A Trainers Journey: Training the Armed Civilian

I’m just back from a 6 (7) day combined Combat Team Tactics & Combat Patrol Class. I’m back in my office exhausted: these classes take a toll on the cadre due to the amount of ourselves that we put into them.  It is always very interesting to sit in the AAR at the end and hear the student’s thoughts on the training. One of the key take-away’s from this last class was that students were amazed at how far they had come during the 7 day class. One of the comments was that on day 2 of CTT, they were being shown fire and movement in buddy pairs by moving magnets on a whiteboard, and by the final day they were conducting a live squad raid. How?

One Vietnam veteran attendee with a subsequent long career flying fast movers commented that he could understand how people who had no experience of this sort of training could be nervous about showing up. It stands to reason, right – how can a place such as MVT have a bunch of untrained strangers running about in the woods firing live ammunition?! It’s gotta either be unsafe, or just some sort of fantasy band camp, right? But he was impressed by the progression of the training and how the training layers as it progresses with the crawl-walk run methodology.

How do we do this? Because we have extensive experience in the military on deployments and as trainers. And because we care. If we didn’t care, we couldn’t embark on such a training methodology, which requires so much investment on our part to get everyone to meet training standards, progress, and be where we want them by the end of a training course. As part of the safety brief at class, we warn students that they will experience a level of intensity from cadre at times, whether that be a deliberate attempt to increase stress as part of the battle inoculation process, for safety reasons in the noise of a live fire scenario, or again, just ‘cuz we care. That is why it is not an ego endeavor, on the part of either the students or the cadre. It is information passage, practical application, and getting it done.

So why are we doing this? The intent of MVT was always to “keep the good folks alive” by training civilians in real combat proven tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) that they will likely need in the uncertain times we are facing. This is an amalgamation of things learned by cadre both in training and on deployment in the British and US Armies, and as contractors. The vital thing here is that we are not simply trying to replicate TTPs from  any one place/unit in particular, but take our experience and what we think is best and train civilians in what we think they need, utilizing the tools they actually have, which on the whole is semi-automatic battle rifles. We don’t care what specific military units may or may not be doing, except in as much as we may or may not cherry pick what is useful to teach to our students. We are not trying to replicate, for example, Tier 1 Direct Action units – and again that goes to tactical focus because our focus is not on Direct Action (DA) skills (i.e CQB), but rather CQB is included in as much as it may be needed in certain situations. This is all about nuance, experience, and practical applicability.

We know that many well known trainers will not train civilians in ‘tactical’ skills such as fire and movement. Or they will, but with a specific focus on either LEO or DA procedures, because that ‘cool guy’ stuff sells. There really are not many of us that really train civilians in applicable, adapted, light infantry TTPs. The purpose here is to allow the armed civilian access to those skills that will prove most applicable to protecting their family / group in an emergency situation.

So how do we do this on a class? This past week, for example, we ran a 6 day combined Combat Team Tactics (3 day) and Combat patrol (3 day) class. It was seven days with the optional Rifle Skills class tacked on the front. Day 1 of the combined CTT class started on the square range with check zero, weapon manipulation and stoppage drills, moving onto ready ups, facing movements, engagements, scanning and buddy position awareness, followed by individual react to contact drills. The remainder of the 3 day class moves onto the tactical ranges, making extensive use of electronic pop-up ‘Ivan’ targets. We teach fire and movement and break contact drills up to the team level, and finish with an orchestrated squad attack to put it all together. This all really gives the students an understanding of operating safely as a team in a realistic live fire environment.

Combat Patrol builds directly on CTT and focuses at the team and squad level. We teach patrolling, patrol bases and living in the field, squad level movement/patrol/break contact drills and use of overwatch, reconnaissance patrol, ambush and raid. So this part of the class is full-on light infantry / unconventional warfare training, with some flavor added that is specific to civilians, or what may be relevant during a collapse situation, rather than a military operational deployment.

Safety, the crawl-walk-run methodology, and layering of training are a vital factor in all of this. We drill down on removing/squashing the ‘random factor ‘ from what students do, and how they behave. Random is the MVT word for the Ranger School term ‘Sua Sponte’ i.e doing your own thing! Random, if not checked, is what will lead to safety issues in training such as this, and thus students need to check the ego and be part of the team for the duration of training.

(I’ll just interject at this point, that if anyone ever tries to intimate to you that you don’t know what you are doing with your light infantry-style training, and hints at super-secret-squirrel techniques, then they are leading you on, because in reality there are only good solid basics. Other than specific TTPs that units may use (often a matter of opinion), for example with specialist DA CQB, there is only good solid basics. Other than specialist weapons or equipment, a tier 1 unit does things just as a trained civilian will, the only difference being repetition and the competence of the professional (as well as funding and weapon/equipment available!). At a basic level  fire and movement is fire and movement. A break contact drill is just that – there are many ways to do it, but at the end of the day it is breaking contact using fire and maneuver.)

When I started Combat Patrol class, I built it pretty much on adapted British Army light infantry training. Good solid basics. As I grew the cadre, and had more students through, I was able to discuss the curriculum with Ranger qualified, Ranger school instructors, and SF qualified personnel. So what was the verdict on the essentially British tactics that I was teaching? It is all the same stuff, save the nuances and adaptations that we as cadre have made to MVT-specific training, based either on our own experiences, or to adapt to training civilians equipped as civilians are. For example, I was teaching collapsing an ambush in a slightly modified way to what is taught at Ranger School or the SF Q course. And the best bit: all the nuanced TTPs work, and they are all valid methods. Good solid basics.

An MVT student (hopefully cadre one day) friend of mine, ‘B,’ an 18 series SF guy currently on deployment, wrote to me with this after seeing an online tussle over MVT training. I am reproducing it with his permission:

I really like reading various doctrine and historical references because quite often I see that as much as things change, they still remain the same.  TC 7-9 is a pretty good “old school” step by step reference of training from individual to platoon level.  Buddy team tactics are a critical gate in the train up process.  While we have evolved over the last two wars I don’t think the fundamentals have changed much.

Max