Course Description: An intensive force-on-force training course that will improve the student's ability to perform in realistic, real-time, live action situations involving one or more opponents, one or more bystanders and one or more dependents (friends/family members that the student is protecting).

Topics: force-on-force safety briefing, pre-fight indicators, single opponent drills, single opponent with single bystander/dependent, single opponent with multiple bystanders/dependents, multiple opponent drills, multiple opponents with bystanders and/or dependents.

Length: four hours

Prerequisites: Required: CHL or similar training. Preferred: completion of AT-1 and AT-2, other courses covering similar topics, or instructor approval.

Required Equipment: Clothing suitable for force-on-force training (long sleeved shirts, long pants, athletic shoes).

Optional Equipment: An Airsoft gas blowback gun that matches your own carry gun, and two magazines for the Airsoft gun. One source for Airsoft GBB guns is Airsoft Atlanta. If you carry a 1911 or Glock handgun, bring your normal carry holster and mag pouches. See the general policies page for suggestions on food, drink, clothing, etc.

Taught by: Karl Rehn

Facility: A-Zone Range

Additional information: This course is the equivalent of light contact sparring in the martial arts world: the point in the training path where skills practiced against inanimate targets are finally applied to actual opponents. Once you know how to draw, move, shoot and use cover, the best way to learn whether you really did those skills good enough to survive is to be shot at and have someone to shoot back. In AT-II the goal of the force-on-force training is to provide students a complete picture of what a real situation will be like: not every scenario is a clear 'shoot' situation, other force options are available, communication, awareness and movement are often more important than shooting skill, and students are expected to continue 'solving the problem' after any force is used by dealing with bystanders, family members, wounded attackers, arriving officers, and others. In AT-V the goal is simple: to improve the students performance in a gunfight by giving them as much hands-on, learn-by-doing experience as we can provide, in a series of increasingly complex drills.

Airsoft gas blowback guns are used for all the drills in this course. They fire plastic pellets at low velocities (250 fps) that have less impact than paintballs or primer-driven marking rounds. The reduced impact enables students (with proper safety equipment) to be shot at close range with these pellets without causing significant pain or bruising, which frequently occurs with the primer-driven marking rounds.

The Airsoft GBBs are functionally equivalent to semiautomatic pistols, including slides that cycle on each shot and lock back when the magazine is empty. The magazines contain both pellets and gas so various reloading skills can be integrated into the training. The Airsoft GBB replicas fit in holsters designed for the firearms they mimic, so students will be able to use their normal carry leather (or Kydex) for the course. More information about Airsoft-based force-on-force training can be found here, in a presentation that I gave at a recent tactical shooting conference.

Here are some pictures from the Jan 2005 AT-5 course. Click on the pictures to see larger versions.