Viability of Pieing

[Erik]

Again, to me thats a mindset thing. Anyone, who puts their mind to it, can cultivate mindset.

Hell, just read Starship Troopers or any of Steven Pressfields books if you want to start learning about mindset.

This constant notion of "being surprised" when clearing a house. Thats straight up bad to go. Surprise is a lack of discipline and mental control which is going to equate to you being jumpy and likely shooting people who dont need to be shot.

Thanks. I'm not going to look to Starship Troopers for my mindset lessons but if it works for you, great. Mindset is really not the issue that I'm highlighting in any event. Substitute "without their performance degrading because they're operating from an informational deficit" for "without being surprised" in my quoted post and that will at least clarify the one portion of it that you chose to address.

[HCM]

Substitute "without their performance degrading because they're operating from an informational deficit" for "without being surprised"

This (at least partly) what I was referring to as "cognitive load."

Defaulting to the expectation of finding something/someone when searching will help reduce processing time but you still have to process and act on what ever stimulus you encounter and that takes time.

[DDTSGM]

Don't know what happened there - deleted quoted post.

[TheRoland]

Just want to say that as a someone that's mostly an internet boob, I've found this thread's discussion really interesting. As someone who will never clear a house that's not my own, I frankly had never really considered which of my interior corners are likely to stop bullets (a couple of them) and which are concealment (most of them).

Every good thread needs a dramatic argument for drama's sake but this is, imho, one of the best PF tactics threads in a while as a bystander.

[DDTSGM]

Several people have already mentioned that the trend towards pieing prior to room entry didn’t come from Sims scenarios. It came from dudes in Iraq and Afghanistan dynamically entering rooms and suddenly finding themselves face to face with a machine gun emplacement that they would have been able to see prior to entry had they tried to clear the room from outside first.

Pretty sure we were teaching that to recruits prior to 9/11. At one of the first NTOA Active Shooter Courses (conducted in Phoenix by a guy named Parker from Omaha PD, IIRC) they lined us outside a room to see our two-man entries. I and my associate, Mark, were kind of looking at each like 'WTF, why are these guys doing blind entries?' When we got to the door, Mark sliced it quick, signaled me and we entered.

We went back out to watch and every team following sliced the door and entered as we did.

So I'm saying we invented it, neither of us has ever been to Iraq or Afghanistan.

[WobblyPossum]

Not at all. That is part of the discussion thing. Dont worry, I wont demand your biography.

From one of my earlier posts I laid out my tactical thought process. The driving considerations are 1) Do I have to go into that room 2) Do the walls stop bullets.

There can be multiple reasons that you "have to go into that room". Whatever that driving force is, If I have to go into a room. Im going into that room. Pieing, IMO, is fairly easy to be compromised while doing. The atmospherics that can be stacked against you are amazing. Lighting, noise etc. Now, I have a bad guy, who maybe was unaware, but now way more aware of my presence. This gives him the time and ability to fix me with fire. If I had to go into that room, I now am in a deficit getting into a slug match. Could you sneak up on a door and shoot some dudes with them never knowing. 100%. IMO that is something easier said than done. So to stack the odds in my favor, Im going to do (IIRC) what Craig teaches in AMIS and use dynamic movement in an attempt to draw the muzzle traverse. Also referred too as running rabbit. I am now relying on me setting the pace of the fight. This coupled with people suck at shooting moving targets and tend to shoot where you were...

You also brought up, what if there are multiple guys in that room...Well...if there are multiple guys in that room, and you are pieing the door. Im not sure how you think that is going to go down...They dont just stand there and let you take them one at a time. The simplest answer is they all do a mag dump at the door....

Next you mentioned Afghanistan and Iraq. Structures in those parts of the world are drastically different in terms of how the interact with bullets. There are numerous other things at play that I will not discuss. But those are part of a tactical thought process and escalation of force .

This brings us back to one of the points first raised in this thread, and in training I’ve had: having to clear a structure by yourself is a shitty thing to be involved in. There are multiple TTPs you can employ but none of them covers every possible scenario or risk. You can try to clear rooms from the threshold, which exposes you to the risk of people shooting you, unseen, through walls or door frames. You can try to enter rooms dynamically and hope that if you run into a deadly force problem, the other guy or guys don’t hit you first. I agree with you in that my understanding of the thought process behind pieing is that it’s partially based on the idea/assumption that people aren’t overly likely to shoot at things they can’t see. I believe the idea of solo dynamic entry is based on the idea/assumption that the other guy isn’t very good with his gun and is going to be unable to put bullets into you before you can put bullets into him.

Back to the “surprise” issue: as usual, I failed to articulate exactly what I meant in a clear manner and the conversation has drifted. What I was trying to convey was better explained by @HCM when he was discussing cognitive load and overload. I thought I had been more clear in the context of the post in which I initially used the word “surprise” but I obviously was not. I was not using the word in the mindset context you’re using it in. When I wrote “surprise” I didn’t mean finding the contents of the room you just entered to be entirely unexpected because you failed to mentally prepare for conflict. I didn’t mean surprise at actually finding that threats happen to exist inside the room. What I meant was making entry and now having to orient yourself to all of the circumstances inside the room simultaneously in a very compressed timeframe. Pieing from the threshold at least let’s me process a substantial part of the room, let’s say 80%, before I actually get inside. That only requires me to have to process the remaining 20% once I enter. Yes, I’m hoping that no one shoots me through the wall while I’m pieing. Dynamically entering the room requires that I have to process 100% of the room while I cross the threshold, and immediately after entering, and find myself hip deep in whatever ends up being inside.

You don’t like the idea of hoping people decide not to shoot at you through the wall while you clear from a threshold. I don’t like the idea of hoping whoever is inside the room sucks at shooting and ends up missing me as I enter and get my own gun in the fight. Maybe that’s part of the context and circumstances of our experiences. Most of the structures I end up going into at work are pretty small and have corresponding small rooms inside. I don’t want to have to count on someone missing me in a room small enough that you could probably point your gun in the general area in front of you, close your eyes, crank off a bunch of rounds, and practically guarantee hitting someone. As others have already said, it all depends because there isn’t one correct answer.

[43Under]

Like a trainwreck that I have to watch, I have returned to see more.

I have one question that I pose to all those who know what they are doing when it comes to this stuff. And just for the record, I posted MY resume earlier so that people would know where I was coming from (i.e., Joe Schmo who's taken a bunch of classes, NOT someone who does this stuff for a living).

The OP much earlier referenced shooting (or at least being ready to shoot) from what he termed "compromised positions", which he said included all one-handed shooting. And he regarded this as a thing to be avoided.

So here's the question:

If the only/best way to "take down a room" and "dominate it" is to hit it on the run (and I do believe that's what he's been advocating....and it's what we did in AMIS after first doing some pieing from outside the room), is having to then shoot the bad guy while you are essentially sprinting easier or harder than shooting potentially one-handed from a more stable position?

I know where my skill level is (based on lots of flat range work and getting shot a lot in AMIS), but I do think it's another consideration. For many of us who aren't Gabe White, etc., shooting while sprinting would definitely qualify as "shooting from a compromised position". Also keep in mind that if I'm sprinting into a room in an occupied dwelling of some sort (in my situation, most likely my own), there are numerous impediments to free movement within said room (furniture, kids' toys on the floor, etc.) that could definitely channel my movement where I'd prefer not to go and/or cause me to slip, trip, etc.

I know the answer is "practice more", but still.....thoughts?

[KEW8338]

I think that's a very dogmatic take on an open stack that isn't particularly well supported by its use in real life from various organizations.

One of the things you keep bringing up is whether these organizations are actually getting in gunfights. Again, since you're secret squirrel and we don't know what your context is, nor the experiences you're speaking from as a contextual basis which we don't have.....I think you might be surprised how often police get into shootings, particularly busy police tactical teams. They absolutely have relevant experience and why they're doing stuff a certain way, and it totally varies from locale to locale. Talking with dudes from those teams is often much more enlightening that talking to most .mil types. At one of my prior assignments, we had our tactics instructors from our primary training center come up and run us through rehearsals in preparation for a huge warrant service. We then brought them into the places we hit after they had been searched, and they understood why certain things they were teaching weren't working in our locale (NYC). They really appreciated it, and I think it was a good learning point for an already excellent group of instructors.

In this thread, you've consistently group everything you don't value into a category of "well they must not have the real world experience I have" and taking an absolutist stance on various tactics, which is weak sauce regardless of whatever praise Craig seems to hold for you...and why a lot of people here are finding it particularly difficult to converse with you. As @BehindBlueI's described, this isn't a particularly useful conversation.

p.s. regarding where I work, I don't think you have the right idea. I won't post openly because that would put my account here under work's social media policy, but I'm an open book in PMs (in which you've already stated you don't care).

If speaking from a team perspective. Open stacks, if we are talking about the same thing, can lead to, bad geometries of fire (guys shooting from the back of the bus as people call it), and the limited ability for more than 1 guy to influence what's going on.

Forge Tactical, which I think is heavily Pat's CQB, is principled in that it always tries to get as many guns forward as possible.

Most everywhere I've seen or heard of, if terrain allows, goes to some type of cross coverage to max out forward facing guns.

I have never claimed God mode experience. I'm not the one demanding resumes to be part of this conversation.

If an organization does something regularly, with good results. Good for them.

[KEW8338]

Thanks. I'm not going to look to Starship Troopers for my mindset lessons but if it works for you, great. Mindset is really not the issue that I'm highlighting in any event. Substitute "without their performance degrading because they're operating from an informational deficit" for "without being surprised" in my quoted post and that will at least clarify the one portion of it that you chose to address.

IIRC it's the only book that's been on every branches suggested reading list at one point in time

[KEW8338]

Pretty sure we were teaching that to recruits prior to 9/11. At one of the first NTOA Active Shooter Courses (conducted in Phoenix by a guy named Parker from Omaha PD, IIRC) they lined us outside a room to see our two-man entries. I and my associate, Mark, were kind of looking at each like 'WTF, why are these guys doing blind entries?' When we got to the door, Mark sliced it quick, signaled me and we entered.

We went back out to watch and every team following sliced the door and entered as we did.

So I'm saying we invented it, neither of us has ever been to Iraq or Afghanistan.

My original exposure to it was based off the British duking it out in northern Ireland.

Entry ways we're often mined . So there was a dick dance of a sweeper and a security guy have to check the "fatal funnel" for bombs while a guy covered hid ass..

Who knows if that's true....