Isreali 'Fight from the door' method

[RamadiDoorkicker]

I have heard mention the Isreali 'Fight from the door' method for Urban operations but have not been able to find anything online that explains it in more depth. Any suggestions or experience with this?

[Turnkey11]

Havent heard of it but from the way its worded it seems like they dont believe in fatal funnels.

[ggammell]

you can clear a significant portion of a room by pie-ing the door leaving only the close corners unswept. The brass falls in the hall.

[26 Inf]

Here's my take - we've been teaching this method - 'fight from the hall' 'pin and slice' or whatever you want to call it - for a long time - the first time we really understood it wasn't the way everyone did it was right after Columbine when me and my partner attended one of the first NTOA active shooter courses.

There are times and places for the method - from my perspective it is really a good way to roll, in most cases, for a solo officer/soldier/hunter that is moving.

Some of the biggest disadvantages, once again from my perspective are:

1) you spend a little too much time hanging around the door before getting your weapon into play - dependent on the noise level it is very difficult to approach an open breach point - such as a classroom doorway - without being detected - if there is gunfire in the room or screaming victims (as is most often the case in the training environment) or a loud radio or TV, you may get to the door undetected, but otherwise it is a crap shoot;

2) if is more than one bad guy in the room and they are at all separated, in an active shooter situation you give bad guy number two a great deal of time to hose more innocents in the room;

3) if working with another person you have to be very aware and disciplined regarding sectors of fire if your buddy slices completely across the doorway;

4) the technique also doesn't much consider a trained adversary and relies on the concealment provided by non-bullet resistant materials. Consider any non-concrete/brick/stone exterior wall, how much ballistic protection does it provide? Not much. Get on the interior of the building and it is even worse - sheetrock and studs. That corner you are slicing around - concealment only. Earlier on I noted a trained adversary - what works in a Third World Country against an untrained, non-tactical think population, will not work as well in a more educated population with a sprinkling of well-trained veterans scattered through out. Case(s) in point - I train police officers. Starting about a decade-decade and a half ago I began reading a lot more incidents in which guys at DV's, being arrested on a warrant at a residence, etc. were tagging officers by shooting through doors and walls adjacent to the doors. This speaks to a degree of tactical acumen that comes from somewhere - more modern MOUT training techniques, the internet, magazines, etc.

Bottom line is under any circumstances hunting down and confronting folks in a building is risky business. Just like most military operations, the advantage most often is to an alert defender.

For active shooter situations with two officer teams we teach pin, roll until you have enough information to enter, then follow your rounds into the room.

'It's not THE way, it's just A way.'

[RamadiDoorkicker]

you can clear a significant portion of a room by pie-ing the door leaving only the close corners unswept. The brass falls in the hall.

Sounds like a good way to bog down the flow of the entry. If I am stopping to Pie a door in a typical residential hallway the rest of my team isn't going to be able to move around me freely. Not to mention Violence of Action. With exception of IED's, every casualty I took during the clearing of a structure was AFTER we lost the violence of action. They knew we were there and had time to set up in ambush.

[RamadiDoorkicker]

Here's my take - we've been teaching this method - 'fight from the hall' 'pin and slice' or whatever you want to call it - for a long time - the first time we really understood it wasn't the way everyone did it was right after Columbine when me and my partner attended one of the first NTOA active shooter courses..... .'

Thanks for the answer. I would agree that this could be advantageous to a lone officer or soldier but that seems to be the exception.

There is no safe way to make entry to a building, especially in the civilian world. (It was a little easier in Iraq when we could make an alternative entry via wall breach.) However, slowly presenting yourself as your work your way through the pie is asking to get shot. You are hoping to identify where a shooter is hiding in a room full of items for him to hide behind and engage him before he engages you. Not smart. Especially, when you have spent several hours clearing rooms and are completely exhausted. Your rifle is not going to be as ready, you brain is going to be on autopilot, and you are going to get sloppy.

Is this tactic common in more places that just Israel?

[ggammell]

Sounds like a good way to bog down the flow of the entry. If I am stopping to Pie a door in a typical residential hallway the rest of my team isn't going to be able to move around me freely. Not to mention Violence of Action. With exception of IED's, every casualty I took during the clearing of a structure was AFTER we lost the violence of action. They knew we were there and had time to set up in ambush.

It's about taking out what ever threat you can before you make entry. I approach from an LE perspective. We can't always go blowing through a house. You no doubt spent more timeframe MOUT before each deployment than I and many like me can hope to do in our career.

It takes tactics most line officers know (slicing the pie) and makes and makes it work in a tactical scenario. It gives them time and space and easier access to an exit if needed than crashing into a room without knowing what's in there. Yeah dry wall may not stop a bullet. Check. We agree. But I'd rather have it between me and the bad guy than doing a dynamic room entry and realize that I'm up against something worse than I thought with nothing between me and the threat. I beleive that the Mark Owen books state that Dev has moved from the crash bang dynamic model to the slow and methodical clearing structures.

[RamadiDoorkicker]

It's about taking out what ever threat you can before you make entry. I approach from an LE perspective. We can't always go blowing through a house. You no doubt spent more timeframe MOUT before each deployment than I and many like me can hope to do in our career.

It takes tactics most line officers know (slicing the pie) and makes and makes it work in a tactical scenario. It gives them time and space and easier access to an exit if needed than crashing into a room without knowing what's in there. Yeah dry wall may not stop a bullet. Check. We agree. But I'd rather have it between me and the bad guy than doing a dynamic room entry and realize that I'm up against something worse than I thought with nothing between me and the threat. I beleive that the Mark Owen books state that Dev has moved from the crash bang dynamic model to the slow and methodical clearing structures.

Very good point.

[Joe R.]

Just a reminder guys, this is an open source forum and TTPs should be discussed sparingly if at all.

[26 Inf]

It's about taking out what ever threat you can before you make entry. I approach from an LE perspective. We can't always go blowing through a house. You no doubt spent more timeframe MOUT before each deployment than I and many like me can hope to do in our career.

It takes tactics most line officers know (slicing the pie) and makes and makes it work in a tactical scenario. It gives them time and space and easier access to an exit if needed than crashing into a room without knowing what's in there. Yeah dry wall may not stop a bullet. Check. We agree. But I'd rather have it between me and the bad guy than doing a dynamic room entry and realize that I'm up against something worse than I thought with nothing between me and the threat. I beleive that the Mark Owen books state that Dev has moved from the crash bang dynamic model to the slow and methodical clearing structures.

Back in the days when there was an HK ITD, I attended most of their courses and met a lot of adjunct instructors who had served with full time SWAT teams for most of their careers. One of them, name omitted for reason, told me he had logged over 300 entries on barricades. In the residential setting, he told me his team, which prided themselves as being stealth warriors as opposed to the more dynamic metro team, had never made it to the interior doorway where the barricaded subject was was undetected.

Don't take me wrong, not a fan of bang it, run and gun, but I'm equally not a fan of remaining too long in any position where an adversary knows my location.

I would believe that with the above average intelligence of the members of any of our current SOF units, they have evolved and chosen the methods that work best for them.