Rifleman173
Member
- Joined
- Mar 12, 2019
- Messages
- 42
Many of us have had experiences in tactical operations either while in military combat operations or while working as police officers. Some of us have had experiences in both fields. This thread is for those of us who have "seen the elephant" to express things that might help newer, younger less experienced people increase their understanding of what happens in most tactical events. I'll start...
#1. The first thing that you need to do when you are involved in a high stress situation or tactical situation is keep your head and do a quick situational analysis of what is happening around you. Identify the nearest and most dangerous threats that you will need to eliminate or avoid. Notice I said avoid. There might be a time when avoiding a fight is the smarter move. Always keep that option in mind.
#2. Most gunfights, as I learned over in Viet Nam, do not always involve long range shooting distances. The majority of gunfights I participated in were well under 300 yards and many of them were down to a few feet because of the jungle and sudden turns. Long distance shooting events were pretty rare but they did occur. I was a sniper who got into one sniper versus sniper shooting event just after nightfall. I won and the other guy didn't but that shooting event was actually done at a distance of less than 250 yards! The other sniper had an old Mosin Nagant rifle that sounded like an old freight train moving around when he racked the bolt to reload. Many times, soldiers end up engaging "targets of opportunity." That's military lingo for we shoot what we stray across in the field.
#3. Police research data tells us that most police shootings involve officers engaging armed suspects at close range, often less than 10 feet, in dark areas like unlit hallways and dark allies, at night. We can pretty much expect the same thing to happen for many of us when we travel or move around, especially in larger cities. Also keep in mind that gang members like to target older people in places where the older person's movement is limited like in train cars on a subway or on platforms for subways. That's why you always want to put your back against a wall and keep your hand in your coat pocket to keep people from sneaking up behind you and implying that you might be armed or ready to engage a threat.
#4. One of the things I learned to do in Viet Nam was to scan ahead and seriously look for things that were missing as well as what was there and out of place. You have to look for both boobytraps and missing items as well. In a jungle or woodland you need to listen hard and if you don't hear singing birds that means that there's a predator or people nearby your location. If you see a bucket, garbage can or something strange next to where you're going to travel you need to suspect a bomb or boobytrap. Maybe it's nothing but, just to be safe, think ahead of trouble and avoid that area. If you see both something strange and no animals or bird sounds in the area, get out of there immediately!!! That area is definitely a trap or kill zone of some kind.
#5. Layer your defenses. Over in Viet Nam I carried a sniper rifle for long range engagements, a pistol for close range social events, a knife for contact events and an entrenching tool for when I needed powerful impact at really close range. I also had grenades and claymore mines to use that were stationed on my side of the barbed wire or razor wire as well. So if you were coming at me, you had to get to the triple wire fencing as I was shooting at you. If you got into the wire I would rain hand grenades down on you. If you got to the last line of wire I would set off my claymore mines and continue to shoot you down with the rifle and throw more grenades at you. If you got too close my .45 caliber pistol would engage you until it was empty and then the knife would come out and we would dance because sniper rifles don't have lugs on them for bayonets. I figured that by the time I would be overrun I would have accounted for over 30+ enemy dead if things went right before they got me. I've kind of done the same sort of thing, without the barbed or razor wire being obvious, for my home. Jeff Cooper did that same thing to his residence in a more extreme manner which I thought was interesting. Look what he did as far as security of his home.
#6. Effectiveness is not measured in caliber. It's measured in common sense, accuracy of fire and good tactics. Tactical or SWAT teams all use the same basic principles: get close to the bad guy, use multiple bullet strikes and deliver accurate, well placed bullet strikes on to the target's kill zones. To achieve such accuracy and precision these teams constantly practice their craft and their shooting over and over and over. While many use .45, .40 and 9 mm pistols the one key link that they all have in common is repeated training and practice.
Those are the 6 main points I want to start this thread with for now. Let's see what other people wish to contribute to this thread.
#1. The first thing that you need to do when you are involved in a high stress situation or tactical situation is keep your head and do a quick situational analysis of what is happening around you. Identify the nearest and most dangerous threats that you will need to eliminate or avoid. Notice I said avoid. There might be a time when avoiding a fight is the smarter move. Always keep that option in mind.
#2. Most gunfights, as I learned over in Viet Nam, do not always involve long range shooting distances. The majority of gunfights I participated in were well under 300 yards and many of them were down to a few feet because of the jungle and sudden turns. Long distance shooting events were pretty rare but they did occur. I was a sniper who got into one sniper versus sniper shooting event just after nightfall. I won and the other guy didn't but that shooting event was actually done at a distance of less than 250 yards! The other sniper had an old Mosin Nagant rifle that sounded like an old freight train moving around when he racked the bolt to reload. Many times, soldiers end up engaging "targets of opportunity." That's military lingo for we shoot what we stray across in the field.
#3. Police research data tells us that most police shootings involve officers engaging armed suspects at close range, often less than 10 feet, in dark areas like unlit hallways and dark allies, at night. We can pretty much expect the same thing to happen for many of us when we travel or move around, especially in larger cities. Also keep in mind that gang members like to target older people in places where the older person's movement is limited like in train cars on a subway or on platforms for subways. That's why you always want to put your back against a wall and keep your hand in your coat pocket to keep people from sneaking up behind you and implying that you might be armed or ready to engage a threat.
#4. One of the things I learned to do in Viet Nam was to scan ahead and seriously look for things that were missing as well as what was there and out of place. You have to look for both boobytraps and missing items as well. In a jungle or woodland you need to listen hard and if you don't hear singing birds that means that there's a predator or people nearby your location. If you see a bucket, garbage can or something strange next to where you're going to travel you need to suspect a bomb or boobytrap. Maybe it's nothing but, just to be safe, think ahead of trouble and avoid that area. If you see both something strange and no animals or bird sounds in the area, get out of there immediately!!! That area is definitely a trap or kill zone of some kind.
#5. Layer your defenses. Over in Viet Nam I carried a sniper rifle for long range engagements, a pistol for close range social events, a knife for contact events and an entrenching tool for when I needed powerful impact at really close range. I also had grenades and claymore mines to use that were stationed on my side of the barbed wire or razor wire as well. So if you were coming at me, you had to get to the triple wire fencing as I was shooting at you. If you got into the wire I would rain hand grenades down on you. If you got to the last line of wire I would set off my claymore mines and continue to shoot you down with the rifle and throw more grenades at you. If you got too close my .45 caliber pistol would engage you until it was empty and then the knife would come out and we would dance because sniper rifles don't have lugs on them for bayonets. I figured that by the time I would be overrun I would have accounted for over 30+ enemy dead if things went right before they got me. I've kind of done the same sort of thing, without the barbed or razor wire being obvious, for my home. Jeff Cooper did that same thing to his residence in a more extreme manner which I thought was interesting. Look what he did as far as security of his home.
#6. Effectiveness is not measured in caliber. It's measured in common sense, accuracy of fire and good tactics. Tactical or SWAT teams all use the same basic principles: get close to the bad guy, use multiple bullet strikes and deliver accurate, well placed bullet strikes on to the target's kill zones. To achieve such accuracy and precision these teams constantly practice their craft and their shooting over and over and over. While many use .45, .40 and 9 mm pistols the one key link that they all have in common is repeated training and practice.
Those are the 6 main points I want to start this thread with for now. Let's see what other people wish to contribute to this thread.