Airsoft: More tactical and military than Paintball

Airsoft has been a bit of a hot topic on Grey Ops recently, which is why I found it timely that I received the above letter in my inbox this past weekend. Apparently a group of firefighters in a big city near me are putting together an Airsoft team/league for 2011.

Now what pissed me off about this is not that firefighters spend all of our tax dollars washing their personal cars and cooking spaghetti & meatball dinners for each other every shift. Nor was it the fact that firefighters get hotter chicks. No, what really set me off was the part of this letter that read "Airsoft is similar to paintball but with a slightly more tactical and military approach".

Tactics #8 - Team Formations

Smart teams at the small-unit level move and fight in formations to limit their exposure to enemy fire, divide up responsibilities among team members, and make it easier for the team leader to maneuver and manage his team. If your Milsim Paintball team doesn't make use of basic formations to move from place to place, then you're not only leaving yourselves vulnerable to attack, but you're missing out on valuable tactics that increase your chances of success on any mission. Whether you're just battling it out on a Sunday afternoon at a small local field, or moving deep into enemy territory on a mission at a Big Game, using proper formations can put you at a tremendous advantage!

Tactics #7 - Withdrawal

In this installment of the Grey Ops Tactics Series, I'll be discussing a difficult subject: Withdrawal. And by withdrawal, I don't mean what you feel when you haven't played Call of Duty: Black Ops since yesterday, or when you're 10 hours into your latest attempt to quit smoking. I'm talking about the bitter reality of having to RETREAT when your team is getting whooped on the Paintball field!

Tactics #6 - Ambush!

Ambush is one of the most devastating tactics on the battlefield. Attacking an opposing force (OPFOR) that's off-guard and in a bad position can inflict heavy losses on them before they have a chance to recover. The shock and ferocity of a well-planned ambush can (and usually does) win the firefight!

In this post, I'll outline the basics for executing a successful ambush.

No Money November: Tactics #5 - Battlefield Communication, Part 2

As part of No Money November, I'll be posting a multi-part series on paintball tactics. After all, those who use proper tactics in paintball achieve their objectives and have more fun with less paintballs, win free s*** when they win tournaments, and can play the game without investing hard-earned cash in gimmicky products, "the next best thing". Good tactics go hand-in-hand with saving money at Paintball!
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In the first post on the topic of communication, I explained the necessity of proper communication to maintain an effective team, and some obstacles faced in the heat of battle. In this installment, we'll look at how to overcome those obstacles.

First, to overcome the "heat of battle", yell loudly as you speak to your teammate, to snap him out of that tunnel hearing and keep him from tuning you out as background noise. Start your message with his name or call sign to get his attention, and to let him know the message is directed at him. If the message is directed to your whole team, yell out the team name first (or just "TEAM!") so that everyone perks their ears up. Not only does yelling increase your chances of being heard, it can serve a motivational purpose. Human beings are social animals, and most naturally seek and respond to leaders, especially under stress. By "speaking with your balls" (i.e. speaking loudly and confidently), you provide motivation and help keep the team focused.

No Money November: Tactics #4 - Battlefield Communication, Part 1

As part of No Money November, I'll be posting a multi-part series on paintball tactics. After all, those who use proper tactics in paintball achieve their objectives and have more fun with less paintballs, win free s*** when they win tournaments, and can play the game without investing hard-earned cash in gimmicky products, "the next best thing". Good tactics go hand-in-hand with saving money at Paintball!
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Most basic tactics at a team level, like suppression and flanking, rely on good communication between team members for success.

If you define a team as a group of like-minded people working together towards a common goal, the key here would be "working together". Working together effectively requires sharing and communicating ideas, knowledge, and intentions. Without this, there is no team! A group of 5 people on the same side who don't communicate with each other isn't really a team at all. Rather, you could say they're 5 individuals working alone against common opponents, and a waste of good team potential.

No Money November: Tactics #3 - Flanking

As part of No Money November, I'll be posting a multi-part series on paintball tactics. After all, those who use proper tactics in paintball achieve their objectives and have more fun with less paintballs, win free s*** when they win tournaments, and can play the game without investing hard-earned cash in gimmicky products, "the next best thing". Good tactics go hand-in-hand with saving money at Paintball!
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In the second post of this series, I explained the importance of suppressing your opponent, and how to accomplish it for best results. But suppression alone doesn't actually score points or win games, and to get results you'll need to exploit your opponent's suppressed state. This means that while he's hunkered down to avoid taking a paintball hit to the gogs, you'll need to move to a better firing position - preferably to one where he's exposed to your fire, and his cover is useless.

Usually this means moving around to his side, in what's commonly known as a flanking maneuver (flank is just a fancy word for side). Generally, any given bunker on your average paintball field provides great cover from fire in one direction, but poor to no cover from fire coming from any other directions. So by circling around your opponent's cover/bunker on his left or right flanks, you can usually take him out with a quick shot or two.

No Money November: Tactics #2 - Suppression

As part of No Money November, I'll be posting a multi-part series on paintball tactics. After all, those who use proper tactics in paintball achieve their objectives and have more fun with less paintballs, win free s*** when they win tournaments, and can play the game without investing hard-earned cash in gimmicky products, "the next best thing". Good tactics go hand-in-hand with saving money at Paintball!
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Suppressing fire is used to overwhelm the enemy and win the firefight, with the aim being to restrict his ability to move. By keeping your opponent "pinned down", your team can safely maneuver to an ideal position to eliminate him.

Winning the firefight doesn't necessarily mean shooting your opponent
(although that definitely wins the battle). It simply means forcing your opponent to keep his head down to avoid getting hit. Once you've won the firefight, your team is better able to advance, maneuver, and flank
your opponent(s).

At first a lot of paintballs may need to be fired to win the firefight. It may take sustained fire from you and several of your squadmates to get your opponent to duck down and cower behind his bunker, but keep at it. Eventually the sheer firepower you're throwing at him will either hit him square in the mask, or force him to hunker down.

No Money November: Tactics #1 - Ammo Discipline

As part of No Money November, I'll be posting a multi-part series on paintball tactics. After all, those who use proper tactics in paintball achieve their objectives and have more fun with less paintballs, win free s*** when they win tournaments, and can play the game without investing hard-earned cash in gimmicky products, "the next best thing". Good tactics go hand-in-hand with saving money at Paintball!
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The first thing I want to talk about in the Tactics series is ammo discipline. Ammo discipline refers to the practice of using the ammunition you carry wisely.

When you boil it down, any shooting at all is a NEGATIVE. Firing your paintball marker gives your position away to an opponent, or at least it gives him a good idea of the general location where you are. The second-worst part about shooting of course is that you use up paintballs, which are expensive. If you're playing at a field where paint is $100/case, you're literally throwing a nickel away every time you pull the trigger on your marker. So if you pointlessly let loose with 10 balls at the bunker your opponent is hiding behind, you've just spent 50 cents for zero results. That's equal to a crappy tip for a beer at your next night out, or half a litre of gas!

Paintball Halloween Costumes

Going out to play tomorrow? Why not have a bit of fun and make yourself a Halloween costume to play in.

Zombie

A participant in the annual Ottawa Zombie Walk

News From the Front: BT World Wide Game and Tactik Paintball Feature

August 21st saw the 2010 BT World Wide Game come to paintball fields across the globe, with thousands of players battling it out simultaneously. In the Ottawa-Gatineau region, the BT Big Game was held at Tactik Paintball, in Gatineau, Qc.

Paintall CQB Tactics, Part 7 - CQB Week

In Part 6 of this Paintball CQB Tactics series, I explained the considerations and tactics involved in a Dynamic Entry ("Room-Clearing") operation. Now in this final installment, I'm going to showcase some video clips of real-life fighting forces training for Dynamic Entry. (If you haven't had a chance to read the theory portion yet, please take the time to read Part 6 so that you have a better understanding of what you're watching).

(If you have trouble viewing the videos in the proper aspect ratio due to Blogger's formatting, simply double-click a video to watch it in an independent YouTube window)

For starters, here's an old video clip from the documentary program FRONTLINE about US Navy SEALs training for CQB. (Note the SEAL lazing/muzzling his teammate's head with a loaded MP5 at 3:00 during a Dynamic Entry exercise, and the crap he takes from his instructor after. It just goes to show that even elite soldiers sometimes make this mistake).



Next, watch some Iraq-bound US Army reservists training for Dynamic Entry at OPSGEAR's Urban Warfare Center. Note with a 5-man team, the #5 man can turn around and cover the door to protect the assault team's rear flank. There's a lot of great tips in these videos. (Notice the instructor advising the female soldier to hold her weapon up at 1:59).





And finally, watch infantry from our very own Canadian Forces conduct Dynamic Entry training using 2-man and 4-man breaching teams. They demonstrate how to deal with barricades in a room, and you'll also see an example of Popping (described in Part 5) at 4:20.



There's plenty of great information in these videos and in this series on how to conduct CQB operations and Dynamic Entry. Even then, none of it is any good unless you get out there and PRACTICE it. Take a few afternoons with your team and hit the village section of your local field, deliberately applying the principles of paintball CQB tactics until you've mastered what you've learned.

And speaking of mastery, keep in mind that I've just laid out the BASICS of CQB, and it still took a full 8 articles to cover! Close-quarters tactics are such a fine art that even professional soldiers and police with years of experience still learn new things all the time. No matter your experience level, CQB is ALWAYS complicated and dangerous...but you can make it LESS complicated and LESS dangerous by knowing what you're doing.

In future articles on Grey Ops, I'll go further into team CQB tactics and formations, and more advanced tactics.

I hope you enjoyed this series, and the Grey Ops May Theme Month in general. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for future themes, take a minute and drop Connor a line!

Paintball CQB Tactics, Part 6 - CQB Week

Dynamic Entry (AKA "Room-clearing") is one of the most dangerous maneuvers in a CQB environment. Every room is a hard point, with limited avenues of attack. On top of that, the narrow doorway is a fatal funnel that you usually have no choice but to pass through (see Part 5 of this series for an explanation of hard points and fatal funnels). Even in an empty room with no cover, the defender usually has the advantage; all he has to do is point his weapon at the doorway, twitch his trigger finger at the slightest sign of movement, and at least one of the attacking team will go down.


Because of this level of danger, you don't just mindlessly rush into a room and start blasting away (and don't close your eyes either). There are measures you can take to reduce your risk of getting shot the second you come through that door.

The first consideration is knowing how to use the tools at your disposal to increase your effectiveness.


Weapon handling for dynamic entry

Your weapon will be useless coming through that door if you have it pointed at the ground, or if the barrel gets caught in the door frame. So I'll outline some tips for proper weapon handling when raiding a room.

First, KEEP YOUR GUN UP!!! With a bad guy pointing a weapon at the door you're coming through, it may come down to a contest of who can twitch their trigger finger the fastest. With the defender already having the advantage, you don't want your weapon pointed at the ground so that it takes you another second and a half to react and fire. You need to be ready to shoot at a split-second's notice.

The next most important thing is to use instinctive shooting to engage your opponent. With everything happening in a split second when entering a room, you don't have time to aim down your weapon's sights, line up your shot with your dominant eye, and carefully squeeze off a shot at the threat. With instinctive shooting, you keep both eyes open, point your weapon at your target, and fire off your rounds quickly. This of course is not the best way to shoot accurately, but when you're 9 feet away from your opponent and he's pointing his weapon back at you, it's less a question of accuracy, and more a question of speed. You can still improve your accuracy using two methods however:

1) Keep your gun up! Yes, I'm harping on this again. By keeping your weapon aimed high, it's closer to your line of sight, and you'll able to align it with your target more easily

2) When gripping your weapon in close quarters, point the index finger of your lead hand out in line with the barrel. Pointing is a simple act you've practiced all your life, to the point where you've mastered it. With your finger positioned like this on the weapon, you just POINT your lead finger at what you want to shoot, and you're pretty much on target. No aiming required!


The ideal weapons for dynamic entry are compact, with short barrels. Smaller paintball markers (like the TM-7) or pistols are great for dynamic entry.


If you use a long marker though, either an M4-style one like a Milsig, or a typical marker with a long barrel, you need to work with what you have. Keep your weapon in close and tight to you when going through a doorway. The tighter you keep your marker, the less chance you have of bumping into the door frame, or snagging it on some other obstruction on the way into the room. Tuck the stock or tank under your arm or over your shoulder when you enter through a narrow doorway, then punch it out quickly to a proper instinctive shooting position right after entry.



On the same topic of keeping the weapon tight, in close quarters you should grip the weapon by a front post grip. This gives you better control over the marker, and allows you to swing it around faster than if your support hand is extended far out along the foregrip. Alternatively, if you don't have a front post mounted on your marker, you can grip it around the front of the magazine well.


Equipment for Dynamic Entry

Proper equipment selection and usage is also an important consideration for dynamic entry operations.

Sling types

Conventional 2-point and 3-point slings can get caught on door handles or other protrusions in tight environments. Wishbone slings (Y-shaped ones that clip onto a tactical vest) and 1-point slings are ideal for dynamic entry and CQB situations. They provide adequate support, while allowing you to keep your weapon in tight without having extra strapping to get snagged on things. In fact, these sling types are often marketed as "CQB slings", because of how well-suited they are to close combat.



Tactical flashlights


There are a lot of good tactical flashlights on the market that are well-suited to dynamic entry and CQB. The authentic police and military ones tend to be expensive, however thanks to the Chinese, decent knock-offs of these tools can be had for a lot less money, and are just fine for hobby use. One of these, the Solarforce L2, was reviewed by Connor on Grey Ops recently. Pressure/tape switches and mounting brackets for this and other lights can be had for cheap from Deal Extreme. Here are a few things to keep in mind when selecting a good tactical light, and using it in a CQB/dynamic entry environment:

-There are currently two main types of tactical flashlights on the market - Light-Emitting Diodes (LEDs) and incandescent lamps (including Xenon lamps). The latter is old technology, and tends to be dimmer and less energy efficient. LEDs tend to give off more uniform, brighter light, but aren't as "warm" (yellowish), so they can be harsh on your night vision.

-Make sure you choose a model that you can "strobe", in other words that you can flash on for a split second by tapping the end cap or squeezing the pressure switch. You don't want to leave your light on the whole time you enter a dark room, as that gives your opponent something to track and shoot at. Instead, just strobe the light every couple seconds to get a picture of what's in the room.

-DO NOT SILHOUETTE your buddies!!! Silhouetting occurs when you're behind a teammate and turn on your flashlight, giving the teammate ahead a nice silhouette/outline. The enemy facing him sees a perfect dark shape to shoot at, surrounded by an aura of light, all thanks to you! So keep the flashlight off if a friendly is ahead of you.

-Whenever possible, close your shooting eye when strobing your light. This keeps your shooting eye sensitive to the dark and keeps you from frying your own night vision.

-When you enter a room, strobe your flashlight and yell GO GO GO or BREACHING BREACHING. If you don't use a "flashbang" grenade (and who in paintball does?), the blinding light and yelling can equally disorient the room's occupants.

Other equipment considerations

An important consideration is to equip yourself only with what you really need. Despite the old adage "It's better to have something and not need it, rather than need something and not have it" doesn't apply here. Too much kit is a bad thing, because it's way too easy to get caught or jammed up when going through a door. Keep in mind too that extra equipment like leg bags, knapsacks, and open dump pouches just make you a bigger target for a paintball hit. And in paintball, even hits to your equipment count for elimination, even if in real life the bullet would just pass through whatever bag was hit, and the operator would continue unharmed.


Dynamic Entry basics

Now let's get down to brass tacks - the proper way to storm into that room! First up, how should you approach the room you intend to attack? Should you try to sneak up and surprise the occupants when you burst in? Or should you communicate loudly with your teammates, announcing your presence and intimidating the occupants?

The way you approach the target room depends entirely on the situation. If you feel you can sneak up to the room, and you can creep quietly on a soft carpet floor, then by all means try to do so, and surprise the hell out of the occupants of the room when you breach. However, take a moment to think of what's involved in that. It involves a bunch of people on your team wearing heavy boots and other combat gear being absolutely quiet, not bumping into the wall when they stack up, not coughing, not whispering, and not having any loose paintballs in their hoppers or pods rattling around like castanets! As stealthy as you think you and your team are, you probably sound like a herd of elephants coming down a hallway with a typical wood or concrete floor.

Also, remember the discussion of top-down building assaults discussed in Part 5? The idea is to flush the enemy out of their entrenched positions and into the open so you can engage them on your own terms. If they hear a bunch of attackers coming down the hall, yelling loudly and aggressively like a finely-honed war machine, you may cause them to retreat out of the room and pull back. This is what you want, because when you assault a room where they're waiting for you, the attacking team is ALWAYS at a disadvantage.

Consider too if there are alternate points of entry to the room. Can you enter by a window, drop down from a skylight, or climb up through a sewer or trap door? Could you "slice the pie" on an open doorway or window to the room, and take out any threats inside that way instead? Remember, you want to avoid going into that room if you can, because the nature of room-clearing favours the defender(s).

Stacking

In this part of the series I'll be covering a room assault from the perspective of a 4-member team. If you've got more team members available for the assault then you'll have to modify the tactics slightly, but the general principles will remain the same. Generally, 4 members is a good number to work with, so that you don't trip all over each other going in, and reduce the chances of a friendly fire incident. Additional team members can be kept in reserve out in the hallway to fill in any gaps where they're needed (and by gaps, I mean members of your team getting taken out when they go in!).

Because of the narrow door, it's obviously much easier for a 4-man team to enter a room in a single file. To accomplish this, the team needs to "stack up" short of the doorway. The team should stay tight to the wall, so that they only have to worry about threats from 180 degrees while "stacked".

While waiting in the stack, each teammate has an area of responsibility (AOR) to cover. The lead man (#1) covers the area directly ahead of the team with his eyes and weapon. He watches for anyone coming out of the doorway the team is about to assault, or any threat coming down the hallway. #2 points his weapon ahead diagonally, and covers the exposed side of the team. #3 in the stack is responsible for covering high, keeping an eye on high ground, such as overhanging balconies, etc. Lastly, #4 covers the ass of the team. His area of responsibility is EVERYWHERE to the rear of the team - high, low, down the hallway, everywhere.

During dynamic entry, the greatest risk is generally to the first 2 attackers breaching the room. Because the team leader (TL) is important to the mission, ideally he should be #3 in the stack (or later if you have an assault team larger than 4 members). If possible, the rear cover position shouldn't be occupied by the TL, since he needs to be facing forward to observe the tactical situation and make the right calls.

Before continuing, I have to emphasize the importance of TRUST among team members. You have to cover your assigned sector, and trust that the other members of your team will do the same. If you cross into another member's AOR, you leave your own AOR uncovered and jeopardize the team. So don't cross over into another AOR!

Something else that bears mention is the importance of PHYSICAL CONTACT in a stack. In extremely dark hallways where it's very hard to see, it's important that team members maintain physical contact with each other. This doesn't have to be awkward, and keeping your left hand on the left shoulder of the teammate is enough. Basically, you want to be able to feel when your team ahead is beginning to move. Otherwise, #1 in the stack could breach the room, while #2 has no idea that he's gone ahead, leaving #1 assaulting the room alone (which is a very BAD thing). Remember too that the rear cover team member is facing away from everyone else in the stack and won't see the team move, so it's very easy for him to get left behind if there's no physical contact with the team.

Breaching

Entering the room is referred to as breaching. The most important rule to follow when breaching is to CLEAR THE FATAL FUNNEL! In all likelihood any defenders have their weapons pointed right at that doorway, and if you're entering a dark room from a lit hallway, the hallway light will silhouette you. So you want to spend as little time there as possible.

The two methods of dynamically entering a room are CROSSING and BUTTONHOOKING. Crossing means cutting across the doorway in a straight line to the opposite side. Buttonhooking means curling tightly around the door frame into the room. To fully illustrate both movements, and the entire Dynamic Entry process, I'll explain it using diagrams:


A very important concept in Dynamic Entry is the Right-Hand Rule. 90% of human beings are right-handed. When facing a door and called upon to lift their right arm and shoot quickly under stress, they'll shoot high and to their right with that first shot or burst. That means the first attacker into the room needs to enter low and to the defender's left whenever possible. From the breacher's perspective, it means #1 needs to go in heading to his right side. In the diagram above, #1 crosses into the room to the right (the defender's left).

Obviously, if #1 sees a threat in the room, he should engage it right away if he wants to survive. However, barring an obvious threat, his first priority should be to "DIG" the corner. In a room with no cover or barricade, a defender's preferred position is in the corner. This is for the same reason that you move along walls in FIBUA (see Part 5); a defender in a corner is surrounded by walls on two sides, and only has to worry about threats directly in front of him.


The #2 breacher then immediately follows #1 in and buttonhooks around to the left side of the room. You don't need to enter to the right this time, because the defender(s) eyes and weapon is already tracking assaulter #1 in the other direction. So entering to the left is comparatively safe at this point. Once again, if a threat is immediately visible, #2 engages it, but if not then the priority is digging the corner directly to the left of the door.


The #3 breacher then immediately follows #2 into the room, crossing this time. But he DOES NOT dig the corner! ONLY the first man in on each side digs the corner, otherwise #3 would end up muzzling/lazing #1 (see Part 2 of this series for an explanation of lazing). Remember that you have to TRUST that your teammates are covering their AORs, and that corner is #1's AOR. #3's focus should be downrange into the room, scanning for threats.


The #4 breacher then immediately follows #3 into the room, buttonhooking around the door frame. #4 also DOES NOT dig the corner, as it's already been covered by #2.

It's crucial that the entire team "flows" into the room, like a stream of water at the bottom of a funnel. If there's too much of a delay between each team member entering, each member is on their own in that room for a brief period. The assault is much more effective and devastating when the entire team enters the room almost simultaneously.

Keep in mind the above steps and diagrams illustrate a team assaulting a room from the left side of a doorway. If the team were assaulting from the right side of a door, the #1 assaulter would have to buttonhook rather than cross to respect the Right Hand Rule. Whatever maneuver the #1 man starts with though, the next person would do the opposite. So in from the right side of a doorway the order would be Buttonhook-Cross-Buttonhook-Cross.

The final result of a successful Dynamic Entry operation should be the 4-man team forming a "firing line" just inside the room. Once through the door, hang back and avoid deep penetration of the room. Your marker can shoot a lot farther than the length of the room, so hang back and give yourself as much distance from the bad guy to react as possible.


Another benefit of hanging back (and probably the most important), is that you won't have a crossfire situation where your rounds that miss the threat hit your teammates. There's no reason to be in a Tarantino-esque situation where everyone's in a circle pointing guns at each other.


Consolidation

Once everyone's in position inside the room, and all the shooting has stopped, each team member should call out that they're okay and still standing. In sequence, each member of the team yells "ONE UP" "TWO UP" "THREE UP" "FOUR UP". When it's determined that everyone is okay, it's time to check each other over for hits, and replenish your ammo in preparation for clearing the next room.

Further considerations

Small rooms

If you're #1 entering a doorway, and discover you're entering a tiny room that definitely won't fit 4 operators, call "SMALL ROOM". This will prevent the comedy of 3 guys piling into you from behind as you realize you're breaching a broom closet.

Unknowns

Often, when you breach a room and everything goes smoothly initially, there will still be places in the room that present a risk. Barricades (such as overturned furniture), alcoves, closets, long walls, and doors to other rooms can still be issues in rooms that you thought were clear. If you notice one of these unknowns in your sector/AOR, call it out loud and clear so that your other teammates know it's there too. If you enter on the right side and see a big desk turned on its side in front of you, call "BARRICADE RIGHT". If you see a door in the middle of the room on the far wall, yell "DOOR CENTER". Whatever hazard you encounter, time is on your side now, and you don't have to take it dynamically now that you're already inside the room - you can slice the pie around it, call out to someone hiding in the alcove or barricade to come out and surrender, etc.

Overextension

If you want to make sure that what was behind you remains cleared/secure, you'll need to leave at least one person covering all possible ways in behind you as you go. Obviously this will thin out your team more and more the further ahead you go, to the point where you may be breaching a room as a 2-man team (which of course is pretty risky). So be careful not to extend your team too far when clearing a series of rooms.


Conclusion

I hope I've explained this topic well enough for you to have a full understanding, as Dynamic Entry is one of the trickiest aspects of CQB. But just as important as understanding these tactics, is understanding and practicing them as a TEAM. It's important that everyone be on the same page for these fast-moving operations to go smoothly. And needless to say, COMMUNICATION is all-important. If you see or hear anything important to the mission, your team needs to know about it too.

In the final part of this series (Part 7), I'll present a few videos of real-life fighting forces engaging in Dynamic Entry training, and you'll be able to see the principles I've explained in action.

Part 7

"Slicing the Pie" Video Demo - CQB Week

After posting Part 4 of the Paintball CQB Tactics series, I had a quick look around YouTube for a video to further demonstrate the concept of "Slicing the Pie". I came across a video from Charlie Strickland with Talon Training Group explaining the concept brilliantly. For those who learn better by watching video, here you go:

Paintball CQB Tactics, Part 4 - CQB Week

In this installment of the CQB series, we’ll take a look at the tricky matter of safely negotiating corners. Corners are a big unknown in close-quarters battle, second only to doorways in risk.

There are 3 mainstream methods of negotiating corners. Let’s take a closer look at each.


JUMPING OUT TV-STYLE and “Popping”

First, let’s analyze the movie and TV-style method of taking corners, AKA “Taking a corner dynamically”. Although this method sometimes has its place, in 99% of situations it’s a VERY BAD IDEA. Let’s look at the method step-by-step:

1) Our fearless hero hugs the wall and creeps up to the very edge of the corner (usually with his gun up James Bond-style);


2) Suspecting someone is on the other side of the corner, he steels his nerves and prepares himself; and

3) He jumps out or swings around from the corner, confronting the badguy with a no-bullshit fancy stance and a muzzle pointed right between his eyes.


Our hero doesn’t use the cover and/or concealment provided by the wall, choosing instead to expose most or all of his body to return fire. BECAUSE IT’S NOT IN THE SCRIPT FOR HIM TO GET SHOT.

To be fair, a variant of this called “The Pop” is sometimes used by real combat professionals, but it’s usually done in pairs to reduce the disadvantage of jumping into the unknown. Also, they make real sure that they don’t expose any more of themselves than they have to to get the job done. A somewhat comparable concept is “snapshooting” in speedball.


But generally this method is a bad move, and it’s used less and less these days. Here’s why: Remember the Action-Reaction process and the concept of the Cognitive Delay from Part 2 of this series? Well they come back with a vengeance when you take a corner dynamically. Picture 3 badguys on the other side of that corner, covering it with their weapons. Because it’s the expected direction a threat will come from, they’re ready with a twitch of their trigger fingers to blast anything that moves around that corner. They’ve already perceived the corner as a danger, evaluated what they’re going to do, and all that’s left for them is the action part. Then we have our hero, literally jumping into the unknown. As soon as he leaves the cover of that corner, he’s faced with 3 bad guys at the ready. He first has to perceive them, then evaluate how to proceed, then take action (either shooting at them or ducking back behind the cover of the corner), all while under the stress of getting shot at. That’s a BAD spot to be in. So please, use the Popping method sparingly, and take corners dynamically as a last resort.


The Quick Peek (“Israeli Peek”)

As far as I can tell, the Quick Peek method came into use during the Israeli war in Lebanon in 1982. Basically, the Israeli soldiers were fed up of getting shot by PLO snipers, so they devised this method of checking around corners to avoid exposing themselves unnecessarily. Hence it became known as the “Israeli Peek”. Here’s the Quick Peek method step-by-step:

1) An operator comes up carefully to the edge of a corner;
2) He sticks his head out from the corner for less than a second, taking a mental “snapshot” of what’s around the corner and immediately pulling back.
3) He then adopts a kneeling stance, then pops back out from the corner, this time with his weapon at the ready, and engages any snipers or other bad guys he spotted during the “snapshot”.

The idea behind this is that any sniper covering the corner wouldn’t be able to react in time to shoot off the operator’s head the first time he sticks it out. So the sniper covers the exact spot where the operator stuck his head out, ready to shoot it the moment it pops out again, but SURPRISE! The operator’s head pops out at a LOWER spot, this time with his gun up and shooting back!

Well as you can imagine this worked great at first, but generally in warfare people quickly learn and adapt to their enemies’ tactics. Snipers just started to aim lower after seeing someone’s head pop out, and the advantage of the Quick Peek method was quickly negated. Not to mention there are other disadvantages to the Quick Peek. Namely, with the penetration power of high-powered rifles, snipers could just try to shoot a “peeker” THROUGH the wall they just peeked around (though this is not an issue in paintball of course). Also, when you take your “snapshot” around the corner, by the time you pop out the second time, the tactical situation could have changed considerably – what could have looked like a clear area the first time might now be crawling with hostiles who just ran out of a building or around a corner. Keep in mind too that less than a second isn’t much time to see everything, especially if your enemy is camouflaged. Not to mention that by sticking your head out from cover, you completely give away your position to anyone watching for movement in your sector. I would say the biggest disadvantage though is that no matter what you see in your “snapshot”, you’re not in a position to DO anything about it. You could peek around a corner and see Osama Bin Laden himself, but with your gun pointed elsewhere, he runs for it when he sees your head pop out, and you missed your chance!

For illustration purposes here’s an example of me performing a Quick Peek in a hostile CQB environment (my bedroom), from the friendly viewpoint. Watch how my gun is pointed down at the floor and useless:


And here it is from the enemy viewpoint, a nice giveaway of my position:


In fact if you were an aggressive player, you would probably rush me and surrender or bunker me before I could get my gun up!


The Pie Method

With the limitations of the methods for taking corners illustrated above, these tactics are rapidly falling out of favour among real-world operators. The current favoured technique is what’s known as “Slicing the Pie”.

Slicing the Pie involves treating every corner as a circle, or a pie as an analogy. The idea is to carefully maneuver around the corner with your weapon ready and held in tight to your body, so that as you come around the corner you can see your enemy, but all they can see is your aiming eye and your muzzle while you pull the trigger and take them out.


The diagram below illustrates the concept of Slicing the Pie:


By moving slowly through the numerical positions around the corner, you can clear the corner incrementally, a sliver of “pie” at a time. This way you use the corner as a pivot point and the wall as cover, keeping the least amount of your body exposed, while being ready to effectively engage anyone around that corner. Done properly, you’ll see an enemy’s foot, knee, or shoulder and be able to shoot it before he even knows you’re there.

Another HUGE advantage of the Pie Method is in dealing with multiple opponents. Picture the 3 red circles in the diagram below as 3 threats:


If you had jumped or popped around a corner like our TV hero discussed above, you’d have to engage all 3 badguys at once, and more than likely your ass would be grass. But by slicing the pie, you could take out an enemy at position 2, while the other 2 can’t see or hit you through the wall. Then you could take out another enemy at position 4, while the other remaining enemy can’t see or hit you. Lastly, you could take out the final enemy at position 7. Instead of jumping out into a 3-on-1 battle, you engage in a series of 3 1-on-1 battles, where you have cover, the element of surprise, and the ability to strike first and fast with your weapon up and ready.

Speedball players are no strangers to slicing the pie. The concept of “wrapping” in Speedball is almost identical, and seasoned Speedball players are acutely aware of angles around a bunker, and keeping only a minimum of their bodies exposed. In fact the best Speedball players tend to get eliminated mainly by hits to the shoulder, or to the exposed edge of their goggles.

One crucially important thing to keep in mind is to keep back from the corner. There’s no use Slicing the Pie and trying to surprise someone around a corner when they can see your barrel pivoting around said corner.


In fact I’d advise staying back a couple feet from a corner as you pivot around it. There’s no need to be close to a corner, as the angles and cover are the same, and your paintball marker can easily launch a paintball on a relatively straight path out to 60 feet. In the following photo I’m about 3 feet back from the corner. Assuming the photographer was the threat, I’d still easily be able to hit him:


So this is all fine when a rightie has to “pie off” a corner towards the right side, but what about a corner where he would need to move to the left? Obviously keeping your normal stance would expose the left side of your body coming around a corner, so this needs to be addressed.

One method would be to adopt a “southpaw” stance, and switching the weapon to your left side/hand. Although this will definitely work to keep you less exposed, this can lead to a couple seconds during the hand-change where you’re vulnerable. Also, you may not be proficient in firing your marker with your support hand. If this is the case, a secondary method is to tilt your upper body and weapon towards the left, so that you lead the corner with your weapon and your left eye instead.


The downsides to this method are that it may be awkward to shoot in this position, and with your marker tilted steeply your hopper may have trouble feeding, and you’ll be limited to a couple of shots before you have to shake your marker (obviously this isn’t a problem when going mag-fed).

One thing you really have to be careful about when you pie off a corner is the position of your elbows. If you lead with your elbow, it’s very obvious to your enemy that you’re coming around the corner. Plus, you’re offering him another place to shoot you.


Make sure those elbows are kept tucked in! Imagine your elbows are Krazy Glued to your rib cage. I notice a lot of paintballers fire their markers with their elbows way out. Remember that you’re firing a paintball gun, not your granddaddy’s 30-06 hunting rifle. There’s barely any kick to speak of in even the harshest mechanical marker, so you don’t need your elbow all the way out, bracing for recoil. In fact, with most real weapons used for CQB (MP5, M4, etc), the kick is so negligible that you’ll rarely find real-life operators using a stance with their elbows way out.

The speed at which you “slice the pie” really depends on the situation. If you have the time to go slow, then do so. By going around the corner slowly, you give yourself more time to perceive and evaluate what you see. Generally the fewer “unknowns” there are, the faster you can go. For example, if you’re just going around a corner to a narrow hallway, you could probably do it in a few seconds. However, if you’re coming around a corner into a large open area surrounded by open windows and structures, you may have to take it extremely slow and check each hazard area before inching over a little bit more.

Keep in mind also that a “corner”, in the context of these tactics, isn’t limited to the end of a hall or wall. For the purposes of this discussion, the same principles can be applied to a doorway, a staircase, a nook/alcove, a barricade/bunker, or any unknown angle where it’s to your advantage to pie it off and keep as little of your body exposed as possible until you know what’s there.


Happy Slicing

Now that I’ve explained how to take a corner properly, and how to avoid the most common mistakes, you’ll have a better grasp of how to keep from getting all shot up in one of the most hazardous moves in CQB. And if I ever see you doing something like THIS, sticking your whole upper body around a corner to check or engage someone, I’ll personally walk up to you and punch you in the mask!!!


I hope by now you understand why there’s no need for this, and that you can accomplish the same goal by exposing only your shooting eye and your gun, and hanging back.

NOTE: In closing I just want to highlight a cardinal safety rule in CQB paintball: NEVER BLIND FIRE AROUND CORNERS! Around the corner could be the back of some poor 10 year-old kid’s head, and if you’re launching a dozen paintballs into it at point-blank range, you’d really be making the sport look bad (not to mention possibly causing permanent damage!)

Part 5

Paintball CQB Tactics, Part 3 - CQB Week

In this installment I'll cover some individual skills and tactics for paintball CQB play, and proper team communication.

Point A to Point B

The most basic individual skill you'll need to master for CQB is movement. The good news is that if you know how to walk, you've pretty much already mastered this aspect! The state-of-the-art basic method of movement in close-quarters combat is the Tactical Glide. This involves walking while leaning slightly forward at the waist, with a bend in your knees - not so low that you look like a caveman or knuckledragger, but low enough that you have the ability to spring up, sprint, jump to the side, or otherwise react quickly. The advantage of this position is that the bent legs act as shock absorbers at each step, giving you a stable shooting platform from the waist up, and allowing your weapon to stay more or less on target. As an added bonus, you make yourself a shorter target, and you're less likely to get your head shot off. Here’s a demo by a former US Marine (although I personally prefer to crouch a little lower than he does – as always, fine-tune your own style):


Contrast this with some of the methods of movement from the older schools of thought on tactical movement: There’s the "Step & Slide" method, where you move forward by taking a step forward with the lead foot, then slide the rear foot forward to catch up. There’s also the cross-over method, where you cross one foot over the other as you advance or withdraw. The Step & Slide suffers from instability, because with every step forward your upper body/shooting platform drops, and when you slide the rear foot forward to catch up your upper body rises. This means your gun doesn't stay on target very well while you move. The cross-step, on the other hand, is just a disaster waiting to happen. What if you needed to react at the moment your legs are crossed? Not only is it not a stable shooting platform, but mobility is seriously compromised with the legs in that position.

Weapon handling on the move

What about handling your weapon while you’re moving? Well the main thing to keep in mind is the 3-Eye Principle. This involves keeping both eyes and your weapon in the direction of the threat area, or your area of responsibility if you're moving in a formation with a team. Most paintball players are notorious for keeping their marker pointed down while they move! Keep your gun up and pointed in the general direction you're looking at, so you're able to shoot your opponent square in the goggles if he pops his head up for a split second while you move. (If you find your marker too heavy to hold up consistently, then either build up your arms, or get rid of the 20lbs of useless accessories on it that make it look badass but add very little to its function!) If you're on the move you're already in a vulnerable position, so don't make it harder for yourself and decrease your reaction time by not being ready to shoot instantly. You don't have to hold your weapon perpendicular to the ground with your eyes behind your sights (in fact this would make it hard to see hazards on the ground in front of you, not to mention KILL your arms), but keep it at what's called the low-ready. The low-ready means keeping the gun up in your shoulder and relaxed, so that it's ready to snap up to the high-ready position (eyes behind the sights) and shoot when required.


Note: The clear-ready is the position you adopt when you don't want to point your muzzle at (laze) someone. It basically involves having your hands on the marker ready to shoot it, but keeping it pointed at the ground.

Head on a swivel

When using the 3-eye principle and scanning your area of responsibility from side to side or up and down, always lead with the eyes. Remember the concept of the cognitive delay we discussed in part 2? Well, if you move your weapon and eyes together, by the time you spot your target and your brain evaluates it and identifies it as a threat, your weapon and eyes have already scanned past it, and now you have to correct them back in the opposite direction to aim and fire. If you lead with your eyes by a few degrees in the direction of your scan, by the time your brain screams “THREAT” your weapon is pointing directly at the target instead of past it. This can save you that critical split second you need to react and save your bacon.

One other thing I’d like to talk about regarding weapon handling (that doesn’t really fit into the movement section but I’d like to address) is the concept of reloading high. Whether a mag-fed or hopper-fed marker is used, a big mistake that some players make is to drop their marker down to around waist level to reload it. If you do this, while you’re looking down at your gun so much around you is changing. When you look up again after those 5-10 seconds and go to bring your reloaded marker up, your opponent could be right there in your face yelling at you to surrender! So bring the marker up in front of your face when you reload, and make that your “workspace”, so to speak. That way you could still see what’s going on with your opponent using your peripheral vision.

The biggest no-no

The most important thing to keep in mind while moving (or standing, or crouching, or sitting) is to KEEP YOUR FINGER OFF THE TRIGGER UNTIL YOU INTEND TO SHOOT! While moving you can trip, bump into something, get startled, or suffer some other unforeseen event that can cause your trigger finger to twitch and fire off a shot, which can lead to anything from giving away your team’s position, to putting someone’s eye out. After lazing your buddies, the finger on the trigger is dead giveaway #2 that the person handling the weapon is an untrained civvie, because any professional doing that tends to pay in verbal abuse, pushups, and even lashes depending on what country’s military they’re currently in! DON’T DO IT!

A visual reminder to keep your finger off the trigger (contrary to the video title, no one got shot in this incident – it was a near miss):


Tactical Communication (Tac Comm)

Although individual skills are important, you need to be able to work as a team. Although I won’t really cover team movement and formations in this series (but expect to see it sometime down the road on Grey Ops), I definitely want to talk about communication with your teammates in combat.

Obviously you should tailor your communication to the situation you’re in. You don’t want to yell to your teammates if you’re trying to sneak into position, any more than you would want to whisper to them when shots are going off all around you. That being said, when the excrement hits the rotating ventilation device, GO LOUD. Use your command voice to call out to your team, i.e. SPEAK WITH YOUR BALLS. Speaking loudly and confidently psychs you up, intimidates the opposing force, and increases your assertiveness and “killer instinct”.

When you use your command voice, you can be heard without having to turn and face the person you’re communicating with. Just like you can drive and carry on a conversation with a passenger while looking at the road ahead, you can yell to your teammates and still look downrange at what’s going on with the opposing force, and they’ll still hear you. There’s no need to take your eye off the ball!

When you’re in an environment where it’s too loud to be heard, you’re too far to yell to someone, or you want to stay quiet, hand signals are an adequate substitute. Arrange these with your team beforehand, and keep it SIMPLE. Use 7 or 8 signals at most for common messages, as it’s unrealistic to expect everybody to memorize a whole new type of sign language that they’ll probably forget when things heat up anyway.

In the next installment of this series, we’ll talk about minimizing your risks while approaching and around corners and angles, one of the trickiest features of a close-quarters battlefield.

Part 4

Paintball CQB Tactics, Part 2 - CQB Week

This is the second post on GreyOps.net in a series on CQB tactics for paintball. For the rationale behind this series, see Part 1.

Close-Quarters Battle: A Definition

Before we continue, let's define Close-Quarters Battle (CQB). There are a lot of fancy definitions out there that try to sound all technical and snooty, but the basic definition of CQB is "Fighting really f**kin' close!" This isn't taking a shot at a guy from 300 yards away. It's not dropping a 1000lb bomb on some poor guy's head from a fighter-bomber at 5000 feet. This is like in Roman times, when you'd get close enough to your enemy to see the fear in his eyes before you gouged them out with your spear. It's coming around a corner and seeing your enemy right in front of you. It's you shooting at him and him shooting at you, until one of you goes down. It's intense. But for those of you who absolutely MUST have some technical definition, you could say it's "Engaging enemies at close-quarters and neutralizing them with effective fire, while using proper tactics to minimize losses". A general characteristic of CQB is that it consists of "Short-duration, high-intensity battles".

One could argue that with the limited ranges of paintball markers, and the confines of the average paintball field, by definition ALL paintball engagements are close-quarter battles. With this in mind, most of the tactics for real-life CQB carry over pretty well. We'll get into some of those tactics later in the series, but first let's talk about how people react in high-stress situations like CQB.

Stress Reactions

Under extreme stress, such as in CQB situations, people go through certain physiological changes caused by an adrenaline spike. One possible manifestation of this is freezing. This is good in certain situations, but bad when a proper quick reaction is needed. Another is the Fight or Flight response, meaning aggressively charging towards a threat or turning your back on it and running away (both of which are usually bad moves in CQB). Others may experience speech problems, like stuttering or having their voice rise in pitch. A very common reaction is "clinging to the herd", in other words staying close to the group. This is a normal instinct in most social animals, as you improve your chances of survival by being in numbers (you don't need to be the fastest zebra in the herd to escape the lion, you just have to be faster than the slowest zebra).

This reaction can hurt your chances for survival in CQB, since you may be in a situation where you need to maintain space between you and your teammates. OR you might realize you're really in a bad spot (like this poor bastard getting shot up below), but you stick with them anyway because you want to stay with the group.


Let's go on a tangent for a moment and take a quick look at the process from perception to action:


Person 1 perceives something, evaluates it using their brain's current state of knowledge for guidance, and then acts. (I included the "Person 2" line to illustrate why action is always faster than reaction. Before Person 2 can (re)act, they have to first perceive the initial action, then evaluate it, then take action of their own. Person 2 is already 2 steps behind). This cognitive delay is bad enough when you need to act quickly, but when stress reactions take over your brain during the Evaluation phase, it gets even worse.

So we've identified why these stress responses are a bad thing in a life-or-death situation, but in paintball because your life isn't on the line you may only see "light" manifestations of these reactions. We've all heard a kid's voice break while yelling something when he gets excited on the field, or seen a buddy freeze when incoming paintballs start hitting all around him and his brain jams up as he tries to decide what to do (DUCK!). A little stress is good, because it keeps you alert and keeps your reflexes sharp. But too much stress causes the aforementioned reactions, clouds your thinking, and complicates the evaluation phase, slowing your reaction time. So how do we reduce our stress and keep it manageable in an intense situation?

Managing Acute Combat Stress

One method of short-term stress reduction is COMBAT BREATHING. This is a term coined to describe slow, deliberate breathing in an effort to slow your heart rate and lower your general level of tension. It consists of taking a medium-deep breath for 4 seconds, holding it momentarily, then breathing out for 4 seconds. Under stress you may not get the timing right, but the important thing is to remember to BREATHE! Your brain needs oxygen to function properly, and under stress a lot of your oxygen gets shunted to your muscles for quick action, which leaves less for the brain. By making sure you don't take shallow breaths (or worse, hold your breath) in a combat situation, you keep an adequate oxygen supply going to your brain, and the rhythm of combat breathing brings your body's stress level down considerably.

Another method of bringing your stress levels down (and this is ESSENTIAL), is proper TEAMWORK and COMMUNICATION. When you have too much responsibility in a stressful situation, the stress tends to pile up even more. Stress is a result of a perception of a LOSS or LACK OF CONTROL over your environment/situation. So when you have a division of labour in the team, you have less to worry about losing control over. To illustrate, imagine a situation where you're going into a hostile environment alone, and have to worry about threats from all sides - meaning 360 degrees of risks to your life. Now imagine a situation where you're a team of 4 going into that same situation, and each of you has only a 90-degree sector to cover. You only have to worry about that one sector, and you have confidence that your teammates will cover their sectors as well. That takes quite a load off, and your stress levels would be a lot lower. The communication part comes from reassurance from your teammates, and from members of the team keeping each other cool and in control. Hearing things like "Watch that door on the left", "Stay sharp", and "Watch your breathing" from your various teammates lets you know you're among alert, capable company. And of course, the importance of a good team leader who can handle stress well and keep his team focused can't be overstated.

Not-So-Friendly Fire

I just want to address one more thing when it comes to stress and CQB, and that's the issue of "blue-on-blue" fire. If you're into Milsim paintball, then it's likely your team doesn't wear bright red or yellow jerseys to set you apart. In fact, you're probably wearing some form of camo or black (which the opposite team is also wearing), it may be dark if you’re indoors, and the only way to tell friend from foe is a small band of blue or red tape on your upper arm or paintball gun. Subject to the stress of CQB, with your "evaluation" abilities being at less than their best, it's very easy for you to shoot a teammate by mistake. Since even a hit from your own team can eliminate you, you need to stay organized, realize where everyone from your team is at all times, and maintain strict fire discipline. Spray 'n' pray is out, checking your target and picking your shots is in. When you hear someone from your team yell "Cease fire!", stop shooting immediately. Or if you hear "Check your fire!" you need to really be careful with your shots, and avoid firing full auto (this is what someone should call out when they feel they're getting dangerously close to a teammate's field of fire).

And one thing you should avoid at all costs, even in low-stress situations, is "muzzling" or "lazing" your teammates. Never point your marker at something you don't intend to shoot, and this includes the back of your teammate's head! Under stress, or when surprised, or when the shots start flying about, you may just unwittingly fire a shot off, and if your marker's pointed at a teammate at that time, then that's the end of the game for them. So make it a habit at all times to avoid pointing your marker's business end at friendlies. If someone crosses in front of you, or if you cross behind them, quickly point your marker down at the ground/floor. In fact, if you watch Airsoft or paintball Milsim teams on YouTube, this is the main giveaway that you're watching amateurs. As realistic as their gear and loadout may look, when you see one or more members of the team sweep friendlies, pointing their weapons at their buddies ahead down the hall, or off to the side of a room, you know you're watching civvies. Someone in a REAL fighting force would never get away with that, because they would catch PURE HELL from their teammates and instructors!

Part 3

Paintball CQB Tactics, Part 1 - CQB Week

These days in the Milsim world, be it at paintball fields, on YouTube, or on Internet discussion forums, there's far too much focus on fancy gear and looking the part, but not nearly enough emphasis on how to play with proper tactics. What ends up happening with this focus is that most Milsim players resemble SpecOps operators on the field, but display tactics more like the Somali mob in Blackhawk Down.

If you think this doesn't apply to you, well…it probably does. And it's nothing to be ashamed of, because there's no official Milsim paintball "training program" that everyone goes through when they start playing. The vast majority of players in this game have day jobs as plumbers, students, office workers, etc, and with no tactical guidance they just emulate the behaviour of action stars they see portrayed on TV and in movies. This is a bad idea, because the way combat is portrayed in entertainment is overwhelmingly NOT the way to do it in real life. Jack Bauer gets away with the mistakes he makes because the script says he does, not because they're sound tactics. Mind you, occasionally you'll see a good example in the media, but most of the time what's shown in fantasy-land is enough to make you cringe if you have an idea of proper tactics.

"You DARE question my tactics?!?"

As someone who's had real-world training in this area, I decided to put together a series of Grey Ops articles on proper tactics for Close-Quarters Battle (CQB) in paintball. A lot of real-world CQB tactics cross over well to paintball, with certain exceptions due to 2 factors: 1) Paintballs fly slower than real bullets (which reduces their accuracy and leads to an arcing flight path/drop), and 2) Paintballs don't penetrate most materials (thankfully, including the human body). There will definitely be something of value in this series for a player at any level of experience who hasn't had police or military tactical training.

Part 2 of this series will focus on the definition of CQB, the psychology of CQB situations, and how to manage stress and persevere during Close-Quarters Battle. Part 3 will highlight some basic individual tactics, and communicating with your teammates. Part 4 will discuss how to safely negotiate corners, which is a science in itself. Part 5 will cover Fighting In Built-Up Areas (FIBUA), and applies to anywhere from playing fields with village structures at your local field, to a large abandoned warehouse complex you might play at during an outlaw game. Part 6 will cover the most hazardous aspect of CQB, that being Dynamic Entry (room-clearing). Part 7 will use real-world video demonstrations by real fighting forces to show proper Dynamic Entry tactics.

Part 2