Previously, we discussed how various room angles and room dimensions shape the choice of room-clearing tactics you use. But in every scenario, it was assumed you would be entering a room that has its doors open.
In part 3 of this series, Eli focuses on the tactics of room clearing when the doors are closed. Learn the best ways to approach this situation—Eli’s in-depth breakdown is sure to help you deal with the close-quarters combat scenarios you might encounter.
This article is neither about a specific rule nor specific ways of doing specific things. Like anything in life there are dozens of paths to one destination, it´s all about efficiency and safety that sets the difference. These ‘rules’ are more of a reminder of things that many forget or they are not aware of. In this series of articles, we will discuss 10 of the most important, unwritten, rules of CQB. Warning, this article is very in-depth and provides a lot of information. Click here for Part 01 or Part 02
5.Avoid shoulder transitions.
Remark: This rule is referring to a full shoulder transition in close proximity.
The Human brain is like a forest. When you were a kid, it was dense & grassy without any paths or traces. As you grew up learning new skills, experiencing and interacting with your environment you began to work and do things in a consistent pattern – basically creating distinctive paths in your brain to perform or complete different tasks (how to load a gun, for example). the more you identically repeat the task and receive feedback about that certain task, the faster, quicker and instinctive finding that way from A to B in your “brain’s forest” to that task it is going to be. As you probably experienced before, when walking outdoor, humans like to walk comfortable visually and welcoming paths. If we take this statement into the forest metaphor, the less you practice, the less feedback you receive (among few other crucial processes) the less clear or welcoming the path to a certain skill is going to be. In addition, less used or experienced skills are rendered less usable unless being deliberately chosen, something that is a luxury when human limitations kicking in.
Basically, that is how your brain works. A dense forest with neurons going back and forth, but we will get back to this later.
The Case.
Not sure why, but I keep seeing people struggle to perform different cool ninja like shoulder transitions every time they stack up on a door preparing for entry or alternatively when they start to slice the pie from the ‘’ weak side’’….check the video below.
…Wait, I get it. They try to reduce their exposure to the cross upon entry / slicing the pie.
The majority of people will do a fancy transition either just before, during or after they move through the threshold (A critical moment of itself) normally, once they crossed they will start transitioning back again to their default shoulder, essentially dismissing any kind of ready to shoot position.
Issues with switching shoulders in room entry context:
Multi tasking – Additional cognitive & motorical processes in addition to what we normally use (in short explanation). Multitasking can result in time wasted due to human context switching and apparently causing more errors due to insufficient attention. During entry it is unrealistic to expect a human being to do 10 things at once. Non behavior complaint. You will practice away with it in calm settings, but not in reality.
Response – Reducing significantly the ability to be responsive to any target while transitioning, not only because of handling but also due to the body posture and mechanics, and the offset of the gun.
Stoppage – In case of a stoppage, the brain will require longer time to process the problem (IDing the stoppage) and deliver a motorical solution which is already known for the user, but this time done from, let’s call it different prospective. (think of it as a mirror confusion).
Weapon retention – Up to discussion, but it is often sloppy when reacting from 3m and in to opponent with a cold weapon or someone running outside of the room. Especially since 3m is basically the combative bubble. 100% retention of the weapon is crucial.
Issues with switching shoulders behind cover / barricade in close proximity to threat.
In addition to the mentioned above, IF the threat is imminent, aware & fixated on you in extreme close proximity, mobility & consistency takes priority over cover (depending). Shoulder transitions in such situations are nothing but a dogmatic fixation of 1 +1 equals 2. Wasting time on weapon manipulations that are not related to the functionality of the gun will not help and will only offer disadvantage, and besides it is against your instincts.
Summary.
Once our brain perceives danger, one circuit lays out sensory information about the danger, for example the sight of a gunshot victim or the sound of someone racking a pistol slide, to the cerebral cortex, the thinking part of the brain.
The cerebral cortex evaluates this information and makes a rational judgment about it (based on several factors, including level of experience VS training).
The other circuit relays the sensory information to the amygdala, which sends impulses to the autonomic nervous system. This system triggers something we identify as acute stress response (aka: fight, flight, freeze) even before the cerebral cortex (as mentioned above, the thinking part of our brain) has made sense of the information.
Once activated, it increases heart rate, routes blood to muscles, releases stress hormones and glucose into the bloodstream among other sets of ongoing physiological changes, all to ensure your ability to handle this edge situation. But what is more interesting for us in the tactical context is, that today we know that self-preservation in fact overrides training. It simply means that during high – mid stress situations several areas, especially the long term memory of the brain, do not get deactivated. In simple English it means that under stress you will retract to the most experienced and rewarding skill/tool that you trained and you are familiar with. Nothing sexy or fancy, just default.
6.Validate your tactics.
Did you know that the majority of CQB concepts that are being taught as a default were never studied or validated entirely by empirical research to actually back up what those tactics claim to achieve?
Now you know
In other words, it means those concepts were taught and developed by individual knowledge sources and not by an empirical research. These sources likely to include a combination of intuition, personal experience, tradition, and authority. So what’s the problem, you are asking? The problem is that it essentially means that this knowledge could either be correct due to a feedback given in real world setting (for example, performing a raid against and armed active threat who decided to shoot) or inaccurate bias feedback that the person unintentionally views as correct due to the fact that he never met actual resistance to his chosen tactics due to inappropriate training framework (lack of FOF, stimulus, etc.). Eventually it means that the common tactics that are not validated through empirical research have 50 percent chance of being correct or wrong. 50 percent means broken. Have you seen a phone that has a screen that does not work but is still being used? Nope, because it is broken.
Below are three additional extremely important videos that we use to highlight tactics vs behavior. Note that the common principle for all those videos is that the immediate use of dynamic entries collapses within the earlier signs of resistance. Note the shift into survival based improvisation.
The issue I have with the western, standard CQB tactics (dynamic immediate entries by default for example) is that it is a concept technically developed & practiced against paper targets in a symmetric range setting, trying desperately to match up with reality.
In reality, violent collision like a firefight (I remind you, CQB context!) is a very raw, extremely dynamic & horrifying event which normally lasts a matter of seconds. In those seconds, the threat is moving, taking decisions on the fly that are rooted deep in different psychological mechanisms or behavior patterns that will result in an unexpected behavior that might not be expected in comparisons to the average ‘’good guy’’ motivations or in simple, the way he perceives interaction with opponents (take Terrorism/Suicidal VS Crime, for example).
With that being said, it is crucial if not mandatory that every tactic should be going through a physical, reward training validation process whether it is a student picking up a new way of doing things in a basic course or whether it is an instructor tweaking up a method, etc. Running into a kill house with paper targets and doing all those tactically trained slick badass movements is something that is just not going to happen. There is enough evidence, not only my own experience, but dozens of debriefs and videos.
Summary.
You learned something new? Test it with performance with realistic parameters. Don’t let people summarize a procedure with 10 minutes talking and one hour shooting on the same target on the same corner on the same role. It is all about human feedback, not paper mirrors.
Welcome back to the second part of the Top 10 unwritten rules of CQB series. In the previous part we talked about the first two rules about sight fixation and flashlights. Lets continue to our next two rules. But before, we would like to remind you that these ‘rules’ are more of a reminder of things that many forget or not aware of. Throughout this series, we will discuss the top ten unwritten rules of CQB.
3. Dividing the threat’s attention
I will be honest. I was not sure if I should include this point in the list. It requires a somewhat mature intellectual approach filled with experience glittered on top of it. Dividing the threat’s attention, or in other words messing up his OODA loop is one of the most important principles. Especially when the threat is oriented and you have no other means to distract the threat. However, before I am going to dig into it, it is necessary to give an example in a bigger form.
When we used to practice raids in small unit capacities on fortified compounds, we used to employ a very simple known but effective technique. We used to refer to it as suppress and flank.
While it consists of more than the name suggests, it would work like this:
1. Initially, a specified element opens fire from either one or several positions with heavy / accurate / indirect weaponry in three different phases of fire.
2. After minutes of pounding the target, another element(s) begins to deliberately flank and penetrate the objective from specific direction(s).
3. By exploiting different angles of attack, the enemy will start to split its strength concentration behaviorally into smaller pieces which are easier to handle. Those pieces are automatically reacting to what they see.
4. Than by splitting its strength and having its leadership OODA loop constantly interrupted, we force the opponent to react quite slowly or in other words – we reduce the threat’s strength and ability to immediately respond.
(Figure A) Bigger picture – SUT of outnumbered medieval age knights who are dealing with force concentration. Note the same principle of threat divided attention aka Split Force which is being used to thin the opnent resistance. IMPORTANT – formations are not similar to the modern formations due to trajectory and FF.
Taking this into the microcosm of CQB:
Author Disclaimer : I am aware that the majority of respected organizations will not advocate to go into a kneeling position when committing to an entry. However throughout my career I have witnessed many who were, in fact, instructed to kneel, for many rainbow and glitter kinds of shit reasons.
When things are moving fast and has the same mechanism of Assault versus Defenders depicted above, we used to employ the same principle but in slightly different way to increase our survivability odds. Dividing the enemy’s attention works best in “known” type of entries.
One person is acting as ‘bait’ as he moves fast into the known direction, deliberately drawing attention by movement or sound from the threat forcing the oriented threat to shift his attention to the fast moving picture, while the point man follows in to engage the threat from cover. While the threat is basically doing what humans or animals do when receiving new unfamiliar information stimuli, he will basically be forced into reestablishing his subconscious OODA not to be interrupted a moment later by the next team member which will gain a trajectory on him.
I’ll give you another example that we use specifically in low to no light conditions. One person enters the room in X direction with a strong source of light aimed on a human, while the other members entering in Y direction initially without lights, concealed by contrast and darkness. Here the effect is even more devastating for the threat since he will be essentially blind and fixated on the source of light.
In the video :
-L Shaped Room.
-Camera View: Threat View
We teach the same principle even to patrol officers who are approaching a person in an open space, say a parking lot, for the purpose of communication or search. As soon as the officers perceive danger or the officers are getting into the combative bubble, they may began to divide attention (see figure below), essentially breaking off laterally, turning one picture into two forcing the observing individual into recycling his decision making (OODA) and overloading the amount of data perceived. What we teach normally in the next phase is that one teammate is talking, drawing verbal and visual attention, while the other remains quiet, aware and exploiting the opponent’s flanks for better cover of his partner, view and proper fields of fire. Eventually, from observing, orienting, deciding, and eventually acting point of view, the threat is forced into two dimensions of consideration. More data to process, less time to react. Mental physical cage.
Summary:
Dividing the threat’s attention, or as some people might be familiar with similar concepts such as “running the rabbit’’ is all about exploiting your opponent’s human limitations. Some people will frown upon RTR, but it did work for us and to other people I know. Its all about human performance. [Ed note: consider assaulting an objective with two elements, one by air (helicopter) and one by land (vehicle) striking the target simultaneously. By the time the enemy decides which direction he wants to fight in, the aggressor force is already breaching the door and clearing the building.]
4. Avoid kneeling if possible.
Note – This rule is in reference to clearing interior structures
Back in the day when I served in the IDF, the first CQB course we took was obviously a basic infantry level program. You know, corners, and box shaped rooms. In that course it was a standard that once a person gets to his corner, he immediately goes into a kneeling position to “avoid” the first bullets fired by possible resistance. With the years and progress of training, this methodology was quickly dismissed by my unit CQB instructors, but it was a reality that made me really understand how stupid and potentially what a death sentence kneeling can be in CQB environment.
General issues with kneeling :
(a) Injuries
Before we get into why, it is important to highlight the difference between the trigger and switch zones that a threat normally has. (Remark – explanation is short and brief on purpose)
Trigger zone – Trigger zones are often chest and below. We call it trigger since in most cases it triggers a certain chain of reaction’s (bleeding, loss of mobility, trauma) rather than death. It might not eliminate the threat right away, but will allow a “certain wished reality.”
Switch zone – You hit that area and its lights off. Neck and up, shitty day to the maximum.
Back to the issue. By kneeling the individual is not only losing mobility, but often replacing a ‘trigger’ zone (aka plate) in a ‘switch’ zone (AKA your head), making any kind of impact around that zone more than just a shitty day. Why is it important to highlight this issue? Because the majority of tactical institutions are still teaching in their basic courses kneeling and crowding covers in the context of firefights that take place within ten feet.
Can you see the issues ? (answers below)
(b) Mobility
While in the majority of kill houses I’ve trained at the environment was a simple empty box shaped rooms with one to two doorways, reality is very different. Interconnection of several compartments, doors, hallways and other partitions exist in any warehouse, apartment, or tunnels and it will require the team to be responsive and take on the challenge as soon as possible. By kneeling down, reaction time is decreased and often visual view is less general and more fixated. Getting people to reinforce others by numbers is critical in multi room clearing. Mobility is the key; accuracy is the lock.
(c) The little things.
Additional stuff I have recognized over time when I saw individuals kneeling by default during room clearing –
1. Equipment is caught in the edges of tables, closets etc.
2. Losing orientation with additional teammates who are moving around.
3. Becoming more fixated on visual covers.
4. When humans are afraid or the need to self-preserve is initiated, that last thing a human likes to do is to settle down and wait (freeze is a different phase).
To summarize
With that being said, kneeling should be avoided in most cases unless working a threat from the door way or cover and concealment (HL for example). There are several reasons, but the major and most important one is the simple fact, that by kneeling by the person simply replaces his plate carrier with a piece of head in the enemy’s sights.
Thanks for reading, and stay tuned to the third part of this series !
This series of articles isn’t meant to offer concrete, hard-and-fast rules about close-quarters combat. Like anything in life, there are dozens of paths to this destination—it’s efficiency and safety that make the difference. These ‘rules’ are more a reminder of things that many forget or are simply not aware of. In this series of articles, we will discuss the most important unwritten rules of CQB.
The reality of today is that the majority of tactical strategy has not been validated via scientific research. Much of it has been adopted following one dude hearing from one dude who heard from another dude. Some of the techniques work well on paper targets or deliver successful feedback to the team or the viewer on the catwalk with a timer, but they aren’t actually human-behavior compliant, or in other words, going to work when bullets are being exchanged. The purpose of this article is to highlight certain known or commonly performed errors that are not human-behavior compliant and work against our human instincts, but are still taught around the globe as a standard.
Sight fixation
Let’s begin with a small, very raw experiment. Stretch your arm while thumbing up. Now look at the thumb. It appears in great detail, but to its right and left, your vision is more blurry. Your vision acutely drops by 50 percent to each side of the thumb. Long story short, precision sight is limited by angle due to the unique structure of the human eye. The conclusion is that:
While on your sights, only a narrow field of precision information can be processed. In low-light situations, you can imagine how fragile that becomes.
A wider field of peripheral (not in-depth) vision can be triggered by OR (observation response, aka movement that attracts the eyes)
Focused vision (aka Foveal field of vision) is only 1.5 inches in diameter at six feet and 2.5 inches at 10 feet. The central visual field is 12.7 inches in diameter at six feet and 21.1 inches at 10 feet. The peripheral visual field has no ability to detect precision focus. In other words, anything the green circle below covers has no sharp detail/precision sight coverage.
This image is a rough estimation and might be few inches off. Our Photoshop skills suck.
Now that you are aware of the limitations, I can begin with my case. One of the biggest problems that I encounter with both experienced and non-experienced students in CQB is that they move into rooms with their eyes buried into optics or slightly above. To my observations, this is one of the most consistent errors I see even in the professional circles, and I believe that its source is inexperienced instructors receiving implicit knowledge from movies or from a dude who heard from another dude that reticle + target = success. Not always.
I’ll state the obvious: The average distance for CQB engagement is less than 10 meters and commonly ends up at three meters away from a threat. Things happen quickly and up close. There are two major factors that have a huge effect on human performance in CQB and should be considered: a lack of time and a limited visual field of view, both which impact our intake of critical data and our target discrimination.
Viewing the world through a toilet paper roll will result not only in missing vital visual information—such as that extra door behind a closet or an innocent-looking tango secretly holding a folding knife—but it also normally results in accidents, such as a wingman shooting the shoulder or elbows of the point man since he could not get that visual data while under acute stress response (see video above). While using pistols, this is even more fragile. From what I’ve seen with police officers, the wingman or the guy in the back will often experience target fixation and will flag the shit out of his partner’s head or body due to the sight fixation effect. In addition to that, a shooter may trip over furniture, debris, kids, or other obstacles that are quite low and won’t be visible when you reduce your field of view to a toilet paper roll.
I have also recognized that reaction time seems to be diminished until the individual receives a physical stimulus indicating there is, in fact, a threat in front of him. You are probably asking why. Well, it is simple: The shooter missed the critical vision information necessary to indicate the presence of a threat or a human being. In other words, the individual’s eyes were not receiving enough sensory data to understand and process, connecting training to reality and making a difference. Instead, his eyes were fixed on a reticle and linear perspective.
To summarize, sight fixation—moving with eyes locked on sights—is something that belongs in the movies. Sadly, the idea of clearing rooms while looking through optics is very common nowadays. Let’s be honest: Why do you need to aim down your Aimpoint at three meters, anyway? The only answer would be when precision shots (read: hostage situation) are a must.
Flashlights are a force multiplier
For many people, flashlights are associated with crickets, dark rooms, or night operations. In reality, flashlights could and should be used as a standard, even in illuminated rooms, as soon as you encounter a non-compliant person or a threat.
Assuming your flashlight is powerful enough (which it should be), it can act as a non-lethal weapon that will disorient or divide attention, impairing a threat’s attempt to OODA himself or to become proactive, since any kind of sensory stimulation moves them closer to a sympathetic response. For no-light/low-light situations, there are several nice techniques that can reduce significantly the capability of the threat to anticipate the moment of entry.
How can a flashlight be of help ?
It’s a great disorientationtool. A flashlight’s beam in the eyes can confuse and disorient an attacker while giving a shooter the specific location of a human inside a room.
It divides attention. Flashlights are the ultimate tool of deception and manipulation. Especially since in low-light conditions, the world looks like a framed picture without details, contrast, or colors. You get to fill that picture, to manipulate it to fit your needs. It also causes a threat to fixate on the light, soaking up their attention and keeping it off your partners, who are ideally triangulating the threat.
It’s silent. The flashlight has no sound or signature, and will not compromise you during daylight.
It increases reaction time. Simply put, being able to see clearly increases your reaction time when determining threats versus hostages or obstacles.
During daylight room clearing, we instruct our students at Project Gecko to use flashlights almost as a default (depends on law enforcement or military context) upon encountering a human presence in close proximity. A beam of 500 lumens can save your life. It will surely buy you more time and control, and in some cases, even concealment—assuming your training is solid. We will get to this later in this article series.
Acknowledge the potential of your flashlight—not only in total darkness. Oh, and don’t be cheap—carry two. One mounted, one handheld.
Immediate Threat CQB – ITCQB is a hybrid system, developed through time by Eli Feildboy, the founder of Project Gecko. Tight and confined spaces or L-shaped rooms can be difficult to clear with a teammate without flagging each other. In the second installment of the “Pro’s guide to CQB” series, Eli talks about what we can do to prevent friendly by diving into the details of footwork, body contact and positioning in any situation.
What you’re about to read represents a certain procedure, After Fire, that takes place after an engagement of a threat in short proximity. I am well aware, that no plan or idea stays intact with reality as many unseen variables lurk into the background. that is why we teach it as a procedure. Procedure tends to be more flexible towards reality while plans are not.
The After fire is based on few considerations :
Threat fixation.
Re identification cycle.
Legal issues & Requirements after the shooting.
Environment.
Efficiency through effectiveness.
The shooter state of performance.
DEFINITION
The after fire rule is a cycle of actions which takes place after a threat stimulus is addressed and eliminated. This rule and approach is largely relays on the fact that during high threat and high stress situations, a threat fixation will take place until the individual will be absolute sure the threat is eliminated or when mental distress / stress will be decreased.
Additional point which we feel is important to remark is that not only dead people fall. Injuries, obstacles and additional things can cause the opponent to fall down. Even if critically injured, a person who was falling down and laying on the floor, could still use a firearm efficiently. This rule purpose is to primarily ensure that the shooter will not “shot and forget”.
THE PROCEDURE
Take a look at the following video as I run you through the procedure, breaking it down step by step.
During an active engagement in short distance with a threat, at a certain point, the shooter will receive a visual cue that the threat ceased to be active or eliminated. In this case, the threat is most likely to fall into the lower dimension. From this moment on the shooter will perform the after fire cycle which consists on the following steps:
Follow through (precision / perfected shooting related)
Fixation. Lower the gun (°45 maximum), ensuring bigger visual picture. Note that it is important to conduct a proper low ready and not just “eyes” above sight to ensure that the shooter receives a proper picture. Also due to the fact that bodies tend to fall (gravity) and in addition to that the fact the most engagements tend to occur in low light conditions, where the human vision suffers great reduction of efficiency – a physical lowering down of the gun will be required to make that low dimension is visible.
Respiration & picture.
Inspect the threat. Relaying the expected tendency of humans to fixate visually (1) on predators or other threat stimuli, the shooter will inspect in detail he’s target. It is crucial to remark, that the inspection phase is intuitively based however I personally believe it will require some sort of deliberate action & approach of the shooter. This means, that in high intensity scenario, of which the shooter is experiencing some form of anxiety or alternatively, additional immediate threats or dangers, the shooter will intuitively skip this phase and the rest of the cycle. Note : this phase happens simluotnsely with respiration.
Primarily the shooter will look for :
Hands. Is there’s additional weapon being drawn? where are the hands ? is the threat still has retention on a weapon ?
Body. The shooter will look for injuries that might require immediate medical care (massive bleeding) or alternatively, other indicators such as wires, or swallowed clothing that may suggest the presence of IEDs.
Bolt/chamber check. Focal focus shifts to the weapon (near).a look into the weapon for the purpose of possible stoppage identification (if one takes place). This step ensures the shooter will be always ready to engage a follow-up target. Important to remark, however, that during a continuous high threat scenario, where additional threat/danger are suspect to be present in the immediate environment of the individual, this step (and the later) might not take place as the individual will be busy looking for the next possible threat.
Scan. If necessary, the individual will conduct a scan.
Safety on. Keep in mind that this is largely regulations driven. Level of operations may vary. unit regs and additional situational factors might require you to simply ignore this phase.
REALITY
0:47. The shift between a threat to a patient.
In reality, you will encounter two main issues. the first is the combination of lack of time & space followed by a set of dynamic perceptual distortions. With this taken into account, we can clearly say that no, you will not be able to choreographically go from follow through to inspecting the threat in most cases. However, you will be able to initiate that follow through and get the essentials out between follow through to inspecting the threat. In Project Gecko classes we represent that under FOF conditions in CQB context.
Thank you for reading and remember – shooting makes only 10% of all things violence.
Check out Project Gecko for more information and to sign up for my courses.
