AAR: Redback One - 2 Day Tactical Carbine - Las Cruces, NM. 24-25 March 2012
Redback One conducted a 2-day Tactical Carbine Course in Las Cruces, New Mexico. 24-25 March 2012.
This was an open enrollment class with a mix of military, law enforcement and civilians. I drove into Las Cruces from Tucson AZ. This was my first time training with Redback One, but I had seen some of Jason's videos online prior to class. I'm a prior service US Army veteran, now in the civilian sector and I try to attend a couple of courses each year so that I'm an asset and not a liability. I've had the opportunity to train with some great instructors from Tier 1 units, and not to take away from their courses, but I was mentally and physically exhausted after this class. Which is a good thing as we need to be pushed outside of our comfort zone to learn new TTPs.
WX for the class was warm/sunny and temps in the upper 80's for both days with wind gusts.
Gear: I ran a Bravo Company Mfg. EAG carbine with an Aimpoint T-1 Micro as my primary and a M&P 9mm as my secondary. I wore an ATS M4 chest rig and VTAC Brokos Belt with a Safariland 6280 holster. All ran great with no stoppages other than the malfunction drills we performed. In light of everything working well, I'm going to change up my ammo pouch style going back to flap pouches based on the movement drills we ran. There is a higher potential for losing kit with my current setup of open-top style, friction-based pouches. Open-top pouches are great for range drills and matches, but I'd rather have my mags with me if I had to move out quickly, climb over an wall, crawl through a ditch, etc. Murphy's Law is always around the corner!
Training started out with Jason and his assistant instructor Muz going over the safety brief and moving everyone out to shoot the Redback One Standards as a baseline to gauge our competency at the start of class. We would shoot the standards again at the end of TD 2 to see how we progressed during the class. Later in the day, topics that were covered included: fundamentals of marksmanship, weapons manipulation, gear and weapons setup, 200 yard zero and ammo performance with that zero. After lunch, Jason gave a great lecture about warrior mindset and situational awareness. I won't go into details, but the teaching points were reinforced multiple times during the class.
TD 1 wrapped up with a night shoot. Many students had night vision equipment and were able to get repetitions under NODs, while everyone else shot the drills using weapon mounted white lights. A couple students did not have a flashlight to use with their pistol so they ended up using their carbine tucked under support side while firing strong hand only. The night shoot was a great opportunity as not many of us on the civilian side get an opportunity to do this type of training as ranges are either closed at night or have noise abatement issues that prohibit night training.
TD 2 started out reviewing malfunction drills taught on TD 1. Afterwards, Jason and Muz gave another great lecture about predatory mindset and predator/victim behaviors while providing real world examples on how maintaining situational awareness can avoid many bad situations. Afterwards, we covered some basic combatives using only hands and later with weapons. This was new to me and was an eye opener. I want to take the Combatives Course from Redback One after getting my feet wet with this training!
After lunch we worked on shooting and movement using barricades and verbal commands. This was another opportunity that doesn't present itself at my home range due to stringent range rules. During a break, Jason went over Tactical Combat Casualty Care. Again, this was another good learning opportunity as we discussed topics such as trauma care, placement of IFAKs and what items to carry in them.
There were a lot of takeaways for me with this course that I believe will allow me to be more consistent and faster with weapon presentations/manipulations, improved accuracy and maintain a never quit mindset. If you ever have the opportunity to train with Redback One, definitely take it! I almost missed out on this class by procrastinating and I lucked out by securing one of the bonus spots that came up after the course was full. Both Jason and Muz were extremely approachable and answered everyone's questions with solid answers. Hopefully Redback One will get hosted in AZ and make my drive a little shorter! :)
Thanks to Jason and Muz for outstanding instruction these past two days. Adam from 1 MOA Solutions for hosting the class. The support crew for helping with range setup and support. SORD USA for providing prizes to the top shooters. To Mario and Chris for taking pics and video of the class. To Giselle for the admin side and taking care of registration and course requirements. Finally, thanks to all the other students, it was a pleasure and honor training with all of the Law Enforcement Officers and US Army Soldiers who attended!
