Thought for today: A follow up from yesterday: Vehicle gun fighting. I am no means an expert, but, I have been through several military, LEO, and private security classes. All this means to me is that vehicles are better at concealment than cover. Unless you are behind an MRAP or cement truck, it is risky business taking cover anywhere except maybe the engine block, but, its better than nothing.
IMHO, the key to surviving a gun fight is accuracy and mobility, two things severely hampered if you are using a vehicle. I once spent about 8 hours learning to shoot being completely prone and shooting under the vehicle carriage. Really good looking stuff, until a bad guy walks up and shoots you in the back of the head. I didn’t agree with the tactic and made a comment which got me this response: " Uncle Sam is paying for this, so just do it". Well, ok, Sir.
Some more information:
A common lethal error associated with moving to a new piece of terrain is that we misread stimulus during our movement. The threat might stop shooting at us because he either can’t hit a moving target and wants to conserve resources, or because he is trying to predict our movement and the possible terrain we might use for cover. A lull in gunfire might signal safety, but do not let this deceive you. After entering a new fighting position, we must try to regain situational awareness without overexposing our silhouettes. This means staying underneath the windows in a crouched position.
If we need to shoot from behind our new vehicular cover, we need to understand the effect that glass will have on outbound bullets. Side glass has minimal impact on the integrity of a bullet. However, shooting through side windows still limits our angles of fire. If we begin to track a target left or right, our bore line will become obstructed by pillars, the cabin and windshields. Arm-chairing our tactical response, this might not seem like an issue. But during a stressful situation, any additional stimulus, even as insignificant as tracking past a pillar and reacquiring a sight picture, can cost us valuable time.
Glass
Furthermore, if we track left or right far enough we will eventually be positioning ourselves to shoot through a windshield. At close distance a windshield can be defeated by rapidly cycling our trigger. But if a threat is at distance, it will take our rounds a few seconds to start impacting downrange (because the bullets need to port the glass). This amount of time will allow the threat to read the data we’re providing him, and change his posture to move on our position. By shooting at the threat through a windshield, we’ve wasted resources and signaled to our opposition that he needs to adjust his attack.
I don’t agree with this, sometimes the only shot you got is through the front windshield. You roll up in your police vehicle and you are ambushed, This is the only option you have, movies be damned, but rolling out of your vehicle onto pavement, drawing you weapon and firing accurately? maybe , Jon Wick, but not you.
Instead of shooting through side glass, it can make more sense to stand up and clear our bore lines over the top of vehicular cover. If fighting from behind a SUV or truck, moving to the flanks of the vehicle allows us to clear our muzzles. Although shooting through side glass allows us to immediately send bullets towards the threat, we are at a disadvantage should we need to track our sights across vehicle pillars or windshields. Consequently, we will likely need to reposition before we can take another shot. If we take just a little bit more time getting into a position over the top or on the flanks of a vehicle instead, we ensure that our bore line is clear and that we can aggressively track our sights without our own cover creating issuing with reacquiring sight picture.
Training :
Heavy bag, speed bag, katas and Judo class.
Question of the day:
It’s “Basic dude stuff” , on Pat Mac’s IG. Do you know how to use a chain saw? power saw? hand saw?
