot wouldn't qualify. I'd love to know more about this FBI course though.

Same here, half the people I work with couldn't do a burpee, let alone get knocked onto their backs without getting hurt. As far as team training goes it's feasible, but not to the average employee.