15 Nov 00

Aiming point:

I am now teaching students, when shooting at a standing human, to put the first round into the navel, than move upward into the thoracic triangle with subsequent shots. We're doing this, because placing one's front sight immediately on the upper chest of an attacker makes it very difficult to track the target when he subsequently ducks and/or sidesteps.

When the front sight goes immediately to the zone just below the neck, and the felon suddenly ducks, the shooter is left with a blank sight picture! He must then drop his sights and search for the target. When the front sight goes no further up than the navel before the first shot is fired, no matter how the felon moves, he can't get away from follow-up shots.

I've been teaching it this way for some time now, but the technique was critically substantiated when we had students engage the famous Bob Berry "Ducking Target" during a training program in Pennsylvania several weeks ago. Students who automatically put their front sights too high invariably lost the target.

Several friends who teach the same thing call it the "Zipper Technique." Fair enough!

/John

14 Nov 00

Cover and movement. This from a friend who is a training officer in a large PD. This department had just completed exhaustive Simunitions/Force-on-Force drills.

"When a threat presents itself suddenly, such as when a suspect unexpectedly produces a weapon from concealment, turning and running to cover usually produces poor results, particularly when an officer is in the open. The officer is customarily shot as he runs and is unable to effectively return fire, even when he finally gets his sidearm drawn.

A far more effective strategy, but one that requires a great deal of training and personal courage, is aggressive, lateral movement combined with a simultaneous draw of the sidearm. The officer lurches laterally, getting off the line of force, as his sidearm is being drawn. As soon as the pistol is at eye level, the officer stops suddenly and immediately fires a number of rounds in rapid succession from a stationary position. He then immediately moves laterally again and repeats the maneuver.

This aggressive, lateral movement, combined with an aggressive burst of fire from a stationary position is the one tactic that the guys playing the role of felons found most difficult to deal with. They indicated that they would stalk the officer and make a plan to shoot him, usually waiting until he was in the open and far from cover.

When they produced their weapon, the officer suddenly moved laterally, and their first shot invariably went where the officer had been an instant before. By the time they pointed their weapon at the officer in his new position, they were so savagely pummeled with Simunitions that they could not fire accurately or, in many cases, at all.

We now teach our guys that, when they are in the open, aggressive movement, combined with aggressive, accurate gunfire, is their best ally"

/John