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Thread: The Annoying Rightness of Bolke and Dobbs

  1. #1
    Member John Hearne's Avatar
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    The Annoying Rightness of Bolke and Dobbs

    I spent the past weekend in Indiana, speaking at an LE conference. During my non-teaching time, I stopped by the FATSish shooting simulator they had setup. I played around on some of the marksmanship drills and also ran a couple of scenarios. While I was happy with most of my performance, I really flubbed one scenario even though I possessed all of information to have handled it better. When I was reviewing my performance I immediately thought of some of Darryl and Wayne's philosophies of gunfighting.

    The scenario was that of escorting a prisoner to a courthouse. There was a large crowd gathered on the steps and a news reporter approaches. From the background, a female subject extracts a pistol from her purse and attempts to engage the subject you are escorting. My attention was drawn to the approaching reporter and I felt like I really had to make up time to get out of the hole that I was in.

    When they played back my scenario, I had fired a very tight group just slightly to the right of the suspect and into the face of a bystander. (Given the size of the group I shot and my recollection of where the sights were, I suspect that the laser wasn't exactly calibrated for the tightness of the shots but I'll call them misses anyway) In hindsight, I made a classic blunder - shooting too fast and TOO MUCH for the difficulty of the shot I had to make. Instead of firing two or three disciplined shots, I allowed the impression that I was behind to make me rush and shoot way faster and fire more rounds than I should. Given the density of non-shoots behind the threat, this was definitely the time for a more precise shooting cadence and no more than two or three rounds, not the six or seven I fired. Just because you can shoot at a faster cadence doesn't mean you should.

    My last shot was a classic "unable to stop quick enough" as well. I was very aware that when that shot broke, my threat was no longer covered by my sights but I simply couldn't stop shooting soon enough. That round went into empty space behind the threat but had anyone been standing behind her, they would have caught the bullet.

    The other point I found interesting was that I had no idea that the threat had successfully drawn the pistol and engaged the threat. I was so focused on my sights that all of her actions were covered by my sights and gun in my line of vision. Such a pity to ruin all of that concentration and focus and ruin it by shooting way faster and firing more rounds than was appropriate.

    The whole scenario reminded me that of all the difficult skills, getting on the brakes, not the gas, is the real problem in most scenarios. The experience also confirmed my long held believe that video has a lot of teaching potential if done correctly. The ability to present complex shooting problems and immediately "reset" the scenario and allow it to be completed properly has a lot of merit. No IDPA match or IPSC match has ever offered the real-world complexity of what the video simulator delivered.
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  2. #2
    Very Pro Dentist Chuck Haggard's Avatar
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    When we started to emphasize short shot strings and very accurate fire at speed, to the correct target areas, we started to have a great deal of success in our OISs. Few shots fired, solid hits, bad guys going down quickly.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Chuck Haggard View Post
    When we started to emphasize short shot strings and very accurate fire at speed, to the correct target areas, we started to have a great deal of success in our OISs. Few shots fired, solid hits, bad guys going down quickly.
    If you guys don't mind a question. How much emphasis should be put on making sure of your background? How can it be managed in a scenario like the one above. This is something that has really bothered me as most qual courses I've seen always require the students to fire after the draw. What can be done to add discrimination into the mix? In the scenario John had, what might have been done instead?

    Thanks

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    Member NETim's Avatar
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    Hokey / Ancient JAD's Avatar
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  6. #6
    Member John Hearne's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Redhat View Post
    In the scenario John had, what might have been done instead?
    There is what you can do in terms as far as the unfolding scenario which I can't speculate about and what I can do as far as training. To me, it exposed a hole in my training - the need to be able to intuitively adjust my shooting cadence to fit the scenario. This is a very hard area to train for by yourself as you can preplan your shooting cadence based on the drills you're shooting. I've got some drills I've run with my people that work this but they are somewhat artificial and impossible to do by yourself.

    Running that scenario again and allowing me to do it correctly would have been useful as would just running more video scenarios that work that particular skill come to mind.
    • It's not the odds, it's the stakes.
    • If you aren't dry practicing every week, you're not serious.....
    • "Tache-Psyche Effect - a polite way of saying 'You suck.' " - GG

  7. #7
    John this is a very interesting topic.

    Part of this deals with tactics, of which I am in no way qualified to comment on. The other part is clearly a technical shooting problem -- around how we place the proper number of shots with desired accuracy.

    While a different challenge than the simulator, I do think IDPA and USPSA matches offer complex shooting problems where we get to make choices about how we shoot, balancing speed and accuracy. I am a little puzzled why you think you shot too fast, when you had a very small group. My bet would be you had some sort of technical shooting lapse having to do with vision?

    PS: I have never found Wayne to be annoying.
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  8. #8
    Site Supporter JodyH's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by GJM View Post
    I am a little puzzled why you think you shot too fast, when you had a very small group. My bet would be you had some sort of technical shooting lapse having to do with vision?
    Probably because there were too many shots in the wrong place, even if they were in a nice tight group.
    At the ideal pace he would have been able to assess and correct fire.
    The definition of insanity is shooting the same bystander over and over expecting the perpetrator to fall over dead.
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  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by JodyH View Post
    Probably because there were too many shots in the wrong place, even if they were in a nice tight group.
    At the ideal pace he would have been able to assess and correct fire.
    The definition of insanity is shooting the same bystander over and over expecting the perpetrator to fall over dead.
    If you don't see your front sight lift, I am not sure it matters how slow you shoot successive shots. "Missing" might be a result of shooting too fast, but most often for me it means I don't have the right visual focus on the front sight throughout the shot.

    My hitting or missing is a function of sight alignment/attention, trigger and lock-up. That is why I can shoot a complex drill and make my hits, then repeat the same drill in the same time or longer, and not make my hits. I think "just slow down" is a simplistic solution that is wrong far more than it is right.
    Likes pretty much everything in every caliber.

  10. #10
    Site Supporter Totem Polar's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JodyH View Post
    The definition of insanity is shooting the same bystander over and over expecting the perpetrator to fall over dead.
    That caught me a little bit by surprise and made me LOL; enough so to earn minor stink eye from my lady.

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