Faux Combat

Before launching into this article I want to make it clear that I am not a combat veteran. I've never fired a bullet at anybody and if anyone ever shot at me they used a "silencer" and missed 'cause I didn't notice being shot at.

So, where do I get off talking about Combat? Well I've hung out with some guys who've been there, done that and have the T-shirts. And I pay attention.

So, how do you research "combat" without getting shot at or locked up for starting fights?

There's also the question of "Just how many gunfights can you reasonably expect to survive?"

Knowing what works and what doesn't could be the difference between surviving or not in a real world survival situation and since one can't expect to survive too many real combat experiences a way to "practice" has to be found.

There's vicarious "practice" such as you'd find at the movies or on TV but if you believe anything that Hollywood puts on the screen even approaches reality I've got a bridge in Brookline I'll sell you cheap.

For one thing, in the real world or combat you don't have an overview of what's happening like in the popular TV shows. There are no second camera shots of the other guy moving to hide behind another rock. There are no overhead shots so viewers can see the relative positions of the players and there are no previously filled in bits of plot that viewers know about but the protagonist or antagonist doesn't.

TV shows are the poor man's combat school giving excellent examples of what NOT to do.

To give yourself an idea of what real combat is like take a look at a real time, multi-camera view of a fire-fight.

Yes, yes I know the camera's angle of view is less than your eyes would see, but considering the amount of time the cameramen, helmet and gun mounted cameras are looking at the ground (seeking cover etc.) you can't really say you'd see much better with a wider field of view. Remember these guys are ducking real bullets.

There's also the faux combat of the pistol and three gun matches held at your local shooting range. But remember the difference between shooting at cardboard targets and live opponents is that the cardboard cutouts don't shoot back.

Also range safety and competition rules dictate shooting habits that could get you killed in the real world. Jim Cirillo of NYPD's "Stakeout Squad" fame who went 17-0 in real world gunfights angrily walked away from an IPSC match after being told his hits on three targets were disallowed because the edge of his shoe had touched the "foot fault line." Fault lines may be necessary to keep contestants from moving too close to targets, but as Jim said: "In all my gunfights when I was a New York City police officer, I never had to look down on the ground for a foot fault line."

IDPA rules are slightly better, but you get the point; at range competitions safety and fairness rules trump real world reality. That doesn't mean you shouldn't play with IDPA, just that in all of the "combat" shooting sports the main benefits are learning to shoot and reload your weapon under stress and not necessarily tactics.

A realistic form of passive "practice" can be found on the cable and satellite outdoor and sporting channels. An ambush is an ambush, the difference between combat and hunting is that the deer don't shoot back.

Recently I've been watching a lot of hunting shows on the Sportsman, Outdoor and http://www.pursuitchannel.com/>Pursuit (called the "Hunt" on the Dish network) channels (probably available to you if you've got cable or satellite TV) and I've noticed some similarities between hunting and fighting.

To begin with the old military maxim "No battle plan survives contact with the enemy" holds true for hunting too. Serendipity plays a big role in "walk & stalk" hunting and combat patrolling. Likewise for a hunter in a blind is not all that different from a carefully laid out military ambush.

No matter how carefully the hunters/combatants plan the "game" may thwart them by sensing them or simply taking a different trail without even knowing the hunters/combatants are present.

Those tempted to shy away from watching "Bambi" get shot are reminded that if everything goes to hell in a hand basket there'll be a shortage of hand baskets and your family's survival may well depend on retaining your hand basket.

Mule & Whitetail deer effortlessly hop over three strand barbed wire fences which hunters require more than a minute to negotiate safely. Yes, firearms safety is for survivalists too. You don't want to start the long march to your bunker in the bush by shooting yourself in the foot.

Les Johnson's Predator Quest show* does a great job of showing the part camouflage, stillness and concealment play in an ambush. But more to the point as you watch the show you'll see, over and over again, how coyotes come from unexpected directions, take unexpected routes and do what is least expected of them, just like in real combat.

*(Monday 9:00 PM
Thursday 3:00 AM
Saturday 3:30 PM
All Airtimes are in Eastern Time Zones)

So is this a combat manual? Far from it. If you want real combat training join the Marines.

What's that you say? Not enough people in your survival group for platoon sized assault maneuvers? Besides the wife won't man the M60 and doesn't want your son playing with rocket launchers?

Well, there is hope. If we scale down our survival scenarios to more realistic personal defense protection predictions two excellent schools present themselves: Gunsite Ranch (founded by renowned combat pistol instructor Jeff Cooper) in Arizona and Massad Ayoob's Massad Ayoob Group (MAG) headquartered in Concord, New Hampshire which conducts classes all over the country.

If you don't have the time/ money/ inclination to attend one of these schools there's always volunteerism.

First responders are trained to respond to emergencies by practicing both mentally and physically to deal with them. You can learn a lot from carefully selected cable and satellite shows, but hands on practice (Red Cross classes, IDPA matches and volunteer Search & Rescue/fire/police reserve/CERT training will take your preparedness out of the realm of mental images to practiced preparedness.

Sitting in front of a TV watching mainstream Hollywood dramas on network television will teach you the absolute wrong way to do just about everything. Often the only "reality" in network reality TV shows is the name.

Cable and satellite hunting shows, particularly coyote hunting shows, will give you a somewhat edited view of what happens in the real world.


The unpredictability of "pray" on hunting shows mirrors real world combat because the action of the animals is unscripted. Perhaps that's because it's so hard to get the coyotes to cooperate.

Superfluous Survival Tip of the week:

Survival Sleeping?
(OK, these techniques will work any time, but keep in mind that being awake and alert are prerequisites to informed intelligent decision making under stress. In the ubiquitous "survival situation" the tendency to try to stay awake in order to be ready to respond to whatever the new and frightening situation throws at you can be dangerous. Your body needs sleep and putting sleep off could leave you groggy at a time when you need to be awake and alert.)

1. Try to get eight hours sleep one uninterrupted period between 2200 hours (10pm) and 0600 (6am) if possible.
2. If forced to sleep for shorter periods (guard duty/refueling a generator or checking on makeshift repairs) try to get sleep in the largest chucks possible.
3. Waiting and watching is stressful. Exercise helps to "burn off" stress hormones.
4. Focus on sleeping. Be sure you can trust the people you are with, your dog or intrusion devices.
5. Try to schedule your sleep time so as to fall into a pattern.
6. Avoid alcoholic beverages, big meals or excessive sweets a few hours before your scheduled sleep time.
7. Avoid caffeine for five hours before your scheduled sleep time.
8. Fear of the unknown leads to stress and can keep us awake when we should be resting. Alleviate fear by breaking down problems faced into manageable portions. You may not be able to see how to fix the whole problem, but working on one little aspect of it often leads to epiphanies which make seeing how to fix the rest easier.

To Comment on this article
Email
(If that link doesn't work for you try sending your comments to me, DesertDave@aol.com please put "Blog" in the subject line, thanks, Dave.)
Unless you specifically ask me not to, I'll post your reply here in the blog so everyone can read it. Of course I'll remove your name, email address and any other specific information for privacy purposes.

Better start working on Plan B

Fall a thousand years ago in an area known as ohi-yo’ a man dressed in brown and tan animal skins picked up an almost straight stick with a flint arrowhead on one end and a notch at the other. Feathers were glued and tied just ahead of the notch with animal residue and sinew.

He was hidden behind a few leafy branches he'd carefully positioned downwind of deer approaching the waterhole from the trail.

As a deer approached the man carefully calculated the range, pulled back the bowstring and sighted along the arrow at the deer's heart.

Last fall in Ohio a man dressed in Mossy Oak Camouflage pattern picked up a nano-carbon shaft arrow with a nock at the back that would light up from the inertia of being fired from his single-cam aluminum and carbon compound bow. The arrowhead was a mechanical titanium broadhead with four razor sharp articulating blades that would expand at the instant of impact.

He was hidden in the portable folding blind he'd unfolded downwind of the waterhole. But he wasn't worried about the deer catching his scent because he'd sprayed his clothing and equipment with a scent blocking chemical. His Kestrel weather meter gave a digital readout of wind speed and temperature.

As a deer approached the man checked the digital range finder on his bow as he brought the bowstring to full draw with his wrist mechanical flight release.

The hunter lined up the middle pin of his seven pin illuminated bow sight on the deer's heart.

So what do ancient and modern bow hunters have to do with you ?

Remember that guy you knew who only thought he knew how to play the guitar? Well I found him. He's playing background music in the hunting videos on the Outdoor and Sportsman Channels.

These half hour long shows on satellite and cable TV range from 30 minute hunting gear infomercials to halfway decent shows wherein the stars go out of their way to mention the brands (sponsors) of the hunting gear they're using.

The Crush with Lee and Tiffany on the Outdoor (OTDCH) channel actually has some production values and is entertaining enough to be worth watching either on TV or their website.

Family Traditions with Haley Heath on the Sportsman (SPMAN) channel is another good one where wife and kids play a big role in the shows.

So why am I offering to reunite you with the garage band legend in his own mind guitar hero?

Despite all the modern gear I went to such great lengths to link to for you; modern bow hunters using fair chase methods often don't even see a deer within shooting range and many times miss their shots when they do. One reason experienced hunters "go bow" is that they get a third hunting seasons (besides firearm & muzzle loader) each fall.

The other reason these knowledgeable hunters choose to bow hunt is that with modern firearms, cartridges, rangefinders and scopes fair chase hunting with a gun is just too easy.

It won't be that way in another depression. To feed their families people will take whatever game they can get any way they can get it legal or otherwise.

Even before the Great Depression predation by humans wiped out some species and came close to exterminating others.

With traps, snares and iron-sighted firearms Depression Era hunters swept the land clean of wildlife:

PARKERSBURG - Many wonder how they will get by if the current economic times get worse, but for those who lived through the Great Depression, self-sufficiency was the key during the hardest of times.

[snip]

"People were self-sufficient in those times. They had to be. There wasn't much money anywhere. People improvised. They raised their own food and traded for what they needed. People survived. But even before the depression, people weren't used to having much. If it gets that bad now, I don't know what people would do, they aren't used to that. It would be a completely different world for them," Stanley said.

He said most everyone had a garden to sustain their families.

[snip]

When Amma resident Howard Carper Jr. was a boy in the late 1930s and early 1940s, he and his family survived on what the land would provide and little else.

[snip]

Every day after school, Carper and his older brother, the late Roscoe Carper Sr., scoured the woods near the farm for whatever small game they could find. There were no deer in that area then, so they kept the family fed with small game.

[snip]

Carper said the boys learned a great deal about animals. They learned how they behaved and knew where they lived.

"The groundhogs, muskrats, squirrels, rabbits, possums, skunks and raccoons sure had a hard time when me and Roscoe was boys," Carper said.

Their hunting style bears little resemblance to most hunting today. It was Depression-era hunting, hunting that the family not only relied on for sustenance, but with a maxim of shooting only when absolutely necessary.

Larger animals, such as raccoons, Roscoe dispatched with the .22 rifle. Squirrels, however, the younger Carper brother sometimes killed with his bare hands. Shells, after all, cost money. Minor injuries from bites did not.

[snip]

Just as in Parkersburg, Carper said there was virtually no actual money circulating in the Roane County economy. Muskrat hides, however, were an unofficial legal tender in Roane County. He traded 13 muskrat hides for his first rifle, a .22 single-shot Winchester.

[snip]

Luxuries most hunters enjoy, such as warm clothing and Thermos bottles of hot coffee, were unknown, Carper said.

[snip]

Depression era remembered

Some people made a living hunting and trapping during the last depression.

Even today some people continue poaching deer and fish illegally.

U.S. population was between 121,000,000 and 133,000,000 from 1929 to 1941 with a large percentage living on farms Can you imagine what will happen to game and non-game populations if some large percentage of our present day population of over 300,000,000 Americans turns to hunting/poaching to feed their families?

BOTTOM LINE
If moving from a bungalow in the burbs to a bunker in the bush and living off the land was your Great Depression Survival Plan A you'd better start working on Plan B.

To Comment on this article
E-Mail Me
Unless you specifically ask me not to, I'll post your reply here in the blog so everyone can read it. Of course I'll remove your name, email address and any other specific information for privacy purposes.