Thanks for the AAR... this is definately going out on email to my friends and training partners.
Tim.
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Member
Thanks for the AAR... this is definately going out on email to my friends and training partners.
Tim.
Senior Member
Good write-up!
Member
Thanks for the AAR.
Could you share his reasoning on this?- Magnifiers suck.
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Well, my advice is to enjoy the hell out of low light II because Mr. Vickers and Mr. Hackathorn announced to our class today that LLII is the *last* low light course....Not just of 2008....EVER.Originally Posted by FJB
They didn't engrave it in stone or anything, but they seemed pretty firm on it.
I sincerely hope they change their position on this because this training is something that you just can't get anywhere else. Training for low light in the day is useful, but there are some things you simply have to experience in the dark to really appreciate and understand.
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Day 2 --
Apparently May is monsoon season in Ohio. It rained all day on day 2....and for a period of about an hour or so it absolutely poured. Every piece of equipment was soaked and everybody was wet. Rain gear helped, but the heavy rain eventually soaked everything whether it was under rain gear or not.
Obviously the 40 degree temperatures and the cold rain was the result of global warming.
The day started doing malfunction drills as instructed by LAV. The first drill was the tap-pull-rack-bang drill, and the second was the "prom night" clearance drill. Here I encountered a problem that partially explains why I am attempting to write up a detailed AAR of this course. For some reason I completely blanked on the proper sequence of this drill. The proper sequence is:
1. Lock the bolt to the rear. (On an AK you have to manually hold the bolt to the rear.)
2. RIP the magazine out of the mag well.
3. Insert the middle two fingers into the mag well and make sure there's nothing stuck up in there. If there is, try to use your fingers to dislodge it.
4. Release the bolt to allow it to go forward into battery.
5. Insert a FRESH magazine into the weapon
6. Cycle the bolt
7. Fire
We ran through this drill several times, resulting in magazines being dropped to the ground over and over...not usually an issue, but the training range in Clarington was thick, nasty mud. When you dropped a magazine it ended up being covered in mud and grass...meaning just about everybody's carbine ate a bunch of mud. Everybody's weapon seemed to handle it pretty well. The one exception was a weapon that suffered a rather odd failure...the roll pin that holds the latch on the charging handle backed out somehow and started digging into the upper receiver, locking the thing up tight. As a side note, it's damned difficult to mortar a weapon in thick mud.
Once all that was sorted out, we did shooting on the move with the carbine and did live fire on what I nicknamed the "Click-Kick-Bang" drill, transitioning to the handgun while using the white light on the carbine. This was also done on the move.
Next we moved on to the *offensive* clearing part of the training, which was all done with handguns, an SMG, or a pistol caliber carbine. The important basics of offensive clearing were covered beginning with the utility and importance of position "Sul", which is an easy way to move in and among people (either innocents or other teammates) without sweeping them with the muzzle of the hot weapon in your hand.
The responsibilities of the lead man and the 2nd man in the room were covered extensively, and the importance of clearing the corners of the room FIRST was heavily emphasized. The importance of getting to the "point of domination" was also stressed. Before actually entering the shoothouse trial runs were done with 2 man teams in a mocked up room layout using pepper poppers.
We then broke for a nice dinner provided to us by the gracious folks who owned the facility. The T-bone steaks were very good, and the lady of the house made sure everybody had plenty of everything....quite kind of her considering what a muddy, wet, motley looking crew we were at that point.
Ben W. and I teamed up and ran through the mockup, and then ran through the house. The results were more than satisfactory. We moved and communicated well, covered our areas properly, and made good hits on our targets. I borrowed Ken's 9mm Colt SMG to do our first run through the house, and the SBR was eating my lunch something fierce. I knew that I was supposed to hold high on the target, but for some reason I kept centering the dot on the A zone and making my shots. Ken had a CT setup mounted on the weapon that I should have used instead of the red dot, in retrospect. That being said, all my shots were close to the A zone and on paper....I didn't add any divots to the block walls of the shoothouse. All my shooting was done in semi-auto.
Up on the catwalk watching other 2 man teams go through was also enlightening. The most common errors I saw was failure to clear corners, failure to get to respective points of domination, and of course, lots and lots of appearances by El Snatcho....all mainly a result of folks moving too fast. Proper follow-through was also an issue. Folks weren't properly painting their zones to make sure all is clear. In the known environment of the shoothouse it's not as big a deal, but it can be a real bad scene if you don't scan the whole room after you've made entry in the real world.
Several innocents/hostages were killed....and "sympathetic fire" happened on more than one occasion, leading one of the AI's to tell a 2 man team: "You know what your team name is now, right? Co-defendants." In the interest of full disclosure I should point out that yours truly went for a ride on the short bus on a knife-wielding target. I buzzed five or six rounds off on him but didn't make a single kill shot...which was mainly a result of not paying proper attention to trigger control. Thankfully I managed to get off the short bus on all the other targets.
Here the phenomenon of shooting the weapon showed up big time just as it did during defensive clearing. People tended to focus intensely on the weapon in the hands of threat targets, causing them to launch bullets at the weapon....a fairly common event in the real world. Generally I was pretty good at sticking to center mass but on a couple of occasions I noticed that I ended up putting one round on the weapon before apparently correcting my focus and shooting for the A zone of the target.
After a couple of runs through with 2 man teams, we then moved on to 4 man teams comprised of two of the previously selected 2 man teams. Ben W., Grant, Blue and I teamed up and made a couple of runs through the house. Again, the results were decent. My main issue was suddenly wanting to penetrate too deeply into the room after making entry...abandoning the "strong wall", which isn't a good idea for a number of reasons.
We then moved on to 6 man teams, and then 12 man teams....and there was much short-bussing in the following directions and accuracy departments...especially in the 12 man runs. After a much deserved verbal smackdown from LAV about our deplorable accuracy as a group, on our last 12 man run we managed to actually get the necessary hits.
The plug was finally pulled at about 1:30 am, and I made it back to the hotel just before 3 am.
Gear observations from the instructors:
- Weapon mounted lights for handguns are a NECESSITY for offensive clearing purposes.
- If you use a weapon mounted light, your holster needs to be able to accept the handgun with the light mounted. Some people attempt to use a standard holster and put the weapon light on and off the weapon as needed....this is asking for disaster.
- CT grips are preferable to Lasermax/other setups because it's easier to turn the CT grips on and off in a dynamic manner. This is EXTREMELY important because lasers are a TARGET INDICATOR if used improperly.
- CT lasergrip batteries last a very long time.
- All-in-one laser/light units have some advantages and disadvantages....but the list given of disadvantages was a lot longer than the list of advantages.
- Thigh-mounted "tactical" or "assault rig" holsters don't just exist because they look "cool", as anyone who has tried to use a standard belt mounted holster with body armor will tell you.
- If you are in the market to purchase a handgun, get one with a rail on it so you can mount a light.
- The exception to the above is Glocks in calibers other than 9mm. The .40 caliber Glocks especially have had LOTS of issues with a light mounted to them.
- Again, stick to Glocks in 9mm.
- 3 green dot night sights are the most common configuration out there....and also probably the least desirable configuration possible.
My personal observations:
- The vast majority of my shooting in the shoothouse (with the exception of the aforementioned knife-wielding target) was A zone all the way, generally shot while moving and when using a handheld light. That isn't a testament to my ability as a shooter, but is rather a reflection of how easy my M&P 9mm is to shoot well. It is almost as forgiving as my 1911....and that's a BIG DEAL, folks.
Trigger control is the indispensable bedrock fundamental of accuracy that you can't live without. Your stance can suck, your grip can suck, and your sight alignment can suck, but if you make a good trigger pull with the weapon indexed on the target odds are that you are going to make a pretty decent hit. On the other hand, if you have a perfect grip, stance, and sight picture but gank the trigger pull you aren't going to hit sh*t.
...and yet, you don't hear a lot of people talk about the importance of a good trigger on a fighting handgun. Because trigger control is THE most important part of putting a bullet where it needs to go under stress, it becomes eminently sensible to concern yourself with trying to find a weapon that works with you as much as possible in the trigger control department. This is not to say that relying on a 2 pound trigger to make up for a lack of exercising proper trigger control is acceptable, but neither is the tendency of some in the gun culture to ignore trigger characteristics on fighting handguns because they aren't meant for competition shooting.
Accuracy in the defensive use of firearms is EXPONENTIALLY more important than in an IPSC match. Misses in IPSC cost you points, whereas misses in the defensive use of a firearm can cost you life, limb, and massive damage judgments in civil court. As Mr. Hackathorn said repeatedly, every bullet fired in America has a lawyer attached to it.
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Did they say why that would be their last class?
Industry Professional
I dont know if it has changed; but last time I spoke with Larry (and he may chime in about this) the logistics of the class are on the Herculian scale. I think it takes a lot to get the ranges cooridnated and approval from the surrounding residents for the late night training.
Last edited by NCPatrolAR; 05-12-08 at 22:56. Reason: Because I'm half-asleep
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Day 3 --
The trip to the range on day 3 was an adventure. Have you ever seen those sprint car races they do on mud tracks? That's pretty much what the road in was like....and of course, it was still raining...although thankfully it was very light and not even noticeable after the deluge we endured the previous day. Nobody was making jokes about looking for the ark today like they were on TD2.
We began the day going over hand held light drills with the pistol. After a couple of drills with that Mr. Hackathorn gave us the rundown on point shooting. Mr. Hackathorn's version of "point shooting" involves indexing the weapon at eye level and USING PROPER TRIGGER CONTROL to fire a shot while your focus is on the target. Here again it must be stressed that there's no magic technique or piece of equipment that can make up for poor trigger control. Sights or no sights, laser or no laser, light or no light, if you don't exercise proper trigger control you aren't going to hit sh*t.
We then ran basic point shooting drills including the LETS drill which incorporates movement with point shooting. Shooters found that if they exercised proper trigger control they could make good shots even while on the move with their sights taped up. If they didn't manipulate the trigger properly they ended up killing the berm instead of the steel.
We then moved on to some carbine drills like the carbine el presidente drill....which I won. I managed to win 2 drills, leaving me with some lovely parting gifts. The accuracy on some of the drills was ugly, and I think a large part of the reason was that a bunch of us weren't holding the carbine properly. The 5.56 doesn't have much recoil, but that doesn't mean you can let the weapon float out there without exerting much control over it when you shoot. You have to aggressively pull the weapon into your shoulder using both hands if you want to make multiple shots and/or shoot on the move with the weapon.
The drills I won I was pulling the weapon back into my shoulder HARD...and the dot barely moved. The drills I lost? I was using a very relaxed hold on the weapon.
Raven Concealment showed up and took orders. They came prepared to make custom orders on the spot, but unfortunately they were missing a critical part that allowed them to manufacture on site, so they had to stick to taking orders.
Class was finished a little after 3 pm.
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Yup. Same ones.
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That was certainly mentioned as a reason when this was discussed. The facilities we used were nestled into areas where people live...and having us blasting away with our weapons until 1 or 1:30 am can be a bit of an annoyance to neighbors. Liability was also mentioned, albeit briefly as a response to a question about it from a student.
I'm sure at some point Mr. Vickers will post more info about it either in this thread or another one, so before I end up spreading potentially inaccurate information I encourage everyone to await his input.
One thing I will say for sure is that finding a facility where you can run low light intensive training is incredibly difficult. There aren't many shoothouses in the world and of that number there are very few that are open to civilians and of THAT number there are even fewer which will tolerate low light training of the likes seen in this course. That's certainly a factor in this....and we may be wearing out our welcome at the facilities in Ohio where we've done this training.
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