brownk279
Newbie
EAG Tactical conducted a Continuing Education Course (CEC) at the Alliance Police Training facility in Alliance Ohio from April 25-28.
The weather went from good to suck to tolerable. Welcome to Ohio…..
My gear is my standard equipment used for SRT. A Mayflower APC and a HSGI belt adorned with the typical pouches. My rifle is a Bushmaster lower (Dept. issued) with a 14.5 inch BCM upper with KMR, Surefire Fury, and Aimpoint M4. The upper was purchased from Pat a week earlier and worked flawlessly.
I cannot speak enough good things about UTM. I was impressed over and over again about how well they function. We were able to fire rounds on full auto or as quick as we could pull the trigger. No malfunctions and the guns continued shoot.
Besides having instructors like Pat, Doc Spears, Chappy, and the Yeti, we had the luck of having very experienced guys (Chris, Mike and Bill) as team leader and assistant team leaders. Under their tutelage we were able to handle problems on our own until things stalled and we needed direction. It was a great opportunity to see how they do things and to learn from their experience. They all shared blocks of instruction and learning was astronomical. I have a really bad habit of not taking notes during these types of classes, but this time I kept a Rite in the Rain notebook in my pocket and jotted down as much as I could.
Day 1 started with prisoner handling, Troop Leading Prodecures, Operation Orders, and SSE instruction. We were broke into 2 teams, Alpha and Bravo, with Alpha consisting of me and the other 3 guys from Alliance along with Kris and a guy known only as “Sal.” Next we did runs in the shoothouse with UTM rounds and all targets were IDTS targets. This started the crawl, walk, run of training. We moved very well through the house, but of course the 4 of us had the benefit of working together for years. The one thing we had to get used to was the color coding for sides of the house. We usually use numbers and the color system was new, but we adjusted quickly. Kris and Sal were also a big help to the team and they flowed with us like we had all worked together for years. We finished the day off with the first operation and it went very well for us.
Day 2 started with vehicle assaults. My team practices this, but this technique was slightly different and added some things we had not worked on like clearing trunks. We practiced that with our respective teams and got the warning order for the next operation. Now we were still doing assignments during the operations with our team, but the teams were no longer operating alone. We used our shoothouse for two operations that day and then went off site. Now I have worked in this town for 11 years, but somehow we went to buildings that I have never been in. The next hit was a vehicle assault which again showed that my team benefited from most of us having worked together for years. We did a total of 8 operations that day which included a hostage rescue and a very difficult search and secure of an old church that is attached to a house. The church/house was a nightmare. Problems were handled, but we could see that Bravo was having problems due to the fact that they had not been working together for very long. This is to be expected since these are guys from all walks of life showing up and being teamed up on day one. Again, I definitely had the advantage since I had 3 other guys who I had been working with for years covering my back. This is not saying we didn’t have problems in securing the structure, but we were able to address them quickly and move on. Bill, a former Ranger and member of APD SRT, moved up the stairs in the house where he took fire from the role player (Chris Jones) on the stairs. Instead of stalling on the stairs, he continued to move forward with his rifle on auto which drove Chris back and he hit him enough that Chris decided to “die” in the hallway. I was really unhappy with this hit. I actually got into an argument sort of speak with a Bravo team guy on the second floor of the house. Instead of continuing to stall the operation, I went with what he wanted to do and we missed a room where the target of the hit was hiding in. It showed the difference in the levels of our training and experience.
Day 3 slowed everything down. I was placed on Bravo team with one of the Bravo guys taking my place on Alpha. I felt a little bad because after we entered the first room and began entry to the next room we were stopped by the instructor. At that time I asked if we could have everyone start from where we entered the first room and Mike granted permission. I addressed what I thought was problems, some very minor, but needed to be corrected. We continued to walk through the rooms and covered things like making sure the room is clear before moving on by actually moving through the room. I noticed that some were just looking and calling it clear without owning that area. I answered a lot of questions that day and moved a lot of guys around in the rooms. Hopefully I didn’t offend anyone, but I’m not shy about grabbing someone and putting them where they need to be. Team leaders (TL) were switched up for each dry run. I noticed that during the runs that they seemed to hesitate before doing something as they were waiting for the TL to give them instructions. This made the TL micromanage to a point that if I had hair, I would have been pulling it out. I realize that several of the folks in the class were not used to doing this for a living, but no one was an 18 year old private and they were all competent enough to do what needed to be done. Everyone was capable of finding work. This is not about shooting, it is a thinking/decision making environment. The dry runs ended and I felt several things had been ironed out and the team was improving. Next we did vehicle assault practices and the team continued to improve.
We did three operations that day, both at the range and off site. The last operation that day included the use of flashbangs. To really confuse us they put one bad guy and four unknowns in a room giving the unknowns directions to not comply with our commands. The bad guy didn’t last long, but the four unknowns running around not listening to orders became very confusing. Bravo team entered that room and it was apparent that there were no cops in that room. There is a time to tell someone what to do and then there is time to go hands on. I entered the room and was heading for one unknown who was the farthest away and really drawing attention by not complying. Lucky for her, I intercepted another unknown “politely” knocking her down and taking control of her. Once that happened, the other unknowns kind of became a lil more cooperative and Bravo team got help from Alpha and all were taken into custody. Unknowns only get so many orders to comply before compliance forced upon them. All in all, it was a good day.
Day 4 was to be a short day, but we still had a lot to do. Both off site and shoothouse operations were conducted with the final OP a hostage rescue with the use of flashbangs. They even gave us a mission where we expected to have a huge gun fight with a Yeti, but the house was empty. That added the realism of the training cause in the real world not every operation involves gunfights and bad guys. We did go back to the church this day. A role player and good friend Dave Laubert was in the balcony and decided to engage three of us Alliance guys from above. We hit him several times (including a head shot) while he was running, he was approximately 40 yards or so at that time. Not sure which of us got him, but don’t care it was a team effort!
The hostage operation was the 17th op in 4 days. The level of learning in this training was epic. I was very fortunate to be able to attend this training. I’m also happy to report that I only took one hit during this training and it was in my knee. Not sure whether that was cause we did things the right way or dumb luck, but I’ll take it.
Again I got to thank, Pat, Chappy, Doc, Mike, Chris, Bill, and the Yeti for being there. Also thanks to Joe Weyer and the bosses above for allowing me to attend this course.
The weather went from good to suck to tolerable. Welcome to Ohio…..
My gear is my standard equipment used for SRT. A Mayflower APC and a HSGI belt adorned with the typical pouches. My rifle is a Bushmaster lower (Dept. issued) with a 14.5 inch BCM upper with KMR, Surefire Fury, and Aimpoint M4. The upper was purchased from Pat a week earlier and worked flawlessly.
I cannot speak enough good things about UTM. I was impressed over and over again about how well they function. We were able to fire rounds on full auto or as quick as we could pull the trigger. No malfunctions and the guns continued shoot.
Besides having instructors like Pat, Doc Spears, Chappy, and the Yeti, we had the luck of having very experienced guys (Chris, Mike and Bill) as team leader and assistant team leaders. Under their tutelage we were able to handle problems on our own until things stalled and we needed direction. It was a great opportunity to see how they do things and to learn from their experience. They all shared blocks of instruction and learning was astronomical. I have a really bad habit of not taking notes during these types of classes, but this time I kept a Rite in the Rain notebook in my pocket and jotted down as much as I could.
Day 1 started with prisoner handling, Troop Leading Prodecures, Operation Orders, and SSE instruction. We were broke into 2 teams, Alpha and Bravo, with Alpha consisting of me and the other 3 guys from Alliance along with Kris and a guy known only as “Sal.” Next we did runs in the shoothouse with UTM rounds and all targets were IDTS targets. This started the crawl, walk, run of training. We moved very well through the house, but of course the 4 of us had the benefit of working together for years. The one thing we had to get used to was the color coding for sides of the house. We usually use numbers and the color system was new, but we adjusted quickly. Kris and Sal were also a big help to the team and they flowed with us like we had all worked together for years. We finished the day off with the first operation and it went very well for us.
Day 2 started with vehicle assaults. My team practices this, but this technique was slightly different and added some things we had not worked on like clearing trunks. We practiced that with our respective teams and got the warning order for the next operation. Now we were still doing assignments during the operations with our team, but the teams were no longer operating alone. We used our shoothouse for two operations that day and then went off site. Now I have worked in this town for 11 years, but somehow we went to buildings that I have never been in. The next hit was a vehicle assault which again showed that my team benefited from most of us having worked together for years. We did a total of 8 operations that day which included a hostage rescue and a very difficult search and secure of an old church that is attached to a house. The church/house was a nightmare. Problems were handled, but we could see that Bravo was having problems due to the fact that they had not been working together for very long. This is to be expected since these are guys from all walks of life showing up and being teamed up on day one. Again, I definitely had the advantage since I had 3 other guys who I had been working with for years covering my back. This is not saying we didn’t have problems in securing the structure, but we were able to address them quickly and move on. Bill, a former Ranger and member of APD SRT, moved up the stairs in the house where he took fire from the role player (Chris Jones) on the stairs. Instead of stalling on the stairs, he continued to move forward with his rifle on auto which drove Chris back and he hit him enough that Chris decided to “die” in the hallway. I was really unhappy with this hit. I actually got into an argument sort of speak with a Bravo team guy on the second floor of the house. Instead of continuing to stall the operation, I went with what he wanted to do and we missed a room where the target of the hit was hiding in. It showed the difference in the levels of our training and experience.
Day 3 slowed everything down. I was placed on Bravo team with one of the Bravo guys taking my place on Alpha. I felt a little bad because after we entered the first room and began entry to the next room we were stopped by the instructor. At that time I asked if we could have everyone start from where we entered the first room and Mike granted permission. I addressed what I thought was problems, some very minor, but needed to be corrected. We continued to walk through the rooms and covered things like making sure the room is clear before moving on by actually moving through the room. I noticed that some were just looking and calling it clear without owning that area. I answered a lot of questions that day and moved a lot of guys around in the rooms. Hopefully I didn’t offend anyone, but I’m not shy about grabbing someone and putting them where they need to be. Team leaders (TL) were switched up for each dry run. I noticed that during the runs that they seemed to hesitate before doing something as they were waiting for the TL to give them instructions. This made the TL micromanage to a point that if I had hair, I would have been pulling it out. I realize that several of the folks in the class were not used to doing this for a living, but no one was an 18 year old private and they were all competent enough to do what needed to be done. Everyone was capable of finding work. This is not about shooting, it is a thinking/decision making environment. The dry runs ended and I felt several things had been ironed out and the team was improving. Next we did vehicle assault practices and the team continued to improve.
We did three operations that day, both at the range and off site. The last operation that day included the use of flashbangs. To really confuse us they put one bad guy and four unknowns in a room giving the unknowns directions to not comply with our commands. The bad guy didn’t last long, but the four unknowns running around not listening to orders became very confusing. Bravo team entered that room and it was apparent that there were no cops in that room. There is a time to tell someone what to do and then there is time to go hands on. I entered the room and was heading for one unknown who was the farthest away and really drawing attention by not complying. Lucky for her, I intercepted another unknown “politely” knocking her down and taking control of her. Once that happened, the other unknowns kind of became a lil more cooperative and Bravo team got help from Alpha and all were taken into custody. Unknowns only get so many orders to comply before compliance forced upon them. All in all, it was a good day.
Day 4 was to be a short day, but we still had a lot to do. Both off site and shoothouse operations were conducted with the final OP a hostage rescue with the use of flashbangs. They even gave us a mission where we expected to have a huge gun fight with a Yeti, but the house was empty. That added the realism of the training cause in the real world not every operation involves gunfights and bad guys. We did go back to the church this day. A role player and good friend Dave Laubert was in the balcony and decided to engage three of us Alliance guys from above. We hit him several times (including a head shot) while he was running, he was approximately 40 yards or so at that time. Not sure which of us got him, but don’t care it was a team effort!
The hostage operation was the 17th op in 4 days. The level of learning in this training was epic. I was very fortunate to be able to attend this training. I’m also happy to report that I only took one hit during this training and it was in my knee. Not sure whether that was cause we did things the right way or dumb luck, but I’ll take it.
Again I got to thank, Pat, Chappy, Doc, Mike, Chris, Bill, and the Yeti for being there. Also thanks to Joe Weyer and the bosses above for allowing me to attend this course.