Paul Howe CSAT - Urban Defense Course
I recently attended a class entitled "Urban Defense" put on by Paul Howe of CSAT. Below is the AAR for the class.
Paul Howe held an "Urban Defense Class" on Feb. 23-25th at his facility in Nacagdoches, TX. The advertisement for the class listed the following segments that would be covered during the 3-days; Safety, Exterior Contact, Combat Mindset, Single CQB/T Intersections, Neighborhood Defense Overview, Single Hallway Movement, Range Fire Tune Up, Medical, Barricade Work/Shooting Supported, Cache recovery/Battlefield Recovery, Vehicle Bailouts, Dealing with mass attacks, Check Points, and Live Fire Culmination Scenarios. The advertised round count was 300 rifle / 300 pistol. Shots were expected to be out to 300 yards with the rifle, 100 yards with the pistol.
That's an expansive way of saying that the class was designed to be a primer on how to handle various situations that can occur in suburban/urban/rural regions due to loss of civil order. That could of course be due to natural disasters or due to political situations (think 3rd world nations). Additionally, there was much discussion on "Active Shooter Situations" and how to link up with Law Enforcement. This was especially on everyone's minds with the recent event in Florida.
I chose this class as I wanted a class that was more than just burning down targets at close range. I was looking for an opportunity to learn some tactics, push myself to find my failure points and be put in situations I haven't gotten to attempt previously. I also wanted a chance to chance to train with Paul Howe before he decides to retire.
For the class, I brought two carbines. The first was a home built 11.3" SBR. This is a close representation of my travel gun, which is a 10.3" .300blk. The .300blk is too expensive to shoot often, so I built up a nearly identical 11.3" 5.56 build. It's a 11.3" lightweight BA 5.56 barrel, Larue BCG, Geiselle ACT trigger, ALG defense EMR rail, Aimpoint Comp ML3, Troy BUIS and LAW folder. I had some issues with this build when I first built it, due to a bad extractor spring, but since replacing with a BCM extra power spring, I hadn't had any problems in several hundred rounds. Until the class. More on that later. I also brought a second AR, which is a Rainier Arms upper(16" LWT Daniel Defense barrel, Rainier Evolution rail, Rainier BCG) with a Leupold VX-R Patrol 1.25-4x. For pistols, I brought a Gen 4 G19 and a Gen 4 G17. I brought a T-Rex Raptor AIWB holster (my daily carry), and a Comp-Tac M-Tac holster as well. Ammo was Wolf Gold for the carbines (I brought IMI M193 as backup ammo as well), and Fiocchi 115gr for the Pistol. Slings were V-Tac 2-points.
Day 1
We met up at the CSAT classroom facility, which is connected to the barracks, at 8am. When I arrived, about 30+ minutes early, Paul was already there, had everything setup, and was talking with the students that had already arrived. Paul was friendly and professional, and easily approachable.
Class started promptly, and Paul went over the plan for the course, and did introductions with the students as well as his assistant instructor, Coy. Our class was unusual, in that we only had 6 students for the entire class. 6 students and 2 instructors. It was clear that we were going to get a lot of individual attention in this class. During the introductions, it came out that every student there had trained with Paul previously, with the exception of myself.
After the course overview and introductions, Paul started on classroom portion of the class. During this initial portion, there was a focus on Combat Mindset, neighborhood and home defense, active shooter situations and law enforcement linkup. Paul also showed us how he setup his gear, including his rifles, discreet bags and his backpack. We watched videos, some of them from his courses as demonstrations, some of them from real world situations that he had gotten from youtube. After a couple of hours in the classroom, we broke for lunch, and met up at the 100-yard rifle range. While we were setting up targets, we were encouraged to pick a "battle buddy". This person would be who we would work with during the drills and scenarios over the next 3-days. My partner was a 20 year old college student who had recently taken several courses from Paul. He proved to be a fantastic shot, both with a pistol and a carbine, and was a pleasure to work with.
Like other classes out there, Paul had a "range calibration" segment. This was an opportunity for us to confirm zero's with our rifles, as well as cover the positions we were going to be in during the class. This also gave Paul and Coy an opportunity to observe us, and identify any issues right off the bat. We started off with zero'ing at 100 yards. Paul was pleased that everyone arrived with a suitable zero, and we could move on with no adjustments.
We then moved to 75 yards for kneeling. And this is where the first malfunction of the class occurred. I had a double-feed (or what I thought was a double-feed). I cleared the malfunction with no drama and finished up. I initially suspected the magazine (PMAG gen 2). After that, we moved up to 25 yards for some standing, then 7 yards for pistol and carbine to pistol transitions. Paul and Coy gave helpful hints during this period. However, it was during this time that others in the class started to have malfunctions. My partner had a double-feed on his Colt/BCM carbine. Another gentleman on the line had several malfunctions (he later told us they were double feeds as well). We started to comment that we were a cursed class.
We then moved over to the barricades, where we were to around a barricade, left side/right side, standing and kneeling. The targets were "chest plates" (6"x13" steel at 80 yards). My accuracy was poor during this segment, so I was a bit frustrated. I also had my second malfunction here. This appeared to be a double feed as well, but when I went to clear it, it turned out it was a failure to extract, with the case still in the chamber. I again cleared it and moved on. Others were also still having malfunction issues as well. After this segment, I swapped out the Larue BCG for a BCM BCG I brought as a spare. I had no further issues the rest of the class. I suspect I have bad extractor on the Larue BCG.
After barricades, we moved over to the shoot house, where we were instructed in how to work corners and first take down the main hallways. Then we moved on to clearing rooms, single person. We did open doors, closed doors, and divided rooms. Paul showed us several variations, including doors opening in/out, and door knobs in different formats as well. We were expected to clear a room from the outside as much as possible, and to employ precision shot placement on a hostage target.
After we had worked the rooms, we moved on to the T-intersection. Paul showed us the best way to handle one of these as a single shooter. Obviously, we would prefer to have multiple shooters, but the idea is that as civilians, we likely won't have someone to help us if we ended up having to clear a structure. During this segment there were still a few malfunctions, and one shooter swapped out his upper part way through. Paul also varied how the targets were setup. There were 3 targets set on each side of the T. Each time we cleared it, the "bad guy" target was a different target. This was a good introduction to target discrimination.
When we finished, we were let loose for the day. Paul encouraged everyone to clean their primary weapons, since he had never seen so many malfunctions during such a small class previously. I took a few minutes to confirm zero with my backup rifle, just in case swapping BCG's didn't solve the issue.
Day 2
The weather on Day 2 was forecast to include a fair amount of rain in the afternoon, so we tried to get as much range time done early as possible. We spent a short time in the classroom, and then it was out to the range. We were starting with vehicles during this segment, as well as with team movement. We worked with our partner, 1 shooting while 1 moved, and vice versa. We had 5 vehicles to move to during this evolution. Once we felt good with that portion, we moved on to vehicle bailouts. We had to get out, draw and engage targets to the front. Once we did that, we added movement in. Once again, this was one person moving, while the 2nd covered, then vice versa. After this we strung the elements together. Contact front, bailout, engage a plate rack at 12:00, then movement to the next range, then cover and fire round the 5 vehicles setup. As with all the drills, we got to do this at least 2 times.
We then worked on bailouts and getting our carbines up and functional, and then defending against a "mass attack", represented by 17 IPSC size targets at 100 yards. During the classroom portion, Paul had gone over the tactics involved in putting down a mass attack, like the one being simulated. He showed us a video or two of previous students, and how they did this. Paul said that a quick team could put down the 17 targets (at least 1 hit each) in 6-8 seconds. That seemed really fast to me, and was a bit intimidating. However, when my partner and I did it, our fastest time was under 7 seconds. Turns out co-ordinated fire works wonders.
We then moved over to the shoot house again. Here Paul had several vehicles setup, like they were in a Wal-Mart parking lot. We had a target at the far end of the lot, and we had to move through the parking lot while engaging the target, and then clear the corner to the hallway and engage targets down the hallways. This was where Coy gave me a very good tip. He noticed that I wasn't releasing my breath prior to breaking the shot, and it was causing poorer accuracy. This little change made a significant improvement in my shooting.
After this, we moved over to the Scrambler. After a walkthrough, in which the 1st team shot the course, it was my partner and I up for the course. The scrambler is a run-n-gun event, with pistol shots up to 100 yards, and a rifle shot of up to 300 yards. It's a team event, with one person shooting, while the other spots, and then swap roles. You get 5-shots on each target, and some of the targets are pretty tough. That's partially due to cardio aspect of the course. Also, often you couldn't adopt a position that you wanted to take, as terrain would block your shot. A 6"x13" plate at 50+ yards with a pistol after running the course, is not for the feint of heart. Coy told us the average time is around 10-11 minutes. My partner and I shot it in 8:38, which was about 1 minute faster than the next closest team. I dropped 2-3 rifle shots on the 3rd target, and the last pistol target took me 3 shots as well. The rest dropped on the first for me. There is one portion where after a running by Paul's obstacle course, you have a small mound. There you can either take your shot standing, prone or kneeling. On our walkthrough, we noted that there was a fire ant mound on the hill, and going prone would risk getting bit by them. My partner and I decided it was worth the risk to guarantee the shot, and we both went prone there. We then went back to the class room to talk about checkpoint and medical. We also went over the courses the we would be shooting the next day.
Day 3
Paul had two scenarios that he had put together. Each of them took all the elements that we had worked on throughout the past 2-days, and put them all together. There would be vehicle bailouts, team bounding, covering, communication, as well as the shoot house. We started with the vehicles; contact front, bail out together and put rounds on target (estimate of 35 yards). 1 shooter would cover the other while he got his carbine out and up. Then swap. Then there was movement across the range, dealing with a representation of an alley down a city block. Then it was movement to the shoot house, where one shooter would go in, clear the rooms, and recover an injured or deceased "family member'. The other shooter provided cover fire on the outside. Once the inside shooter and outside shooter met up in the parking lots, it was time to move to the 100-yard range to deal with the "mass attack". We ran this course twice, each getting a shot to be the inside guy and outside guy. I'll be honest, I was pretty smoked by the time we did this.
One of the other teams had an issue with one of the rifles at the start of the 2nd iteration. This caused his rifle to go down hard, and he had to run the course with his rifle slung, and use his pistol until Paul lent him his rifle for the mass attack.
The 2nd scenario was setup at the other part of the range facility, where we hadn't gone yet at that point. This one was similar to the first, but covered less ground, but had a faster pace of firing. Also dealt with more obstacles en route. Targets were out to 200 yards. This course started with a cache recovery, and moving through the woods to a gate, then a structure, dealing with lanes of fire and bounding with a partner. We then moved on to a 2nd shoot house, which we had to clear individually again, while a second shooter provided cover fire. The inside shooter would have to clear the structure and deal with a "wounded" or "deceased" person in the house that they were trying to recover. Paul had a good dummy setup for this.
My partner and I ran the first time, and when we came back and met up with Paul we commented that it felt like it had gone really fast, I almost thought we had missed a portion or something. Paul commented that it was because our team was operating as a team, communicating and not wasting time, and we were getting our hits. I was very fortunate to have the partner that I had during the course. The 2nd time wasn't quite as smooth, as we both had some misses on the smaller targets at 200 yards. But it worked out well.
After we finished, we returned to the classroom, and finished up with questions, comments and getting certificates.
Some take aways that I got:
- 1st rule of Zombieland; Cardio. Mine was lacking a bit. I was also paired with "the jackrabbit", who I knew could sprint the whole scrambler if he wanted to. By the time I was done, I was smoked. Additionally, my lack of practice with the kneeling position meant that my legs were very sore. So by the time we started doing scenarios, I wasn't moving nearly as well as I wanted to. My lack of cardio also made it harder to accurately engage targets.
- SBR's have a built in penalty. The small size is great for concealment, but the reduced energy was a disadvantage on the Larue targets. I often got good high hits, but the target wouldn't fall over.
- Kneeling. I'm used to "marksman" kneeling. Wasn't used to working barricades from the kneeling, and I had a hard time dealing with that position accurately. Also the tops of my legs were burning pretty good. I'm going to have to start working that position more often.
- Smaller targets. The targets at my range are full size IPSC targets, and are easy hits. Paul uses a lot of reduced targets. I need to do the same to improve my accuracy.
- Sling choice. I have always preferred the VTAC, and that's the most common one in the class, and what Paul was using. But with my Law folder, I noted that it often got twisted making sling adjustments difficult. I'm going to probably try a Magpul sling I have, and see if it works better for this purpose.
ETA some additional take aways:
- Optics choices: Of the 6 carbines, there were 2 ACOGs, 1 LPV, 1 Eotech w/magnifier and two Aimpoints (Comp ML3 and PRO). My partner and I were the only two without a magnified option.
- Holster choice. The class was designed around concealed carry. I normally AIWB a G19, but started the class off with a different holster, since I felt it would be easier. It actually created issues, because the friction wasn't right, my body wasn't used to the holster, etc. I should have just trusted my normal EDC setup.
- Knee pads. Very helpful during parts of the course, specifically when working around vehicles.
- When doing vehicle bailouts, it's important to make sure you unlock all the doors. One on iteration, we went to get our rifles, and couldn't open the back doors since we locked the doors.
- When it comes to discreet cases, it's hard to hide a gun. The bigger the gun, the harder to make it not look like a gun. Guitar cases work nicely (what Paul demonstrated). A folding camp chair bag actually makes a very discreet option. I'm working on a setup right now that's fairly discreet (I did not use in class, since it will only fit up to a 10.3" carbine).
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- I would like to figure out a better method for containing magazines in a discreet case. Straps work great for retention, but suck a bit for quickly getting the mags out.
