|
         
| |
Strike Report - October 2007
QUOTE OF THE MONTH:
"With courage you will dare to take
risks, have the strength to be compassionate and the wisdom to be humble.
Courage is the foundation of integrity."
~KeSahvan Nair~
PATROL RIFLE TRAINING:
You Can’t Practice Enough!
Tactical proficiency with the patrol rifle, or for that matter with any weapon,
doesn’t “just happen.” Someone who is mentally focused and smooth with their
weapon manipulation skills reflect two things about themselves – their training
and the amount of time they personally put into practice to acquire those
skills. Once the skills are acquired it is just as important to maintain them
and again it takes focal intensity and a willingness to get the practice time in
to keep those skills sharp. Anything less means you are letting not only
yourself down but your team as well; and in worse case scenario it could mean
mission failure.
In every school that we conduct, my partner George F. Wiley will at some point
share with the students an intense philosophical belief he has concerning
training and practice. It goes something like this, “It is easy for us to
work on the things we are good at or enjoy doing, and for the most part that is
exactly what people do. They spend a lot of the time working on things that they
are already very proficient at. What is difficult to do is to discipline one’s
self to work on those skills that we are terribly weak at, which are difficult
for us to perform or that take us out of our comfort zone. I force myself to
work on those skills that are personally challenging or take me out of that zone
of comfort. It is the only way I will make myself better, the only way I can
achieve excellence within myself.” Every time I hear George give this
speech I find it personally motivating for myself and I know one other thing …
he is absolutely right!
When it comes to training there is one other truth I will share with you as well
and it is this - training just for the sake of training or because you
have to is not only worthless, it is a mindless waste of time. However, training
with a purpose, a goal, or a particular mission objective will lend strength and
credibility to the training program, and ensure your people are more focused and
better skilled. It not only prepares the individual but also the team,
and it sets standards for overall mission success. Always have an objective or
goal to your training and make sure your students understand.
In the patrol rifle course that George and I teach we see certain deficiencies
that are consistent with every class and because of it we have worked into our
programs drills that spend a lot of time in those particular areas. As an
example, rifle magazine changes – combat loads, tactical reloads and phase I
clearance drills are usually not as smooth as they could be. Another area is the
CQB immediate transition drill from rifle to pistol. Now stop and think about it
for a moment. All of the things I have mentioned above are critical drills to
perform with the rifle or as we term it “Tactical Weapon Emergency Drills.”
These occur:
▪ when the weapon
runs dry of ammunition and you must reload or
▪ where there is tactical pause in a
fight and you need to get a fresh magazine inserted or
▪ when a malfunction has occurred and
it must be quickly cleared or
▪ when a catastrophic parts failure has
occurred and left the weapon disabled.
What is so important to remember about these drills is that smoothness
equates with speed. The more training and practice time you get in
performing these, the smoother and faster you will become. George and I
intentionally built into our programs certain manipulation drills which are
given at the conclusion of a particular drill or set of drills being run. The
students will have practiced these skills dozens of times and by the end of the
course they are not only prepared for any skills testing given to them but they
also have a new found confidence in their own ability.
If you are seeking to acquire a proficient confidence with your patrol rifle and
learn all that you can about its potential as a lethal fighting tool, be willing
to put in the necessary time to hone your tactical skills with it. You should be
able to fight equally well with that weapon from CQB ranges to precision
distances. You should also have the confidence to deal with situations that
cause you to put into action one of your Tactical Weapon Emergency Drills
procedures.
TRAINING - PRACTICE: It’s Importance
As Lt. Col. Dave Grossman states in his book On Combat, “You do
not rise to the occasion in combat, you sink to the level of your training.
There must be a continual effort to develop realistic simulations training
so the warrior develops a set of skills that will transfer to reality.”
As a tacit reminder to members of the warrior class community and that includes
U.S. Law Enforcement personnel, he says, “Whatever is drilled in during training
comes out on the other end in combat.” A further point he makes is, “Any natural
or learned resistance to killing, any sense of the sanctity of human life, any
human emotion, any remorse or compassion at the moment of truth,
can all be overcome and overwhelmed with training.”
The patrol rifle is a profound and lethal tactical weapon that easily balances
the playing field with any bad guy. However, just balancing the field isn’t good
enough. What you want to do is dominate with it, you want tactical superiority,
and you want to be able to neutralize the threat. The only thing that will set
you apart and give you that edge above the bad guy is the skills you acquired
and applied in training, and the skills you honed to perfection with dedicated
practice. As George F. Wiley says, “It is the only way I will make myself
better, the only way I can achieve excellence within myself.”
Jack C. Perritt
George F. Wiley
| |
|
