Giving back - The training of BMGroup in Kuwait Part 1

[MarksInnerDemon]

As many of you probably have run across I have been working closely with Kuwaiti friends, Italian nationals, and a smattering of others. As such let me welcome you to the world of Milsim Kuwait, and bring you to our training so you can, learn, correct, and even suggest things to create better milsim troops. What my goal is to do what USASOC magazine was trying to do, which is educate, learn and get people from Zero to Her…. Ok competent in the shortest amount of time. I have been closely working with Chris a Pilipino firearm instructor trying to help a group of people that have almost no experience learn to fight together, and function as a semi trained team instead of trying to paint soft their way to victory. I am no expert, and would never claim to be, but I have been shown enough in my life to be stupid dangerous.

I recently contacted some people on airsoft pacific one of the forums I haunt for some info. I noted an actual training group sub forum and wanted to organize my teaching in a more logical manner. This is no small task, due to my haphazard way of doing things, but the reality is you need a foundation, and since I have one it is harder for me to remember where the nuts and bolts go. It’s like being able to race, but now you have to build an engine yourself. Variable from AP really came through reminding me the need to go back the basics which has helped. I ran though a modified short version of what he teaches, and dropped some things I haven’t really firmed up yet like hand signals. I can’t stress how difficult it is to get a bunch of non recoil experienced shooters up and firing properly when they just don’t have the experience. In the US I can take someone to the range and fire 100 rounds and body postures naturally start correcting due to the recoil. Add that to the fact many Americans already have a base knowledge. This isn’t to say there are no guns here, just not a lot of involvement in them.

I have noticed a lack of focus from some when it comes to non-military, and civilians who just want to pull the trigger, but not specifically have firearms training. This might come from the point and click world of computers, but that is a hypothesis only. This meant much of my training slowed started devolving into lay bricks, show picture of house, wash rinse repeat. We do some firearms style basics training then do some fun shooting, and it has seemed to help. Also when they shoot like crap I politely point out there fundamentals stink and that’s why I am making more hits which has helped people motivate.

I really want to get these out into the sand dunes and show them a little more field stuff because frankly I believe a good understanding of field maneuvers really helps understanding of built up environment. However for us we are pretty much stuck on a very built up CQB style field. Things like ambushes don’t correspond well with many of the players as they haven’t seen ambushes in the field. When I try to explain an ambush it sounds more like the SOP they have developed of hide behind an object and take pot shots at people. Many things like this are hard to break and the non LE, mil guys tend to shut down without some loud voices and strong leadership. I started rectifying some of this initially by the Spec Ops Omaha beach style training. Anyone who hasn’t seen Spec Ops videos there is a vast amount of CQB info hidden in what to most is a sales pitch. Granted they don’t come out and say do X then Y and get Z but anyone with a bit of knowledge can squeeze out a good bit, plus it supports troops getting trained.

For those of you who haven’t watched this training let me start by saying there are two videos but each training cycle they have an event where they drag the trainees out, and say you are invulnerable, now come in and fight. Trainees will stay on semi, and instructors on full auto. This will automatically show reactions you would never believe, and god bless this awfully effective tactic, but people learn fast not to hang out in fatal funnels. Add to that it really gets people moving and using cover properly and I recommend this training to nearly any group randomly. 2 to 5-7 ratio seems easy and very effective. I don’t want to dive too far into the experience because frankly seeing understands in this, but the reactions of the people in the video were near identical to the ones I saw from my guys. The nice thing I did as well after they experienced basically hell on earth at point blank ranges where I was well shielded by using proper cover was when they got to do the same thing to the guys. Now they have a base of their own reaction and what else really stalls out a fight. So we have seen the problems now to addressing it.

Addressing the problem really can be a bit of a pain. We train twice a week, and I can tell you the first hour is hammering back some of the old stuff from last time. I actually enjoy this time and will select a random person to teach cementing the knowledge, and guiding them so they in turn can pass on what they learn. Diving deeper into the issue was hard due to the fact that flanking sometimes isn’t an easily concept on the field. Between buildings, cars, barrels a flanking maneuver of the normal L shaped fashion might get you shot, or might run you into a dead end. The first thing I really wanted these guys to do was work as a team so we started on the absolutely basic fire and move concept. Some of you may have heard of Individual Movement Techniques which I directly stole and modified for my needs. The one we are focusing on is “Move Under Direct Fire” and unlike the low crawl, high crawl, rush, I had these guys move up as close as they could under fire. Rush to cover, scramble to closer cover, and crawl as close as you can (within reason). It really is counter intuitive to rush any kind of projectile but after a few rounds of this they got the idea that hiding really doesn’t help. To force home this, I gave them a time limit where the shooters counted down, and to achieve a victory they must advance. If they didn’t the shooters would come out of fixed positions and fire on them chasing them back to the starting point to restart. Once they got up and moved reliably I added full auto to the shooters, and then semi auto to the trainees. Trainees could only shoot after they reach a certain point which then motivated them to actually fight up fast and hard. I will note that you really to press the point each individual must past that point. Add in if someone gets hit they go back and have to re assault really gets people ducking and moving instead of bunkering up. When one guy gets up and is waiting to shoot and can’t the others defiantly hear about it.

This is all a work in progress and I can’t stress that reeducation and building on skills is a necessity. Crawl, walk, run helps but remember as you train even if they don’t always need the refresher it is smart to bring back crawling from time to time. This builds a good base of education, and reinforces things. If someone isn’t comprehending or worse the whole group is having a hard time crawling through the mud builds back moral and sometimes even helps people achieve more complex training.

[Darius137]

"Google it"

[Bircher]

what exactly are we talking about?

[MarksInnerDemon]

Sorry should have been more clear. One of your forum members helped me, and I wanted people to hear what I was going through so they hopefully could learn and use it when training new people. I did some assistant instructing for firearms, but hadn't done the instructing end so this more of a my experinces now learn something, correct me, and come up with better ideas for yourself kinda thing.

[Variable]

Glad to hear you're making progress. Out of curiosity who are your students? Are they Kuwaiti locals or expats? Can you get the full range of airsoft gear in Kuwait?

[MarksInnerDemon]

Yeah ask away Variable! Right now I believe a good guess would be 25% expat vs 75% Kuwaiti. Although it might be more 35% expat as the majority are Arab, and I haven't walked around checking flags of origin. That said most Arab expats have lived hear for 15-20 years and are integrated in to the culture fairly well. For me I see a deffiant shift in attitude and action with the Arab culture, vs the non-Arab.

Does that answer your first question?

As for Airsoft.... The middle east in general has ZERO airsoft, while countries like Kuwait don't prohibit it, some of the laws here are based off draconian European laws that the authors never though would involve things like paintball etc. Rami here is trying to get a diversity of items, as hell you can't "have" any military gear as a civilian per say. There are work arounds, and the local bazzar called "friday market" has everything if you know who to talk to. It is also legal for people to have camo stuff etc if they are playing a sport involving it, but can't wear more then one article of camo outside of the event..... Yeah we know dumb law, and everyone here roles there eyes. This stems from people like Hamas etc, and generally why you don't see arab insurgents wearing camo at all because it just is plain illegal in the mid east.

So in short, yeah we have everything, and much of the real military gear that has been tossed (and repaired) or stolen or sold floating around from iraq. Much of it is sold equipment from Iraqi military/police from what I have heard and not stolen.

We also have RAM guns which are 10mm airsoft looking, paintball acting guns. They are actually powderball only at this place, but the accuracy of them are less then impressive, and I have seen a big shift toward airsoft.

That answer the second part?

[Variable]

Yeah it does.

Whats the attitude like there towards military and soldiering? Here in the states yer typical kid grows up with the gung-ho attitude from movies and the general hero status of the military; over there is it the same way or is soldiering less glamorous?

[MarksInnerDemon]

Surprisingly its not to different, and unlike the US we don't see many young kids here. Most middle eastern don't like pain in general so we are getting a tougher individual which I think sparks the interest in the military. One of my Kuwaiti friends was Military (medical) but had to get out due to diabetes which is common. I will say I think more people here look at the US military in very high regard comparatively while still keeping arab traditions. My friend absolutely hated Osama, and Sadam. However Osama means Lion and he loves the strength of lions so he named his first son that. People here don't get hung up on names, and things like that as easily. For instance Black Water doesn't seem to spark any reaction conversationally, there is no emotion change. However if I say Hamas, in the US well you know the reaction.

Add to that terrorists etc aren't looked at as Muslim at all, they are generally called psychopaths (loose translation), they are not Muslim is said a great deal, and most people HERE seem to have a strong dislike of them when the tv shows them.

So things are similar little things that maybe big to Americans aren't.

[Steve]

Basics, basics, basics.

Zero every time you train. Every time.

Practice individual marksmanship skills, from supported shots from behind cover to shooting while walking, running, and sprinting. Ready-ups, and reloads too.

When you get to the "run" phase, everything should be on the clock. And you guys should be looking to lower the clock time.

Most things come down to the three basics. Shoot, Move, Communicate. If you aren't shooting, you should be moving. If you're moving, you should probably still be shooting. And if you aren't moving or shooting, you should be communicating. Preferably while both moving and shooting.

Laser pointers are probably the biggest "bang for your buck" training tools. I'm not talking necessarily about the high-speed rail-mounted green lasers on tape switches. The cheap red laser pointers you can get all over the place work great. Tape them to the barrels and practice moving toward a target while keeping the dot focused on the target. It gives folks feedback when they can see the laser point bounce up and down as they run, and lets them work on figuring out how to stabilize their shooting stance on the move.

Once they get to the point where they are putting more rounds into targets than they are into the air or each other, fire and maneuver as a buddy-team pair. Practice assaulting forward in 3-5 second rushes, with both guys providing suppression fire. Always keep fire on your objective, since suppression often-times works as "ballistic cover".

To get over the "owie!" factor, as the first thing you do after zeroing, play a 10-minute "to the pain" game. Players are immortal. Guns are on full-auto. Free-for-all style. Players can retreat to cover when they want, but don't have to. It's all about building up a tolerance to the strikes, and killing the fear. After a while, it'll get to the point where people are eating a couple of dozen rounds while moving, and still pressing forward into the assault. This can cause problems later (blatant hacking, or just not noticing the strikes under the adrenaline), but that's a personnel issue that can be dealt with by reinforcing great sportsmanship.

Practice whistle drills. Full gear, ready to go. On the whistle, everybody assaults forward for about 10 seconds or so, just trying to dominate as much of the field as you can. It's a lot easier to defend an area than it is to assault it. The more ground your guys can secure on the initial push, the easier time you will have. It sounds like you have a fairly static field. Practice three initial breach pushes from each starting point, so when it comes to game day, your element leader just picks one of the initial plans and the team executes. This is basically the airsoft version of rock drills / glass house drills. You already know where you are going to be fighting, practice fighting there. Build skills to fight anywhere, of course. But train to fight the course of fire you'll be fighting.

When you get to the point where you are doing pretty well at shooting targets while moving, start adding in target discrimination training. Get ahold of some man-sized targets to shoot at. Put one or two guys in the room as unarmed hostages. Practice not shooting them. Switch it up, and practice shooting them, but not the targets. Every so often, switch it up again, and have no targets to shoot at. Get some plastic Pepsi and Coke bottles. Hang them up with 550 cord. Practice shooting only coke, or only pepsi. Then practice shooting only Coke bottles while counting the number of Pepsi bottles. And push guys to talk to each other while they are doing the training. Constantly communicate. Once the shooting starts, you've pretty well lost the element of surprise. So yell. Be loud. Be angry sounding. Communicate.

Then take it back to the basics. Start doing the drills over again as fire teams, and then as full squads. Individual drills feed into buddy-team drills, which feed fire team drills, and so on.

Then you're probably ready to start practicing working cover and doing entries and room clearing. It's not a short process, though.

[MarksInnerDemon]

Love the "to the pain" concept. Although a few of the guys have no issues others can't stand the pain. I will say the RAM rifles hurt and bruse like a SOB, but they grind off more skin from being powder balls then anything else.

Also the whiste drills sound like a good idea. I might modify it into two teams and each whistle blow reverses whos assualting, which might cause a unified assult instead of fast movers and slow movers.

[Steve]

You don't ven need targets, let alone enemies, for the whistle drills. It's mostly just to get everyone used to hauling a$$ on the break.

Try this first: Stand off to the side, and watch your team enter the field when the clock says go. I'd almost put money down that there are a few folks who just don't realize that they can move a good ways before the enemy team gets to somewhere they can shoot from.

Those first few seconds, you can generally ignore cover and just sprint. It's even better if you can come out the gate on the assault and lay suppressive fire to keep your enemies from advancing into the field. But the goal is to own as much of the field in the first few seconds as possible. On the whistle, or horn, or however you start games, if you can get your team assaulting forward instead of just entering the field, it'll probably help you out in the long run.

The more momentum you can establish from instant one, the longer you can push that momentum before your team stalls out and has to take up defensive positions.

Speed. Surprise. Violence of Action. Surprise is probably out, so you have to dominate the other two.