"Range Kata"

[5cary]

To me this sounds as if your are doing the S/A during the re-holstering..

Maybe you're mis-understanding what I mean. There are times when you need to go "hands on". BEFORE I put the weapon away and even if I haven't fired a shot, I scan 360 to make sure there are no threats. Most times it CANT be a 360 detailed scan. It's just a quick look that breaks tunnel vision. On the range we reholster pretty much every string of fire, so we get this silly "kata" motion that Rob is referring to. It becomes so frequent that people lose their grasp on why the do it (or just stop doing it). For me the target assessment is an entirely different action. I keep them separate when I train because in "real life" you would do the two of them potentially minutes apart or one not at all.

If so dont you feel as it would be counter productive to put you wpn away before you know its safe?
Finding out there is another attacker while /after the pistol is put away could be catastrophic.

Not saying you, but many shooters are in a rush or speed through the re-holstering process for some reason.

Right. So that's the whole point of scanning ***before*** you holster - completely different from "target assessment". So that I'm NOT putting the weapon away before it's safe. I'm not talking about linear combat where the "action is over". Like I noted previously, the ONE time that I'm glad I did this was when it allowed me to make eye contact with an apparently angry bystander that turned out to be a protective "neighbor". It had nothing to do with locating a threat, but at least made the other guy know I knew he was there (and gave me a chance to back him up). Lucky for me I've never had to "assess" my shots...I've never taken one on the street. But I've done plenty of scans before reholstering in the field. At least that's my personal take on it.

...and I'm known for my slow reholstering. I do a press check and a slide bump *every* time I reholster. Subject for a different thread maybe. I already know lots of people that think that's silly too... I have my reasons.

[M4Guru]

People do peculiar stuff at the range that does not translate well to an environment where that training is being applied for real. If you know why you are doing something and put deliberate effort into it, then something widely accepted as useless may hold value for you and vice versa.

The idea that needs to be applied in all training is critical thinking. Engaging your CPU in all functions, and cutting out what isn't useful to your goals for that specific exercise or session.

I never stop marveling at how guys freak out being 2 lanes over and having a guy walking downrange while checking zero prior to conducting CQB. That jumps out as "holy shit UNSAFE" to people that don't apply critical thinking and (un)common sense. They don't care that they'll be shooting on the move, with moving teammates in the periphery, at targets as little as 1 meter off their buddy's head in limited light and complex situations in a few minutes. Which one is more dangerous?

I had a Team Sergeant who got very pissed at me for zeroing my MK18 10 lanes to the right of another detachment who we were sharing one of those huge 50 lane Army zero ranges with. Why didn't I go down all the way to the right? I asked him how he could routinely trust me to engage a man size target in excess of 800M with an SR25, or shoot a target on the move 3 feet from his face with NVGs on, but couldn't trust me to miss a guy pasting a target 15M to my side 25M dowrange. He was a smart guy and conceded that it made sense and it never came up again. 18 years of institutionalization by Mother Army is a powerful weapon sometimes and we don't realize it.

A genuine understanding and awareness of what you're doing, where you're at, and where you want to be is a powerful tool that can mitigate a lot of the things we deem "range kata".

[GLOCKMASTER]

People do peculiar stuff at the range that does not translate well to an environment where that training is being applied for real. If you know why you are doing something and put deliberate effort into it, then something widely accepted as useless may hold value for you and vice versa.

The idea that needs to be applied in all training is critical thinking. Engaging your CPU in all functions, and cutting out what isn't useful to your goals for that specific exercise or session.

I never stop marveling at how guys freak out being 2 lanes over and having a guy walking downrange while checking zero prior to conducting CQB. That jumps out as "holy shit UNSAFE" to people that don't apply critical thinking and (un)common sense. They don't care that they'll be shooting on the move, with moving teammates in the periphery, at targets as little as 1 meter off their buddy's head in limited light and complex situations in a few minutes. Which one is more dangerous?

I had a Team Sergeant who got very pissed at me for zeroing my MK18 10 lanes to the right of another detachment who we were sharing one of those huge 50 lane Army zero ranges with. Why didn't I go down all the way to the right? I asked him how he could routinely trust me to engage a man size target in excess of 800M with an SR25, or shoot a target on the move 3 feet from his face with NVGs on, but couldn't trust me to miss a guy pasting a target 15M to my side 25M dowrange. He was a smart guy and conceded that it made sense and it never came up again. 18 years of institutionalization by Mother Army is a powerful weapon sometimes and we don't realize it.

A genuine understanding and awareness of what you're doing, where you're at, and where you want to be is a powerful tool that can mitigate a lot of the things we deem "range kata".

That just makes too much sense that most folks will not and cannot get it.

[ST911]

The kata is good for laying the foundation and making people grasp the concept but you need to move into a more realistic scenario to build this further.

Give me "chop onion" but then also let me "cook dinner", or at the very least "make soup". If we always stop at "chop onion" suddenly that becomes the end-state and the whole exercise becomes about chopping the damn onion, and we lose sight of making dinner.

These things are small, and similar to what a lot of other instructors have their students do on the line. Are they kata? Perhaps. Are there better ways? Maybe, we are always looking, and adapting. One thing for sure, for a static quarterly firearms qualification they are a far sight better than what was happening before.

I started a much longer response, but in the end it others said it better as above. Kmrtnsn's finish is good. Some instructors will have only enough time, and some students only enough capacity for onion chopping. Others will be able to do more. It might be kata, but it's better than nothing and the old paradigms.

Many students and instructors don't realize how easy it is to integrate decision making, or alternative models that simplify larger concepts. For example, if you simply advocate or enforce the 360 scan, that's something. But teaching a progressive scan through zones, that's better (scan threat, scan area, scan 360, check gun).

[Arctic1]

People do peculiar stuff at the range that does not translate well to an environment where that training is being applied for real. If you know why you are doing something and put deliberate effort into it, then something widely accepted as useless may hold value for you and vice versa.

The idea that needs to be applied in all training is critical thinking. Engaging your CPU in all functions, and cutting out what isn't useful to your goals for that specific exercise or session.

I never stop marveling at how guys freak out being 2 lanes over and having a guy walking downrange while checking zero prior to conducting CQB. That jumps out as "holy shit UNSAFE" to people that don't apply critical thinking and (un)common sense. They don't care that they'll be shooting on the move, with moving teammates in the periphery, at targets as little as 1 meter off their buddy's head in limited light and complex situations in a few minutes. Which one is more dangerous?

I had a Team Sergeant who got very pissed at me for zeroing my MK18 10 lanes to the right of another detachment who we were sharing one of those huge 50 lane Army zero ranges with. Why didn't I go down all the way to the right? I asked him how he could routinely trust me to engage a man size target in excess of 800M with an SR25, or shoot a target on the move 3 feet from his face with NVGs on, but couldn't trust me to miss a guy pasting a target 15M to my side 25M dowrange. He was a smart guy and conceded that it made sense and it never came up again. 18 years of institutionalization by Mother Army is a powerful weapon sometimes and we don't realize it.

A genuine understanding and awareness of what you're doing, where you're at, and where you want to be is a powerful tool that can mitigate a lot of the things we deem "range kata".

Again a very good post. And what I highlighted is what we strive to accomplish with our guys, not an easy task considering we mostly have them for 1 year.

Just a quick question, is there a default safety angle in the US Military when doing live fire and maneuver? I know SOF probably pushes it a bit narrower. We have a 45 degree angle, never to be broken unless deconflicted or in-extremis, and never in training.

[Failure2Stop]

Just a quick question, is there a default safety angle in the US Military when doing live fire and maneuver?

It depends on how you read/interpret/massage the regs, but it's 15 degrees or 100 meters from impacts, depending on which section you go off of. 15 degrees is generally what we use regarding proximity to path of flight, and generally within live fire enclosures the rule is no closer than 1 meter from living stuff.

[Arctic1]

Damn! I guess we are on the *very* safe side then....

Thanks!

[a0cake]

Damn! I guess we are on the *very* safe side then....

Thanks!

Not to derail the thread too much, but if you're interested:

The 385–63 covers pretty much everything we adhere to in regard to Surface Danger Zones in training. Not saying these are good standards by any means, but if you're curious about what our rule-book says, this is it. (ETA: This is Army...no idea if the USMC uses the same regs or what)

http://www.apd.army.mil/pdffiles/p385_63.pdf

In practice, the general guideline is all fires should be at least 15 degrees in front of the assaulting element. This assumes individual weapons and Machine Guns mounted on tripods. It goes up to 30 degrees when firing MG's off the bipod.

But of course, some rules are made to be broken. Practicing good communication (both comms and visual) and having competent gunners / gun-team leaders allows a lot of flexibility.

[Redhat]

Glad to see a good training thread...its been a while.

Couple of questions:

Regarding stepping laterally "off line"...sounds good to me but say it happens with two officers on scene, what are the risks of stepping into your partners line of fire and how do you teach students to avoid it?

Scan/Assess - IMO another good idea but I once attended a class where the instructors were adamant that everybody do this, great, however, they were in such a hurry to start the next string of fire, no one had time to conduct a good scan/assess so it quickly devolved into "kata" and lost all training value as far as I was concerned.

I think where this type training goes off the tracks is when the emphasis is placed on the movements themselves and the reasons for doing so get left behind.

[kmrtnsn]

Glad to see a good training thread...its been a while.

Couple of questions:

Regarding stepping laterally "off line"...sounds good to me but say it happens with two officers on scene, what are the risks of stepping into your partners line of fire and how do you teach students to avoid it?

Scan/Assess - IMO another good idea but I once attended a class where the instructors were adamant that everybody do this, great, however, they were in such a hurry to start the next string of fire, no one had time to conduct a good scan/assess so it quickly devolved into "kata" and lost all training value as far as I was concerned.

I think where this type training goes off the tracks is when the emphasis is placed on the movements themselves and the reasons for doing so get left behind.

I'm going to assume the question about stepping laterally is addressed to me. When we brief, the instruction is, to move laterally, left or right. No one moves forward of the firing line. No shooter steps in front of another shooter, the geography of the line prevents this from happening. If one moves right and another left and they move into each other the instruction is to fight through it, as the scenario is exactly as would happen in any confined space threat engagement in the field, work through it and engage the threat.