Using Cover

[NETim]

The more I train, the less I know. A few weekends back, running some "street" scenarios with Airsofts in a class, I got shot... many, many times. Both going to cover (moving) and while using cover. I could not run fast enough to avoid getting hit. This isn't the first class I've had where I've been demolished by Airsofts but this is the first class I've taken that emphasized the use of cover with FOF. (The others involved disarming/empty hand kind of stuff.)

Granted the opposition was comprised of some very skilled (and in some cases, EXTREMELY skilled) trigger fingers but still it was disheartening.

I got shot less if I was moving. Had I stood my ground and traded BB's with these guys, I would've been one big giant oozing sore come Monday morning. Obviously, it's not a direct comparison of how it would have been "in real life" with real stuff as the dynamics would change using weapons capable of lethal force, e.g., who hit who first and where and how many times.

I am still digesting the information and experience I was presented with. I consider it a good experience but still wondering what else I should have gained from the experience.

I am not sure what I learned except that:

A) Real cover is good when it can be found.
B) Even when slowly and carefully leaning out from behind cover and the bad guys know you're there, you're going to get shot.
C) Multiple adversaries is bad news. REALLY bad news.
D) And as usual, getting in a gunfight should be avoided whenever possible.

[JAD]

A very interesting topic, that meshes well with the current discussion of autonomous response. My training has been very focused on this, because I started at a time when we were beginning to change from Cooper's stand and deliver approach, to an extreme emphasis on use of cover and movement that I experienced most profoundly at Thunder Ranch. I've been out of the training loop for much too long to know what the current thinking is, but the person I have read the most on the topic is Higgenbotham (probably influenced by Givens, knowing that crew, placing them both very high on my training priority list). The question of how to 'break up your roots' without training a thoughtless response that could be problematic has been discussed on this forum before but I think of it as a central and evolving topic.

[1slow]

S'narc's AMIS (armed movement in structures) is very good on this subject. TPI has some overviews of this.

[Mr_White]

The more I train, the less I know. A few weekends back, running some "street" scenarios with Airsofts in a class, I got shot... many, many times. Both going to cover (moving) and while using cover. I could not run fast enough to avoid getting hit. This isn't the first class I've had where I've been demolished by Airsofts but this is the first class I've taken that emphasized the use of cover with FOF. (The others involved disarming/empty hand kind of stuff.)

Granted the opposition was comprised of some very skilled (and in some cases, EXTREMELY skilled) trigger fingers but still it was disheartening.

I got shot less if I was moving. Had I stood my ground and traded BB's with these guys, I would've been one big giant oozing sore come Monday morning. Obviously, it's not a direct comparison of how it would have been "in real life" with real stuff as the dynamics would change using weapons capable of lethal force, e.g., who hit who first and where and how many times.

I am still digesting the information and experience I was presented with. I consider it a good experience but still wondering what else I should have gained from the experience.

I am not sure what I learned except that:

A) Real cover is good when it can be found.
B) Even when slowly and carefully leaning out from behind cover and the bad guys know you're there, you're going to get shot.
C) Multiple adversaries is bad news. REALLY bad news.
D) And as usual, getting in a gunfight should be avoided whenever possible.

A few questions so I can try to understand better – you don't need to answer all these, just a battery of questions that come to mind and maybe we can get somewhere:

Can you describe the scenarios any more specifically? What was the context?

What kind of distance were you at from the threats and from cover?

How many adversaries?

Were flashlights used/was low light a factor?

Using you imagination, is anything coming to mind that might have helped? Drawing or moving faster, hitting sooner or more? Do you think drawing and hitting right away while also starting to run to cover might have changed anything?

What about misdirective tactics? Were these scenarios of a three-man holdup where you start at gunpoint x 2 or 3 and needed to do something to retard their reactions while you got your own gun out and into action?

Did adversaries go to their own cover?

Did they maneuver against you, overrunning or flanking your cover, or did you maneuver against them at all?

Did you use cover tightly, or telegraph rolling out by leading with an elbow or something? Did you vary your positions of exposure when rolling out from cover? Might it have been helpful to use cover a little more dynamically – get out fast, take an available shot, get back – rather than slowly creeping out?

Would closing distance with the adversaries have been better? (I doubt it, just asking.)

What about not going to cover and instead staying continuously in motion and delivering hits while evading and trying to stack the adversaries?

[NETim]

A few questions so I can try to understand better – you don't need to answer all these, just a battery of questions that come to mind and maybe we can get somewhere:

Can you describe the scenarios any more specifically? What was the context?

What kind of distance were you at from the threats and from cover?

How many adversaries?

Were flashlights used/was low light a factor?

Using you imagination, is anything coming to mind that might have helped? Drawing or moving faster, hitting sooner or more? Do you think drawing and hitting right away while also starting to run to cover might have changed anything?

What about misdirective tactics? Were these scenarios of a three-man holdup where you start at gunpoint x 2 or 3 and needed to do something to retard their reactions while you got your own gun out and into action?

Did adversaries go to their own cover?

Did they maneuver against you, overrunning or flanking your cover, or did you maneuver against them at all?

Did you use cover tightly, or telegraph rolling out by leading with an elbow or something? Did you vary your positions of exposure when rolling out from cover? Might it have been helpful to use cover a little more dynamically – get out fast, take an available shot, get back – rather than slowly creeping out?

Would closing distance with the adversaries have been better? (I doubt it, just asking.)

What about not going to cover and instead staying continuously in motion and delivering hits while evading and trying to stack the adversaries?

There were multiple scenarios. Sometimes there was one aggressor. Sometimes two. And usually an innocent or two thrown in.

The two scenarios that stood out most to me:

1) I was Joe Sixpack, strolling down the street, when a lone yahoo verbally accosts me from about 20' away initially. He is obviously hostile and continues to close the gap as I move away. He draws from appendix (a certain indicator of a yahoo ) and I draw and hit the "run" button to cover. I trigger one, what I consider well aimed shot, on the way. Not sure if I hit. He remains stationary and rapidly firing away. I feel a BB hit my support hand little finger. The rule of the game is, if you lose sight of the aggressor at any time while behind cover, he can then move. I have yet to figure out how to hit cover at my version of full speed, stop my 210 lbs on a dime with most of the body properly behind cover while still maintaining visual contact, so I lose him. He moves and flanks me. Guessing which way he's coming from, I move to the other side of the cover (an upended 8' table which simulates a building column) in an effort to open the gap. I guess right, I have opened the gap for what it's worth and we exchange Airsoft fire. We both get shot up.

2) 3 players besides me, the good guy. MUC-ville. One guy is acting crazy, carrying a baseball bat, talking loudly about baseball, not closing or threatening, just acting as a distraction. The two other players maintain the distance from, even as I move away from them and try to keep baseball bat man in view. Their hands are not visible. They're not saying anything at all, just matching my movement. I'm getting real nervous at this time, so my hand is on the gun, but not drawn. My support hand is up, in a stop gesture and I continually tell the baseball bat man to just stay away as I continue to stay away from the two shadows. It's a small room and we have to stay on the mat, probably 30 by 30', so I circle, trying to keep an array of 3 upended tables between me and the shadows. Leaving the area is not an option. Baseball bat man continues to babble but stays ahead of me.

Then, w/o a word, the other two draw guns simultaneously and I react by drawing while heading for the nearest cover. They each get behind a separate piece of cover and I get mine. We're about 12' feet apart. I think I have one BG on the left side of my cover, behind his cover, and another BG behind cover on my right side. The cover pieces form a triangle of sorts so both the BG's are in front of me, but off to each side slightly.

So they know where I'm at and I think I know where they're at. Despite my attempts to Joe Tactical and pie really cool like, I get shot every time I stick my noggin out there. I'm facing two guns and they know where I'm at. I lean out to my left and see no one on the far left edge of the cover in front of me. I lean out even more to get a view of the right edge of that cover. As I'm surveying the situation, BG #1, pops out from the left side, gets a good view of me and I get shot up. I pull back and try the right side but that works out about the same. I didn't try to lean out at various heights. In retrospect, I should've backed away from cover as far as possible to get a better angle but going against two guns is bad ju-ju.

The instructor calls it. Turns out the baseball bat guy was just a crazy dude. The stalkers were hostile, just biding their time to jump. (I'm not sure what their cue was though.)

[orionz06]

What was your prior experience with use of cover? Any two way work with someone else providing feedback or competition/gun training one-way pie style?

[Mr_White]

Sounds pretty rough.

I don't really 'get' the scenarios as described or what they expected you to learn. But I wasn't there, so presumably I am missing something and I hesitate to criticize very strongly. Was there some instructional component taught that should have guided your actions to more successfully navigate the scenarios? It almost sounds more like it was a straight scenario/FOF contest for you to 'go against' their instructors to see who wins...

[Sheep Have Wool]

The instructor calls it. Turns out the baseball bat guy was just a crazy dude. The stalkers were hostile, just biding their time to jump. (I'm not sure what their cue was though.)

Disclaimer: I have never done FoF training.

What's the point of an exercise like this posed as a "scenario?" I understand the value of putting a person into a real-world situation. I also understand the value of putting someone into a problem under the assumption that something bad has already happened and making them sort out the best way to deal with it. But that scenario just seems totally off the wall to me, which begs the question.

[Mr_White]

There were multiple scenarios. Sometimes there was one aggressor. Sometimes two. And usually an innocent or two thrown in.

The two scenarios that stood out most to me:

1) I was Joe Sixpack, strolling down the street, when a lone yahoo verbally accosts me from about 20' away initially. He is obviously hostile and continues to close the gap as I move away. He draws from appendix (a certain indicator of a yahoo ) and I draw and hit the "run" button to cover. I trigger one, what I consider well aimed shot, on the way. Not sure if I hit. He remains stationary and rapidly firing away. I feel a BB hit my support hand little finger. The rule of the game is, if you lose sight of the aggressor at any time while behind cover, he can then move. I have yet to figure out how to hit cover at my version of full speed, stop my 210 lbs on a dime with most of the body properly behind cover while still maintaining visual contact, so I lose him. He moves and flanks me. Guessing which way he's coming from, I move to the other side of the cover (an upended 8' table which simulates a building column) in an effort to open the gap. I guess right, I have opened the gap for what it's worth and we exchange Airsoft fire. We both get shot up.

2) 3 players besides me, the good guy. MUC-ville. One guy is acting crazy, carrying a baseball bat, talking loudly about baseball, not closing or threatening, just acting as a distraction. The two other players maintain the distance from, even as I move away from them and try to keep baseball bat man in view. Their hands are not visible. They're not saying anything at all, just matching my movement. I'm getting real nervous at this time, so my hand is on the gun, but not drawn. My support hand is up, in a stop gesture and I continually tell the baseball bat man to just stay away as I continue to stay away from the two shadows. It's a small room and we have to stay on the mat, probably 30 by 30', so I circle, trying to keep an array of 3 upended tables between me and the shadows. Leaving the area is not an option. Baseball bat man continues to babble but stays ahead of me.

Then, w/o a word, the other two draw guns simultaneously and I react by drawing while heading for the nearest cover. They each get behind a separate piece of cover and I get mine. We're about 12' feet apart. I think I have one BG on the left side of my cover, behind his cover, and another BG behind cover on my right side. The cover pieces form a triangle of sorts so both the BG's are in front of me, but off to each side slightly.

So they know where I'm at and I think I know where they're at. Despite my attempts to Joe Tactical and pie really cool like, I get shot every time I stick my noggin out there. I'm facing two guns and they know where I'm at. I lean out to my left and see no one on the far left edge of the cover in front of me. I lean out even more to get a view of the right edge of that cover. As I'm surveying the situation, BG #1, pops out from the left side, gets a good view of me and I get shot up. I pull back and try the right side but that works out about the same. I didn't try to lean out at various heights. In retrospect, I should've backed away from cover as far as possible to get a better angle but going against two guns is bad ju-ju.

The instructor calls it. Turns out the baseball bat guy was just a crazy dude. The stalkers were hostile, just biding their time to jump. (I'm not sure what their cue was though.)

Well executed MUC would hopefully let you get away, or in failing to get away, force the adversaries to reveal themselves more clearly. That's the big answer at the front end and would be vastly preferred, but I am kind of perceiving this as 'one or two psychos pull guns with no apparent goal or specific warning and start shooting you/maneuvering to shoot you', so I am going to leave that part aside for now. Any preassault cues in there that suggested the presence of weapons?

Just talking mechanics here:

In the first scenario you describe, you might have been able to get into cover while firing accurately and without breaking line of sight, by 'shooting into position', which is commonly thought of as a competition-specific skill. It might apply here. Or maybe not, but it is a thought.

In the second scenario you describe, once you and the two adversaries reached your respective cover positions twelve feet (!) apart, you are in a very difficult situation with little margin of space or time.

Working the cover from as far back as you could without exposing yourself would be good. You are going to need a great snap shot (ready position engagement) here. You've got to roll out tight in an unexpected spot and get an accurate shot or two in there that either hits one of them or pressures him back behind his cover, at which point you might be able to move against them.

They are so close though, that as soon as you start dealing with one of them, the other one could flank or overrun you and get decisive rounds in you within a second or two if they act aggressively. So you basically have to either shoot and incapacitate one (was adversary incapacitation a part of these scenarios at all, or were they all acting as unstoppable FOF cyborgs?), then get right back on the other one before he can flank or overrun you, or incapacitate or pressure one behind his cover and immediately go on the attack by aggressing their positions.

That's very risky, but camping out behind your cover against two opponents who are that aggressive is very possibly going to end with them widening their angles and pinching you out from behind your cover. Or more overtly overrunning or flanking you, maybe in coordination with each other. Your time is short in that position against motivated people. Well executed flanking is hard enough to stop that my inclination is to aggress them. That could amount to a suicide run, but, 'Who Dares, Wins' is a motto for a reason.

You were in a real tough spot no matter what.

[Mr_White]

Also, before all the cover and maneuver stuff: if you can on demand, draw and run and shoot them in the head, that might get it done too. From your report, I'm not sure whether they'd have responded to that as if it were effective or not.