The Annoying Rightness of Bolke and Dobbs

[JHC]

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.

Sounds like the 99 Drill is quite well suited to that.

[Mr_White]

...I had fired a very tight group just slightly to the right of the suspect...(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)...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...
...

I was so focused on my sights that all of her actions were covered by my sights and gun in my line of vision.

...

No IDPA match or IPSC match has ever offered the real-world complexity of what the video simulator delivered.

A few thoughts and questions, John:

Can you estimate the distance?

The idea that you shot too fast seems a bit in conflict with the fact that you shot such a tight group. It sure sounds like you were certain that you saw the sight picture you thought you needed. The small group suggests you were careful on the trigger. Are you left-handed and consistently jerked the shots right into a small group?

I wouldn't discount the lack of a zeroed laser gun in a simulator either. I understand you want to take responsibility for the scenario outcome, but a miscalibrated laser gun could account for exactly what you describe. Miscalibrated guns in simulators such as FATS and MILO are a real problem on tight shots.

Do you think you had a vision problem or misperception that had you thinking you were aiming at the correct target even though you weren't? Did you get the threat and the bystander mixed up? (Doesn't sound like it, just trying to ask the questions to help work this out.)

As far as other solutions, was there the opportunity to maneuver and change the angle to mitigate danger to bystanders? Video simulators certainly have their good points, but their greatest negative in my opinion is that the video depiction does not comport with actual physical space or movement by the participant, and to a large degree you are stuck with the camera angle they give you. In this scenario, suppose changing the angle were a viable tactic - I bet the simulator program would not allow that to be effective.

Practical shooting sports are great for making you have to shoot good hits on widely varied shooting problems....if you want to win, anyway. Misses and no-shoots do not help your score. At all.

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

I'm not Chuck, but I personally think a lot of emphasis should be put on solving foreground and background problems. One of the key types of exercises I use in training regarding this issue is to set up a square range problem that involves foreground or background bystanders, or both, and have the student change the angle to mitigate danger to them.

This can be all upside. John said he felt behind the curve. If you can quickly recognize a spatial solution, you can move to change the angle while drawing, and hopefully also reducing a perceived time deficit by being a more difficult, moving target yourself until in position to take a safer shot.

Alternatively, one might get low and send the shots in a rising trajectory, or close distance and fire shots in a descending trajectory. And when it is a recognized high-consequence shot, like with a pack of bystanders behind the threat and the angle cannot effectively be changed, then the shooter better hit and use the threat as the backstop, or come up with another solution altogether.

Don't know whether this applied to John's scenario, especially given the prisoner escort aspect, which is something I know nothing about.

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.

One shot in the wrong place (by that I mean bystander) is too many. This seems like a problem of marksmanship. Or of laser pistol calibration. I want to understand the disconnect between John being very focused on the sight picture, deeming it acceptable, manipulating the trigger carefully enough to shoot a tight group, but apparently not carefully enough to put the group in the right place. Doesn't quite add up to me.

I think "just slow down" is a simplistic solution that is wrong far more than it is right.

Couldn't agree more. It's not that slowing down is something that can necessarily be avoided in giving a shot its due care. It is simply an unproductive way to think about a marksmanship problem and what's necessary to solve it. A much better way to think of it is in terms of being more careful. If that happens slower, then ok, that's what was apparently necessary. But frequently careful shooting gets done just as fast as reckless shooting and the real difference is in the root intention and mindset of the shooter.

Sounds like the 99 Drill is quite well suited to that.

Frank Garcia's Dot Drill is the hardest in the direction of highly disciplined shooting.

[Josh Runkle]

What drills do you shoot to emphasize the mental effect on shooting of a perceived penalty for a miss?

If someone punched you in the face as hard as they could every time you missed a shot on dot torture, you would either:

A: be very, very confident in your ability to make hits without question, and you would shoot the same.

B: slow down extremely to the point where you are questioning your every move and shoot differently, because you don't want to get punched in the face.

C: Choose not to shoot, because you are worried about the consequences.

D: become over-confident and miss and get punched in the face.

E: get psyched out and miss a shot you hit 99% of the time and get punched in the face.

Obviously, you shouldn't always include this in training, or else there is no room to push yourself and grow.

However, I find perceived penalty for a miss to be helpful when used very sparingly.

The "punched in the face" example mimics having to shoot a bad guy who may be surrounded by a crowd. In your example, you were way too overconfident and "killed" a bystander. As we continue to shoot paper targets and learn from misses, when those misses have no consequences, we mistakenly believe that we could/should shoot the same as we would on a piece of paper, hence the evidenced example of failure with the simulator.

Ideally, you would hesitate because of how serious missing would hurt others, but be skilled enough and confident enough to take and make the shot. If you are shooting without skill, as skill. If you are shooting without confidence, become confident. If you are shooting without hesitation (when regarding life safety, not a sport) then you are being unrealistic in training.

ETA: don't do the "punched in the face" drill. Do something like a FAST drill where misses mean dollars to charity, etc.

[JodyH]

You can shoot faster than you can "see".
Putting multiple shots into a tight group on the wrong target is not a technical failure its a failure to process and adapt to the results of each shot.

A good drill to see this phenomenon in action is a set of steel plates, preferably small enough to be challenging. I use 4" plates at 12 yards or so.
First run though, shoot them as fast as you can. Transition between plates during recoil and make up missed plates on the fly.
Next run through you may not transition to the next plate until the plate you're on is hit.
The first run is a good example of your pure shooting speed.
The second run is an example of how fast you can shoot and process the results.

[Mr_White]

You can shoot faster than you can "see".
Putting multiple shots into a tight group on the wrong target is not a technical failure its a failure to process and adapt to the results of each shot.

Some of this is probably a moot point anyway, because I don't think that bystander is going to stand there and take six or seven shots in the face without falling out of the sight picture.

I'd like to hear more from John on what he saw in the sight picture, because from what he's said, it sure sounds like he was concentrating an awful lot on the sight picture, and wasn't shooting faster than he could see, or didn't think he was.

To me, a couple of important questions are: how does he actually get a proper sight picture on the correct threat, yet send the shots into another target? Or, how does he perceive a proper sight picture on the threat, yet actually have the gun aligned with the bystander? (Trigger manipulation, improperly zeroed laser gun, maybe visual/mental lapse in observation.)

[41magfan]

Until I started using my handguns for hunting - engaging dynamic targets under totally unpredictable circumstances - I really didn’t appreciate the “timing” thing. Focusing too hard on the sights can easily cause you to shoot where the target WAS instead of where it IS when the shot breaks. Additionally, shooting a moving target at a fixed rate of travel on a square range gives you a false sense of this variable since the predictable path and speed of the target allows you to get away with watching the sights instead of the target.

If you’re sight focused hard enough, the target can move quite a bit in the time it takes to execute a controlled pull of the trigger, especially if the shot requires what you perceive to be precision. The key to all of my successful shooting in the field is the ability to quickly process what the shot requires in terms of trigger and sights because it’s never an absolute.

[John Hearne]

Can you estimate the distance?

With the way everything was setup, I'd say the simulated distance was 10-15 yards.

I wouldn't discount the lack of a zeroed laser gun in a simulator either. I understand you want to take responsibility for the scenario outcome, but a miscalibrated laser gun could account for exactly what you describe. Miscalibrated guns in simulators such as FATS and MILO are a real problem on tight shots.

I was not disturbed so much by the first rounds as I had 100% certainty that I had placed my sights high on the threat's chest. My rounds struck just to the right, of where I remember my sights being. Taken from a pure marksmanship measure, my group was only 1" or so off, it was just a very tight shot. I had run two previous scenarios and had been reminded about looking over my sights when I face shot a dude I thought I had shot in the chest. I was far more disturbed by my selection of an entirely inappropriate shooting cadence for the problem I was presented AND that last round I let off. I was 100% aware I had done it but was also 100% unable to do anything about it. I felt like I had gotten suckered in and fell for it - it was a perfectly natural reaction to shoot really fast - it was just the wrong decision.

As far as other solutions, was there the opportunity to maneuver and change the angle to mitigate danger to bystanders? Video simulators certainly have their good points, but their greatest negative in my opinion is that the video depiction does not comport with actual physical space or movement by the participant, and to a large degree you are stuck with the camera angle they give you. In this scenario, suppose changing the angle were a viable tactic - I bet the simulator program would not allow that to be effective.

Exactly. This was a simple, single screen video simulator, sidestepping or taking a knee would not have been factored into any hits.

Practical shooting sports are great for making you have to shoot good hits on widely varied shooting problems....if you want to win, anyway. Misses and no-shoots do not help your score. At all.

What I like about the video simulator was that it provided a "surprise stage" of significant complexity. I've shot matches and don't recall anything that capture the complexity of that scenario. You had to watch a lot of people and there was deliberate movement toward you by a non-threat that really sucked you in.

One shot in the wrong place (by that I mean bystander) is too many. This seems like a problem of marksmanship. Or of laser pistol calibration. I want to understand the disconnect between John being very focused on the sight picture, deeming it acceptable, manipulating the trigger carefully enough to shoot a tight group, but apparently not carefully enough to put the group in the right place. Doesn't quite add up to me.

I was very surprised by all of the misses except the last one. I had very good sights and I was not aware of the actions of the threat until they replayed the scenario - my sights had totally blocked her firing the pistol and the escortee getting hit. I was less concerned about the "miss" than I was the selection of shooting cadence and my failure to limit the number of rounds I sent down range in that scenario.

Couldn't agree more. It's not that slowing down is something that can necessarily be avoided in giving a shot its due care. It is simply an unproductive way to think about a marksmanship problem and what's necessary to solve it. A much better way to think of it is in terms of being more careful. If that happens slower, then ok, that's what was apparently necessary. But frequently careful shooting gets done just as fast as reckless shooting and the real difference is in the root intention and mindset of the shooter.

[John Hearne]

Until I started using my handguns for hunting - engaging dynamic targets under totally unpredictable circumstances - I really didn’t appreciate the “timing” thing. ... Additionally, shooting a moving target at a fixed rate of travel on a square range gives you a false sense of this variable since the predictable path and speed of the target allows you to get away with watching the sights instead of the target.

I've shot a fair number of moving targets at ranges and NOTHING at any range moves like a well motivate pig.

One of the main points in my orignal post was the under appreciated value of video simulators. Despite the problems mentioned above, I got more out of 10 minutes of "trigger time" than I've gotten out of 10 minutes in any other competitive environment.

[BaiHu]

I don't feel like this was directly asked, so I'll throw this out there: did you feel like POI & POA were good in previous scenarios or did you only do this one scenario?

[Chuck Haggard]

On top of all of the above, IMHO we don't take the movement and reaction lag time into account nearly enough.

If we have established (and we have through Dr. Lewinski's/FSRC research) that a copper can easily shoot a bad guy in the back inadvertently, during the course of a fight where he started out shooting the bad guy in the front, then it's logical to assume we could also easily be shooting at a bad guy who suddenly moves out of the way causing us to clip the bystander who was behind them.
In FoF I have seen this happen so many times on a simulated hostage shot that I have lost track. Typically bad guy has hostage, good guy tries to set up the classic range "hostage rescue" pistol shot, bad guy ain't gonna stand still for all that and ducks, good guys shoots hostage in the face.

Even on the square range we set up drills where if you shoot your paper bad guy from where you are when you get the fight command then you will shoot through into a no-shoot target. Making your shooters think in a dynamic 360 degree environment is important IMHO

This is where the "splits" thing rears it's head in my observation. It's not very often we have a target where we can safely go cyclic. I've run through dozens, if not hundreds, of FoF scenarios where I have to spot shoot my adversary, one shot at a time, at a pace where I can get hits. It's a very real issue that your "spot" will move or reorient and you'll have to pick a new spot to shoot.