- You haven’t written about guns, tactics, or self-defense for a long time. Please!
Okay, fine…you got it! Let’s talk gunfighting…
Here’s the scenario…you are face to face with a bad guy. You both have a pistol. You are lucky enough to own a fine quality handgun…a Sig…probably the finest in the world. The schmuck bad buy owns a Saturday-Night Special…a Glock…sad for him. You’re already one up on him. You’re both in the low ready position…you see the ever so slightest movement…he is raising his pistol to shoot you.
Now what?
You have faithfully been practicing your “failure drills” (a.k.a. Mozambique Drill) at the range. You are prepared, you’re ready, and it’s time to put all that training to work. You actually see it in your mind…double-tap to center mass and then one in the face…preferably in the orbit. You hands are moving…
Then you feel the excruciating pain in your groin, then your abdomen, by the time his 3rd round is shattering your sternum you don’t feel much of anything. When his last shot enters your head, you don’t feel anything…your lights are out…you’re dead. All that is left is for your dead lifeless body to hit the ground.
Fortunately…this was a training exercise and your weapons were air-soft…but it still hurt…a lot.
Where did you go wrong?
Even with a far inferior weapon your bad-guy opponent beat you…he lived…you died. What did he do right?
About 12 years I did some training with some SWAT folks, we were being trained by some Special Forces guys…Green Beret and Delta. We did this exact drill. Here’s what they taught us…
The failure drill can get you killed. Even the “Box Drill” can get you killed.
All the way back 75 years ago, and multiple times since, FBI research has shown that the first bullet to hit a target almost always ends the contest.
Why did you die and your opponent live? He fired first…hit you in the groin and abdomen while you were waiting to get lined up on center mass with a good sight picture. By the time you were approaching center mass on him, his 3rd shot was already shattering your sternum and blowing up your heart. You were dying by his 3rd shot and before you could even get to use your range drill.
You were effectively “dead” before he even put your lights out with the head shot. You see, your body reacts to that 1st shot that hit your groin, then more so when the 2nd shot hit your abdomen. Your major muscle motions were already slowing down with his first shot…you never stood a chance.
Moral of the story…stitch ‘em!
So back to range training…most of range training can get you killed. You punch holes in paper, stand in one spot, maybe move from side-to-side a bit, do failure drills, box drills, etc. And in a gunfight…well, it don’t work so well that way.
Research and common sense tells you…hit them first with your rounds.
If you are in a low-ready position and it’s time to go to work…start raising your weapon…as soon as the front blade is on some portion of their body start pulling the trigger.
As you fire what will your pistol normally want to do…pull up from recoil. Great! Pull the trigger again…don’t wait to reacquire a sight picture. After that shot…your pistol will want to rise again…great! Pull the trigger.
By about your fourth or fifth shot your pointed at their head…maybe take a fraction of second…and place that final shot in their orbit. Gunfight over…you won.
If you do it at the range look at the holes in the paper…you “stitched” them right up the center line.
Think about it…all the times at some training class they go into detail about “sight picture”…lining up on center mass, squeeze the trigger, reacquire the sight picture, shoot again, then line-up on the head’s orbit with the proper sigh picture, squeeze the trigger. Be systematic…take your time…control…win.
Ah, no. All that takes time.
Listen to this stat…an FBI research project showed that “suspects” fired their first shot in about .38 seconds. Yeah, the highly-trained offices fired their first shot in .39 seconds. The difference between coming in first and second may be measured in tenths—or even hundredths—of a second.
No doubt part of that is an officer being in a self-defense mode…but you’re not! If your life is on the line what do you want to do?
Me…I want to fire first and often…and then maybe render first aid afterwards.
When it comes to a gunfight…you will fight like you train…so train like you will fight.
Couple closing thoughts…
- Think about this…the bad-guy has body armor on. How are those 2 shots center-mass going to work out for you?
- Remember, “I feared for my life, I knew he was going to shoot and kill me, I saw him start to move to kill me.”
- This “stitch ‘em” concept works for CQB fighting with a long gun (i.e. a carbine like an AR).
The name Mozambique Drill traces to Jeff Cooper, the well-known American firearms instructor, and Mike Rousseau, one of Cooper’s associates. During the Mozambican War of Independence in the 1960s/70s, Rousseau reportedly encountered an armed opponent at very close range. He fired two shots into the torso, but the man continued advancing, so Rousseau fired another shot toward the head, which stopped the encounter.
Rousseau later related the incident to Cooper. Cooper incorporated the idea into his defensive-pistol training and called it the “Mozambique Drill” after the country where Rousseau’s encounter occurred.
Later, particularly in law-enforcement training, “Failure Drill” became a more descriptive name: two torso shots followed by a head shot if the initial shots fail to stop the threat.