Validity of Sparring

[jpaynter]

Hello all,

I recently had a conversation with a friend of mine about dynamic simulations and how to get maximum time in live target engagement for students. During our conversation, my friend (a firearms instructor ) put forth the idea of having student officers "spar" using airsoft weapons. He and I participated in this type of drill while we were both members of a SWAT team. He seems to think that he won (no matter what he says I won:) ) His points in favor of this training technique were as follows:


1. students could "spar" without having to tie up an instructor as an actor
2. students would get multiple live target engagements
3. students would get stress inoculation from the sparring
4. students would be exposed to a wide variety of actions from the suspect due to the uncontrolled nature of the scenario.
5. the pain penalty would give students with tactical or skill issues a reminder to practice.

I agree with all of the above points. However, I disagree with him in principle on using an essentially competitive drill for the following reasons:

1. This drill contains winners and losers. If the matchups aren't even, the "loser" would possibly leave training head down, discouraged and unsure of their own skills.
2. The sparring would be uncontrolled, with the instructors unable to direct the action or to focus on specific skill areas, degenerating into a paintball match and exchanges of "I got you!".
3. The drill would provide stress inoculation to some students and discouragement/meltdown to others (especially if they were judged to have "lost" the engagement).
4. The possibility of the pain penalty being abused to humiliate a student by a mismatch in students.
5. Many students would be vulnerable to scarring from this type of training and could actually be worse off at the conclusion.
6. Finally, airsoft weapons do not allow reloads & this presents another training issue.

I would love to hear from anyone who is using these types of drills or your opinions on them, for or against. After some thought, I remain against sparring type drills despite the positive aspects. Thanks and be safe everyone!

[Pick187]

A group of a few officers bought paintball guns back when I was on SWAT and played on our off time. We built a course of barricades. I learned a LOT!!!!!! I learned how I was using cover wrong. I learned I stuck my elbows out to far. I truly believe I bettered myself with paintball. We did have rules, such as we had a limit on how many paintballs you could have so there was no spray and pray and every paintball counted.

I would be very leery of actually doing this during department training. There were some officers who heard how much fun we were having us and joined us only to find out they were not up to par and never came back. I hope they learned to improve, but probably didn’t. I think there could be a lot of mental scarring or negative reactions.

Why doesn’t your airsoft have reloads?

[justken2u]

Hey Pick ...

I agree that a lot could be learned from paintball ... the danger lies in "gaming" where tactics and weapon manipulation become different and often tactically unsound. Often, paintballers use suppressive fire which, while useful in paintball, will get you indicted in the real world. Not only must every paintball count, but the consequences of missing must be addressed since in the real world we are responsible for the terminal resting place of every projectile we launch. Getting caught up in the "game" environment might actually condition behaviors that will get you in serious trouble in the street. Just sayin'.

[Pick187]

Totally agree with you that is why I would be leery of doing it as actual training.

[justken2u]

Ah ... but when the adrenaline is runnin' and we are gunnin', training is occurring. Our future actions are predicated on our past actions. Our mid-brain store all of our experiences, good or bad. During our moments of greatest dread, that part of our brain simply goes and chooses the most similar experience stored in our mid-brains, even if it is the wrong one for this particular situation. If much of our adrenaline laced "gunfighting" experience has been accomplished by gaming it out on the paintball field, that's where it's headed. If you have fired thousands of projectiles in "suppressive fire" mode, don't be surprised if during an actual gunfight you start laying down suppressive fire.

You can't think your way into a new way of behaving ... it's just the opposite. You behave your way into a new way of thinking!

All the best,

Ken

[Karla@APD]

hey guys....great topic. instead of airsoft, why not use something with more of a pain penalty like marking cartridges. then the guns would be just like the duty weapon and nothing "gamey" about it. also--the FBI street survival 40 hr school does several "sparring-type"/ duel drills with marking cartridges. let me know if you would like to look at them...i saved them for a rainy day.

[Pick187]

Karla,

I would be interested in seeing the drills.


Pick

[Pick187]

Ken,
I think you missed this part of my earlier post



We did have rules, such as we had a limit on how many paintballs you could have so there was no spray and pray and every paintball counted.


Pick

[Mully]

Karla

I also would be interested in seeing them.

thanks

[Pick187]

Just completed a five day FLETC survival shooting course that was here locally. Great class with lots of lead going down range. The last day we had some drills with FX rounds. The first drill we did was student on student. The goal of this drill was to work on reloads under stress and movement. The magazines were loaded for us and we did not know how they were loaded. The instructor told us first hit wins and said go. The instructor did not stop the drill for any arm or leg shots but did stop it for torso shots. My first mag had two rounds so I had to reload and still keep moving. My second mag I encountered a double feed and had to do a failure drill on the run. The second drill we started out facing each other with a gun with the slide to the rear and an empty magazine in the gun. At the command of go you had to reload and engage. The third drill we were facing away from each other and on the command of go we turned and found a gun with the slide locked back and two feet away a loaded magazine.
What I learned from these drills was that it really sucked to reload on the move and really sucked to fix a malfunctioning gun. I also learned that if you move enough that you don’t get hit very much and most hits were on the arms.

I would be leery of doing this drill with newer students, but veteran officers that were matched up I could see a lot of benefits.

[NoVa Cop]

I attended the 5 day SSTP course back in 2003 and the FoF portion wasn't developed as well as it apparently is now. Our drill was simply two students facing each other with 6 rounds in a FX marking converted pistol. First one to draw and cause trauma was the winner. With all that's been said about projectile 'sparring' in this thread, we did learn some interesting things. First, the best tactic if you were ahead on the draw was to move directly and aggressively toward your opponent while firing. This tended to cause your opponent to focus less on his draw and more on movement. Easy hits were generally scored by the aggressor. Second, when behind on the draw the best tactic generally was rapid lateral movement to the left to cover. Most shooters were right handed and it was difficult for them to put rounds on an opponent that was rapidly moving to their right. These ideas have been written about frequently, but I found it very educational to see them happen in practice.

With that said, I can't help but wonder if there is some constructive use of this kind of drill. For instance, what if paintball type responses were prohibited and participants could only use those tactics approved by their agency FA staff? And what if there were no losers? What if the participants continued to fight through the match regardless of hits, as we would want them to do in reality? Could this kind of training have value then?

[Mully]

NoVa,

Just hours ago I returned from a Blauer 5-day Operator Course and what we were training on is exactly what you stated about the officer that aggressively closes the distance is usually the winner. Some of the drills we experienced were a cop versus turd scenario where the turd was reaching for a weapon and we closed the distance secured the arm bringing the gun out and fought it out with the turd and eventually getting our gun out and firing while fighting with the bad guy. They did one drill at the outset just to show the disadvantage of trying to create distance (like we've probably all been taught at sometime in our career) instead of closing the distance and fighting in close quarters. Our instructor quoted one of Gavin De Becker's book "Just 2 Seconds" that in his studies, if you are 15 feet or closer to the turd with a gun, if you charged the subject and fought it out your chances of survival were like 95%. I haven't read the book, but I will be after hearing the information. Really making me think about entirely changing some firearms training.

On a side note, another item I found important at the Blauer course that applies to the RBT side of training. We always brought in role players that were CSO's, college students, reserves, etc, to try and minimize any affects it might have on officers that play BG's and being shot and going down and simulating death. We know Ken touches on this in his book that officers need to remind themselves that they are acting and that they need to tell themselves they won't do this on the street, but we always just bypassed this and brought in role players. We'll now change this and have our guys get into the suits because I learned a valuable lesson that our officers aren't experiencing what our role players are experiencing when it comes to strikes (knees, elbow, punches, weapon strikes) with suits on. If they have to take the abuse they'll soon realize to not hit, knee, or kick so hard next time on our role players. We spent two days in High Gear Suits and talk about energy feedback. We also found out that our strikes on a turd will be very effective because of what we could feel through the suits. I would recommend this course to anyone, especially on the SWAT team type training or firearm's instructors. Any one else experience this with bringing in role players and they are taking some hard shots?