Practicing To Use Cover Efficiently

We're gonna talk about how to practically and efficiently practice to use cover. And this is of course, a close quarters defensive environment that we're talking about counter ambush home defense, that kind of thing, I'm out carrying in a public space or I'm barricaded in my home. Maybe I'm a police officer moving through an unknown area to respond to an active call or to search and clear something. It even could be applied to a military environment when I'm in by myself or separated from the rest of my team. But the important thing to understand here is that we're talking about practically and efficiently, not optimal use of cover, not slicing the pie, not setting up for a long term Overwatch with as much cover as possible.

And that's where I think things get really interesting because so much of the information that's out there about being behind a barricade relative to a target to me, seems like trying to find the perfect situation or it's competition rules based stuff where we're not even really checking to see how much of someone is covered by the barricade and protected. We're just making sure that targets are engaged in the correct order, our feet are inside of a box on the Real World. You're not gonna have a box that tells you where it's safe to stand and you're probably not gonna be perfectly using cover. The idea is to be efficient when you do it. Now, we're approaching 20 years of content production for personal events network.

Obviously, we started with DVD S in 2005, switched over to streaming in 2010. And what I realized was this is something we probably haven't given enough attention to and we certainly haven't talked about enough recently. So what I've got set up here on the range and the angles are a little odd, but the angles are set up this way because I wanna make sure that the cameras are capturing what it is. I want you to see about this, but you can just take this whole thing and shift it so that we're properly directly into the range right now into the trap. I'm gonna be shooting into the trap, but I am shooting across the range so that you can see what I'm doing here.

There are really three principles we talk about to suggest that yes, you are using cover efficiently. The first one is I wanna make sure that I am beyond the extension of my firearm from the corner that I'm shooting around. So I don't wanna be in a ready position and see someone I need to shoot and as I drive out, run into, and even if my gun is passed there, run into this corner with my hands that obviously could cause a problem for the gun or a problem for my hands. The other thing is if, as I'm looking to see if it's safe to go around this corner or if there is a threat around this corner, that threat charges and comes around, he could be on the gun before I could do anything with it. Right.

Obviously, we don't want to be searching in an extended shooting position because that means if a good guy comes around that corner, I may have no choice but to reflexively almost fire that shot because I'm expecting a threat that's going to happen in a very negative automated way, especially if I'm in a shooting position and my finger goes to the trigger, which we know unfortunately happens in some high stress situations. So we're going to keep our gun in. We're gonna be looking, we wanna make sure we can reach full extension or preferably extension plus in arms reach because that gives us even more of an opportunity to make sure that we really need to shoot or to protect our gun or to choose not to shoot if it's actually maybe a family member running away from a threat or a bystander in a public space running into our barricade area because they wanna stay safe too. Obviously, we don't want to shoot them. So that's the first thing is I want some distance between me and that corner.

The second thing is I want to be off balance. Now, that may seem weird the idea that I want to be off balance. But if I'm using cover properly, I will be off balance. What's that mean? It means I'm gonna get to a corner where I'm gonna now look down this hallway or around the building or around the vehicle, whatever it is.

And as I lean out, I'm putting more and more of my weight on that outside foot. So as I get more and more weight on that outside foot, I'm more and more off balance, right? If I'm on balance, well, then I'm definitely exposing my lower body. If I'm 5050 weight distribution, as I drive out and shoot part of my lower body is exposed and I really don't want that. That's not using cover efficiently.

So I'm gonna keep that lower body behind. I'm gonna lean out and I'm gonna see the target, then I'm gonna drive out and shoot. And the third thing is if I'm using cover efficiently, I am gonna be, uh let's say aware of this corner in my field of view when I'm driving out to shoot, right. Maybe if I were further back using a rifle or something like that or even inside of this red dot window, I would say that I would expect to see that corner inside of the window of a red dot If I'm 1520 30 yards back, certainly with a rifle. Why, what that means is that I'm not way out here because of course, I could be out here leaned over, but still with the vast majority of my body exposed because I've come out further than I need to.

So if I drive out now that corner is nowhere near my field of view on the high center chest of that target. So I know that I'm, I'm out too far, so distance from the target leaning out so that I'm off balance and I'm not leaning out so far or stepped out so far that I'm away from the corner. And what this means is, I should only be exposing some portion of my upper body and maybe not even my whole head. Now with defensive pistol use, you probably are bringing most of your head if not all of it out there, but you don't need to. And especially with a rifle where you're bringing the gun up to your face.

I may only have half of my head exposed, which is way better than fully exposed. And that's the whole point of using cover, of course, is to protect me from getting shot as much as possible. So now let's talk about how to practice that. Well, obviously you have your gun, you have your eyes and ear protection and again, probably shift this about 20 or 30 degrees. So we're shooting directly into the trap on your range.

But if you have the opportunity, what you're gonna be doing is moving around with a training partner that understands the drill. They're gonna be up range from you target and barricade or down range. And as I move around, looking around, not just staring at the ground, certainly not just staring at the target. I'm sometimes right now, for example, behind cover, relative to that threat, sometimes I will not be behind cover relative to that threat. And what that gives me the opportunity to do is not just stand here and say, OK, let me practice shooting around cover, right?

As if I'm always in this static environment, certainly that could be a thing, but I'd rather look at applying my concepts of the use of cover than just performing them. So if I'm moving around and I'm over here when I get that command to shoot, I recognize that I am under attack, I come down, I get my gun out. I take those shots at this point. Cover is not an issue. If, while we were moving around, I find myself here, I get that command.

I can just barely see the target as I move out of that line of sight of the target. As I draw my gun, I am now fully behind cover and of course, I might be fully behind cover at the time of the command. Well, intellectually, right. I set the drill up. I know there's a target down there.

So I might go to the ready position and then just think about being barricaded. Right. And then I might just check. Ok. Is this, is this safe?

Is I'm gonna go find my daughter, I'm gonna go find an exit, something like that. I don't see anything. I come out a little more when I see the whole target. Not just the edge of it because that would be kind of gamey. Right.

Oh, there's a piece of paper. So let me drive out and shoot, that doesn't make any sense. So I'm gonna give myself a rule like I have to see the opposite shoulder. Oh, I can see the opposite shoulder. Now, I've identified the threat and here I am off balance.

Right. I'm aware of the corner. Right. And I'm definitely beyond that extension. So now I would drive out and this is where I'm actually practicing my shooting from behind cover.

Right. So I'm in this environment, make sure I got my hit assess. Always come back out. Right. There's no reason to stay back here.

All leaned over if I, if that guy is down on the ground now. All right, make sure he's down, get back into a more neutral position because the cover doesn't matter if the threat's down. Right. Maybe the next threats behind me and I'm gonna go to this side and use cover that way. So don't ever think about staying behind cover when you've dealt with that first threat.

It's another point of being practical and being efficient in terms of this practice. Right. So let's take a look, what would that look like, you know, at a higher speed? Right. So I'm moving around at some point, I may get that command, that up, command, whatever it is.

I don't see any cover right here. So I'm just gonna engage the target, but now I've hit bolt lock or slide lock in this case with a handgun. Well, normally I would wanna move laterally right to take advantage of just at least moving while I'm getting my reload done. But in this case, I can move behind cover. So now I'm moving behind cover relative to the target.

And if I thought I needed to shoot some more, I just wanted to check and make sure is that guy down? Oh, he's not down, I'm gonna drive out and shoot again. So I might use cover right from that initial command. I might use cover only during a reload or if I had a malfunction or something like that. So I'm using my lateral movement to take advantage of a very simple set up on any range.

You can do that. You can come in front of the shooting positions. You come out here, any kind of dirt burm, any private range where you can shoot a little bit off angle, you can make this drill work one target carrier or target stand as a barricade, one target stand down there is the actual target. And of course, you could have multiple targets, multiple barricades and set this up using the concepts that we talked about earlier and the training methodology to better prepare yourself to take advantage of cover in a real dynamic critical incident.