DARC Preparation

Matt Landfair

Matt Six Actual
Staff member
Administrator
This thread outlines gear needs and advice for future DARC LECTC (Law Enforcement Counter Terrorism Course) students.

Personal Protective Equipment

o Ballistic helmet

o Wrap around ballistic eye pro (day/night)

o Peltor/ComTac/Sordin type ear pro (must cover ears & fit under helmet)

o Athletic cup

o Street hockey type throat pro

o Gloves (assault type)

o Elbow/Knee pads

o Tactical Body Armor (plate carriers are acceptable)

o Protective/Gas mask with clear poly-carbonate eye covers (x2 pairs recommended)

Uniform & Equipment

o Tactical uniform/clothing

o Footwear with ankle support

o Gore-tex lined boots (recommended)

o Light weight gore-tex or nylon jacket

o 3-day or similar pack

o Camelback or similar hydration system (gas-mask compatible recommended)

o BOK/IFAK with extra tourniquet

o NVG’s with sacrificial lens and mounts (if available) o IR strobe (if available)

o Blue photon light

o 8 feet of one inch tubular nylon, subdued colored

o Snaplink/Carabineer (full-sized)

o Tactical Handheld light (Surefire, Insight, etc)

Munitions & Expendables

o Force on Force munitions – 2200rds

o Green chemlight – 84

o Red chemlight – 12

o Blue chemlight – 12

o IR chemlight – 100 (only if you have NVG’s)

o Rubber bands – lightweight, package of 100(+)

o Velcro, self-adhesive – 8 inches

o Smoke – 4 (optional)

o Noise Flash Diversionary Device – 10-20 (optional)

Weapon

o DoD/DoJ approved weapon & sensitive items storage is available onsite**

o Cleaning kit for rifle & pistol (rod type) with extra 9mm patches

o Finger nail polish remover, bottle (acetone type)

o Carbine/SMG

 Simmunition’s® conversion kit

 8-12 Simmunition’s® magazines

 Sling

 RAS (optional)

 Vertical grip (optional)

 Weapon mounted light (push button activation switch is preferred)

 Iron sights

 IRAD with eye safe device installed (PAQ4C, PEQ2A, PAQ5…if available)

 Optics (optional) o Pistol

 Simmunition’s® conversion kit

 3-6 magazines

 Holster

Personal Items

o Medium/Large Notebook with pen and pencils

o Small/Medium towel

o Personal First Aid/BooBoo Kit: motrin, bandaids, gold bond, etc

o Sports Glide

o Anti-fog drops

o Bug spray

o Nalgene bottle or Canteen cup

o Camera (optional)

o Snacks

o Allergy meds – high pollen/allergen training area (optional)

o Duct tape, subdued color

o 550 cord, subdued color

o Scissors/Shears

o Paint pens

o Permanent marker

o Extra Batteries – especially for your weapon lights

Meals & Lodging

Chow breaks are typically very short during this course. There will not be enough time during breaks to run to town and grab something to eat. It is recommended that all class participant’s grocery shop on ‘zero-day’ night after the course prep for their food for the week. The dedicated classroom has a refrigerator, microwave & coffee pot available for the class. It’s also common for students to bring a cooler with food.

Inexpensive lodging is available at Camp Robinson (Resv/NG post). Several commercial hotels & motels are within close driving distance to the facility as well (North Little Rock, McCain Ave area). The nearest Hotel (4mi) is the Galloway Inn (501-955-0700), North Little Rock, AR. You are responsible for your own lodging.

Sim Kits

Simmunition® Conversion Kits are available for course use at no additional charge but magazines are very limited. Reservation of the DARC kits will be on a first come basis.
 

brewster84

Newbie
What hydration hookups are recommended for the AVON FM53? Source? Camelbak?

If this needs to be moved elsewhere, I can post there...
 

Matt Landfair

Matt Six Actual
Staff member
Administrator
This is the place to post it.

For ops - whatever is compatible with the Avon. For daytime activities, use bottles.
 

Bourneshooter

Blue Line Sheepdog
I could only find a Camelback adapter for any mask, so bought a Camelback bladder for DARC. No issues with it.


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Bourneshooter

Blue Line Sheepdog

mark1911

<Catchy Title Coming Soon>
Staff member
Moderator
Vendor
Get in shape, be open minded, follow instructions, ask questions, take notes, and work hard.

The hardest part of going to DARC is acquiring the resources. Spending the time and money is a big commitment. Everyone deals with the resource issue, everyone. I believe it is a part of the effort that is required to attend training, and does act as a gate of sorts that help to keep the lesser committed folks at home. In the end, it takes commitment to become better.
 

Grizzly

Regular Member
Having just wrapped up a fun round of LECTC let me offer this advice for whatever it might be worth.
Other things to bring:
Dry fit/hot weather gear if it is hot. A lot of day time work is done outside. Stay comfy so you can focus on learning. Cotton sucks in the swamp.
Sacrificial lenses of some sort for lights and lasers. I saw a lot of these busted up (even high end ones). One guy fashioned a WML lens from a clear spoon it was awesome.

As for cleaning/weapon dependability this is what worked for me though 1000+ rounds of sims in the class and in at least a few runs as opfor for previous classes. In the class I had a total of 3 malfunctions. Many other guys had.... more.
1. I ran a bcm with H buffer and stock spring. A few guys had heavier buffers and seemed to have issues. I think the direct blow back of the sims couldn't cycle well with a heavier buffer.
2. Don't monopod on the mag from prone. Two of my three malfunctions came while monopoding from prone on a conex. Maybe the mag pressed up enough to slow the bolt?

Cleaning advice.
Daily:
1. Clean the tube with an acetone soaked bore snake until it is cleaner than it came from the factory
2. Clean the bore, charging handle, chamber, receiver, bcg (including the firing pin, sim gunk gets in there) until it is clean as can be with acetone
3. Light light lube on the charging handle, gas key and rear of the bcg (aka no lube on parts that touch the simunition it melts the "bullets")

After any run that fires more than 30 rounds (aka all of them..)
1. Bore snake + acetone til clean
2. Wipe any goo off bcg that interfaces with rounds (b0ttom and bolt face)
3. Acetone scrub the bcg that interfaces with rounds and chamber
4. Ensure no sim paint/goo is in the receiver. If so repeat daily cleaning plan.

During runs
Close the dust cover sim rounds caught on the bolt can cause problems.
Carry a paint can opener and small light (maybe the blue photon required for class...), you can easily pull stuck cases from the chamber and clear double feeds

Physical advice
Do something that works in high intensity cardio with dragging stuff while adding "suck" factors.
For me I did crossfit and every day I either did it in long pants + long sleeves for heat tolerance or with a weight vest to simulate gear. Then afterwards I did at least 4 100m sprints. On top of that I did sled work at least once a week. Especially dragging a sled backward. This paid huge dividends for being an aid/litter guy dragging people around the house. There are spurts of very high intensity stuff intermixed with the usually high tempo/high heart rate that comes from force on force runs. Being in decent shape ahead of time helped let me focus on learning from the class and force on force time instead of wondering when my heart rate would be under 400 again.

Mental advice
Ask your worst enemy if you are a smart, beautiful operator of doom and destruction. Aka learn to enjoy being wrong sometimes and learn to move on with out getting butt hurt.

Final notes.
Follow the SOP.
Follow the SOP.
Sign up for more classes to learn to follow the SOP.
Follow the SOP some more.
Accept if you don't follow the SOP you look like an SOB.
 

Lane C

Rico and the Man
Staff member
Moderator
Sorry for the Necro Post. I used to have the PDF that someone prepared for the DARC type rescue sling that is preloaded and snap linked to the plate carrier. Can someone share that again please.
 

North

Amateur
Been slowly trying to follow this list. Trying to create a timeline goal to even consider it.

Do most people ship everything down there, or do they ship their SIMM's?
 

North

Amateur
I figured as much. Either that or I thought maybe people were buying/ renting simm/chem equipment from DARC or from somewhere locally they recommended.


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