Sunday, August 3, 2008

Shot (Strike) Placement

Tim Walker sent this in. It's about shot placement and refers to handguns but the information as to psychological "Superman Effect" is also applicable to unarmed combat. This is just a part of the article, published by Frontsite, and shooting school in Nevada. One of my friends went there recently and said it's worth going back to take again.

Pay close attention to the following facts:
1. Range was 20 feet.
2. Three officers involved.
3. One adversary, 18 years old.
4. Officers used M4s with 55 grain and 75 grain .223 ammunition and Glock 22’s with Speer 180 grain Gold Dot ammunition.
5. Adversary used .45 ACP handgun.
6. Trace amounts of marijuana in adversary’s system.
7. 107 rounds fired by two officers with 17 rounds striking adversary (16% hit ratio).
8. Of the 17 hits, 11 created exit wounds.
9. NO HEAD SHOT DELIVERED by officers at range of 20 feet from either their rifles or handguns.
10. Adversary fired 26 rounds and reloaded magazine from a box of loose ammunition.
11. Incident lasted approximately 3.5 minutes.
12. When adversary was no longer able to return fire, officers still had to “fight” to get him handcuffed.
13. Interesting tattoos on very dedicated adversary.
14. I would add under the FBI’s Lessons Learned Section that when you do not inflict immediate, incapacitating damage to your adversary, you often create a “Superman Effect” in your adversary from the normal physiologic response to significant, but non-life threatening injury.
I experienced this myself when I broke both arms in an all terrain vehicle accident 20 years ago. I distinctly remember looking at both wrists, twisted and broken, but remarkably felt NO PAIN. I was so surprised by the lack of pain that I actually shook the wrists a bit in disbelief! I then crossed my arms, holding the wrists close to my body for support, and JOGGED back toward camp for several minutes before the pain began and then quickly intensified to the point where any movement of my body was extremely painful. It is during this brief but significant period of NO PAIN that your adversary can fight you like a “Superman” even though you may be continuing to deliver hits to his body.

1 comment:

Lance Soares said...

I'd have to say that I've seen individuals with some pretty nasty dislocations and other injuries semingly not have any pain until they actually looked at thier injury for themselves. A strange phenominon but true.