simulated friendly fire in FoF evolutions

[TGS]

In my FoF training, blue on blue usually occurred in the heat of the moment when there was still a vicious fight going on.

Thus, we never bothered treating the casualty, as pushing the fight at that point was the priority. Buddy aid is a luxury that usually is not afforded.

But, I agree that staying in character is important. We did, and it was addressed as a learning point afterwards.

I'll also argue that zero-defect mentalities have little place in training....well, if you want anything resembling learning to realistically occur, that is.

I think a lot of folks get "FOF" and "final exam" mixed up, but the two aren't always synonymous.

Very succinct!

[Dropkick]

Another thing to think about:
With the stuff that I've done, I've typically notice two groups of people: First is people who screw up in training and as a result train more & harder. And second, people who screw up in training and don't seek improvement. (I checked that box; that's not what I'm good at; etc.)

So, I would think that tailoring how to correct a error might be as personal as the person who committed the error.

[Josh Runkle]

For all of the "they should have treated him as if he'd killed a teammate" folks: You're essentially saying no one should engage in FOF training until he's reached a point where he's ready to go operational.

Think about that for a second. The OP clearly stated this wasn't the final exercise for a well oiled team. This was training. That's where we want the mistakes to happen. But you want to hold the student to a standard he may not have achieved yet.

The mere fact that it was Sims rather than cardboard/steel in a shoot house isn't enough to determine what kind of background or training the student had, nor how much more training he was likely to get before anyone expected him to be competent. Plenty of training programs begin using FOF very early and they cannot simply deep six every student who blunders.

Ditto for the "react to the wound" idea: did the students have training in how to do that yet? Did the handlers/instructors understand what happened right away? Was it better to address the mistake ASAP than run through a separate unplanned exercise? Again, the answers to these questions are going to depend on where the team was in the training cycle.

I think a lot of folks get "FOF" and "final exam" mixed up, but the two aren't always synonymous.

Would you allow a student to participate in a class and draw from the holster if they couldn't follow a basic safety rule? Knowing your target and what is beyond is a basic safety rule. He didn't "miss" and make a mistake which hit a teammate (learning that should take place), instead he violated a basic safety rule and didn't identify his target.

I don't think he should be profaned, I just think that someone who can't follow basic rules: 1) needs remedial training on basic rules 2) shouldn't be operating at a level that he can't handle (he can't follow basic safety...would you want a guy on a team that couldn't keep his finger off the trigger?) 3) "perceived penalties/consequences" are useless afterward, they need to be addressed beforehand, because they shape the way that people treat the scenarios and they affect the way that people shoot and hesitate while shooting.

[Shellback]

Ditto for the "react to the wound" idea: did the students have training in how to do that yet? Did the handlers/instructors understand what happened right away? Was it better to address the mistake ASAP than run through a separate unplanned exercise? Again, the answers to these questions are going to depend on where the team was in the training cycle.

1) I don't know. 2) I don't know. 3) I don't know.

My reason for presenting what I did and asking questions was to further the conversation and whether those ideas were relevant to that type of training. I wasn't attacking the OP, the participants or their actions.

ETA - Several people, both publicly and via PM, have thanked me for bringing the topic up so I would think it's relevant to the thread.

[ToddG]

Would you allow a student to participate in a class and draw from the holster if they couldn't follow a basic safety rule?

"Couldn't follow" implies an unwillingness or inability to conform to accepted norms after the error has been identified and communicated. So no, in that instance I would not allow someone to continue.

Do I kick people out of class the very first time I see them trigger check in a ready position? No, I do not. Nor do I know any other trainer who does so, though I have no doubt someone will come along and claim otherwise.

My job is to teach people, not judge them.

Furthermore and more importantly, the analogy is a poor one because violating safety rules with lives guns actually endangers others while making mistakes with Sims or similar guns does not. That's the entire reason Sims exists... so people can do things, learn things, try things in a way they couldn't with live weapons.

There are Hollywood movie "weapons/prop masters" who train actors folks 100% using Sims specifically so that accidents aren't deadly. I'm sure they don't kick people out the first time they point a gun in an unsafe direction, either.

I've been to major USPSA and IDPA matches were people got DQd for safety reasons... but they didn't get banned from the sport.

Etc., etc.

[Josh Runkle]

"Couldn't follow" implies an unwillingness or inability to conform to accepted norms after the error has been identified and communicated. So no, in that instance I would not allow someone to continue.

Do I kick people out of class the very first time I see them trigger check in a ready position? No, I do not. Nor do I know any other trainer who does so, though I have no doubt someone will come along and claim otherwise.

My job is to teach people, not judge them.

Furthermore and more importantly, the analogy is a poor one because violating safety rules with lives guns actually endangers others while making mistakes with Sims or similar guns does not. That's the entire reason Sims exists... so people can do things, learn things, try things in a way they couldn't with live weapons.

There are Hollywood movie "weapons/prop masters" who train actors folks 100% using Sims specifically so that accidents aren't deadly. I'm sure they don't kick people out the first time they point a gun in an unsafe direction, either.

I've been to major USPSA and IDPA matches were people got DQd for safety reasons... but they didn't get banned from the sport.

Etc., etc.

I wouldn't kick someone out of a class either, but I also wouldn't let someone run and draw from a holster if they continually keep their finger on the trigger. That is how accidents happen. I would focus on remedying the situation before furthering the lesson. Walking before running, so to speak.

Identifying a target is basic skill, and if we were talking about actors in Hollywood, this would be perfectly fine. Unfortunately, we're talking about someone who does this one thing in real life on an active team (as it appears). How many times do you think "identify your target" (or some form of that) has been drilled into that guy's head? It's not a training mistake. It's a lapse in basic safety. While you might let someone continue in a class with some restrictions if they had some lapses in safety (you'd watch closer, you'd correct more often, you might not let them shoot all of the drills, you might even send them home), you're telling me that a lapse in safety by someone who works on an active team should instead be brushed off and require no restrictions?

[Kevin B.]

It's a lapse in basic safety.

While I do not think the shooter acted appropriately, I think that is an oversimplification of the issue.

An unfortunate result of placing student in more complex problems is that the mistakes they make have more serious consequences. As Todd points out, failure is a part of training. The question here is whether or not this particular failure is one we would reasonably expect of an individual with the shooter's level of training and experience under the circumstances.

If the answer is "Yes," then we should address the causal factors, especially the shooter's failure to PID his target, and remediate the shooter/team as appropriate. If the answer is "No," then the shooter probably needs to seek employment elsewhere.

[Josh Runkle]

While I do not think the shooter acted appropriately, I think that is an oversimplification of the issue.

An unfortunate result of placing student in more complex problems is that the mistakes they make have more serious consequences. As Todd points out, failure is a part of training. The question here is whether or not this particular failure is one we would reasonably expect of an individual with the shooter's level of training and experience under the circumstances.

If the answer is "Yes," then we should address the causal factors, especially the shooter's failure to PID his target, and remediate the shooter/team as appropriate. If the answer is "No," then the shooter probably needs to seek employment elsewhere.

I agree with all points wholeheartedly. Absolutely.

[abu fitna]

Folks, I very much appreciate the robustness of this discussion. I think this definitely mirrors much of the offline conversation around this class of issue, and brought out much the same degree of intensity and polarization.

Suffice it to say, this wasn't just paintball - and the expectations for those involved were calibrated as such through pre-briefs and definition of training outcomes objectives. These are working professionals whose selection was for hard to acquire skills and personality traits relevant to other areas, and where tactical skills are a set of competencies that are needed due to the environments in which these folks may find themselves. The different participants have acquired those skills over varying prior careers and through ongoing training experiences, but ultimately these are "additional duties as assigned", which many also augment through personal training and practice on their own dime and clock. How they come together for a job, and how they work over time apart and as a unit, also differs from some of the models that are more routinely seen. As a result, the LE oriented team stand up and individual certification or decertification concepts aren't quite applicable in the same way - although there is definitely a series of behaviors which would result in an individual not being placed into a potentially hostile situation ever again, including being encouraged to find another line of work.

There is routinely a class of training for some folks that is designed to push participants through some very worst case scenarios, exactly to see at what point the wheels come off for a variety of skillsets. The idea is to do so in a setting where there are not the same consequences as in the real world. I think this is where the debate keeps coming back to - whether or not the level of consequences, while not the same as in the real world, are nonetheless sufficient to prevent occurrence of potentially lethal mistakes in the future.

To answer a few questions, the incident was addressed in scope within the scenario immediate after the shooting through a casualty assessment (with attending swearing). But this was done with a few participants, while others held security for the room. This was adjudicated as a vest save, so all participants continued to complete the exercise stage. The thinking was that it was important that the participants push through and perform under any hardship. The behavior of the elements were much, much more conservative in the last minutes of the stage - but they completed.

Obviously, had this resulted in an injury to a participant, it would have resulted in endex. From a safety perspective, the idea that someone may take a simunitions round in the wrong way was considered, and if needed response would have been appropriate from an administrative / medical requirement. Had this been live fire, the reaction would also have been much, much different. But to be blunt, the number of complexity factors involved in the scenario meant that it is unlikely that such an event would have been run live fire unless it was a real world worst case action. Different skills are practiced and tested in different ways, and what was being looked at in this kind of scenario is not the same as one looks at in square range or even a relatively simpler shoot house problem where many of the tested elements are decomposed into shorter drills run under tighter controls (more ROs, no live hostile roleplayers, etc.)

I am grateful to those who weighed in with their perspectives and experiences. I think the ways in which folks broke down the issues, and considered the implications, highlights an interesting fault line in applying different concepts of training across different cohorts and in varying activities. There is probably a paper in there somewhere...

Thanks much for all your thoughts.

[ToddG]

I wouldn't kick someone out of a class either, but I also wouldn't let someone run and draw from a holster if they continually keep their finger on the trigger.

Exactly. This wasn't -- as far as we know -- a mistake made for the 10th time by the same guy. I agree completely (and have said earlier) that if the guy failed this test over and over again, he needs to be kicked. Otherwise, the point of FOF is to learn, not to punish.