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Just returned from my third trip this year to Max Velocity Tactical for training. This was also my third iteration of Force on force team tactics class utilizing the UTM "man marker" rounds fired out of ARs. Yeah I know, me shooting an AR again, hard to believe. But knowing that I lowered myself to use an AR three times this year should show you how important I feel this training is LOL.
Max wrote a great commentary about some of the experiences at this particular class here-
A LOT of these same themes have come up all three times this year I've done this same class.
For me, this third iteration of the class recently was completely different and beneficial in a different way than the other two iterations. On the first two iterations, I was part of the team that "won" most of the engagements. This third iteration I was on the team that did not win most of the scenarios. I think it's important to interject here that it really is NOT about winning each scenario, nor was there ever any BS from anyone regarding the "winning or losing" aspect of it outside of some light ribbing between friends.
However it gave me a unique look at some things. By the end of the first day the team I was on literally had "lost" every engagement. That tends to crush your spirit a bit, even if you aren't looking at it as a "winning or losing" type of deal. And having been on the "winning team" both other times taking the class, something just "felt" different. There was a lesson there and instead of being butt hurt for losing the end of the first day, I asked the Lord to show me what the lesson was.
The 2nd day went much better from a "winning or losing" standpoint and our team won 2 of the scenarios and rapidly achieved a MUCH higher casualty rate on the enemy on every scenario.
This was a private group class that was short one participant, which is how I ended up being a part of it. The FOF training is excellent so I'm always down for it.
The assumption I made was that everyone attending the class had previously done at least some training with Max or otherwise had some experience in this sort of thing. Further I assumed since it was a "private group" that everyone trained together at least somewhat regularly. Remember- we ALL think and make assumptions off our own experiences. Early assumptions were somewhat validated by choices of gear people had, their actions during dry "rehearsals" etc.
I rapidly began to figure out the first day doing the engagements that experience and training levels varied DRASTICALLY on our team. There was a lot of hesitation, a lot of lack of focus, a high need for micro management by the team leaders and squad leaders wherein should have been instead personal initiative. The other team however did not lack these things and coupled with the fact that at least some of them had or do regularly train together, they definitely had an edge. They rolled up our team handily every time that first day.
Now the second day our team got it's proverbial "crap together" a good bit better and won two engagements. This however required a good bit of micro management .
Talking later with a buddy from the other team while we both lay "dead" waiting for the last scenario to play out, he confirmed that some on my team had not trained at all.
It occurred to me later the differences between these two teams- one saw most of the team members having an adequate amount of training and many of which trained together at times, and the other team seeming like more of a conglomeration of people thrown together.
We can extrapolate some lessons from that.
1. The team with more experience and importantly, more experience working together in various forms, functioned quite a bit more efficiently. They "rolled us up" very efficiently numerous times on the first day.
2. The team I was on that included people with more varying levels of training and experience, suffered greatly from a lack of personal initiative. I led a couple missions on the 2nd day and I found myself having to "micro manage" people quite a bit more than I'm used to doing when put in a leadership role. This lack of perosnal initiative made us less efficient, however the casualty numbers on our side sank the second day and we won a few skirmishes. Essentially, people started catching up on the learning curve with an appropriate amount of motivation. Still, several opportunities could have- and should have been- followed up had individual team members acted with personal and individual fire team initiative
In real life however, their may not be time for that "learning curve." The "learning" will likely happen quickly but the "curve" could be death or grave injury. It's best to learn these lessons NOW while you have time to seek further training and practice.
I could help to further correlate these observations to the context of survival groups-
A group that regularly trains together, with members more or less on a similar plane as far as training and experience goes, with motivated leadership would EASILY roll up any ad hoc thrown together group of survivors that just randomly got together. So the "neighborhood protection team" BS and the "I'll join a group AFTER TSHTF" plan is once again shot to pieces with these findings.
Yes, your ad hoc "neighborhood protection team" comprised of a handful of people from your subdivision that don't have a lot of experience and training working together ARE going to get rolled up handily by an experienced crew. That's a fact jack!
Rambo fantasies aside, 1 or 2 experienced people among a group of 10 or 20 fighting against a well trained crew isn't going to change the odds a helluva lot.
Will their be time to get your ad hoc crew up to speed after the SHTF? Possibly. There is always the chance that a few run ins with rag tag groups will motivate people to get serious and that their will be good leadership to motivate them on. But what if the first threat you face is an organized and motivated crew? Their might not be time for "on the job training" or the "learning curve" to catch up then.
We've always come back to the same answers and there is a reason why we do-
1. You have to get training.
2. You have to have a group.
3. That group needs to train and prep together REGULARLY.
The final big "lesson" was in relation to defense of a fixed point- think SURVIVAL RETREAT.
We did two iterations of a strictly defense situation wherein teams swapped out being required to hold a piece of ground wherein several new CQB buildings are under construction along with a porta potty. Definitely have to defend the toilet when SHTF!!! LOL
When it was our teams turn to defend it was one of the missions I led. Since we had no information other than 9 guys (1 more than we had) were going to attack us at some point from some direction, it made the purely defense scenario a bit of a challenge. I opted for more of a "floating" type defense putting six of my 8 people out 100-150 yards from the defense site and leaving 2 at the CQB buildings. We were able to spot the enemy first and get into a hasty ambush setup. We hit them hard but due to info not being passed back, we did not know that till later. In the initial engagement we whacked four of the enemy, about half their force. I pulled our guys back, taking myself and another experienced guy to hold the flank while the others pulled back. Unfortunately once we fell back to the site, we lost a good bit of ability to maneuver and got fixed in place. It came down to 2 against 1 and we lost that one.
The lessons there- the communication was poor and we did not realize that we had hit them hard at the initial engagement. A more aggressive attack could have been made at that point. I did not feel like we had beat them back much and knowing we had already lost a few guys, made the decision to pull back closer to the site. It's very easy to get fixed at that point, and that's what you want to avoid.
When the other team took it's turn in defense, they pulled in much closer to the buildings, not really setting anyone further out like we did. We rolled them up and only lost a handful of people.
Defense lesson- while your somewhat "fixed" due to it being defense, you don't want to get "fixed" wherein you cannot maneuver. Going out aggressively patrolling, watching lines of drift and key terrain features was exactly what we were doing in the "floating" defense. Also, had it been for real, we would have been fighting AWAY from kids and womenfolk. Also that engagement away from the site, would have given the folks at the site more time to tighten up defense, etc.
So the "I'm just going to sit on the porch and snipe people 400 yards away" retreat sniper BS idea was crucified and buried in the graveyard of piss poor survival ideas. Yes, you have to get out and patrol. Yes, you got to know how to work as part of a fire team. Yes, sometimes you will have to be aggressive and take the fight to the enemy.
Max wrote a great commentary about some of the experiences at this particular class here-
A LOT of these same themes have come up all three times this year I've done this same class.
For me, this third iteration of the class recently was completely different and beneficial in a different way than the other two iterations. On the first two iterations, I was part of the team that "won" most of the engagements. This third iteration I was on the team that did not win most of the scenarios. I think it's important to interject here that it really is NOT about winning each scenario, nor was there ever any BS from anyone regarding the "winning or losing" aspect of it outside of some light ribbing between friends.
However it gave me a unique look at some things. By the end of the first day the team I was on literally had "lost" every engagement. That tends to crush your spirit a bit, even if you aren't looking at it as a "winning or losing" type of deal. And having been on the "winning team" both other times taking the class, something just "felt" different. There was a lesson there and instead of being butt hurt for losing the end of the first day, I asked the Lord to show me what the lesson was.
The 2nd day went much better from a "winning or losing" standpoint and our team won 2 of the scenarios and rapidly achieved a MUCH higher casualty rate on the enemy on every scenario.
This was a private group class that was short one participant, which is how I ended up being a part of it. The FOF training is excellent so I'm always down for it.
The assumption I made was that everyone attending the class had previously done at least some training with Max or otherwise had some experience in this sort of thing. Further I assumed since it was a "private group" that everyone trained together at least somewhat regularly. Remember- we ALL think and make assumptions off our own experiences. Early assumptions were somewhat validated by choices of gear people had, their actions during dry "rehearsals" etc.
I rapidly began to figure out the first day doing the engagements that experience and training levels varied DRASTICALLY on our team. There was a lot of hesitation, a lot of lack of focus, a high need for micro management by the team leaders and squad leaders wherein should have been instead personal initiative. The other team however did not lack these things and coupled with the fact that at least some of them had or do regularly train together, they definitely had an edge. They rolled up our team handily every time that first day.
Now the second day our team got it's proverbial "crap together" a good bit better and won two engagements. This however required a good bit of micro management .
Talking later with a buddy from the other team while we both lay "dead" waiting for the last scenario to play out, he confirmed that some on my team had not trained at all.
It occurred to me later the differences between these two teams- one saw most of the team members having an adequate amount of training and many of which trained together at times, and the other team seeming like more of a conglomeration of people thrown together.
We can extrapolate some lessons from that.
1. The team with more experience and importantly, more experience working together in various forms, functioned quite a bit more efficiently. They "rolled us up" very efficiently numerous times on the first day.
2. The team I was on that included people with more varying levels of training and experience, suffered greatly from a lack of personal initiative. I led a couple missions on the 2nd day and I found myself having to "micro manage" people quite a bit more than I'm used to doing when put in a leadership role. This lack of perosnal initiative made us less efficient, however the casualty numbers on our side sank the second day and we won a few skirmishes. Essentially, people started catching up on the learning curve with an appropriate amount of motivation. Still, several opportunities could have- and should have been- followed up had individual team members acted with personal and individual fire team initiative
In real life however, their may not be time for that "learning curve." The "learning" will likely happen quickly but the "curve" could be death or grave injury. It's best to learn these lessons NOW while you have time to seek further training and practice.
I could help to further correlate these observations to the context of survival groups-
A group that regularly trains together, with members more or less on a similar plane as far as training and experience goes, with motivated leadership would EASILY roll up any ad hoc thrown together group of survivors that just randomly got together. So the "neighborhood protection team" BS and the "I'll join a group AFTER TSHTF" plan is once again shot to pieces with these findings.
Yes, your ad hoc "neighborhood protection team" comprised of a handful of people from your subdivision that don't have a lot of experience and training working together ARE going to get rolled up handily by an experienced crew. That's a fact jack!
Rambo fantasies aside, 1 or 2 experienced people among a group of 10 or 20 fighting against a well trained crew isn't going to change the odds a helluva lot.
Will their be time to get your ad hoc crew up to speed after the SHTF? Possibly. There is always the chance that a few run ins with rag tag groups will motivate people to get serious and that their will be good leadership to motivate them on. But what if the first threat you face is an organized and motivated crew? Their might not be time for "on the job training" or the "learning curve" to catch up then.
We've always come back to the same answers and there is a reason why we do-
1. You have to get training.
2. You have to have a group.
3. That group needs to train and prep together REGULARLY.
The final big "lesson" was in relation to defense of a fixed point- think SURVIVAL RETREAT.
We did two iterations of a strictly defense situation wherein teams swapped out being required to hold a piece of ground wherein several new CQB buildings are under construction along with a porta potty. Definitely have to defend the toilet when SHTF!!! LOL
When it was our teams turn to defend it was one of the missions I led. Since we had no information other than 9 guys (1 more than we had) were going to attack us at some point from some direction, it made the purely defense scenario a bit of a challenge. I opted for more of a "floating" type defense putting six of my 8 people out 100-150 yards from the defense site and leaving 2 at the CQB buildings. We were able to spot the enemy first and get into a hasty ambush setup. We hit them hard but due to info not being passed back, we did not know that till later. In the initial engagement we whacked four of the enemy, about half their force. I pulled our guys back, taking myself and another experienced guy to hold the flank while the others pulled back. Unfortunately once we fell back to the site, we lost a good bit of ability to maneuver and got fixed in place. It came down to 2 against 1 and we lost that one.
The lessons there- the communication was poor and we did not realize that we had hit them hard at the initial engagement. A more aggressive attack could have been made at that point. I did not feel like we had beat them back much and knowing we had already lost a few guys, made the decision to pull back closer to the site. It's very easy to get fixed at that point, and that's what you want to avoid.
When the other team took it's turn in defense, they pulled in much closer to the buildings, not really setting anyone further out like we did. We rolled them up and only lost a handful of people.
Defense lesson- while your somewhat "fixed" due to it being defense, you don't want to get "fixed" wherein you cannot maneuver. Going out aggressively patrolling, watching lines of drift and key terrain features was exactly what we were doing in the "floating" defense. Also, had it been for real, we would have been fighting AWAY from kids and womenfolk. Also that engagement away from the site, would have given the folks at the site more time to tighten up defense, etc.
So the "I'm just going to sit on the porch and snipe people 400 yards away" retreat sniper BS idea was crucified and buried in the graveyard of piss poor survival ideas. Yes, you have to get out and patrol. Yes, you got to know how to work as part of a fire team. Yes, sometimes you will have to be aggressive and take the fight to the enemy.
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