Posted: 4/14/2005 12:15:05 PM EDT
| Recently I have been thinking alot about the type of training I do. I am a firearms instructor for corrections and the cub scouts, former marine marksmanship instructor, I teach a college course in firearms, am a hunter safety master instructor and am a tactical commander and instructor. I have been wearing some of these hats longer than others, and it occurs to me that I need some fresh ideas in training. Any of you guys have any ideas or interested in swapping some training materials. I think I am just getting bored of doing the same thing over and over. Since I teach from beginer to advanced stuff, any level of training would be helpful. I posted this in the training board, but didnt get much response so I thought I would try here. |
| Have you ever used Simunition? I put that into my firearms and defensive tactics classes. Have the recruits or cadets go head to head in simulated traffic stops, high risk warrants, ground fighting and/or etc... If Simunition is too much of a cost issue, you can check around for airsoft guns. I found when I put that into my training; people understood why you can't stop fighting or give up in dangerous situations and you can't just wait for backup to get there. Using Simunition in ground fighting improved weapon retention importance too. Those little rounds hurt and simulated or not they hated getting shot. Simunition rounds are like CS, getting hit by in once was enough for me so I try to avoid or overcome it. I don't know when you teach your classes, but come up with different situations every class. You can also trick them by doing the same situations in a row and then throw a wrench into the training with something they never did before. I find routine to be life threatening, not personal convenience. |
| I make it a point to throw something a little different in when I feel evereyone is getting complacent. I guess to clarify, what I am looking for is any shotgun rifle or pistol drills you guys might run. I want to give them some good firearms training, so I am always looking for different drills, (ie. firing under low light, barricaded, with roller lights). We are restricted to revolvers so sims are out, but would like ideas of putting them under stress while they fire. |
|
I currently do FI for Armored Truck crews. The training can gets old for the students so I'll throw in a street survival day. It's Simply gather as many differant firearms as you can that they might encounter on the street and give them some hands on as to operation of the safety, potential of the weapon and let them crank a few rounds to get the feel. Also reinforce what is COVER and what isn't by shooting different common objects with different caliber handguns and rifles. I try to make it fun. And the AK always seems to be everyone's Favorite.  There's more to surviving a gunfight than just returning fire. |
|
Here's a couple of ideas for you. Also doesn't take much of a budget. Poor man's F.A.T.S. machine: Take 4 cardboard target backs and put them together making a large square. Staple 4 targets to them backwards making a large "movie screen". Put the screen on the range where you would normally put the targets. Get an old slide projector and a table and put it on about the 12 yard line. You will need to have several sets of pictures converted into slides. Take several photos in each scenario showing progression of opposing force. Maybe start with a guy with his hand in his pocket, then coming out with a knife, and maybe a series of the guy advancing towards you. Let the student fire when they feel justified. All you need to do then is reverse the slides when the scenario is over to see how well they did. Also, good for low light shooting since it needs to be somewhat dark to do it, and the students get to feel the real recoil and see the flash while shooting at something other that a normal target. Also, this opens good dialogue with students about uses of force after each students critique. Poor man's simunition: Reload revolver casings with primers only. Melt a thin layer of wax into a cookie sheet/pan. when the wax dries simply press the empty casings into the wax filling them with a small amount. Put on proper safety equipment, load the guns, set up the scenarios, and VIOLA! Warning* Idea number two hurts like hell  Hope this helps |
Arrrrgh! Safety Safey Safety! So who gets the blame IF someone should get injured utilizing this poor mans simunition? I personally don't like this idea and would stick to established Simunitions equipment...you're just opening yourself up to a lawsuit by trying this.  Edited to add: and in no way do I represent nor work for any Simunitions Company! |
|
How about a night shoot at the range with nothing but sector car headlights, sirens, and turret lights ablazing? Make it more exciting by tossing a few flashbangs downrange over the shooters heads! You're going to need a lot of supervision for this though as the fuck up factor goes way up! |
done one similar to that.... pretty fun! |
That is always fun. You want to see how people react under stress. Some of the best shooter fall apart quickly! I've always liked downed officer drills. Having an officer run into a room to find a "downed officer" usually just a sand bag. I usually set it up so that bag is behind cover with a shotgun next to him. Action open , tube empty. Most officer's go right for the shotgun and forget about their pistol. It's timed with a number of hits and no hits placed at different distances. J |
| If you do ANY kind of "force on force" (i.e. Simuntions, "poor man" simunition an mentioned above), I would have DEDICATED TRAINING guns. NO converting guns back and forth. It is an accident waiting to happen otherwise. (I am speaking from experience. Luckily no one was hurt and the only thing destroyed was a Beamhit target and a Sig P220 barrel. I witnessed the event as an assistant instructor and it was a sobering experience.) |
|
We just did our 6 month AR quals last week and the instructors threw in some new stuff that I found interesting. They acquired heavy guage steel knock-down silouettes that were set up in tac positions along one of the courses. The targets are black and blended in very well against black backgrounds so picking them up was a challenge. We had to advance from various cover/concealment positions to get to the next position that provided an opportunity to acquire the next target(s). Sometimes we didn't immediately pick up on the "hidden" targets and left ourselves out there. Was good for AAR and critiques. Instructors also had a heavy guage steel "dueling tree" with swinging 8" round plates; two on each side. Two shooters would square off and hit the two plates on their respective sides of the tree. This was done from 25 and 50 yds. It was a battle to see who could knock their two plates around to the other side, while the opponent was doing the same. It was a matter of who could get off more accurate shots fasted. As was proven, you couldnt miss fast enough! |
|
Corrections weapons instructor here too. We have zero latitude to change our course of fire. It's boring as hell, unrealistic and old. I've changed a few things in the way I deliver it. An example of unrealistic. We are issued speedloaders for our .38. In the course of fire we have a 1 round emergency quick shot.  No one has ever been able to give me a scenario where we would be down to 1 lose round of ammo. One of the big things I am getting away from is the "dump your empty brass in your strong hand during unload" drill. Can you believe they didn't even use speedloaders for reloading during recert until I asked for them. |
I think everyone knows about rhe California Highway Patrol "Newhall" incident from the April 1970. The CHP taught their officers to save the brass by putting it in their pocket immediatley after a reload from their dump pounches. (4) CHP officers were killed and an investigation they found them with empty brass in their pockets. They never used the technique again. Some agencies are still behind the times. Sad, but true. 
|
|
I am not a fire arms instuctor but here were some things we have done. Shooting skeet. Helps rapid target acquistin but most importantly to function tha action on the shotgun. Shooting out of the patrol car . It is set up like you are arriving at a call an immediately come under fire. Jungle trails are always good. We did our last one at night adn could not use weapon mounted lights. had to use our duty lights to illuminate. The before mentioned shooting at night with only the patrol rotators is good too. We have used the simunitions in th epast and I think that is an excellent tool. It is more realistic than shooting paper and unfortunately conditions you to being shot. |
Wave, if I rember correctly, several years ago, I mean 7-80s, didn't a MOS get into a hootout, then died from a few hits. In his pocket was found his empty brass? I remember hearing that one at a training class. Art in kY |
Had a friends dad do the poor mans sims on me, and they do hurt like a bastard. I really like the poor mans FATS idea though. |
I've been wanting to do this for a while, but had to let the range dry up a little. Should be good to go the next time I get a chance to run it. I've done this before and it really does mess with your mind. Keep wanting to follow those pretty lights with the sights. |
| A good friend of mine is the firearms instructor for the local PD. I've helped him run his recerts a couple of times. (They use our range.) One thing he did was have the officer drive onto the range simulating being in persuit of a suspect on foot. They exit the vehicle,draw their sidearm and engage shoot/ no-shoot targets on the move with an instructor right behind them screaming words of command or any BS he can come up with at them. Add's to the stress. They used our mock cell as a house, front door type set up with shoot/no-shoot targets inside. |
Thanks SgtWhiting for the specifics. I've mentioned the fact LEO's have been killed in the line of duty due to their training but never knew the exact incident. |
|
I would suggest FATS. It's easy to run everyone in your department through, you can choose your scenarios and kinda sorta "customize" it for your particular purposes. They now have an ASP and a pepper spray simulator. It's easy to suggest sending people to Blackwater and stuff like that. I don't know if your building is made out of solid gold but sending my entire department (or even just a select few this time of year-prior to budget year) to Blackwater is out of the question. Even more importantly most of it doesn't apply to day to day patrol and jail operations. FATS is cheap by comparison. We use a vendor in Indiana that brings it down here to Texas, sets it up, and stays in town to troubleshoot in case we have problems. It costs us about $4000 for 5 days. If you don't have that many people (we ran about 180 through during the week) you could probably find other departments to go in on it with you or I'm sure you could prorate it for however long you need it. Our pistols were GLOCK, and I don't know if they have revolvers. FATS IV is coming out next year and looks really promising. I would be very hesitant about the Simunition and other projectile firing "simulators". I would talk to your city/county risk manager about legal/insurance issues before you do something like that. |
I've heared other similar stories when the cop draws, fires a single shot then reholsters as if the instructor is gonna come arount to assess his target for him. |
I'm fighting right now to change our hang fire drill. We currently teach our officers to wait 10 seconds before dealing with the round. I mentioned it to a friend who is a small arms instructor in the military. He said.."are you out of your fucking mind?" Needless to say by the end of our cold beer I was thinking differntly. |
|
We have put empty cases in the mags to induce malfunctions. Most times the SIGs eat them anyways and the deputy has to jack the slides. Even starting them out with a stovepipe. If things go the way I want the next hogans alley we shoot instructors will load the mags and they will get malfunctions. Dan |
Win a FREE Membership!
Sign up for the ARFCOM weekly newsletter and be entered to win a free ARFCOM membership. One new winner* is announced every week!
You will receive an email every Friday morning featuring the latest chatter from the hottest topics, breaking news surrounding legislation, as well as exclusive deals only available to ARFCOM email subscribers.