Was talking tactics with a cop buddy the other day.
We were discussing various scenario’s (especially active shooter) and in one scenario he described a certain area where a shooter could get cover and fire. So the shooter would have cover and the Officer would not.
Were talking within 35 yds, pistols, all drawn. We won’t get into down range concerns for this either to keep the premise simple.
He said he’d walk towards the shooter while firing. I think that would generally not be the thing to do. He said he was counting the intimidation effect. I explained I understand the intimidation but that would not be the time to move towards someone firing at him.
I suggested holding position and firing (easier to shoot accurately when not moving), running to cover/concealment, running to flank the shooter, or walk to the shooters flank while returning fire.
2nd scenario: Inside 35 yds, BG and Officer have pistols, no cover or concealment nearby. BG is more or less stationary and firing. Whats the best course of action for the Officer?
My buddy still says advance while firing. I don’t think thats wrong at all, but In my opinion a lateral, even circling movement would be better. No harder to shoot while walking forward or to the side, and it forces the BG to adjust to you and attempt to track you.
Your buddy’s tactics suck. Plain and simple and that’s coming from a LEO with a good amount of tactical training and quite a few shooting schools under his belt. Try asking one of the SME’s here that are real deal gunfighters and see what they have to say? Koshinn speaks the truth. I understand where he is going with his thought process, but he would likely get the air let out of him pretty quick if his adversary had any skill whatsoever.
I can understand your friend’s mindset. Inside 35 yards, the threat can do a whole lot of damage with a sidearm. You are already caught out in the open and likely dead, so put the pressure on and move to contact. There is a way to do this while working in pairs, but I won’t get into that on a public forum.
At least your friend has balls. He must not have set his career path to work in Administration.
Supress and break contact. If they are taking fire (even if its not accurate) and you are moving it should reduce your chances of getting shot until you can gain an advantagous position and re-engage. Thats my initial reaction anyway. There may be some circumstances where advancing is an option but from the general idea I got from your scenario gtfo while supressing seems the best option. Interested in what others have to say.
Disclaimer: not LEO and my only training as a grunt was assault into an ambush, but thats a different ball game.
Mike
Sent from my cell phone with a tiny keyboard and large thumbs…
Without going into great detail (OPSEC concerns) there is a time and place for aggressive action - this is not generally taught because it requires two very difficult things, #1 having the understanding of combat tactics in various situations and #2 having a very large pair of balls.
Whenever I have trained “aggressive action” it has always been during specific breaks in combat and very specific circumstances.
In reference to active shooter(s) situations I will say this - current mantra is to get to the shooter as fast as possible, to close the time between the shooting starts to the time the shooter is dead. This makes the time that the shooter has to kill as short as possible. Now the caveat is that once a contact team or officer engages the shooter(s) that timeline stops since it is no longer innocent people being killed. At that time a reasonable and prudent officer would hold his position (of cover) and maintain a steady stream of fire until backup arrives - then and only then would aggressive action be required to end that type of situation.
This is normally called a “barricaded person” but thankfully, the vast majority of active shooter(s) either commit (cowardly) suicide or surrender.
Just something else to consider - I train constantly at distance shooting (pistol). 25 yards, 50 yards, 75 yards. I can tell you that 25 yards and out, standing freestyle, basically target shooting would be the only real way of making a hit worth anything. So add in the adrenaline of the cluster**** that is an OIS, multiply that by an “active shooter” situation, add in a possible crappy pistol characteristics (NY1 trigger, etc) and what you have is a “lucky shot” situation. That is a situation I would not advise anyone to be in, under any circumstance.
35 yards? Sit tight, hold him (or them) down, backup arrives, lots of bullets equal better shot of hitting.
I would absolutely not want to count on “intimidation.” Depending on the situation, maybe I’d fire a quick shot or two if he’s moving into position and then haul ass to cover. But probably just haul ass in that situation. For number two, I’d rather stay still and focus on shooting him as opposed to focusing on making him miss me.
To add, you have to understand that the BG has to shoot the same distance you do. If you make that distance shorter, you not only increase your accuracy, but you increase his as well. Breaking contact does not necessarily mean running straight back either. You can break contact with a lateral movement so long as it will serve a purpose; e.g. cover.
Agreed. Im also assuming there is no greater mission here other than survival. If its an active shooter and the public is still around then the rewards for the risks you take go up. For pure survival… dont advance on a target without support. There is a reason for “buddy rushing” with a buddy.
Mike
Sent from my cell phone with a tiny keyboard and large thumbs…
As a non-professional IMHO if the BG is targeting/focusing on the LEO, then he’s not shooting innocents, and therefore no need to get into a hurry. Quickly see Cover, Wait it out for help.
The only scenario that the above makes sense to me is when the BG is actively targeting innocents, and this is a last-resort action. And hitting a running, dodging target is NOT easy; moving sideways presents a smaller target than moving directly at you…
I’m just a dumb former Infantryman here, but here’s my take:
Going prone and returning fire wouldn’t be a bad option, but I can see trying to lay down some suppressing fire with a few shots at the BG, and then booking it to cover. Walking, even at a “range walk” towards the bad guy while shooting is a great way to get doubled tapped.
No cover at all? With a rifle, I’d say hit the deck, and dump your magazine on the BG. Within 35 yards, it shouldn’t be too hard to get a couple hits. Standing will almost certainly get yourself hit. Moving could help, but still, you’re an awfully big target within 35 yards. Going prone would reduce your profile, and hopefully give you the chance to take out the BG before he does the same to you.
That’s what I was thinking. Not a smart tactic at all.
Walking straight toward the bad guy isn’t effectively giving him a moving target, just one that’s getting closer. Intimidation? Hey, if the guy is already shooting at a cop, I doubt if he’s very intimidated.
In the law enforcement community “down range concerns” are a very important factor when determining how to deal with a threat. Terrain is also an important factor. Tactics we are taught in the military often are not suitable for LEO use unless you are working with a SWAT Team or a team that uses similar tactics.
If there were no innocents that could be hit by gunfire behind the threat and you are on flat hard terrain, such as concrete or asphalt, you want to move to contact as quickly as possible and neutralize the threat. If you are on terrain that gives you some cover when flattening out on the ground, then that would be an option while returning fire.
If you are LEO in an urban area, you cannot afford to send a lot of rounds down range to suppress the threat. Most LEO carry a limited number of rounds on their person and a LEO has to account for every round that is fired due to the possibility of hitting someone who is not involved. A mag dump would be out of the question in an urban environment. Hitting someone who is not involved and not hitting the threat would serve little or no purpose. A few shots to suppress the threat if no one was behind him/her, while moving to cover is a possibility.
Unless you are out in the middle of nowhere, you will have people down range. Spectators pop up all over the place when police exchange fire with violent attackers. In almost all the incidents that come to mind, officers reported civilians being downrange when they wanted to return fire on an attacker. In one instance where a friend of mine was shot, responding officers saw that half the patrons of a Denny’s Restaurant downrange exited the restaurant and put themselves in a position to get hit by gunfire.
If you frequently train with your service pistol at 50 yards, then stopping for an instant and returning a precise shot or two may be the best course of action. Unfortunately, a lot of people have the mindset that training beyond 7 yards is a waste of time due to police shooting statistics and the shooting skills of the patrol officers and detectives at a lot of LEO agencies are not what they were 35 years ago. Dumping a lot of rounds toward the threat does not dramatically increase your chances of getting a hit and it is a poor tactic for LEO use. Being a good shot is not a guarantee that the officer will hit anything. In another LEO shooting incident, a close friend of mine, who is also a nationally ranked shooter, exchanged gunfire with a suspect at distance of under 6 feet. Twenty one rounds were exchanged and neither the officer or suspect were hit. When his service weapon ran dry the LEO moved to contact and struck the suspect in the head with his handgun. (In this case moving to contact worked, but not ideally.)
If you cannot accurately engage the threat at distance and no cover is available, boring in or moving to contact may be your only option. In order to rapidly engage the threat, you will have to expose yourself to increased risk.
These Officers I work with have been trained to “move in, in a group if possible”. Some will on their own, others will wait for friendlies before moving in, and others will not show up at all until the smoke clears. Personalities are very much in play even in this sort of thing…some folks work well together (often friends), some don’t get along with a certain person or with anybody, some prefer to make arrests all by themselves. Ya’ll know how it is.
I wish more time was spent on two man tactics, flanking, etc.
I believe Paul Howe said it best, in his entire SF career he has never engaged a target while on the move. You are either shooting or moving, not both. If you are shooting accurately while moving then you are not moving fast enough to avoid being a bullet trap. If you are moving at full speed its pretty much impossible to get good hits on target.
If you draw it out on a board and do the math (John Simpson’s motto) 45 degree diagonal movement into a target at any range makes the bad guy work more to engage you - more than lateral movement, more than diagonal out. As someone mentioned, straight in or straight out does nothing to get you off the threat axis - it just gives the bad guy a bigger or smaller target along the trajectory he is throwing rounds down.
At 35 yards out, with no cover and an equally exposed bad guy, on any surface but concrete blacktop, I’m going prone, a good roll over prone position is the most stable position you can shoot from outside a ransom rest. High grass/weeds would hamper your ability to hit but offer you some initial concealment, the problem is if the guys rushes you and you don’t put him down at range, you’ve cut down your mobility.
Go to the range, or any place, you don’t need guns to do this, start at 50, have your buddy go prone and see how much you have to shoot at, at 35 it is still not to bad, at 20 to 25 you can pound rounds into the length of a prone guys body - if he doesn’t put you down first. So the time we are dealing with is the time it takes to move from 35 to 20 yards - 45 feet.
No absolute answer, I spend time on the range moving with my hips going diagonal and my torso square into the threat as I can be while moving.
Caught flat out in the open, or at close range, the initial instinct to move, at an angle, is the greatest gift you can instill into a shooter. Years ago, after running and participating in hundreds of close/moderate force on force scenarios, I came to the conclusion that I couldn’t guarantee that an officer would be in anything other than white, so the conclusion I came to was that in order to help them survive a close range encounter, the best thing I could do for them was ingrain an instinct to move, preferably moving as they draw. Still believe it.
I think before we make absolute statements, we need to put it into context. I’m 8 feet from you at night doing an FI, and suddenly you reach behind you, diagonal movement as I am drawing is better than just movement alone. Of course you could rush and try to smother whatever, but, nah, movement as you are drawing and shooting (or deciding not to shoot ) is a key skill at that range.
Getting off the line of attack while drawing is definitely the correct action. Civilian/LE encounters are typically at extremely close range, but if its anything past extreme close range you CAN definitely apply military TTP to the situation, hit the deck and start engaging the target. Even the curb is a good option of nothing else is around you.
Moving off the line of attack when you first engage is something we taught at work for years. Teaching the concept was in response to LEO in our area who did not and died from gunshot wounds.
If you are caught out in the open without cover you still want to move, but need to minimize the threat quickly. That may require that you close the distance between you and the threat rapidly.
) is a key skill at that range.