Combat Accuracy

"At least, it's combat accurate...."
"I'm working on combat accuracy...."

Combat accuracy.  Combat accurate.  If you do any kind of firearms training or even purview videos on YouTube about anyone with a word to say about "tactical" firearms training or shooting you're bound to hear these terms being tossed around.

But, what does it mean?  Unfortunately, especially for beginners, the concept of COMBAT ACCURACY is one of the most dangerous and detrimental training scars in the shooting world.

Let me explain:
Here's a common "tactical"paper range drill:
From 5-10 yards draw, lateral step, and engage the target as quickly as you can.  Use a shot timer.

Here's the most common result:
A shotgun effect of rounds all over the torso of the target that, under any other circumstance, would have the objective observer wondering if the shooter even had sights on the gun?

But, hey, that's "combat accurate."

Here's some truth.  That's piss poor shooting, unless the target is jumping all around and shooting back at you.  On the paper range you're not being shot at.  The target rarely jumps around.  Even with movement on a static paper non-aggressive target, you should be able to do better than a shotgun effect with rounds scattered around like you have no sights on your gun.

Here's the caveat:  If you manage to get similar results in a Simunitions scenario, that's "combat accurate".

In my opinion, the use of the term combat accurate is detrimental to learning to fight with and shoot a gun.  It is not something that should be trained for specifically, i.e. you shouldn't go to the paper range with the expectation of loosing rounds all over the place and be satisfied with the end result.

Combat accuracy is more accurately (see what I did there?) used as a descriptor for a post force-on-force scenario/incident evaluation.

Fast is fine, accuracy is final.  At the bare minimum you, as a trained shooter, should be able to hit what you're aiming at.  No excuses. No misses from 25 yards and in, at a minimum.  That's a simple demonstration of a solid understanding of the fundamentals of marksmanship.  Trigger control never changes.  Slow, fast it is always smooth and controlled.  That is why we train.  We train and we train and we master the basics so that the basics look like magic to the untrained.

Shooting a man-sized silhouette from 50 yards isn't magic, but to the untrained it sure looks like it is.  In fact, you will hear some say impossible, impractical, not realistic, and to that I say it's a demonstration that that person knows how to shoot his gun.  Even more so from 100 yards.  I got asked once when speaking with a group of friends about shooting from 100 yards with a handgun if the rounds fell into the ground around 60 or 70 yards.  I'll just leave that right there.  It's not magic and it's not rocket science.

It has been said that there are no advanced techniques only masterful execution of the basics.  There is some truth to that.  Trigger control and sight alignment.  If you can't do these consistently, don't bother being fancy and calling your piss poor shots "combat accurate".  It's on a paper range with non-aggressive pictures.

This is not a tactics article, this is a concept article, so I won't go into detail on advanced shooting techniques, that's not the point of this post.  Simply put, it is better to be able to call every shot than to practice a piss poor result and call it "combat accurate".

I was told once by a great instructor that training translates the following way on most occasions:

If you're great in training, you will be good in reality.If you're good in training, you will be OK in reality.If you're OK in training, you will suck in reality.If you suck in training, you better train some more before reality calls.

Lt. Col. Grossman put it as follows: you will not rise to the occasion, but fall to your highest level of training.  If your training is to sloppily shoot at a paper non-aggressive target and call it "combat accurate", you're failing to see the point.

Range training is a chance to master your gun.  To be able to call your shots, consistently.  Force-on-force training is the place to see if your training has paid off in "combat accuracy".

Definitely push yourself in training to see where the wheels fall off.  But don't settle for less and call it sufficient.

Combat accuracy should only be used to describe the end result of either a force-on-force scenario or an actual incident.  Not a term used to describe the end result of a paper range training scenario.

If you push yourself and the wheels start to come off then back off a little and keep training.  Keep pushing.  There is literally no limit.  You're only competing against yourself.  Even in a gunfight you're fighting against yourself.  Because you have no way of knowing the training level of your opponent.  All you know is yourself.  All you can do is beat your personal best to win the fight.

Remember on the training range you should strive for nothing less than perfection, which is simply defined as your personal best, which I already said has no real limit.  Time and effort along with quality training can bring you very far on your path.

I tell persons new to shooting (mostly because they're not indoctrinated by some other mindset) that the most important thing you can learn to do is to put bullets where you want them at will with minimal effort.

Once you can do that everything else is gravy.  Shooting from cover, turning, moving, clearing corners, slicing the pie, reloads, malfunctions training, all of that means little if you can't call your shots and the only way you do that is work.

A little perspective: your ability to perform a tactical speed reload means little if the bullets you're feeding your smoke wagon aren't finding their mark.  You're fighting yourself because you don't know how good of a shot the other guy is.  The idea is to put bullets on him faster than he puts bullets on you.  And more than he does.  I like to imagine in training against a paper target that the bad guy is super man and can outshoot me any day of the week.  I want to win and continue to enjoy the 4 F's of life.  So that means I need to be faster but also more accurate faster.  Think about it.

So, the whole point of this is don't short change your training by labeling a piss poor result as "combat accurate".  Change the way you think about that term.  It has a place, for sure, but it's not on a static one-way range.  And if you let yourself fall into that trap, you're only hurting yourself and anyone who depends on you.

Train hard, train often, amigos.