Daniel Defense recently sponsored a three-day event for the firearms press that included a course by Orion Applications Training Division. You may recognize the name ODG from their camouflage patterns we’ve covered here on SSD in the past. Turns out, they apply their knowledge in other ways as well. I was the only web-based writer invited to this event so it was a great opportunity for me to meet some of the guys in the gun press, familiarize myself with different Daniel Defense firearms and get a first hand look at training from ODG.

Day 1
Day 1 was administrative in nature and consisted of travel, a tour of the Daniel Defense factory and an icebreaker dinner with the other participants. We hit the hay having no idea what an exciting two days we had ahead of us.

Training Day 1

Orion Applications offers three training programs: Geometric Threat Assessment Course (GTAC), Reduced Visibility Engagement Course (RVEC) and Stress Inoculation Muscle Conditioning (SIMC). What we were going to experience would be components of all three.

Gunfight – a series of rapidly executed movement angles utilizing fire and maneuver to neutralize a hostile threat.

Right out of the gate, we were told that this training would be about gunfighting.

I asked Brian Bishop to describe the program and this is what he said:

For the past eight years and after attending dozens of great courses with the industry’s best instructors most of which are good friends. I noticed a trend of some instructors and courses claiming to be gun fighting courses and throwing around the term gunfighter. Upon attending these courses I discovered there wasn’t really anything related to actually fighting with a firearm presented in the course subject matter. It was always just enhanced marksmanship and manipulation of the weapon with a splash of “stress” drills or that particular instructor’s signature performance on demand drill. There was never any fighting of any type so I started wondering… What is a gun fight? Had anyone ever defined what a gun fight is? After searching high and low I didn’t find anything that truly and clearly defined what a gunfight is. So I defined it. A gun fight is, “A series of rapidly executed geometric movement angles utilizing fire and maneuver to neutralize a hostile threat”. I came to this based off of my real world experience and thousands of hours teaching SOF units low light force on force techniques. During this time and after analyzing the way we all train regarding weapons and tactics I realized we train in a very linear manner during live fire evolutions because of safety restrictions. We unknowingly program our brains to identify threats in a linear manner. When in reality gun fighting is everything but linear. In fact it’s angular and very geometric, in an actual gun fight you prosecute movement angles not “lanes or zones” it is from this understanding that I created GTAC (Geometric Threat Assessment Course) by utilizing force on force techniques, OODA principle and specific weapons manipulation techniques the course is learning to gun fight from start to finish and breaking terrible habits instilled by years linear training.

That’s a pretty thorough explanation of what Bishop had in store for us.

This is the class room. Training began here and we would return a couple of times throughout the day for After Action Reviews and lunch. Right up front in the article I want to point out that safety was a paramount concern throughout the two days of training and we not only went over the four rules of weapon handling at the beginning of each day but also medical procedures as well as peculiarities of using UTM marker rounds and safety equipment was provided for use by attendees.

As the training was sponsored by Daniel Defense, all of the weapons were various models of Black Rifles. And, because we would used UTM marker rounds, all of the rifles were in 5.56mm. Below you can see the gamut of weapons available for our use. Additionally, optics were provided by Aimpoint.

Although I used a couple of different rifles throughout the two days due to the temperament of the UTM munitions, I stuck primarily with the MK18 paired with a 2MOA T1 optic. It was a great choice for the force-on-force portion of the course.

For those of you unfamiliar, this is a UTM round.

And this is what a UTM round can do to you. That photo isn’t me. I had encountered UTM before and knew to wear long sleeves. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t get my backside stitched with bruises when I left my flank open.

We ran through a wide variety of scenarios beginning with 2-on-2, then 2-on-1 and eventually 4-on-4. No matter the scenario, the goal was the same, to assess the situation, use cover and the angles and successfully reduce the threat while avoiding be reduced yourself. There’s a lot going on but not anything that our boys don’t face everyday in combat overseas or on the streets as LEOs. Stress inoculation like this helps you learn to manage the stress and situation.

Bishop was very good about participating with the class and offering demonstrations both alone as well as assisted with a student.

The scenarios were recorded on video and we went over our performance in a group setting.

If there was any limitation to what we received I would say that it was that it was restricted to daylight conditions. That, and the UTM. Anyone who as used it knows that it can be finicky. A couple of times my weapon cycled but the projectiles backed up in the barrel. It’s no fun when you are shooting at a guy and he isn’t being hit. While it did result in a little bit hurt pride and a couple of bruises the overall opportunity was fantastic. The final limitation is that this was a rifles only course, so we did not use sidearms.

Training Day 2

Interestingly, Training Day 2 consisted of live fire. At the time, I felt that this schedule was backward, that as a group we probably would have developed better weapon handling skills during the live fire portion and then employed them during the force-on-force UTM training. Turns out it was more of a scheduling limitation than a methodology issue. Training Day 2 day offered lots of dry and live fire shooting on the move and transitioning from strong to weak side. FYI, Bishop was not a fan of my High Port position.

We began the morning by verifying our zero at 100m. For the Mk18, this is the outer envelope of where I’d like to employ that weapon. While I know that some are going to disagree with me, I’d prefer a bit more barrel for anything further out than 100m.

Bishop used an interesting target combination of boxing mannequins placed in front of steel targets placed in the center of the targets vital organs. It offered the ability to use a man-shaped target but still offered instant feedback of whether you hit the target or not.

Here, you see a series of photos as Bishop demonstrated the transition.

We conducted dry practice and live fire moving on line as a group as well as individually while moving and proper engagement from cover.

Below are a few more images that will give you a good idea of the two days’ events. All of the photos were taken by TenPoundMonkey.

Big thanks to Daniel Defense for a group couple of days and to Brian Bishop at Orion Applications for the opportunity to train with him. I had never experienced force-on-force in a such a tight setting and it was certainly worth my while.

Tags: Aimpoint, Daniel Defense, Orion Applications Training Division, TenPoundMonkey

This entry was posted on Monday, July 22nd, 2013 at 10:18 and is filed under Black Rifle, Training, weapons. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.