Speed, surprise, violence of action. The essence of close quarter battle. (CQB) Often CQB is talked about with that 1000 yard stare. It’s supposed to be the pinnacle of battle. As one who has experienced it I’ll tell you nuts! It’s no fun and very dangerous, I guess that’s why it’s made out to be so sexy.
I was a young man in a foreign country going through a
combat experience. At one point, two
other guys and I were hauling ammo from our position to another. We were experiencing a lull in firefights and
were moving through a series of bunkers and berms with relative cover. Another guy and I had the ammo in our hands
and on our backs. The third guy was security,
and we were glad he was there. We went
around a corner and ran into a roving patrol of 9 enemy soldiers who were
pretty lax in their patrol discipline.
We met them and it surprised us both.
But our security guy was doing his job and took out 3 enemy before we
could drop our ammo and get our rifles on target. Fortunately, it took the enemy a little
longer to figure out that they just bumped into the enemy, and we neutralized
them before they could get their rifles pointed in our direction. But had our security man being a little
hesitant, the story would have turned out different. He was ready even though it was a surprise. He closed the small distance between us and
hit them with such a heavy force, and then as we followed, the enemy didn’t
know what hit them. This is classic violence
of action. In close quarter battle there
are 3 principles that must be used without hesitation, without thinking, to win
the short gun fight. They are Speed, Surprise,
and Violence of action. In our case, we
won this scary confrontation even though we were outnumbered. We walked away without a scratch because
these principles were adhered to.
Because of the security man’s speed, even though we too were surprised,
the violence of action was successful.
Violence
of action is the principle by which we neutralize the threat as soon as
possible. If I were to sum up the concept in one word, it would
be dominance. We must dominate the enemy both physically and
psychologically to prevent them from defending their position or mounting a
counter-attack against us. When it comes to Violence of Action, overwhelming
force is the name of the game. Think of it like this. You're watching a UFC or
boxing match. You see one of the fighters launch a brutal series of punches
into his opponent with the speed and ferocity of a machine gun. You can
literally hear his fists smash into the other dude's head as he shreds him into
a bloody pulp. The beaten fighter buckles under the unrelenting storm of
punches, unable to fight back or protect himself. Eventually, the referee steps
in to stop the fight before someone gets seriously hurt. The fight is over.
Pitted against such overwhelming force, the other guy never had a chance. Can we
apply that to CQB? If our goal is to overwhelm and dominate the enemy, there's a
number of ways we can get that done. From a military or law enforcement
perspective, we can begin by: using demolitions to breach the door, tossing a
flash-bang into the room blasting holes or using a
vehicle to ram open additional entry points into the wall.
Follow
it up with a well trained team flooding the room with guns and that's violence
of action in a perfect world.
But
what about in a civilian context? Does violence of action apply to a
security-minded citizen? Yes it can. If you have to clear your
house or enter a shopping mall to retrieve a loved one during an active shooter
event, violence of action is especially critical. And while you may not
have breaching assets or demolitions handy, you can still establish violence of
action.
Utilizing fast, aggressive maneuver and fire superiority may be all you have.
But if you do it right, it may be all you need. Anything that allows you to
gain and maintain dominance over the enemy is what we're looking for.
In
my combat experience there was a point where the enemy focused on my
position. There was a concentrated,
overwhelming force heaped on my position to where I could not return fire in
any way. I had my friends firing from
other positions but I just sat down behind 4 walls of sand bags and waited to
be killed or over run. I did have others
come to my aid and a mortar team quickly neutralized my attackers who stopped
the onslaught enough to where we could exchange fire. I was the most scared I had been that day and
thought this was how I was going to die.
The
principles of speed, surprise, and violence of action all have a synergistic
relationship to the others. Gaining the element of surprise will help you with
speed. Moving with speed will help you sustain violence of action. Speed and
violence of action can help you gain the element of surprise. They all work together.
But just like with speed and surprise, there are common mistakes shooters make
when implementing violence of action. We could go down a large rabbit hole in
talking about all this but let’s focus on three mistakes that can overturn all
of these principles.
Failure
to commit is the first mistake.
You
know about the fatal funnel, usually a doorway or threshold you must cross to
advance toward the threat. These funnels
are where you are the most vulnerable. Moving through them quickly is
imperative but moving deliberately and quickly when you don’t know where the
threat is. Because of this danger new shooters may freeze causing many
problems. A static target in a fatal
funnel is or course very dangerous but also stops the other team members from
entering.
Danger
is danger. If you are going into a place
where you know a bad guy is, there will be danger. So, when you must go, go!
Move in a controlled and aggressive manner.
Dominate the space. Commit to
move, and then work the plan. You should
be flexible because combat is often unpredictable.
The
second mistake is inadequate weapon skills.
You must know your weapon if you are to take it into combat. You need to be able to reload it in the
dark. You need to be able to clear it in
a moment. You should also know how to
transition to a backup weapon. When I
taught tactics in the military, I found that even those with training and
experience can fail at weapons manipulation, clearing malfunctions, and
transitioning was always a hang up. You
must practice these three things until you have the muscle memory to do them
without thinking or in your sleep. This
is no joke, I saw people die in combat because they could not clear a
weapon!
When
training close quarter battle there are many things you may not be told will
happen that can affect your performance.
The stress, fear, and overload of battle is something you need to think
about and be ready for. You should learn
safety in battle such as: not flagging team members, keeping your finger off
the trigger until you know what and who you are engaging, muzzle discipline. Combat is a mess. It’s usually quite loud. It can be very
confusing in terms of where the enemy is, where rounds are coming from, and who
should be shooting where. You need to neutralize
the bad guys, not our team mates, ourselves, or other friendlies. The point is
we want to our weapon handling skills to be on point. We need to also talk about malfunctions. Shooting guns for a sustained period makes it
hot. When jams or malfunctions happen on
a flat range without being fired upon, they are fairly easy to correct. But in close quarters a malfunction can kill
you. You must have a plan of action of
what to do and when. I should be part of
your personal training.
The
sights, deafening sounds and even smells are different than anything you’ve
experienced.
The third mistake is targeting. This happens in two parts, shot placement and
target identification. This why a good
light must be in your EDC. CQB is fast
and furious. You must see the room or
space and shoot the enemy and not non combatants (bystanders if there are any)
or team mates. You can only move as fast
as your eyes can process. Move with
controlled speed and controlled violence of action. You will have to discriminate friend and
foe. Then there is shot placement. Stopping the threat in CQB must be
immediate. Missing the target is no
good, but wounding is almost as bad.
Dying threats are still a threat.
They can pull a trigger even while bleeding out. Well placed head shots are a must. I know, this isn’t a nice thing to talk about
but the truth is, kill or be killed.
Many people practice for center of mass but make sure you do the full Mozambique drill. (Drill described
at the end of this post) Make sure head shots are in your training. It is not sick, it is reality. Plus, body armor is not that difficult to
obtain. Head
shots aren't something we're accustomed to doing on the move. And while chest
shots that enter the heart and lungs are normally fatal, it may take several
seconds for the threat to expire. Again, that's enough time for him to return
effective fire on you.
To
gain immediate incapacitation, aim for the area approximately in the center of
the face, below the middle of the forehead, but above the upper lip. That will
"turn off the lights."
Can't we achieve incapacitation with a shot to the spinal column? Yes, a hit to
the spinal column (anywhere below the jaw and the top of the sternum) can get
it done, but that's a very narrow target. If you're off by
even a few centimeters, you may leave him with enough gas in the tank to
deliver a fatal shot to you. Train yourself to make well-placed head shots and
you avoid the problem altogether. There is another way to approach the issue of
shot placement. I know of some units that don't train their personnel to
take head shots per se. Instead, they prefer to teach
"shoot the threat center mass and continue shooting until the threat is
down" approach. That works too.
All
of these are the very raw basics.
Practice, practice, practice!
There are nuances to CQB that you will learn with practice. Read everything you can and watch everything
you can get a hold of. Be
selective. If you have a chance for “live
fire” CQB, take it. This would be
paintball, airsoft, or simunition training.
The best training is force-on-force in a shoot house or other safe
facility. I know that’s not readily
available but you may have an opportunity.
Remember that a flat range is not real tactical training. Shooting from barriers, around things and
corners is better than a weaver stance and paper. Be creative, you don’t need to spend a lot of
money if you can shoot around a shooting bench.
Good
luck and keep on shooting.
The
Mozambique Drill (or Failure To Stop drill) was developed by my past instructor Jeff
Cooper.
A mercenary named Mike Rousseau fought in the Mozambican War for
Independence. He told a story to Jeff about rounding a corner and came
face-to-face with an enemy and an AK. He raised his Browning Hi-Power and shot
two 9mm rounds into the combatant's chest. But the man failed to fall or stop,
and a wounded man with an AK-47 is still a very dangerous man.
He quickly fired a third and final shot into the combatant. The round was aimed
at his head but went through the neck, severing his spinal cord. This
stopped the threat.
The
Drill
Usually it's fired from a
holstered position, but it's not required.
The drill involves firing two shots to the
center of mass (chest) and one to the
head.
You can start the drill with a double-tap to the chest of the
target. Just so we’re clear, a
double-tap is two rounds
fired rapidly to the chest. Then two shots with a single sight picture. This entire drill is a three-round string fired from 7 yards: two rounds to the
center of the chest, then one deliberate round to the head. It’s simple but all important for CQB.
Semper Paratus
Check 6
Burn
