Was talking with some buddies about current fashion in combat shooting.
In particular the way that pistol marksmanship is taught compared to the way that pistols are actually used in combat.
A quick history. Before WWII everyone bought into the thinking that instinctive shooting (point) was the best way to engage targets with a pistol. The US Marine Corps was a big booster of this concept. The following is from Wikipedia....
Another of Applegate's training innovations was the use of particularly intense combat firing ranges, which he called the "House of horrors". A cross between an obstacle course, a haunted house, and a shooting range, it used a three dimensional layout with stairs and tunnels, pop-up targets, deliberately poor lighting, psychologically disturbing sounds, simulated cobwebs and bodies, and blank cartridges being fired towards the shooter. The range was designed to have the greatest possible psychological impact on the shooter, to simulate the stress of combat as much as possible, and no targets were presented at distances of greater than 10 feet (3.0 m) from the shooter.A couple of things.
Applegate also used his house of horrors as a test of the point shooting training. Five hundred men were run through the house of horrors after standard target pistol training, and then again (with modifications in the layout) after training in point shooting. The average number of hits in the first group was four out of twelve targets hit (with two shots per target). After point shooting, the average jumped to ten out of twelve targets hit. Further shooters trained only in point shooting, including those who had never fired a handgun before receiving point shooting training, maintained the high average established by the first group (FMFRP 12-80, p. 286). Similar methods were in use as early as the 1920s and continue to this day, for example the FBI facility called Hogan's Alley.
First, I've never seen a "kill house" or "house of horrors" that meets Applegates standards. Next its obvious that Applegate didn't just put forth a theory of point shooting but he also tested the concept.
That alone is refreshing but it also proves that his method works.
The next question you should be asking is where aimed pistol shooting came from. The answer is Col. Cooper. I love the guy. He was a true great but in this case he might have been wrong. I point to police shootings as the case in point. During shooting incidents, police have a horrible record. Civilians in the same circumstances have a much higher hit rate.
I contend that the difference is that civilians are depending on instinctive (or point) shooting while police are using aimed shooting techniques.
More to come on this subject.
UPDATE: Patrick pointed me to an article that is a must read (here) that basically boils this down quite nicely. In it they state that traditional aimed shooting, press shooting (front sight aiming) and instinctive shooting all have their places. If you're an armed civilian using his weapon as a defensive tool then I would recommend you practice instinctive shooting. Most of your combat will take place in close quarters, low light and happen extremely quickly. But read the article for yourself and make up your own mind.
I am loathe to comment on shooting subjects on an American blog, but feel I might have something to contribute here.
ReplyDeleteAs a Briton (and we do not all hate guns or disapprove of your ideas) my shooting experience covers the ideas in your post.
As a British soldier prior to deployment to Northern Ireland we would undergo pretty sophisticated training in well designed urban CQB ranges. These ranges had all that you describe above, dummies that talked to you, targets that popped up, dustbins that exploded, you get the picture.
The point is that they encouraged snap shooting, and we had a lavish ammunition entitlement to perfect it. As a civilian shooter I use, as is more common here, a shotgun to hunt pigeon and other wildfowl using similar loosely aimed and instinctive snap shooting techniques.
You guys are very experienced shooters, just giving you my tuppence worth.
well, Applegate had real life, no shit been there experience. i think we've wandered away from that toward "looking cool" instead of stuff that actually works. just the idea of a kill house that matches what you talked about would be pretty dramatic. we do pieces of it but never is it all put together. what i do wonder about is how did the Marine Corps in particular fall in so solidly behind the Cooper method instead of perfecting what Applegate had started. but skeet shooting or hunting is the perfect example of engaging moving targets...on the range, in the woods or the battlefield.
ReplyDeletei'm looking for more but i'm becoming more convinced that instinctive shooting is the way to go. i just haven't found the one solid piece of evidence that will prove the point.
Quick Kill Techniques Circa 1970's was taught at ITR Geiger We used BB guns to train with wearing body armor shorts and helmet liners with plastic face shields.
ReplyDeleteOnce mastered we moved to the Jungle trail to shoot BB's at targets, aggressors and each other.
The next step was the jungle trail with pop up targets and using the M-16.
Anyone in a Red state can probably train in their back yard with a BB gun, doing this in a blue state will Mos def get you locked up at any age.
Known distance is great but instinctive shooting needs to be taught also.
totally agree on the red/blue state divide. as afar as snap shooting is concerned i think it has to do with the type of warfare we've been involved in. deserts are a long range fight. mountains make it longer. the move to the jungle will see a whole series of gear and training tosse in the junk heap.
Deletethe jungle will do that to ya. just like cold, i'm talking frigid cold, the jungle makes ya hard.
Sol, I absolutely believe in instinctive shooting, but can't provide any evidence for it other than my own experiences.
ReplyDeleteThe range training prior to deployment to Ireland (fuck me, I'm 47 and it seems like yesterday) was good but highly specific. The CQB ranges were pretty accurate facsimiles of Irish streets, we also had ranges at which we were shot at with a variety of the weapons commonly used by PIRA. A very valuable lesson in direction and nature of enemy fire.
Secondly, as I said before our ammunition scaling for this training ran into thousands of rounds. We ran through scenarios again and again.
I believe that aimed shooting is flawed. It can work, and work well, in the few occasions when you are looking down your gat in the right direction, but they are too few and you fixate on the direction of your weapon, like blinkering a horse.
Instinctive shooting with a loosely cradled, but controlled, weapon means you may lose out occasionally but your head is on a swivel and you are (as all infantrymen must be) aware 360 degrees. You take cover whilst shouldering the weapon and fuck the bad guy up, that's instinctive and it takes work and time but is well worth the effort.
i've just started reading about some of the "troubles" and it was alot bloodier than i originally thought. but back to the issue. we're in total agreement, but it takes alot of training and an investment in ammo to make it work. maybe that's why the USMC got away from it. but what i hope happens is that one of the gun guys that totally believes in aimed fire in combat stops by and tells us why we're wrong.
Deletei'd love to hear the rationale behind it.
The biggest advocate of instinctive shooting I've been exposed to is T.E. Lawrence. His book has been cited as the bible for the Long Range Desert Group. The man saw a lot of small unit combat and probably invented modern insurgency. He also may have been the first to use aircraft in direct support of ground forces.
ReplyDeleteThe thing is for a large organization it probably is easier (less costly) to teach aimed shooting. One thing I've always wondered is even if you can teach most people to become good instinctive shooters? It probably is more useful but can most people do it?
I think anybody can do it given enough time and ammo, I was never more than a slightly above average shot but the training made me a pretty sharp snap shooter.
ReplyDeleteI would love to hear an opposite view as well, we all live and learn and I'm long out of that world.
As for the 'troubles' or operation Banner as it was to the British army, we had 129 British soldiers killed in 1972 alone (and many other RUC officers above that). A figure it took us years to reach in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Can't remember the study but I remember reading somewhere that police departments who trained their officers in front sight press shooting were significantly more accurate than officers from departments employing point shooting and also had significantly less incidents of innocent bystanders being shot. I'll try to find the article.
ReplyDeletehelp me out. what do you mean by front sight press shooting vs. point shooting...
Deletejust to be clear if you're saying that point shooting is the same as instinctive shooting then i'd have to wonder what department is teaching that. i don't know of a single agency that doesn't teach aimed, traditional, in the Cooper method aimed fire.
DeleteFront sight press is relying only on the front sight to fire, while ignoring the rear sight.
ReplyDeleteok. i didn't get the terminology but i do the theory...my neck of the woods we call it big dot shooting. i guess since they came out with those big dot sights the name change came with it. funny thing is that if you go to a Marine Corps pistol range thats all the teach. front sight, front sight, front sight. alignment is a distant second. i'm heading off to read your article.
DeleteThis article argues for training in all three types of shooting.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.pointshooting.com/rb3.htm
The best argument I've heard against "point" or "instinctive" shooting is that it's mainly a close-quarters technique, but under stress it's very difficult to gauge distance to your target. So if you train in instinctive shooting at 10 yds, and then you're in a life-or-death situation you may think you're at 10 yds to your target but you're actually at 30 or 40.
ReplyDeletewell that's a totally different kettle of fish. my way of thinking is that with holographic sights the pistol is being pushed into roles in which it was never intended. sorta like carbines being used as rifles and rifles getting chopped down to SBR's. we're scrambling the whole firearms category and making weapons into what they were never designed to do and then complaining about their performance. i mean seriously. people complain about the stopping power of the 5.56 when they're shooting it out of a 10inch barrel? complaining about over penetration when they're using an M4 to clear a house? most pistol fights are still close range affairs and i think the real old Corps knew that.
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