Live fire we do "action" IDPA/ISPC/3-gun style stages, shooting from vehicles, shooting from protective formations, shooting on the move, adverse angles, downed officer drills, VTAC barricades, etc. There's no-shoots integrated into the static low-light drills.
With UTM we do a bunch of room clearing, both static and force on force, to include no shoots holding various objects causing the student to focus on positively identifying what's in the subject's hands.
No shooting of moving targets outside the UTM force on force, though.
Definitely something that is lacking in the industry.
Last edited by TGS; 08-03-2019 at 05:50 PM.
"Are you ready? Okay. Let's roll."- Last words of Todd Beamer
There is no one singular solution to training. Every methodology has its limitations due to its nature and usually finances.
Live fire is realistic, but we have limitations on targets. We can't shoot at actual humans (or dogs, given the incident case) and we need to limit destruction down range. Moving targets can be prohibitively expensive, especially is the range has back drop limitations (e.g.: firing to the side). While we can use shoot/no-shoot targets, most of us don't have a true Hogan's Alley to run students through multiple scenarios.
Force-on-force is great if properly managed so it doesn't become a paintball war and so that every student gets the intended lessons. (We've all seen scenarios go way off track.) We've used it locally. While the officers are not firing weapons that have the exact performance of duty weapons, it's often close enough for government work if you restrict it to the right lesson plans.
Firearms simulators have obvious issues, but once purchased, offer a comparatively safe and inexpensive way to run multiple officers through multiple scenarios that would be too dangerous or require too many actors to use in live fire or force-on-force. (I say "comparatively safe" recalling an instructor who put a.40 HST round through the screen of the one in the roll call room of my former employer. As I told my shift, not every agency goes to the lengths we do to make firearms training realistic.)
"True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost." -Arthur Ashe
We've used shoot/no shoot paper targets and also placed steels as "no shoots" among paper targets. Hearing the "ting" let's everyone know you just shot someone that didn't need to be shot, so there's some social pressure to not look like a goof in front of everyone as well.
We've used various iterations of decision making to include colors, numbers, shapes, silhouettes of hands vs guns, and those targets that look aren't photo realistic but realistic enough in the moment to require target ID. One inservice they hung badges on some of them like an off duty officer with a badge on a dog-tag style chain, etc.
Simunitions often involves shoot/no-shoot but I don't think we've ever had one with "background actors". I wonder if the required safety gear would make it too confusing as to who's supposed to be who.
Sorta around sometimes for some of your shitty mod needs.
Hmmmm…….I'm trying to imagine that.
We had multiple scenarios where there are multiple people we're dealing with...some where there are just a couple, some where there are 20+ background actors, including some who are armed. Not sure how that would be the case, it's all about the actions of the individual that are driving the situation, not what they're wearing.
"Are you ready? Okay. Let's roll."- Last words of Todd Beamer
Like many of you, I've used drills in which officers has to look for numbers or colors to decide which, if any target, should be engaged. That is certainly much better than just running a Q course, but it isn't realistic. In the real world of the training world, we're limited because officers in a class can often figure out where the shoot and no-shoot targets are. We tried to avoid that contamination, but cops are crafty bastards.
That is one plus of a quality simulator.
OC doesn’t work. =/= spray works well.
If a human were charging me and I believed the intent was to cause my bodily harm, I would not rely on OC to stop the assault. OC is a tool for non-compliance, not for being attacked. OC is neither fast enough to take effect or reliable enough for me to risk injury by deploying it in place of tools that I know work faster and more reliably. So, you are correct. I would contend that it does not "work well", although it does sometimes work, regardless of if the assailant is human or animal.
Sorta around sometimes for some of your shitty mod needs.