OP, interesting topic and one that does come up from time to time.
F2S did an excellent job in his post so there really isn’t much to add, but would like to throw my .02 on a couple of the comments.
The commercial training market is wide open. You can find everything from tactical medicine to jungle survival to CQB. IMHO, there are two main camps in the Civy training world. One is playing “Man Camp” and the other learning how to shoot and fight with a firearm. The man camp type training companies typically have you fire large amounts of ammo without much concern for accuracy. They are attempting to give the guy that has never been in the Military, the “Feel” of a gun fight. To me, this does them a great disservice (as they never really learn how to shoot) and when they go to an Instructor like Hackathorn or Vickers, they find out that they suck.
I attend a lot of classes taught by former Tier One guys and or instructors that teach Tier One guys. I have seen everything from Force Recon/SF/PJ/SEAL/Ranger/Delta/FBI/ICE/USM/ATF/SWAT, etc in these classes. The majority of them cannot shoot as well as a Civy whose passion is shooting and believe me, there are some Civy’s on here that will “burn you down” with any weapon. While the majority of the .Mil and LE guys that come to Civy/open enrollment classes are cool guys, there are some that come in with the attitude that they are going to “show” everyone how awesome they are with a gun. This rarely works out for them.
In regards to the comments about shooting a gun (at paper targets) and “fighting” with a gun (against real bad guys), the principles are the same. You have to get good hits in order to win the fight. So without bringing team tactics and everything else into the discussion, the better shooter is going to have a better chance of winning the “fight” as they will put rounds on target more accurately. This is why Tier 1 units spend so much MORE time, energy and ammo on individual proficiency with a pistol/long gun.
I think it is great that you are seeking training outside of what the Military has offered you (smart man). I will leave you this one last thought from one of my favorite instructors. At a low light CQB class, one of the students asked if what we (Civy’s) we were being taught was similar to what the Military receives. The instructor quickly pointed out that the material we were covering was BETTER than what 95% of the Military units receive.
That’s a bitter pill to swallow for someone who’s been continually, institutionally told they’re the best of the baddest motherfuckers around. I was an 11B, too, OP. I thought I knew shit. Turned out I was right -I did know SHIT. I have since rectified that, and opened my mind to the fact that this is a journey, not a destination. There will always be a new TTP to learn, a new skill to be polished, or a new way to do something, and part of being an advanced student is not allowing your training to ossify into what you learned once and thereafter got away with. And another big part of it is…well…see my sig line.
the first step in becoming highly skilled is the realization that just because you did something a few times, and survived, doesn’t mean it was a valid tactic - it just means you were lucky or better ENOUGH than the other guy to make it work anyway.
I completely agree except for the shooting paper and people being the same, this is off topic and im not saying your wrong I just see it different. In that sense I do see shooting clay pigeons and Ducks the same. I may be wrong but I don’t think anyone can be desensitized enough to pull a trigger on another human without a fraction of hesitation, MIL,Civ,LEO alike.
And I couldn’t agree more about the CQB training unfortunately.
I don’t think I articulated the paper vs people comment well enough. My point wasn’t to desensitize what it is like to shoot real people, but in the fact that the fundamentals are always the same (get good hits)! With all things being equal, a better shooter is a better shooter and has a higher probability of going home.
the first step in becoming highly skilled is the realization that just because you did something a few times, and survived, doesn’t mean it was a valid tactic - it just means you were lucky or better ENOUGH than the other guy to make it work anyway.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is King…still doesn’t make me want to put one eye out!
Agreed to a certain extent, but if some one like Rob S were to offer a class I would gladly take it from him - it is my understanding is that he is not prior military or LE, just a private citizen that has taken it upon himself to train to a high standard. I do think that operational experience is a very positive thing in an instructor, and that you can NOT have a well rounded training cadre without some high level operational experience. But certain well qualified shooters without operational experience have a lot to teach folks.
Food for thought: For a long time .mil folks have sent their best and brightest to civilian shooting schools to get better at shooting (please note the word shooting, not gunfighting, tactics, etc). Ron Shaws Mid-South Institute of Self Defense is the grand daddy of them all. You want to be able to run a pistol blistering fast? Todd Jarrett can teach you, and Mid-South brings him out to do just that. Mid-South has world class competitive shooters teach how to shoot, and doesn’t focus too hard on tactics.
Down here in Texas the shooting portion of the SDM classes at Camp Swift and other places are taught almost exclusively by civilians. Folks with the Presidents 100 tab, and a Distinguished Rifle medal.
If you want to get better at shooting, seek out training from folks who do it for a living. Take what they teach, filter it through your needs as a solider and keep what works. Going to any of the former Tier 1 instructors (Howe, Vickers, Lamb, McNamara, etc.) basically lets you receive the content already filtered and battle tested, and they are more then qualified to talk tactics as well.
The fellow who is the head of serious marksmanship training for the KYARNG is a civilian - and I would daresay that the reports coming from overseas from insurgents staying AWAY from units of the Kentucky Guard are due in large part to his influence.
ETA: there almost ought to be a sticky with this stuff. It seems like we refight this battle a few times a year, usually with new military members.
I’ve already made my point, but I think some of the civilians and veterans who have been out of the loop for a while underestimate the extent to which AWG and CATC are giving quality weapons manipulation training to Army soldiers (I can’t speak for other branches). All it takes is one young NCO to attend one of their classes, see the light, and spread it around the unit. This is happening.
I think this forum as a whole (even the SME’s / IP’s ) would be pleasantly surprised at what they would see on any given range amongst so called average Joes in 2012. I know some of you are still working with said group, but your negativity does not represent my experiences.
You’ll see urban prone, thumb breaks, support side transitions, etc. etc etc., and a lot of dudes murdering the A zone on the range. Leaders are starting to “get it.”
As usual, the truth lies somewhere in the middle of the two extremes:
While proper technique and execution is not exclusive to civilian trained shooters or Tier 1 Operators, a lot of grunts still have a lot to learn.
But they’re getting there.
While I’ll admit that as a whole the military has a lot to learn about training “gunfighters,” the default position of this site that the average soldier is incompetent with the M4 is not as true as it maybe once was.
I do’t have much to add here other than having been in the position of the OP. I really like shooting and it’s my main hobby on my off time. I wanted to take my individuals skills up a notch and decided to take some of the classes at Insights Training in Bellevue, WA. I’ve found that the civilian-taught classes I’ve attended have what I consider to be more up-to-date methods. They improved my individual proficiency a lot and taught me a lot of things I’de never heard of in the military. The even brought in a few techniques that competition shooters use to shoot quickly and accurately. In comparison most military training seems to gloss over the finer points of shooting and often reinforce bad habits. Ignore the guys in your unit that think they know everything. When you smoke them at the range after working on your individual skills they’ll quit looking at you funny for buying your own training.
I don’t think anyone is implying that the American Soldier is incompetent but the attitude that he has nothing to learn is incorrect. I probably have more training than most and I still feel like I have a lot to learn.
If you read the sticky I linked to above you will see a pretty in depth discussion from yours truly about the improvements made to the USMC’s combat marksmanship program. I still consider the points made to be vaild.
I don’t want to get too far off the OPs discussion point, but I do want to say this:
there are progressive programs within the military, but these programs are greatly watered down with the necessity to train large groups as quickly as possible with whatever training staff you might have, while adhering to the programs’ lateral limits. Good instructors can make whatever they are teaching beneficial, and poor instructors can make the best program a waste of time. It is far more hit and miss with mass-produced and hastily delivered classes than with known-quantity and quality instructors. I do not condemn them all as individuals, simply pointing out that large programs are controlled by people that may or may not have a grasp of the content or intent, and limited by those that are more concerned with checking a box than gaining or refining a skillset. The goal, of course, is to make training for our fighting men as relevant and effective as possible, but that optimism must be tempered with the reality that a 70-80% solution will often be implemented.
One final point that I will make is that due to the “task-condition-standard” approach that is necessary for large group instruction and evaluation, one can only really expect the minimum standard to be the maximum level of performance from those trained to meet those evaluation methods. Rarely will there be time to bring individuals to a superior level of performance, as time and resources will be expended to bring the lowest performers up to the minimum performance levels. To be fair, the performance of the whole is more important than the performance of a single individual when conducting team-based training and combat. But that is no excuse to be satisfied with the minimum standard.
I appreciate the confidence, and the compliment. However there is a difference, and it’s where some civilian instructors get themselves into trouble. Whatever I have taught, may teach, or might teach in the future is based in the fundamentals and gun handling.
When I personally seek out training I identify what I think a particular instructor may offer. There are things that someone with zero operational experience can offer, and there are things that only those with operational experience can offer. Important to note that there are also things that someone with eons of operational experience can offer but that has zero applicability to me and my situation.
