I don't care if they do disagree, but I'm trying hard not to derail your thread too much. I'd get into the difference between the proactive and reactive gunfight. When the sights are needed and when they're not. Accuracy is a great thing to have, but marksmanship skills by themselves will not save the day. I for one to subscribe to any hit on the enemy is good for me and bad for them. I also subscribe to the thought all handgun rounds are under powered ( some more than others ) and what is hit ( read vitals and CNS ) is more important than what caliber. I submit one's gun handling skills and fighting ability are of greater importance to the CHL citizen than marksmanship. After all, in a gunfight it's more important not to get shot than it is to get rounds on target.
I'd get into the difference between the proactive and reactive gunfight.
When the sights are needed and when they're not. Accuracy is a great thing to have, but marksmanship skills by themselves will not save the day. I for one to subscribe to any hit on the enemy is good for me and bad for them.
I also subscribe to the thought all handgun rounds are under powered ( some more than others )
...and what is hit ( read vitals and CNS ) is more important than what caliber.
I submit one's gun handling skills and fighting ability are of greater importance to the CHL citizen than marksmanship. After all, in a gunfight it's more important not to get shot than it is to get rounds on target.
I would have a hard time arguing with that point of view.
Combat is a whole 'nother world and if you can get your rd into the 'pie plate' (which covers the head or the heart/lungs area) you come away with KIA or a WIA that most likely results in 'incapacitation'. Either one is an acceptable goal. The intensity and environment of combat are HUGE factors. From a raging sand storm to a monsoon in a jungle and everywhere in between; the enviro conditions play a major role...we are all playing the same game; cover and concealment. Factor in the intensity where the combat ratio is not in your favor and suddenly target acquisition is throwing your AR up on a rice paddy berm and pulling the trigger. I have been in a situation where we were completely surrounded by a superior force. I doubt we had any significant KIA/WIA, if any and had we not been completely in the open (rice paddies) and of course so were the bad guys. That resulted more in a stalemate as we did not suffer any KIA/WIA. We may have met a superior force but it was in numbers only, they lacked the CAS trump card.
I often hear "shot placement is king", no, not really, what is king (if there is one) is target acquisition. FNG's frequently want to stick their heads out and if they are lucky, really lucky they may eat some dirt from a miss by the OPFOR, if not the result is a KIA on the bad guy scoreboard. When it comes to TA 'time is of the essence'; you have to acquire and engage before he does. Its not a 'mano a mano' situation as everyone is looking for a target.
Yeah coming up with an evaluation and scoring system for each skill that would balance against each other would be the difficult part. Travis, if you have something that you'd consider 85% workable I think you should release it. Knowing you it'd be perfectly usable even though it's not good enough for your perfectionismcome up with a metric or definable way to measure performance with any aspects on that chart
Will follow your lead...This is a great candidate for a new thread. I'd like to see it started so I can share another rice-paddy veterans observations.
I used MS Excel 2013. I'm not sure if there's any free programs out there, but I'm sure there has to be.
You know, the more I think about it, the more I think that you (speaking generally) should be able to come up with a metric or definable way to measure performance with any aspects on that chart (or any others you might decide to add), the more I think you could establish ends of the spectrum (say beginner to expert), and actually record the data to come up with a radar chart that shows how well-rounded you are as a shooter. The shooting tasks are easy, with all of the established performance numbers, scoreable targets, etc. Might be a bit more tricky for trying to measure and put a range to things like manipulation, target discrimination, etc. For things like target discrimination, possibly drills could be developed to have some degree of consistency and ability to establish measurable metrics (whether it be measuring seconds, tenths, or even hundredths of a second response time). So I think Accuracy and Speed would be easy. Manipulation probably wouldn't be too terribly difficult (reloads, malfunction clearance, etc.). Target discrimination a bit more complicated, though probably not too big of a deal to figure something out. Who knows. Might be something fun to play with, just to see what it looks like.
There's plenty of drills for the evaluation, but I think scoring the evaluation so that the skills can balance might be tricky. Maybe someone with project management and analysis skills should put together a team to work on it?I think the right combination of existing drills could meet this. Good idea.
Many who advocate it as some truth serum that exposes what we really need in a fight and that is aggression more than skill and fundamentals are those with whom I take issue.
"A good plan executed today is better than a perfect plan executed at some indefinite point in the future."
General George S Patton Jr, nailed it. This often happens and the result is paralysis of analysis..."A good plan executed today is better than a perfect plan executed at some indefinite point in the future."
It's called being a winner.
Winning is a habit - so is losing - and losing is unacceptable.
I'm only halfway joking. Ok, maybe less than halfway.
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The thing is, I've seen a LOT of people take classes, participate in competitions, basically going through the motion of doing most of those things, but that are clearly lacking any real aggression. I know what you're saying, and I agree. Just saying.
One example is, I had the toughest time trying to evoke much of any aggression from one of the local women's shooting groups I used to participate with and coach. This is very evident from the fact that, after roughly 4 years or so since convincing some of them to get out to some IDPA events with us, to date a lot of them are still sitting comfortably right at the absolute back of the pack in terms of stage times. And some of them have now been doing IDPA off and on for a good 3-4 years, as well as taking a number of classes. Heck, some of them have now even taken aerial marksmanship courses, and have experienced shooting a carbine from a freakin helicopter. But still no significant performance improvements last I saw. I guess all I'm getting at is, having one without the other is too limiting, and potentially a liability.