So it was a three day weekend, did some movie watching, enjoyed some gun play.
I watched a couple of young guys open up on some targets with a shooting style that seemed to be somewhere between John Woo and James Yeager. Obviously self taught from the school of Youtube tactical shooting videos.
I like competitive shooting. I do a little IDPA and Steel Challenge from time to time. I’m not hard core about it. New job, baby, wife not really working, I just don’t have the time or money to practice as much as I’d like. If I finish in the top 10, I call it a good day.
I have (thankfully) never been in a firefight. I’ve heard all the Youtube bravado that “competitive shooting will get you killed, it’s not like a gunfight at all.” Now I have no first hand experience with this, but in my humble opinion, competitive shooting is a fun way to hone critical shooting skills: accuracy and weapon manipulation. Even in you are mediocre at something like IDPA, you are still practicing the fundamentals of sight alignment, reloading and working your gun while looking at the targets, etc.
So when I see these shooters rolling around on the ground while shooting and trying for the perfect Mozambique drill and talking about double taps and “breaking the rhythm” and all that other Youtube tacticool crap, it makes me laugh.
I remember this video I saw a long time ago.
These guys are US Army Delta. The elite of the elite. The operator’s operator. The best there is. If you watch carefully there is not a Mozambique or tactical roll in the entire video. The shooting tactics of the best of the best is: fill the target with bullets, reload, repeat as necessary.
It is down right Steel Challenge in its simplicity. Doesn’t matter where you hit the target, just hit it and move on (plus grenades).
The tactical roll is stupid. The real G.I. Joes don’t do it. Practice the fundamentals of being able to hit what you are aiming at with a reasonable degree of speed. And for god’s sake, stop watching James Yeager.
I think that it was Admiral Farragut who said, “The best defense against the enemy’s fire is well-directed fire from our own guns.”
I LOVE that quote.
I believe that it applies to self-defense situations as well. Instead of rolling around in the dirt, shoot the dirtbag!
— Thanks for the post, JKB!
Somewhat related:
Another quote that might not be so pithy, but is very thought-provoking, comes from the movie “Barbarosa,” (Willie Nelson and Gary Busey, 1982)
It is pre-Civil War Texas/Mexico frontier. Barbarosa, the outlaw (Willie Nelson), is suddenly attacked by a man who shoots without warning, putting a hole through Barbarosa’s sombrero, and grazing his cheek. The attacker then runs directly at Barbarosa, shooting his revolver two or three more times, missing Barbarosa each time. Meanwhile, Barbarosa calmly draws his own revolver, takes aim, and fires one shot, killing the attacker. Gary Busey’s character, a farm boy on the run, takes this all in, wide-eyed. Barbarosa looks at him and says, “Nothing throws off a man’s aim better than standing stock still when you should be running like a spotted ape.” [As best as I remember].
Well-directed fire, indeed!
[Now I’ve talked myself into buying that movie! Haven’t seen it in years…]
Two of my favorite quotes about gun fighting are from Wyatt Earp:
“Fast is fine but accuracy is final.”
And
“Anything that smacks of show off or bluff was left to braggarts who were ignorant or careless of their lives.”
The only tactical roll I can do is if you push me down a hill. All I want is to hit what I’m aiming at. Repeatedly.
McCabe: What? No roll, Hondo?
Hondo: How do you know I didn’t roll?
McCabe: You didn’t roll, did you?
Hondo: You only roll in John Woo movies, not real life.
I think a lot of the excessive emphasis on Mozambique and such comes from people going through the baseline military courses and trying to expand what was in those into what they think an elite tactical course would be.
It’s also a function of what you expect to see. If you’re expecting to roll into an area with an enemy in body armor, two center mass one to the head might make sense. Lord knows the odds of me encountering that situation are just this side of nonexistent, so I favor center mass until the bastard stops of his own accord or because his chest is giant pulpy mess.
That said, I still practice rapid C-C-H, but that’s more a function of training for qual than training for self-defense.