Ranger1
20 September 2004, 17:39
Right:
IMHO, PSD Training are good to go for what they do. They hold a very professional, two week prep-course on how to perform on a PSD Team.
They are managed and taught by people who are the real deal, and have held PSD Team leader positions in the sandbox;
Their training is geared for sending students directly upon completion to an assignment with a PSD company;
They have the contacts to do this;
They use real commo, in tech terms and in practice;
They use real vehicles, and have their guys doing some (frankly) wild stuff;
They use real physical man on man drills to teach aggression. I personally saw bruises, cuts and scrapes. Two guys on the course had a good limp going. When it comes to person to person contact, they are realistically aggressive;
There is no live fire, as doing so for non MOD folks in the UK is illegal;
They use airsoft weapons because they have the do A LOT of team on tango training, otherwise they'd use rubber ducks, and we all know how great MILES gear is;
They have students living in an environment that is simulating what a PSD company would have on the ground (cots, etc). They simulate, constantly, 24/7 what the environment will be like on a PSD contract from the day the students arrive. They are formed into teams on day one. Course hours are long, averaging about 14 hours a day. Leadership positions are swapped without notice just like suck school, and they are graded as such. (Their grading matrix is actually quite impressive). Students are deprived of sleep at times. The arty sims at 4am made me smile. They are woken up in the middle of the night a lot and required to do graded PSD tasks. They sweat, they get out of breath, and they do PT. It's fairly demanding. Is it selection?...no. It's not RIP either. It's just good honest work.
All this info is from my talks with the instructors, and talks with students (away from the instructors) , one of which is ex-3/75. All this being said, the course is a PREP COURSE. It does not purport to make you an expert in PSD work. They do however teach everything listed on their website and more. I met guys on the course from 5 countries and an impressive list of backgrounds, and none of them had ANYTHING negative to say about the course. There were 11 of them, all paying customers, who could have left and asked for a refund at any time. In fact they all raved about the thing. The previous comment from the AF guy I heard (unsolicited) personally from the man himself. To qualify, without getting into PERSEC, he's not a REMF, but he's no PJ/CCT.
The course is geared to simply get you in the mind set and make you familiar with what to expect once you get on the ground start doing the deed. If I can give you a real world example I've done myself; it's what Pre-Ranger is to Ranger School. Do they really compare, no how could they? It just gets you in the mind set and gives you a skills jumpstart for the real deal. To my knowledge, it's the only independent PSD Course out there. The rest are run by companies for folks they've already recruited. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Even after you've taken this course, when you get on the ground out there, you'll still need a train up and practice how your company does react to contact drills, you'll still need to get to know your teams, you'll still need to zero weapons, learn internal commo protocol,etc. Even if you've done PSD work on AD as a Tier One unit, left AD and started doing contract work with a company that you are new to; I imagine that you'd probably have do to that anyway just out of common sense. This course will just get you in the right frame of mind sooner, and is (proven) to make you more attractive to UK based PSD firms hiring for contracts.
In short, as someone who has never done PSD work, for what it is, I think it's pretty good training. Questions?
IMHO, PSD Training are good to go for what they do. They hold a very professional, two week prep-course on how to perform on a PSD Team.
They are managed and taught by people who are the real deal, and have held PSD Team leader positions in the sandbox;
Their training is geared for sending students directly upon completion to an assignment with a PSD company;
They have the contacts to do this;
They use real commo, in tech terms and in practice;
They use real vehicles, and have their guys doing some (frankly) wild stuff;
They use real physical man on man drills to teach aggression. I personally saw bruises, cuts and scrapes. Two guys on the course had a good limp going. When it comes to person to person contact, they are realistically aggressive;
There is no live fire, as doing so for non MOD folks in the UK is illegal;
They use airsoft weapons because they have the do A LOT of team on tango training, otherwise they'd use rubber ducks, and we all know how great MILES gear is;
They have students living in an environment that is simulating what a PSD company would have on the ground (cots, etc). They simulate, constantly, 24/7 what the environment will be like on a PSD contract from the day the students arrive. They are formed into teams on day one. Course hours are long, averaging about 14 hours a day. Leadership positions are swapped without notice just like suck school, and they are graded as such. (Their grading matrix is actually quite impressive). Students are deprived of sleep at times. The arty sims at 4am made me smile. They are woken up in the middle of the night a lot and required to do graded PSD tasks. They sweat, they get out of breath, and they do PT. It's fairly demanding. Is it selection?...no. It's not RIP either. It's just good honest work.
All this info is from my talks with the instructors, and talks with students (away from the instructors) , one of which is ex-3/75. All this being said, the course is a PREP COURSE. It does not purport to make you an expert in PSD work. They do however teach everything listed on their website and more. I met guys on the course from 5 countries and an impressive list of backgrounds, and none of them had ANYTHING negative to say about the course. There were 11 of them, all paying customers, who could have left and asked for a refund at any time. In fact they all raved about the thing. The previous comment from the AF guy I heard (unsolicited) personally from the man himself. To qualify, without getting into PERSEC, he's not a REMF, but he's no PJ/CCT.
The course is geared to simply get you in the mind set and make you familiar with what to expect once you get on the ground start doing the deed. If I can give you a real world example I've done myself; it's what Pre-Ranger is to Ranger School. Do they really compare, no how could they? It just gets you in the mind set and gives you a skills jumpstart for the real deal. To my knowledge, it's the only independent PSD Course out there. The rest are run by companies for folks they've already recruited. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Even after you've taken this course, when you get on the ground out there, you'll still need a train up and practice how your company does react to contact drills, you'll still need to get to know your teams, you'll still need to zero weapons, learn internal commo protocol,etc. Even if you've done PSD work on AD as a Tier One unit, left AD and started doing contract work with a company that you are new to; I imagine that you'd probably have do to that anyway just out of common sense. This course will just get you in the right frame of mind sooner, and is (proven) to make you more attractive to UK based PSD firms hiring for contracts.
In short, as someone who has never done PSD work, for what it is, I think it's pretty good training. Questions?