Fire and Maneuver vs. Search and Clear

Gabe Suarez posted an article earlier this week discussing the possibility of a Mumbai-style terrorist attack in the U.S. One of the points in his article is that most police, including SWAT teams, are ill-prepared to confront such terrorists. He writes:

The inability of traditional Police SWAT Tactics to conclude an event with dedicated and suicidal terrorists remains an issue.  Many teams are skilled in searching and clearing, but very few in assaulting.   Even the very prolific “Active Shooter Training” is often just accelerated search and clear. 

Search and clear is a methodical moving through the building, hunting the bad guys, where every angle has a gun covering it and the team moves to isolate and locate the bad guys. The search and clear is slow, methodical and careful. There are shields in play as well as the use of mirrors and stealth.  In its niche it works great, but it not good for everything. 

There is also a tempo intended for High Risk Warrant type execution (which also covers things like Hostage Rescues, Drug Raids, and entries on Barricaded Armed Robbers). The HRW tempo is more of what you'd associate with a Direct Action. You blow the door and run over anyone in your way. If they are armed, they get zippered before everyone steps over them. A High Risk Warrant Service is in fact, an assault.  Its more a race to see who gets to shoot the bad guy than a "lets do this safely boys and girls". 

What I am seeing more and more however, is less and less focus on the HRW type of movement and more of what I call a “CYA type tempo”. The fear of making a mistake and getting in trouble guides everything LE does today. That may not be the case with EVERY agency and team...but by and large...I stand by what I said. 

As well, in many agencies now, SWAT is a ticket punching assignment. So you get geeks and girls wearing BDUs and slinging MP5s. If you look at your team and they don't look like a rough police street gang just waiting to deploy on some bad guys, you won't get much desire to attack ISIS.  I recall my team was once characterized as “Dogs just waiting to bite someone”.  Yes, exactly!! 

Once you have the aggression and desire...its easy to slow down and hunt. In fact, inside our circle we called it "hunting" and "assaulting". They are two different and distinct tempos and tactics. When we knew, or had intel the bad guys were armed, there was no "hunting" we assaulted...although that is not how we described it in the debrief.

Read the whole thing.

Mr. Saurez's article reminded me of a post earlier this year on Max Velocity's blog critiquing an Al Qaeda assault on a rival terrorist training camp. The video discussed is below: