This handy pocket guide by Special Forces Veterans Jeff Kirkham and Erik Lawrence includes the most common operations planning and execution templates. Naturally, it features Troop Leading Procedures and various mission orders formats including annexes. There are also Medevac and Call for Fire formats.
shop.vig-sec.com/product/small-unit-leader-op-planning-guide
KRYTAC, KRISS Group’s training and simulation brand, will be releasing the new Trident LMG Enhanced airsoft rifle this coming August. Designed to combine the look and function of the AR platform with a full-sized machine gun, the Trident comes with a KeyMod handguard and shortened barrel for customization and maneuverability. It features a reinforced 8mm ball bearing gearbox with integrated MOSFET and an easy access spring guide system. The Trident is capable of firing 6mm BBs at velocities exceeding 380 fps, at a rate of 20+ rounds per second.
Additional features include:
Also coming soon from KRYTAC is the licensed Warsport LVOA .22LR rimfire rifles and AEGs. We’ll have more info on those as it becomes available.
krytac.com/index.php/rifles/trident-lmg-all/triden-lmg-enhanced
Super stoked about this exciting news from Colonial Shooting Academy.
Richmond, VA, July 14, 2015 – Colonial Shooting Academy, the largest indoor shooting range in the country, and Gunsite Academy, the developer of the modern technique of the pistol and the world’s oldest & largest firearms training organization, have announced an exclusive partnership that will bring Gunsite’s classes to Colonial Shooting Academy in Richmond, VA.
“We are proud to add Gunsite’s world-class firearms training to what we believe is the best indoor range in the country,” said Colonial Shooting Academy Marketing Manager, Peyton Lacy. “Anyone who is serious about firearms training dreams of attending a Gunsite class and now we are able to bring Gunsite 2,000 miles closer to shooters on the east coast.”
The collaboration between Colonial and Gunsite will bring Gunsite classes like the popular 250 Defensive Pistol course to Colonial Shooting Academy’s indoor tactical range and indoor shoot house starting in September, 2015. The 250 Defensive Pistol Course was first presented in 1976 by Colonel Jeff Cooper and is one of the most sought after firearms classes in the country. Suitable for shooters of all experience levels, the 250 Defensive Pistol Course is designed to achieve gun handling confidence & competence, includes 5 days of range work, lectures & intensive live-fire simulators, including low-light scenarios.
“I am proud to bring the Gunsite experience to the east coast at Colonial Shooting Academy,” said Gunsite Owner Buz Mills. “There is certainly an advantage to being able to train rain or shine, and the facilities at Colonial Shooting Academy are the best I’ve seen on the east coast. I’m going to enjoy spending time with new students in Richmond and I’m sure that some of our regular Gunsite students will be dropping by as well.”
To register & learn more about the Gunsite classes at Colonial Shooting Academy, visit www.colonialshooting.com/rva/gunsite or contact Karen at karen@gunsite.com or call (928)636-4565 ext. 19.
You may be familiar with Innovative Tactical Training Solutions whixh makes the Tommikin. It is a medical trauma training Mannikin offering realistic feedback including breathing, bleeding and sound. Now, they are introducing the K-9 Service Dog Trauma Mannikin which incorprates the same realistic breathing, bleeding and barking simulation, but for medics who work on K-9s. Additionally, this new model offers realistic weight as well as anatomical landmarks.
The Confirmation Bias Of Search And Assess
Aaron Barruga
June 30, 2015
As tactical shooters we are quick to customize our gear, its layout, and the shooting methodology (or brand) that we subscribe to. Personalization of equipment and the style in which we shoot gives us a sense of pride because it portrays competence absent of words. However, our desire to be taken seriously can create dangerous confirmation biases, in which we do not truly challenge why we perform certain actions. Instead we only utilize skills because they are habit. Consequently, rather than being open to new (or better) techniques, we only take in information that confirms what we already identify with.
Search and assess is a principal example of how an unchallenged technique becomes habit, and only persists due to confirmation bias. Although the debate about the utility of search and assess is not new, it is still a concept that deserves plenty of objective criticism. Search and assess works at the conclusion of a drill on the flat range because you already know where everything is located. You’re “switched on” and know you are performing a drill. Therefore, a shooter is able to rapidly jerk his head left and right so that he can “regain” situational awareness.
*Spoiler Alert*
Search and assess is garbage. This shoot me first dance move completely negates the final fundamental of combat marksmanship-follow through. Although tactical shooters should absolutely regain situational awareness, they should first focus on the known threat. We need to check the work we did with our sights on known threats, before we search and assess new enemies.
Moreover, a gunfight is not over because the enemy falls to the ground or stops returning fire. Ignoring follow through and immediately searching and assessing places a shooter in a dangerous situation. By immediately jerking his head left and right, a shooter forfeits his ability to take immediate and possibly life saving follow-up shots. Although two shots will kill cardboard in a match, two-way ranges may require an entire magazine for a single threat.
Tactics 101
Shooting at known and suspected enemy locations is taught to even the most junior infantry private. If contact with the enemy is made to the front, it is reasonable to assume there is more enemy to the front. This is obviously not an empirical standard for enemy contact and security, but during the initial ambiguity of a firefight, shooters identify known and suspected enemy locations so that they can determine the layout of the battlefield.
Understandably, maintaining 360-degree security in an infantry platoon is different than performing security as an individual. If no one has your back, it makes absolute sense to check behind your person. However, follow through or immediate movement to cover should be considered beforehand.
Blurred Lines
We can only process information at the quality we receive it. The following example explains why search and assess fails in the real world, but works on the flat range. Without a gun, proceed to a bar, a coffee shop, or any area with some pedestrian traffic. As soon as you enter the establishment, jerk your head left and right at the same speed in which you normally do on the flat range.
I guarantee that you will not be able to identify (1) alternate exits (2) the individuals in the establishment that could kick your ass. Even if you were able to identify the aforementioned, how quickly could you process that information so that it was useful?
If you still feel the need to move your head around to regain situational awareness, you should first scan with your eyes before turning your head. Simply moving your eyes left to right in their sockets will allow you to assess your environment, while leaving your body in an aggressive position that allows you to take immediate follow up shots. Only after you have re-indexed your threats should you consider looking around by moving your head.
Preparing For The Real Fight
Search and assess has proliferated in tactical courses for two reasons. First, the rapid head jerking movements do look operator-ish. Concluding a course of fire with choreographed moves that look crisp and purposeful can appear meaningful and “right.” Second, the artificiality of flat ranges is often overlooked. Flat ranges are utilized best for reinforcing mechanics, not “what if” scenarios.
A former teammate and mentor of mine always spoke out against “what if” training scenarios on the flat range by stating, “The make believe world that you are seeing right now, is different then the make believe world I see.” This comment emphasizes the distractive nature of certain drills when training environments are not used properly.
The search and assess vignette presented in this article relates to the broader issue of judgment. Discussions about tactics can easily lose an objective format because questioning a shooter’s technique can be misinterpreted as challenging his competence. However, if we truly want the tactical shooting discipline to advance, we must divorce emotion from critique, and search and assess why we utilize certain methods.
If we can’t defend our methods beyond stating, “That’s just how I shoot,” then our opinions are unsubstantiated. We may have valid points, but if we can’t put them into proper context (how they apply to the real world) then our arguments should not be taken credibly. As tactical shooters, our training endstate should not be did my techniques work for those drills? Instead, we must ask did those drills prepare me for the real world?
Aaron is a Special Forces veteran and competitive shooter. He hosts classes in Southern California for law enforcement and civilians, and teaches material that focuses maintaining the fundamentals of marksmanship without sacrificing speed. Check out his company’s website and Instagram for more information. (www.guerrillaapproach.com, instagram.com/guerrilla_approach).
This article was first posted at the RE Factor blog and is reposted here at the request of the author and full cognizance of RE Factor in the interest of increased dissemination. I want to thank Aaron and the team at RE Factor for thinking of us.
Frank Proctor and Way of the Gun is running a 2-gun pistol and carbine match in Eastaboga, Alabama on July 11th. It will feature 6-7 stages, similar to USPSA or 3-gun courses of fire. The pistol stages will feature all steel targets. The rifle stages will be 300 yards and in with steel targets. Close range rifle, inside 25 yards, will be paper. Scoring is 2 hits inside the C on carboard, A/C steel requires 2 hits, round steel requires 1 hit.
Divisions will consists of Limited and Open. If it’s legal in USPSA production, limited, or limited 10, it’s Limited division. Everything else is Open division. Center fire only – no minimum power factor.
Match fee is $20 – stop by the shop to sign in. Gates open and registration starts at 8 am, with shooters meeting at 9am – all central time.
Address and directions:
Address is 1581 Richeytown Rd Eastaboga, AL 36260. Your GPS may not take you to the address so use 0 Cunningham Lane Eastaboga, AL as an address and when you get to the intersection of Richeytown Rd and Cunningham lane, look across the road for the red and black WOTG sign.
For more info go to www.wayofthegun.us.
