Ok, so all I hear is train how you fight, train how you fight. I see carbine courses with guys in gear doing drills and formations. And there absolutely nothing wrong with that but I've been thinking about how I, and I'm guessing a lot of others would actually fight.

My thought process is this, and feel free to point out flaws or give any other criticisms.

First, it would have to be determined what actually is occurring. Is it an active shooter?  Am I already out and about?  Are police on scene?  Am I already indoors?  I see more "active shooter" classes popping up so I think this scenario is covered.

But what if SHTF?  Is it due to a storm?  Is it due to civil unrest due to an unfavorable court decision?  Is it due to all out civil war?  

Am I going to bug out or stay put?  I, like some others, live in an apartment where staying put might not be a good idea. So what do I do?  What's the best way for me to move my preps to my car?  Do I have the gun and cover my wife while she moves stuff?  Who watches our 2.5 year old?  Does she cover me while I move stuff to the car?

Once we are in the car how do we deal with traffic?  Checkpoints, both official and unofficial?  There are a million scenarios in this case alone that could occur and I think a lot if people would be in this position.

So my question is are there any reputable guys who do any kind of training for this?  A carbine or handgun course is great. But that's only one slice of a very big pie so to speak.

Or am I over thinking this?  Honestly I don't think I am. What if, right this second I had to get my family and our shit down three flights of stairs in a hurry, with neighbors potentially causing trouble?  Them what if I had to drive with rioting or other unknowns going on?

I know people don't like to think about something that bad but it could happen and I don't want to get caught with my pants down.

More or less executive protection classes cover a lot of what you're talking about.

Pt Mac's book is suppoed to be pretty good might be worth a couple bucks to buy the kindle version.

Awesome. Thank you. I'll start there.

Right on, I haven't read it myself but it's gotten really good reviews from people of varying skills from "OMG what am I doing I don't know" to "BTDT HSLD I OPERATE!".


If nothing else it should really help you expand the search base of what you're looking for with concepts and ideas to branch out researching.

CSAT offers a three-day Urban Defense Course that covers a lot of your questions. I haven't taken that course as it is fairly new, but I have taken others. Paul Howe is an excellent and very knowledgeable instructor.

I'll try to answer some of your questions below.















 

TGP20 pretty much covered it.

However, I'll add this:

If nothing else, a good first aid course, a CPR course, and a good pistol course will probably
solve 99% of the problems you'll probably see in your life time.

Is it good to get other training (advanced medical/firearms/etc)? Absolutely, but
the stuff listed above will give you the basics to cover most issues.

Don't be 'that guy' who has been to all of the high speed gun courses, yet can't help a victim
of a traffic accident/other trauma.

Thanks for the reminder. I fall into that category currently But I am looking for med courses in my area

Double check with your place of employment. They may provide/pay for an EMT class or certification and might actually give you a raise for being an EMT on site. I know that would probably be occupation specific, but might be worth looking into. Also might be a volunteer Search and rescue organization local to you that would provide a lot of formal training that would be beneficial. This wont provide any firearm training, but it may help in formulating plans, learning the areas better, and would familiarize you with high traffic locations in you AO. This might also help you get networked with like-minded folks that you can contact and create a small "recovery" area or come up with an emergency plan to keep all of your families safe and combine work efforts/ resources.

I agree with TGP20's point that you may be confused by first responders as being the threat to a situation if you're not careful. I would think that LEOs would appreciate a good situation report from a good witness more than another person lone-wolfing and throwing down gunfire. I feel that a civilian involved in an active shooter situation first needs to evaluate the escape and evade options, keeping himself and his family safe, and making sure that as many people make it to safety as possible before actively running into a situation with no knowledge of its escalation, no protection other than himself and his pistol, and essentially no authority. If you are in a densely populated area, chances are you aren't the only one carrying, as more people are carrying weapons nowadays. I'm not exactly sure how you should go from here if that's the case. Some might say to form a small team to "assault" the shooter, but I still feel this falls into a "no-no" area as you have never drilled together, have no knowledge of each other's firearm competence, stress management, communication efficiency, etc. I just wouldnt go looking for trouble if you have a clear and easy path of escape.

FWIW, I'm in the same boat as you and am looking to get into the world of formal training. I've been looking around, trying to find the right class and instructor to start with, but the options are as broad as they are long. I want to attend as many classes as my time and wallet will allow and gain knowledge from different instructors and different schools of thought.

 
FEMA actually offers a first aid / disaster preparedness course. An ARFCOM member attended the FEMA CERT course and posted an AAR.

Wow, awesome. Makes sense. I need to be training under you lol.

That's exactly what I was thinking. I want to be able to have at least some training in all aspects, not just carbines and pistols. I think I have a little common sense but it's nice to have tricks if the trade and actually practice.

The short answer is yes, this kind of training is available. See link below, this course exactly addresses your questions.... its only offered once or twice a year in Florida, but I would presume we are not the only company in the US doing this type of training.

https://youtu.be/BS_97JjEVt0

I trained to do mag reloads from a US Army issue LCE pouch. The ones with the closed top and plastic snap to close. I used the Army standard of 4.5 seconds as a goal.

I've been in one fire fight in my life and I performed a mag change from that closed pouch so fast I don't even remember doing a mag change. When the fight was over, I didn't know I changed mags until I went to walk away and kicked the first mag I dropped on the ground.

Train how you fight has real value. When adrenaline is pumping and shit just got real, you will function  at your lowest level of training. This includes mental training. Are you mentally prepared for a SHTF scenario.I've seen lots of soldiers wearing full body armor and  loaded weapon, hide behind a barrier when there were casualties to attend to and security to pull because they weren't mentally prepared for lots of dead and wounded at their feet.

Realize that the worst thing you can do is shoot an innocent person, which is easy to do in these situations even for experienced shooters.  Inexperienced shooters will think I'll never do that because how hard can it be to not shoot an innocent.  Takes a lot of scenario practices to try and reduce (not eliminate) the risk.

That's one of my biggest fears but another is having a situation where it starts off innocent but it turns bad. Like let's say a neighbor sees me loading up the car with supplies (SHTF bugout scenario) and they don't have any and they think they are entitled to "just a little of mine". Do I give them some to go away? Or do I point the gun and tell them to beat it?  It's easy to give some away but what if others see that? And that's supplies I might need.

I know the answer is don't be in that position but that's not always realistic.

You aren't "over-thinking" it.  In fact, this is the first step in analyzing what may happen, what you need to do about it, and then what training you need to handle it.   Look up METT-TC, and METL.  This is the military way of doing it.  Not necessarily the only way but A way.  List out possible scenarios like you are mentioning.  Then assign them values, such as likelihood of occurring, or, the penalty for substandard response.  Then figure out what skill sets are necessary to defend against it.  And finally locate and do training to prepare yourself to handle it.

For example, let's take urban riot.  You think about what is the likelihood of it occurring in your neighborhood.  Also even if likelihood is extremely low, if the consequences are severe for not being ready for it, should you still consider preparing for it.  Once you have decided these questions, you figure out what skill sets are necessary to survive such an incident.  Staying in place?  All supplies needed to hunker down for a week or more.  Sound and light discipline.  Watch schedule.  Eat/sleep schedule. Defense and fire drills.  Emergency E&E drills.  Bugging out?  Pre-positioned weapons, equipment, supplies.  E&E drills.  Defensive drills. Planned routes.  Vehicle defensive drills.  Retreat location.

Now reach out to sources for info on how to learn these skill sets.  Books, vids, websites, etc.  Formal classes.  Once you receive training, take it home and own it.  Teach others in family group.  Practice it.  Training exercises.

Do this for each possible occurrence.  You will find much overlap on the responses.  Make these your core group of skill sets and train on them first.  

Tactical Response

Talon Defense

Good topic.

I just posted a blog by Max Velocity Tactical regarding the misapplication of techniques to the wrong situation.

You will find any single course that covers all the scenarios you mention. And they shouldn't. Each scenario requires a different decisions process and techniques.

I'm going to presume you are well beyond run of the mill "how to run a carbine" course.

The following schools emphasize true gun fighting courses.

https://mountainguerrilla.wordpress.com/2017/01/18/upcoming-classes/

https://www.maxvelocitytactical.com/tactical-training/

I can suggest specific MVT classes if you are interested.

Yes, there are groups that can teach you this, we are one of them.

We specialize in the defense of homes, business, churches, schools, and small communities.

With our resources you can immediately start drafting your own threat assessments as well as METL (Mission Essential Task List), etc.

Check out our offerings at www.pulsefirearmstraining.com

I was just browsing the forum and saw this thread.  Good stuff.  I am amazed by how many of my friends carry a pistol and go out to the range and just do mag dumps or plink single shots at long range.  Also amazed by the number of people who are technically proficent with their weapon system but have no tactical knowledge to implement their skill set.  I wasn't going to post this video for another couple of weeks... but this thread got me all worked up so I uploaded it tonight.

My recommendation would be Gunsite - arguably the top civilian shooting school in the US.  I've taken their 250 pistol and 223 carbine class and just got back from the intermediate (350) pistol class.  I'm planning for the advanced carbine (556) class next.

They teach marksmanship, but they also teach gun handling, mindset and thinking tactically through a scenario.  The upper level course in particular start to take you off the front sight and instead force you to evaluate the entire situation, movement, safe areas, when not to shoot and how to think.

Their regular pistol and carbine courses include shooting both indoor and outdoor simulators, shooting at night, high speed drawing, shooting on the move, and solving tactical problems.  Their "basic" pistol drills are very demanding, as is the carbine course.  Higher level
courses include more complex tactical scenarios, indoor and outdoor simulators at night with just a flashlight, scramblers, moving targets and realistic (simunition) scenarios with live actors.  The live actor scenarios are incredibly valuable as they draw you in and also give you  an idea of how rapidly a real encounter can escalate and also how incredibly fast you need to make decisions that could end someone else's life or end your own.

They also offer specialized course including response to an active shooter (which covers not only shooting but medical, police response, etc...), close quarter pistol (a combination of shooting and some hand-to-hand self defense) and a course specifically on shooting from a vehicle.

The training is not cheap, but you get what you pay for.  By far the best instructors I've ever trained with and some of the most talented shooters I know attend their upper level courses.

TCCC, Tactical Combat Causality Course Is what your looking for. CPR is ok for drowning but with guns its not nearly enough.
Guns primarily put holes in people that need filling or stopping.  Tourniquet, combat gauze and Israeli bandage are lifesavers.
Every one should keep these close by. Simple to use and lifesavers.

What was different about being in contact vs how you trained?

How can you change how you train to better prepare for the 2-way range?

These are the questions I constantly ask myself.

I remember being under heavy friendly fire from .50 BMG at night....and everything I had spent training on for the previous decade went out the window.

I forgot how to do radio procedures-something I was so well-versed in, I could do them in my sleep, on the run, breaking contact, pro words and 9-lines memorized, Call-for-fire, etc.  But when I saw .50 BMG tracers flying past my face and my soldiers so fast...there was nothing I could do to get to the ground quick enough.  The helplessness I felt was so overwhelming, I brain-farted like I never have before.  The stress was so instantaneous, it overcame whatever synaptic connections, instincts, and trained drills I had embedded.  

React-to-contact was bread and butter for me.  If it was an enemy unit, I would be excited because I'm fixing to return effective fire and start maneuvering my hooahs on them.  You still realize the imminent danger of steel flying through the air at over Mach 2, but you get a vote in that game too.

I wasn't about to return fire on friendlies equipped with .50 BMG, while all we had were M240s and M4s, and they were 1 click to our right flank.  After what seemed like an eternity in the first burst past our faces, we hit the deck.  This really happened insantly, but the human body can't move anywhere near the speed of a .50 BMG, and the extreme difference between the 2 was terrifyingly evident.  I had a sense of foreboding doom that convinced me without a doubt that I was going to eat a 647gr FMJ or tracer that didn't care who I was or what flag was on my shoulder, its reality rocketing past us without concern for life, just insane speed and energy that commanded unquestioned respect.  All I could do was hope, and hope wasn't worth a thing that night.  Hope and hopelessness became one for me.  I didn't even have time to think, "This is how it ends."  Velocity of a .50 BMG, even at 1km from the muzzle, cheats you of time to think about anything.  Instant finality manifests itself to you in a clarity so cruel, the totality of the cosmos simply and beautifully accepts your demise in the passing of that miniscule moment in time.

As I hugged the ground, Interceptor vest preventing me from burrowing into a comfortable prone, I heard one of my felllow Squad Leaders (he was the lead element of our Platoon) call over his Squad Radio in a depressed, but nonchalant voice, "This is Bravo 31......One friendly KIA."  My heart sank, because we were all tighter than thieves, had a good bond between the NCOs and joes.  I got really pissed, grabbed my radio, and jusy started yelling weird things that I was never trained to do.

"EMERGENCY, EMERGENCY. Anyone this net, please get a hold of that unit to our right and tell them to CEASE FIRE.  We have one friendly KIA, I say again, one friendly KIA.
Tell them to STOOOOOOOOOPPPPPPPP!!!"  My guys heard me utter a series of colorful expletives after that as I cursed the situation, cursed whoever was responsible for this clusterf**ck, cursed, cursed, cursed.

Our CO got on the radio (he was several hundred meters to our rear, with no sense of what it was like in the field of fire of the M2), in an irritated voice, "Whoever this is, get off the net, over."  I was even more pissed at that point, lost all military bearing, and repeated my demands, to which there was no response that I recall.

That's when we started taking more effective fire from the M2, with more screaming and yelling among us to stay down.  We were now just targets...

I looked around on the night desert floor, covered in rocks and shallow dunes, and found an old bunker or fighting position someone had dug, believe it or not.  The thing looked like it dated back to Desert Shield/Storm, it was delapitated and sand storm-worn.  I told my Weapons Squad to get in there with me and wait this sh*t out, wondering who it was that had been hit.  My PSG told us to come out after it seemed like the fire had stopped, and I told him explicitly that when they have confirmation from that unit that they have ceased fire, maybe I will think about coming out with my guys.

We later learned that nobody had been hit, and I never figured out why Cody (1st Squad Leader) called that over the net.  Whole thing was freaking crazy, but I was just glad nobody died.  It was one of the worst experiences I ever had.

I also learned from our Company RTO and one of the drivers at Bn that the CO never did his Adjacent Unit Coordinations, so the unit that was lighting us up must have figured we were prime targets.  The fire we took from them went on for a long time, not just an incidental burst.  I hated that night, and I lost what little confidence I had in the Company-level leadership.  1SG was weak, CO was some middle-eastern-looking dude from Africa, who screwed things up left and right.  Lost his MBITR, ICOM, and M4 on separate occasions....promote ahead of peers, Bronze Star for that deployment.

Anyway, point I was trying to make is, what was wrong with my training that caused me to brain-fart like that, and is there a way to prepare for it?

I know in my courses, especially the CCW courses, I introduce some nasty little surprises that people don't expect, that are designed to trigger the adrenal dump of fear/fight or flight, which is missing from most training.  I approach it more from a physiological standpoint, as well as a psycholgical angle.

How do you get the adrenal glands to jolt-surge that epinephrine and norepinephrine into the bloodstream in a training environment?

That is the training element I chase for realistic training.  I see very little discussion of it, to be honest.

Seems that some folks just freeze up under fire and others seem to find moments of clarity and react well.

When I was in a infantry recon platoon I had a PSG who was a long time airborne/recon/LRRS guy.  Ranger School Instructor, Pathfinder Instructor, HALO Instructor, you name it he'd done it.  He was excellent at training folks, very squared away.  Squared away overseas too, until we started taking contact instead of initiating contact.  You'd see folks freeze up, forget their training, make really bad decisions.  Even with all his training and experience he wasn't immune.

I don't know how you train that out of people, and I'm not even sure that you can.

To be honest, a lot of the training I saw in the Army was invalidated overseas, mainly because most units don't conduct much battle-focused training at all.

The Army does a lot to talk about train as you fight, but most unit leaders in training set up practically every scenario thusly,

"Alright, we have a 2-3 man enemy LP/OP.  Take your Squad and react to contact, then do Squad Attack battle drill.  Enemy will be wearing reversed BDU tops with Kevlar covers removed, carrying M4s."  This is a canned-like sardines aproach that challenges nobody.

The first time anyone ever thinks about taking fire from maneuvering elements with belt-feds like PKMs and DShK 12.7mm is the fraction of a moment after it happens, followed by the blast of an RPG.

Units set themselves up for failure by cheating Squad Leaders out of regular battle drill time with their men, then once in a blue moon does the canned enemy LP/OP drill, which the Squad performs terribly at (predictably).  Instead of working it out over and over to improve the unit integrity and building the team, an endless AAR (where every junior leader is now an expert, along with the PL) blast away at irrelevant aspects of what they think needs focus, while valuable training time is wasted.  Just a quick AAR would suffice, do it over until you're proficient, rotate people around, do it again.

Everyone walks away with a loss, and quickly forgets about it all because it was done poorly.  Somehow, the command writes this up as a "Trained" or "Proficient", figures they can finger-drill some Platoon-level ops, and they head off to JRTC to get slaughtered by OPFOR for sport, nowhere near mission-capable before they left.  The command then calls this a "success", "great learning opportunity", packs up, and returns to home station, now in the slot to deploy as needed.  "We're ready to rock, SIR!"

Doesn't matter if you have a few key leaders with Ranger School, LRS, Recon, instructor backgrounds, because none of your basie elements:  Infantry Squads and Sections, have been trained anywhere close to standard.  As a Squad Leader, I literally had to fight for opportunities to train my Squad in our METL tasks.

First thing I did was write up a memorandum and got Commander's signature just to be able to conduct Squad-level training, even though we had "SGT's Time" every Thursday on the calendar, which almost never materialized.

I went to all my fellow Squad Leaders in the Company and asked if I could borrow their brown soldiers:  Filipino, Afghan (orphan adopted to US), Polynesian, etc.

Since I'm a collector of foreign military uniforms and gear, I brought in as many sets of them that I could, to include camo untilities, LCE, and Ghillie suits.  I got authority to take our Company supply clerk to TASC and sign out AKs, SVDs, RPGs, and grenade training aids for foreign weapon look-alikes, and issued all this out to my very large OPFOR element.

I had already issued an OPORD to one of my Team Leaders, had him get all the guys in full battle rattle, to inlcude weapons, NODs, blanks that the XO kept behind a filing cabinet in his office, smoke grenades, spent AT4 tubes, CLS bags, Claymores, etc.

I had my OPFOR led by another Team Leader in the Platoon with an ICOM, and my BLUFOR Squad with ICOM on another freq.  I was able to set up different scenarios this way in Area J, in order to go down the Infantry Squad METL Task list as best as possible, before the PSG called us in.  Can't interfere with that chow hall time, yo.  I was not allowed to continue training after chow.  Can't remember what retarded hot garbage they had for us that was more important to do, but the men were cheated from getting any further battle-focused training.  I requested to continue training after chow ( I had already planned to just eat MREs quickly and just contiinue training), but was denied.

Squad training is hard work.  Not many really want to do it.  The chain of command and NCO support channel will rarely support it, even though it is their mandate to do so by regulation.

Wow, you had some incredibly poor leadership!  Sounds like you were doing your part as a squad leader, too bad the PL/PSG didn't back you up.  When I was on the line, we did A LOT of squad training and a week long, platoon sized field problem at least monthly.  So for our trip to JRTC we rolled OPFOR.  My squad smoked a scouting element and found their entire Op Order inside the belt of an RTO so we got a day off before resetting and going back at it.

Once I got into the recon platoon we spent A TON of time training as separate teams.  Our teams operated independently, not as part of the platoon.  We practiced a lot of non traditional skills with sneaks, hide construction, odd ranges, field improvised techniques for everything and cross training with everyone from SF medics to A10 warthogs.   It was great training.  I'm not sure how much of that training made a difference once we got overseas.  Dudes that were studs stateside could be studs or turds overseas.... everything seemed to change whenever the fight was taken to us instead of us taking the fight to the enemy.  And that is something we trained for a lot: break contact drills, Australian peel, react to near/far ambush etc.  seemed to be no rhyme or reason why some people excelled in that environment and why others totally froze.

I would rather have the training than not, and I think it does make a difference for a lot of folks. Seems to me that it just works a lot better for some folks than others.

I was describing 82nd mostly.

In the other units I was in, it was hit and miss.  The ones where Ranger Regiment NCOs ran the show, or guys from 7th ID, 25th, and 101st, it was a lot better as you describe.  I did so much high speed stuff in my first 2 Recon Platoons that it made it really hard to go to other units that were clueless.

I did JRTC at least 4 times, and 3 of those were with 82nd.  The 1st time was much better.

Your description of Recon Platoons is standard.  Operationally, some of them have task-organized differently per mission requirements working in conjunction with a good S-2 and Battalion Commander.

The best culture I experienced was in my 1st and 2nd Recon Platoons, LRS, followed by 1st Group.  I liked LRS the best overall.  LRS would have been even better if we had half the support that Group gets.

My first Recon Platoon had one of the best PSGs I ever had, along with some great NCOs.  I did more relevant training in 8 days in that unit than I did in 3 years in the 82nd.

LRS was jam-packed with superb NCOs, many from 2/75, others from 4th RTB, or other LRS units.  LRS did a lot of real-world missions even then.

Every light infantry unit I was in did battle drills in detail in the line, and Recon Teams in the Scout Platoon did IADs regularly, but in the 82nd, it was like battle drills didn't even exist, as they were more concerned about jumping & assembling, and finger-drill follow-on missions.  It's gotten worse since then.  As a key leader, I literally had to fight against the organizational culture to train my men.  I saw some of that in 1-24 Infantry in 25th at Lewis, but nowhere near as bad as in 82nd (2nd Brigade).