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CQB Essentials Part 3:

10/16/2022

8 Comments

 
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We're wrapping up our 3-part series on CQB Essentials.

I've gotten some great responses from you guys during this series, so let's jump in and finish strong!
Recall, the 3 principles of Close Quarter Battle (CQB) are:

  • Speed,
  • Surprise, and
  • Violence of Action



Today, we're taking on the third principle, Violence of Action. If you need to get spun up on the first two installments of the series, I've posted them on the website. You can access parts 1 and 2, by clicking these links: How to Dominate in Close Quarters and CQB Essentials Part 2: The Element of Surprise, respectively.

Now, let's go!

Violence of action is the principle by which we neutralize the threat as soon as possible. If I were 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.
Picture it this way. You're watching a UFC or boxing match. You see one of the fighters launch a brutal salvo 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. And that, my friends, is classic violence of action.

Can we apply that to CQB? You bet.

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

And that's just the beginning! Follow it up with a highly trained team flooding the room with guns and that's violence of action par excellence.

But what about in a civilian context? Does violence of action apply to a security-minded citizen? Yup.
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.

It's all related...

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. I could do a deep dive on each of these, but since this is an overview, I'll focus on these three:


MISTAKE #1: FAILURE TO COMMIT
You've heard me talk before about the dangers of the fatal funnel. Typically, the fatal funnel is a doorway or threshold you must pass through in order to advance on the threat. These funnels or choke points are where you are most vulnerable, so you have to pass through them quickly - and therein lies the problem.
It can be counter-intuitive to move into a danger zone where a bad guy that you can't see is armed and waiting for you. 

Because of that, new shooters will often freeze inside the threshold without properly advancing into the room. This causes a number of problems. One, it makes you a static target at the focal point. Two, it blocks other members of the team from making entry to help you out.

The results? You lose your violence of action.

The remedy is simple. When it's time to go, go. Move through the threshold in a controlled, but aggressive manner in order to dominate the space. Commit to move, then to move to your corners of domination and cover your sectors. See it through.

​MISTAKE #2: INADEQUATE WEAPON SKILLS

When training CQB, especially if you're new to it, the stress, fatigue, and cognitive overload can take it's toll on other tasks - like weapon handling skills. You must maintain discipline by :
  • keeping the muzzle of your weapon oriented in the proper direction,
  • avoiding "flagging" your buddies or friendlies in the area, and
  • keeping your finger off the trigger and the weapon on safe until you're ready to engage the appropriate target
The whole point is we want to neutralize the bad guys, not our team mates, ourselves, or other friendlies. Your weapon handling skills need to be on point.

While on the subject of weapons handling, let's talk about malfunctions.  When jams or malfunctions occur on the flat range they are simple and easy to correct. But when they occur during a close quarters engagement, it can be catastrophic. You and your team need a plan of action for how you will handle these a malfunction should it occur. Make it part of your standard operating procedures (SOP), so that everyone is on the same page. The same goes if you're working alone. Have a plan and work it into your training.
​
MISTAKE #3: TARGETING
The third error we commonly see is targeting, which has two components: target discrimination and shot placement.

Target discrimination means that the bad guys get shot and the good guys don't. CQB is fast and confusing when you're first starting out. Remember what I said in the first installment in this series about speed. You can only move as fast as your eyes can process the room. Move with controlled speed and controlled aggression, so that you'll have time to differentiate between friendlies and enemies in the room.

The second part of targeting is shot placement. In CQB, the enemy must be incapacitated immediately. Shots that wound, but do not immediately incapacitate aren't much better than missing the target completely. Why? Because even if you inflict a mortal wound, if the threat is not immediately incapacitated he can still pull the trigger and kill you with his dying breath. To insure immediate incapacitation the threat, you must make well-placed head shots.

The challenge is many of us have been taught to aim center mass of the target. Head shots aren't something we're accustomed to doing on the move. And while chest shots that 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. Besides, the threat could be wearing body armor. Yet another reason why head shots are necessary.

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."

But why the head? 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.

Now, having said that, 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 the to teach "shoot the threat center mass and continue shooting until the threat is down" approach.  Personally, I'm good with that too.

So, there you have it, the Essentials of CQB. In this series we've discussed the three principles of CQB, which are speed, surprise, and violence of action. We discussed each element, its best practices and common mistakes. And we've only scratched the surface! There's a lot I didn't cover, like footwork, mechanical offset when aiming, etc.,. We'll talk about that in future.

I hope you enjoyed this series and found the information useful.  Now it's your turn.  Drop a comment below and share your thoughts and insights.

As always, if you have questions or topics you'd like me to cover in the newsletter or on the podcast, send it.

Until next time, stay sharp.


8 Comments
Rob
10/27/2022 08:24:10 am

Fatal funnel concepts are changing to threshold assessments. If you can pie a doorway and address a threat from outside the room that is the best action. While I agree the time spent standing directly in a doorway should be limited. The practice of blindly "dumping in" is ridiculous and not in the best interest of your health. This only changes if you are entering to save a life (hostage rescue). When conducting a threshold assessment one must look for threats first then read the floor plan. Addressing threat is simple never pass a positive threat for an unknown threat. Example of this is when someone entrers a room engages a threat, and the good idea fairy makes the comment that you didn't check your hard corner. Well it's because the threat was a positive opposed to the corner that is a unknown (this concept is deeper than I want to discuss here). Reading the floor plan is looking to areas that will expose you to a threat once in the room, think follow on doors and angles.

Reply
Alex
10/27/2022 10:36:47 am

That would be assuming you have an open door. Let’s say you have a closed door or a locked door how would you approach these changes? While I completely agree threshold assessments are key, I call them “breacher’s assessment” they take into account if the door opens in, or out; if there are additional locks, traps, trip wires, which side the handle and hinges are on… just a couple extra nuggets to mull over. I wouldn’t call it blindly dumping in, with a closed door all 3 aspects are still intact, after the door has been breached surprise has been lost, and you have to regain the initiative by speed and violence of action. It’s give and take but, the important thing is that you learn how to shift between the 3 aspects and regain what was lost. This happens over and over again because the job doesn’t end with clearing one room, what if there are multiple rooms?

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Rob
10/27/2022 12:13:37 pm

Context is missing from the article: who is clearing this room, civilian, police, or military, and are they alone or with a team? How many in the team? If there is a team, do we have other tools or assets? Where is this room or building, USA or overseas? US construction is easy to make an assumption about.

The other thing to think about is WHY? Why are we clearing this room? Like I said in the other post, rescuing someone changes everything, but in other situations, civilians, police, or military they are seizing terrain.

So, here are two examples:
You hear a crash in a downstairs bedroom. You move, pistol in hand, to the closed door. You pie across to the knob, turn it and open the door (assuming US construction where hinges are typically on the dead wall side). Then pie back across to the hinge side, getting a view into the room, and because you are smart, you have a pistol-mounted light to see. If someone is in the room, you can use the jam for cover/concealment and to verbally test compliance. It could be nothing, a drunk neighbor that went into the wrong house or Michael Myers with a machete. In either case, I will address him from the doorway rather than go in and have nothing but air between us.

In the second scenario, you are part of a sweet tactical team doing cool guy stuff. You come to a door and spit the door with another guy on each side. You breach it by either turning the knob, ram, or another tool. Then both assess from outside the room. You have decent cover/concealment from the wall/jam. The oxygen thief inside starts shooting at the doorway. You seek more cover, either down the hall or outside. However, you didn’t just run into the room. Then because you have an incredible team, you use a different tactic. Maybe a JDAM on the house, burn it down with a road flare or cut the house in half with MGs.

In my opinion, I don’t think there is terrain worth getting anyone killed over.

Great conversation: I also think tactics are like football. It’s what you practice. Two football teams meet and play the game the way they practice.
Neither one is wrong, and they are both playing football.

Alex
10/30/2022 08:04:24 am

It doesn’t matter who is clearing the room or what weaponry they have access to, these concepts stay the same for CQB… you can use these general concepts from a fist fight to battalion level mission. In absence of the high speed tools like JDAMs: you have the 3 elements that give the best shot at surviving and eliminating the threat.

Sheetrock and insulation isn’t stopping bullets, this is what the door jamb is attached to. I think it’s more dangerous to wait outside the door to get shot, rather than use speed and movement to your advantage and bring the fight to the enemy and end it as quickly as possible! The longer gunfights go on the more shot you end up getting. In that case your changing the dynamics from a room entry and clear to a barricaded shooter… we have seen instances of this recently in the news, be violent and aggressive…it saves lives.

Reply
Rob
12/24/2022 07:41:04 pm

You are missing the "why." Why is the room being cleared? Active shooters and hostage rescue are very different from barricaded or solo people. Not every room needs to be immediately entered; however, some do.
Obviously, sheetrock will not stop bullets, but neither will a bush. So why in woodland tactics is concealment taught in the absence of cover? It is uncommon for people to shoot through walls purposely, but I would not bet my life on it. Test this during a class, put a target up, cover half of it with something and tell guys to shoot the target. See where the hits are. Same with entering verse a threshold assessment, use sims. See who gets shot more, the guy entering or the guy using angles.
I agree that when it is time to go, speed and violence of action are best, but my point is that not every door needs to be entered in that fashion. There are times to rush, and there are times to not.

Reply
Alex
12/27/2022 03:37:25 pm

What changes in the elements of CQB between a hostage rescue, active shooter, barricaded shooter or one/more enemy combatants? How do you determine if the shooter is barricaded or not? if it’s a hostage situation or not? Active shooter or not? One man or not? I’m not sure what you mean by the last one or why it even matters. We aren’t giving an advanced level or even a beginner level CQB course here, it’s just over elements of CQB. We aren’t there yet. First learn the elements, then how to enter, then how to breach… red zones, hot walls, shot, multi room, active shooter, hostage. You are skipping a ton of steps. Basic level bro. Can’t cover it all in three little blog posts.

rob
12/28/2022 06:25:05 pm

It seems like many things are lost in the context of our discussion. The difference between those types of entries is urgency. When you apply the Priorities of Life to entries, sometimes speed, surprise, and violence of action is not the best tool. With that said, we could disagree or agree on the same thing, which depends on your definition of CQB (the overall picture or the 3 feet into a room, all semantics).

Great discussion, and I wish you and Mark the best. Hope to train with you again soon.

Reply
Barritus Defense
1/30/2023 08:55:36 pm

Hey Rob!

Thanks for all your comments and feedback. No doubt, topic of CQB is deep with a wide range of thoughts and opinions. Like you said, a lot of it comes down to how you define terms. Great comments from both you and Alex. Thanks for all your support and hope to see you at training soon!

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