Truly Realistic Training

[hdwhit]

I get advertisements and offers to attend "training" classes on a fairly regular basis. To some degree or another, the description of these classes all involve the trainee moving between fixed stations and shooting at passive stationary targets. Adding movement, the stress of not necessarily knowing where the target is and the pressure of needing to fire rapidly and accurately all aid in preparing the trainee to function in a stressful environment, but they all lack the true stress of having a target that can shoot back.

And before someone goes there, I'm not suggesting live-fire training.

What I would like to know is whether there are any classes or systems where the concepts and equipment from paintball and/or laser-tag have been adapted to create a training class in which the targets can (literally, but non-lethally) "shoot back"?

[PPGMD]

Force on force training under a competent training program.

Force on force isn't paintball, it should be scenario and objective based with after action reviews so the students know what they did wrong, and what they did right.

[KennyFSU]

Paintball or airsoft wars.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Paintball is not realistic as stated. The guns have no relation to real firearms. Modern FOF uses airsoft or simunition type rounds. As stated also, each scenario must be scripted and refereed to avoid some paintball type melee.

Different outfits across the country can offer quality experiences. Someone who offers such should be able to demonstrate credentials in advanced instructor training courses and specifically FOF training.

What area are we talking about? Then we can give some hints.

[KennyFSU]

http://simunition.com/en/

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Several places offer realistic force on force training using simunitions, airsoft or paintball. Naturally, I think simunitions provide more realism; but a good scenario script and realistic scenario parameters are much more important IMO.

Having said that, you have to walk before you can run - and even if you can run a firearm really well, many places prefer to see that demonstrated in their own basic level courses before accepting the liability involved in realistic force on force training offered to whoever wanders through the door.

After all, there isn't a lot of standardization in the shooting community as regards training standards.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

I agree, the basics are important before FOF. Otherwise, it becomes paintball!

One hint, I've seen folks who offer instruction. One here is a member of Mas Ayoob's group. Others have taken Givens' instructor courses. They go to the major conferences on training.

Another never heard of Givens or any of the other major training figures. Ask for a resume.

[OldMarksman]

Having said that, you have to walk before you can run - and even if you can run a firearm really well, many places prefer to see that demonstrated in their own basic level courses before accepting the liability involved in realistic force on force training offered to whoever wanders through the door.

That is true with Asymmetric Solutions down the road from where I live.

[T. O'Heir]

"...guns have no relation to real firearms..." Neither do Airsoft toys.
The issue is realistic training for what? CCW training is not combat training.
"...many places prefer to see that..." It's called marketing. Just like the assorted mail order gunsmith schools selling videos, the primary business of the "training" classes places is selling courses.
"...a competent training program..." Who determines what that is?

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Airsoft gun have been used in quite a few FOF exercises and training programs. Paintball guns are less realistic in configuration.

YMMV - but that's my experience with each. You can have 3D live fire with dummy targets of varying realism or living opponents. In the latter case, sims or airsoft are better choice.

Of course, you can be negative about trying to come up with decent training but that's unproductive.

[Bartholomew Roberts]

"...guns have no relation to real firearms..." Neither do Airsoft toys.
The issue is realistic training for what? CCW training is not combat training.

A realistic manual of arms and being able to execute it under stress is an important aspect of force on force training. Paintball guns don't have that. Not all airsoft does; but some do.

"...many places prefer to see that..." It's called marketing. Just like the assorted mail order gunsmith schools selling videos, the primary business of the "training" classes places is selling courses.

I disagree that it is about marketing. People get killed and injured in credentialed LE-only force on force training. It isn't something you can just grab people off the street and do. The instructor needs to have some time with the students and a common teaching language and set of expectations needs to be in place. Good force on force training introduces an element of stress that can occasionally provoke some unexpected responses.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Also simulation training under stress is common in many critical incident fields - fire, medicine, aviation, military, navigation at sea. Studies demonstrate that it is very useful.

Sure, there can be less than quality but the principle is proven.

[FireForged]

The way I look at it, its simunitions or nothing.

[hdwhit]

Glenn E. Meyer wrote:
Also simulation training under stress is common in many critical incident fields - fire, medicine, aviation, military, navigation at sea. Studies demonstrate that it is very useful.

Agreed. And that was kind of what I was getting at with the post.

Laser Tag (and associated simulation setups) and Paintball are non-lethal and everyone participating knows that. The stress of potentially being "killed" at the moment your situational awareness fails - and the associated degradation of performance - is missing. And I'm certainly not a psychopath suggesting people start shooting live ammunition at one another, but rather there needs to be a system that can provide a significant consequence for getting "killed" and I'm not aware of any of those.

[OldMarksman]

I get advertisements and offers to attend "training" classes on a fairly regular basis. To some degree or another, the description of these classes all involve the trainee moving between fixed stations and shooting at passive stationary targets. Adding movement, the stress of not necessarily knowing where the target is and the pressure of needing to fire rapidly and accurately all aid in preparing the trainee to function in a stressful environment, but they all lack the true stress of having a target that can shoot back.

I really don't think that that lack is a serious shortcoming.

Ask a qualifying airline pilot in a simulator who is attempting to land in turbulence and crosswinds on a mountain runway, perhaps with an unexpected systems failure. No, he or she will not get killed, more will a passenger consist be lost, but the exercise is extremely stress-filled, and failure is terrifying.

Just training one-on-one with a nationally known firearms instructor is stressful enough for me.

And in the handful of occasions in which I have been faced with the need or near-need to bring out a handgun for serious business, the effect of stress has not manifested itself until after the fact anyway.

I do not think that my knowledge that simunitions are most unlikely to kill me even if I should fail would materially reduce either the usefulness of the training nor the stress level.

I think the shortcomings of most training programs involve the following:

1. The student goes into the game expecting to have to shoot, and is therefore at least somewhat prepared. The real world isn't like that.
2. The student knows in advance that he has a safe backstop, and he knows in advance where it is. Thai not the case in the real world.
3. Most, but not all, training exercises do not have innocent persons milling around in front of the "target" and behind it. In the real world, there usually are such people present.

I think that in FoF training with simunitions, or perhaps in a realistic three-hundred-degree interactive simulator, those shortcomings can and should be eliminated from the scenarios.

[Jim Watson]

The National Tactical Invitational has a segment with role players and sims.
At least one year, somebody made it through the "town" without getting in a fight.

[Big Shrek]

Everyone's got to start somewhere.
Try on a few barroom brawls.
It'll learn ya something!

Paintball is still two things...
Trigger time...and IT FRAKKIN HURTS IF YOU GET HIT!!
Leading to you using cover and avoiding further hits.
It is better than nothing, even if all you learn is use of cover
and how to count your shots.

Same for MILES gear...training is training is training.
You learn from it, develop strategies to avoid taking hits...
folks who have had extensive training stateside tend not
to go Super Squirrel when the squishy hits the fan in
other locations.

Blood & guts, however, tend to bring many folks to an
instant halt, because they've never seen 'em before,
and it melts their little brains. I'd suggest that every
person who wants to carry a gun spend some time doing
the Firefighting/EMT thing, Hunting, and some time in
the morgue, so they don't flip out when a situation goes
all pear-shaped. For some reason blood really flips some
folks out, add some guts to it and they're Gone to LaLa Land.
Folks who are in LaLa Land cannot do much of anything until
they've recovered from their own personal shock...
if they recover at all, some of 'em go bananas for good.

Remember that old opening sequence to "Quincy, ME"?
That's a basic truth. Watch the line of cops.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GI3pd-dNN-0

Everyone talks about the firearms training...nobody talks about the
aftereffects of being in a bad situation or how to handle that part.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Sims or Airsoft are not without pain. I came back from the NTI covered with bruises from some full auto ambush with them. I was wearing a t-shirt and had to pull the bloody (not a UK curse but the red stuff) shirt off me at the end of the day.

Paintball guns - they hurt but they lack realism of actual carry guns.

However, scripting and outcomes that don't always involve shooting are crucial.

[Bartholomew Roberts]

One problem with most sims/airsoft/paintball training is it teaches you to use concealment as cover. Sims are a definite step up from paintballs. I really appreciated getting shot in the mask when we were using Sims. At typical handgun scenario distances, it will break the skin if you aren't wearing heavy clothing.

[OldMarksman]

However, scripting and outcomes that don't always involve shooting are crucial.

Yes indeed!

[JohnKSa]

One problem with most sims/airsoft/paintball training is it teaches you to use concealment as cover.

While this is true, from what I've seen in real-world shooting videos, concealment used as cover obviously isn't as good as cover but it's surprisingly useful. I don't know why, exactly--maybe people, when they get really stressed have trouble aiming for center of mass through concealment and only aim for the visible part of the assailant. Anyway, for whatever reason, it works way better than intuition suggests.

If you have a choice between concealment and cover, definitely choose the cover. But if there's no cover, take the concealment--from what I can tell it's likely going to be almost as effective, in practice, as actual cover.

... there needs to be a system that can provide a significant consequence for getting "killed" and I'm not aware of any of those.

Simunitions may not be perfect (nothing is) but it's certainly good enough to allow the premiere elite special forces/anti-terrorist groups around the world to develop virtually super-human abilities through continued training. The problem isn't that effective training techniques don't exist, the problem is that they are expensive and not widely available.

I agree, the basics are important before FOF. Otherwise, it becomes paintball!

I think that FOF is valuable as long as participants and instructors are careful to interpret the results. I say that because from what I've seen, FOF scenarios tend to result in "mutual suicide" FAR more often than is seen in the real world. Probably part of this has to do with what hdwhit has pointed out--there's not quite the same incentive to remain unshot that would be seen with live-fire and therefore people spend more time shooting than freaking out and trying to get out of the line of fire.

[Deaf Smith]

Truly Realistic Training

Fight Club.

Deaf

[Unconventional]

Do listen to this:

Originally Posted by Bartholomew Roberts

One problem with most sims/airsoft/paintball training is it teaches you to use concealment as cover. Sims are a definite step up from paintballs.

Don't listen to this:

Originally Posted by T. O'Heir

"...guns have no relation to real firearms..." Neither do Airsoft toys.

I believe the above is referring to paintball guns. I posit he has never learned the value of proper use of cover/concealment when training in close quarters with a paintball gun.

One step up from simunitions is the UTM round (5.56mm). It's intended as a marking system when shooting targets in a shoothouse that's not rated for live ammo. It claims to be accurate to 75 yards. Far less stoppages and squibs than the simunitions garbage. It also gives better recoil feedback than simunitions, and only requires a bolt change, rather than changing the whole upper receiver - so you don't have to move your optics around.

It's not intended for FOF but that never stopped my unit from using them for that very purpose!

[OldMarksman]

Truly realistic training?

Having thought about it, I think that truly realistic training would be made up of varying sessions into which the trainees enter without having any inkling at all that he or she may have to draw and fire.

That would mirror the real world.

Could a practical course of that kind be designed? Dunno.

[Deaf Smith]

Why not just go into a bikers bar and pick a fight.

Bet you get some 'realistic' training.

Folks, there is no such animal as 'Truly Realistic Training'. The only way to exactly simulate the real deal is the real deal.

Deaf