ocmsrzr
5 June 2005, 03:51
Greetings,
I recently attended TFTT/DAG's Overseas Operator Course and here is an edited version of the AAR I had posted on another site:
TFTT Overseas Operator-AAR
I attended TFTT’s Overseas Operator in Azusa,Ca from 17-20 March 2005.
The course was organized into a 4 day format.
The instructors consisted of Max Joseph, Eric Mackinzie and Dr. Jim Kreter.
Day one:
On the first day the class of 17 students were broken down into Alpha and Bravo teams.
After a safety brief and a run down of the course objectives Alpha team headed out to Tac bay 7 for rifle BZO and BRM refresher with instructor McKenzie. Bravo team hit the pistol range with Max Joseph for a pistol work up.
After rifle BZO a couple hours of rifle drills were practiced from 25-100mts. Drills covered firing from standing, kneeling, sitting and prone. A brief work up on two man tactics was covered.
The pistol work up covered 3-25mts. The drills consisted of stationary turns from left, right and rear. Speed and tactical reloads were covered as well as the clearing of stoppages.
Day two:
On day two 2 man and team casualty evacuation drills were run. A practice course qualification was run for rifle and handgun. A block of force on force was run using paintball weapons.
The day was finished off with embus and debus drills.
Day three:
On day three a condensed Combat Medic block was taught by Doc Kreter. A brief work up on land navigation was covered.
A weapon familiarization blocks was taught. The care and feeding of an AK was covered.
Then a variety of Combloc weapons were fired.
Live fire vehicle drills were run with students engaging targets with rifles from SUVs.
The rest of day three was spent working on protective formations. The Open V, V, Diamond, Box, Echelon and single man formations were covered.
Day four:
On day four a block on IEDs was taught. A final qual was shot that went into your training file for perspective employers to review.
Live fire AOP scenarios were then run. Vehicle tactics were then revisited with deadman takeover drills and recovery of disabled vehicles.
Each team (Alpha&Bravo) each ran two graded scenarios. The first was a pickup of a principal at his compound then transport to a restaurant meeting with a AOP on the principal. This was live fire.
The second scenario was a was a live fire disabled vehicle recovery.
The final scenario was AOP with a meeting with a local warlord. The scenario was run with role players and paintball weapons.
The day was finished off with a written test and a debrief.
Ok now on to my person observations.
Day one:
Day one was a good warm up to make sure everyone was on the same page. All of the drills and techniques I had covered in other TFTT classes recently but not all of the others had.
It helped get us all on the same page. It also gave me a chance to size up the weapons handling skills of my classmates.(Which for the most part was good. All in all there were only a few guys that struggled with their weapons skills.)
Day two:
The drills were a good work up.
While the force on force was interesting and I have been urging Max to cover it more in TFTT’s tactical classes I found it a little flat. I would have much preferred Simunitions and force on force that was a little more high speed.
It also pissed all over us all day so we got to see who was solar powered and who could suck it up and drive on.
Day two finished up hanging out at the motel drinking beer, eating pizza, cleaning weapons, talking tactics and giving Navy Corpsmen nightmares.
Day three:
Day three was pretty much a blur. We covered a lot of information.
It rained on and off all day.
Doc. Kreter covered basic battlefield medical procedures. I especially liked that Doc had got back from a conference that Col. Grossman was a keynote speaker at. He incorporated the Warrior mind set and taught tactical breathing.
Doc. Kreter started out a little over our heads but that is SOP for docs teaching shooters but he dialed it in and got things rolling with Israeli pressure dressing and CAT tourniquet drills.
He introduced a lot of people to Col. Grossman’s works.
We finished up with the whole class at Hooters. It was pretty funny watching all the sheep feeling uncomfortable around the sheepdogs.
.
Day four:
Day four was pretty high speed. The qual showed who could and couldn’t shoot under a little pressure. While I got edged out of the top shooter spot at least it wasn’t by some squid. The Tac bay next to us during the qual had a high volume of rifle fire coming from it and all that fire shut down my Peltors. I missed a couple of range commands do to that so once again Murphy had his way with me.
The live fire scenarios showed who could operate under a little pressure also.
I still want to get my hands on the guy that when he taped up the tow rope on the towing vehicle for the live fire disabled vehicle recovery he wrapped the lanyard at the end of the rope with riggers tape. The driver missed his mark a little and when I bailed out to hook up the disabled vehicle I had four AR muzzles laying down suppressive fire a little closer to my head then I would have liked, with one of them throwing brass down the back of my RAV while I struggled to rip the riggers tape off the lanyard and get the disabled vehicle hooked up. Once again I am Murphy’s slut.
Let’s see I also learned that if your driver if a little wild you don’t want to be the well gunner.
The AOP scenario with paint ball was eye opening. Being the guy that stays in beating zone and lays down fire while the AIC gets the principal was a gut check. We got the principal out unharmed but pretty much lost the whole detail either buying time for the AIC to get the principal out or when the CAT team tried to evac our down people.. All I saw was bad guys and muzzle flashes.
All in all it was a great course. Well worth the money. Very little dead wood student wise.
The majority of the students were either past, current or PSD operators. Either that or they were military personnel training on their on dime or LEO.
As always I highly recommend TFTT to anyone looking to better their tactical skills.
I would be glad to answer any question you might have about the course if I can.
I recently attended TFTT/DAG's Overseas Operator Course and here is an edited version of the AAR I had posted on another site:
TFTT Overseas Operator-AAR
I attended TFTT’s Overseas Operator in Azusa,Ca from 17-20 March 2005.
The course was organized into a 4 day format.
The instructors consisted of Max Joseph, Eric Mackinzie and Dr. Jim Kreter.
Day one:
On the first day the class of 17 students were broken down into Alpha and Bravo teams.
After a safety brief and a run down of the course objectives Alpha team headed out to Tac bay 7 for rifle BZO and BRM refresher with instructor McKenzie. Bravo team hit the pistol range with Max Joseph for a pistol work up.
After rifle BZO a couple hours of rifle drills were practiced from 25-100mts. Drills covered firing from standing, kneeling, sitting and prone. A brief work up on two man tactics was covered.
The pistol work up covered 3-25mts. The drills consisted of stationary turns from left, right and rear. Speed and tactical reloads were covered as well as the clearing of stoppages.
Day two:
On day two 2 man and team casualty evacuation drills were run. A practice course qualification was run for rifle and handgun. A block of force on force was run using paintball weapons.
The day was finished off with embus and debus drills.
Day three:
On day three a condensed Combat Medic block was taught by Doc Kreter. A brief work up on land navigation was covered.
A weapon familiarization blocks was taught. The care and feeding of an AK was covered.
Then a variety of Combloc weapons were fired.
Live fire vehicle drills were run with students engaging targets with rifles from SUVs.
The rest of day three was spent working on protective formations. The Open V, V, Diamond, Box, Echelon and single man formations were covered.
Day four:
On day four a block on IEDs was taught. A final qual was shot that went into your training file for perspective employers to review.
Live fire AOP scenarios were then run. Vehicle tactics were then revisited with deadman takeover drills and recovery of disabled vehicles.
Each team (Alpha&Bravo) each ran two graded scenarios. The first was a pickup of a principal at his compound then transport to a restaurant meeting with a AOP on the principal. This was live fire.
The second scenario was a was a live fire disabled vehicle recovery.
The final scenario was AOP with a meeting with a local warlord. The scenario was run with role players and paintball weapons.
The day was finished off with a written test and a debrief.
Ok now on to my person observations.
Day one:
Day one was a good warm up to make sure everyone was on the same page. All of the drills and techniques I had covered in other TFTT classes recently but not all of the others had.
It helped get us all on the same page. It also gave me a chance to size up the weapons handling skills of my classmates.(Which for the most part was good. All in all there were only a few guys that struggled with their weapons skills.)
Day two:
The drills were a good work up.
While the force on force was interesting and I have been urging Max to cover it more in TFTT’s tactical classes I found it a little flat. I would have much preferred Simunitions and force on force that was a little more high speed.
It also pissed all over us all day so we got to see who was solar powered and who could suck it up and drive on.
Day two finished up hanging out at the motel drinking beer, eating pizza, cleaning weapons, talking tactics and giving Navy Corpsmen nightmares.
Day three:
Day three was pretty much a blur. We covered a lot of information.
It rained on and off all day.
Doc. Kreter covered basic battlefield medical procedures. I especially liked that Doc had got back from a conference that Col. Grossman was a keynote speaker at. He incorporated the Warrior mind set and taught tactical breathing.
Doc. Kreter started out a little over our heads but that is SOP for docs teaching shooters but he dialed it in and got things rolling with Israeli pressure dressing and CAT tourniquet drills.
He introduced a lot of people to Col. Grossman’s works.
We finished up with the whole class at Hooters. It was pretty funny watching all the sheep feeling uncomfortable around the sheepdogs.
.
Day four:
Day four was pretty high speed. The qual showed who could and couldn’t shoot under a little pressure. While I got edged out of the top shooter spot at least it wasn’t by some squid. The Tac bay next to us during the qual had a high volume of rifle fire coming from it and all that fire shut down my Peltors. I missed a couple of range commands do to that so once again Murphy had his way with me.
The live fire scenarios showed who could operate under a little pressure also.
I still want to get my hands on the guy that when he taped up the tow rope on the towing vehicle for the live fire disabled vehicle recovery he wrapped the lanyard at the end of the rope with riggers tape. The driver missed his mark a little and when I bailed out to hook up the disabled vehicle I had four AR muzzles laying down suppressive fire a little closer to my head then I would have liked, with one of them throwing brass down the back of my RAV while I struggled to rip the riggers tape off the lanyard and get the disabled vehicle hooked up. Once again I am Murphy’s slut.
Let’s see I also learned that if your driver if a little wild you don’t want to be the well gunner.
The AOP scenario with paint ball was eye opening. Being the guy that stays in beating zone and lays down fire while the AIC gets the principal was a gut check. We got the principal out unharmed but pretty much lost the whole detail either buying time for the AIC to get the principal out or when the CAT team tried to evac our down people.. All I saw was bad guys and muzzle flashes.
All in all it was a great course. Well worth the money. Very little dead wood student wise.
The majority of the students were either past, current or PSD operators. Either that or they were military personnel training on their on dime or LEO.
As always I highly recommend TFTT to anyone looking to better their tactical skills.
I would be glad to answer any question you might have about the course if I can.