The Science of CQB, Gunfighting, and Not Getting Shot

The problem with gunfighting is that you don’t live long enough to make mistakes.  The second problem with gunfighting is that for normal, well adjusted people, it never happens. So how would someone learn what works and what doesn’t besides listening to some guy talk about his six tours in Grenada?

That has been the million dollar question, that hasn’t really been answered until now.  This article will discuss some great research into gunfighting and cqb fighting styles that have been scientifically tested.

Now, I’d like to start this article with a few caveats.  I’m by no means a room entry expert or close quarters battle expert.  I don’t even have a beard anymore.

I’m simply going to be reporting what the researchers have discovered in their well designed experiments, and giving you my thoughts about their findings based on my training and experience.

With that out of the way, let’s move on to the research to see what we can learn.  These experiments were carried out by the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training (ALERRT) center at Texas State University.

They were designed and conducted by Dr. J. Pete Blair who is a professor at TSU and the Executive Director of ALERRT, with Dr. M. Hunter Martindale the Director of Research.

All of the research we will be discussing today can be found in their excellent book, Evaluating Police Tactics.  I highly recommend picking up a copy.  It’s under a hundred pages and full of even more detail then we can discuss here.

Room Entry Styles 

Broadly speaking there are two types of room entry styles.  The lead man can go to the corner he sees, called going to the known, or he can go to the corner he cannot see, or going to the unknown.  There is also a hybrid method where the lead man moves at a 45 degree angle from the door, basically splitting the differences between the two types.

 

 

Supporters of the unknown entry method state that when the first man makes entry moving toward the unknown gives him the best chance to make hits, because he is essentially moving straight forward towards his adversary.

Detractors of this method say that this gives the bad guy the drop on the officer because he can shoot more quickly than the officer who has to take time to locate the threat and engage.

 

 

Supporters of the known entry method argue that the first officer moving along the known wall causes the bad guy to track and shoot at him, effectively giving him a moving target to shoot at which is much harder to hit than if the officer is walking right towards him.  In this case they also point out that the second man is the one who makes the shots on the bad guy primarily.

 

 

It’s important point out that in known entry there is no point at which the officers are right behind each other in the room like in the unknown entry method.  They say that even if the bad guy misses the officer moving towards him, he can still hit the officer moving behind him.

The hybrid method is supposed to combine the advantages of both.  The first man moves at a 45 degree from the door which means the bad guy still has to shoot a target moving laterally.   This method also allows both officers to put rounds on target more quickly.

 

The Experiments

The researchers designed a series of four experiments to test and see if any of these claims are validated by research.  Experiment one was designed to test how room entries affected the suspect and primarily utilized college students as subjects.  The subsequent experiments looked at how well the officer performed.

In experiments 2-4 the subjects where trained police officers or SWAT team members with years of experience. For all experiments the researchers used two men as the entry team.

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Experiment 1 

This experiment looked at the reaction time of the lead officer, and the suspect to see which was able to fire first in either a known or unknown style room entry, as well as few other variables. This video is actually from another experiment discussed in the book but it gives you an idea of how the research was conducted.

Of the 200 plus runs 84 resulted in the officer shooting first, 18 were ties, and 95 the suspect shot first. Of note, the suspect was able to hit the lead officer 45% of the time.  These results indicated that the first officer entering a room cannot reliably be expected to fire before the suspect.

Here is where it gets interesting.  For officers making an unknown room entry, where they move to the corner they cannot see from the doorway, they were hit an average of 1.94 times.  For officers making a known entry, moving to the corner they can see, and laterally from the suspects perspective, were hit 1.28 times.

The hybrid method resulted in a 1.1 hit rate on the first officer.  Hit rates on the second officer where .35 unknown, .33 known, .46 hybrid.  While there are some differences these aren’t actually statistically significant.

Or said another way, it doesn’t mean that hybrid is worse because it has a higher number, it means they would need more runs to verify if this was chance or actually a result of that entry style.

The researchers also found that the second officer was hit passing behind the first in the unknown entry style 16% percent of the time, confirming what many had previously believed.

When researchers combined all hits on the two officers in different entry styles they determined that in the unknown style it was 2.29 hits on officer average, 1.61 for known entries, 1.57 for hybrid.

Check out this video showcasing some exterior and interior movement.  For the most part they conduct known, or hybrid room entries.  At 2:50 you can see a good example of a corner fed room with a hybrid/known entry. These guys are former SF and Delta dudes for the most part and they do have legit beards.

Further Experiments  

These experiments used trained police officers with SWAT experience, to gauge what effects they had on the suspect in different entry methods.  As you might suspect when conducting unknown entries the first officer shot faster, and made more hits, but recall that they are also at higher risk of being shot.

In the unknown entry method the first officer made less hits and was slower to fire, but was less likely to be hit as the second officer made hits on the suspect.

Discussion

It’s pretty clear in my mind that making an unknown room entry is not the ideal choice.  The first and second officers have a higher chance of being hit, with the same chance of making shots on the suspect at around the same speed.

This leaves us with the unknown room entry and the hybrid.  These seem like the only viable option with the hybrid coming out slightly ahead in this case. While the researchers are careful to point out that they cannot statistically say which one is better out of these types, it seems like the hybrid is probably the best method.

Both officers can shoot the suspect in a blind corner quickly and there is still lateral movement of the first officer to make him more difficult to shoot.

Application to the Real World

The first thing that should scream out to you is that making entry on an armed subject is the last thing you want to do.  Regardless of your entry style you are probably going to be shot.  The researchers did a few other experiments in the book that discuss slicing the pie vs. making entry, so give it a read for more details.

The second thing I think we need to keep in mind is that in the real world just hitting a subject, even center of mass, will not reliably incapacitate them immediately.

Greg Ellifritz over at Active Response Training found that on average with centerfire rifle cartridges it took 1.4 rounds striking a target to incapacitate them and only 58% of them were a one shot stop.

So we will need to temper the results of these studies and realize that any room entry from a position that the suspect knows you must come from is extremely hazardous regardless of training or tactics.

There are other methods we could test, namely noise flash diversion devices, or flash bangs, as well as other methods of locating the suspect such as turkey peaking.  I would love to see some further research using some of these common tools to determine what the empirical effects are on safety.

If you want to learn more about the hybrid method head over to Combat Shooting and Tactics and give that article a read.  CSAT is run by Paul Howe former Delta guy and all around badass.

As always put your questions and comments below and get out there and start training!

If you have specific questions for the researchers you can email Hunter Martaindale here.

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