Glider
Captain
I think I should start by outlining how I became involved in this training experience. By profession I am a Counsellor or Psychotherapist, employed by a Police force to give psychological care for the officers and other members of staff of the force. Apart from this I also have a role giving proactive support to various teams within the force who are more likely to be psychologically impacted by their job and one of these is the firearms officers.
To help me understand what is involved in this, a demonstration was put on for myself and other Occupational Health professionals from various forces at one of the main regional firearms centres. Shooting wise I was a keen .22 target shooting practitioner until about 12 years ago, but apart from occasional forays into long distance shooting, that was it. To compare that to this, was like comparing a local putting green to an Open Golf Tournament.
First of all let me describe the range.
The range is 100 yards long, very wide and tall. It is designed so that vehicles can drive up and down inside it, so they can simulate all kinds of assault and train people how to react. In ballistic terminology people can, and the military do use weapons up to and including 30mm cannons mounted in Warrior PAC's, inside the range in complete safety. The range has its own laser training room where simulated weapons can be used against hundreds of pre programmed threats. We were shown a couple of these and a bouncing ball target which is up for three minutes, the more you hit it, the faster it goes and the smaller the target gets. By the end it was very small about 12 inches and really moving. The projection was against the wall of a room used for lectures. The range also had its own armoury and cleaning room for practical maintenance and training. If that wasn't impressive enough, this was one range in a complex that had three ranges. One of the others had a number of buildings inside it unfortunately I didn't ask about the third. I have to admit I have never seen anything like it, this was seriously impressive.
The Equipment
All firearms officers carry a handgun and a Tazer at all times, no matter what they are doing. The standard handgun is a Glock 17 because it is cheap, accurate enough and most importantly reliable. Other forces use different weapons but this is the standard weapon for this area. Some people claim that there are more accurate handguns but there hasn't been a problem with that yet and in the last live incident no round missed the target.
What is carried in the firearms car
If the range is longer then all officers in the car have a semi automatic assault rifle which is a 5.56 round with a very impressive sight, so they would use that if required. The car also carry's a Rubber Bullet weapon which can be used to disable someone safely if the range exceeds that of the Tazer. A weapon to deal with a wild animal is also on board, it varies but a pump action shotgun is the usual choice, as well as smoke and flash bang grenades.
Finally in the car is a very large rucksack that weights about 40lbs which is a very comprehensive medical kit. It includes all kinds of equipment to deal with gunshot wounds including oxygen, defibulators, tourniquet's, special bandages and dressings for gunshot and other wounds.
Being brought into service to supplement the current semi automatic assault rifle is a new one with a 7.62 round as experience has shown that a round with more stopping power is needed in a terrorist situation.
Specialist Equipment
Snipers rifles vary but the Accuracy International 7.62 is commonly issued with sights that are capable of clearly seeing the target up to 650 meters. The gun is capable of much longer ranges but the key is clearly seeing. Every time a round is fired that officer is automatically part of an investigation has to be able to describe in detail why they fired, including what they saw that as they fired. A very small number of 0.50 calibre snipers rifles are in the inventory but there not that popular due to the weight and in an urban situation you are not going to need the range. I'm not an expert on AI Rifles but these break down without spoiling the zeroing so the stock and sight come off and the whole thing can be carried in a rucksack. This enables the teams to deploy without attracting attention. This might be standard for an AI rifle, or it could be a mod, but its something that I found interesting.
Training
Officers are normally trained for a couple of weeks at their own force ranges to ensure they can shoot, pass the physical and understand the legal matters covering firearms officers before going to this training facility for detailed training which takes about four weeks.
All firearms officers are trained to rigorous standards on all the weapons and equipment in the firearms cars. This also extends to the varied approaches to different situations and a lot of officers fail the course due to the communication skills with suspects or individual they are trying to deal with. The standards are such that despite the initial training the failure rate is quite high.
All firearms officers are also trained to what I will call combat medic standards ( the official term was different but I cannot remember it) Such is the level of medical training if the ambulance service is overloaded or an ambulance is some distance away for whatever reason, its not unknown for them to ask if there is a firearms unit in the area. All the medical kit is matched to the ambulance service so if the firearms unit arrives first the equipment on the patient can be plugged into the ambulance without anything having to be removed and replaced.
Specialist training is given to officers who use the sniper rifles and also to senior officers who are trained to command firearms incidents.
Cars
The standard firearms car is a BMW X5 with some modifications. As you will have gathered they carry a lot of equipment and these give performance whilst also dealing with the weight. They are also set up whilst all the equipment is in a safe within the car, its available from the front seat so one officer can be equipping themselves with what they need while traveling to the incident.
You might recall that during the terrorist attack in London, the time taken between the first 999 call coming in, and all the terrorists being killed was eight minutes. To a large degree this was because when the first car arrived the officers were literally coming out of the doors fully armed, protected and ready for action. Nothing needed to be retrieved from the safe or anywhere else.
The day was fascinating. There was a detailed briefing and discussion about the level of support that firearms officers get which varied from force to force and professionally this was very interesting. However moving on to the stuff you are more interested in.
There was a demo of how they dealt with a terrorist attack with a wounded civilian that had to be retrieved. The range had been fitted with a number of walls and general street furniture, the targets were pop up targets. The officers arrived in a couple of firearms cars and it was a live firing exercise using the hand guns, semi auto assault rifles, smoke and flash bang grenades demonstrating how they cover the officer giving the first aid to the victim, stabilise the victim, and bring them to safety.
I had a go at the bouncing ball target in the laser range then we had a go with the Glock 17 at a stationary target and then pop up targets.
All in all a really enjoyable interesting day. I don't know how this compares to the training in others countries but people often comment about British police officers being unarmed. I thought you might find it interesting to know that if an armed officer does turn up, they really are trained to a very high standard.
To help me understand what is involved in this, a demonstration was put on for myself and other Occupational Health professionals from various forces at one of the main regional firearms centres. Shooting wise I was a keen .22 target shooting practitioner until about 12 years ago, but apart from occasional forays into long distance shooting, that was it. To compare that to this, was like comparing a local putting green to an Open Golf Tournament.
First of all let me describe the range.
The range is 100 yards long, very wide and tall. It is designed so that vehicles can drive up and down inside it, so they can simulate all kinds of assault and train people how to react. In ballistic terminology people can, and the military do use weapons up to and including 30mm cannons mounted in Warrior PAC's, inside the range in complete safety. The range has its own laser training room where simulated weapons can be used against hundreds of pre programmed threats. We were shown a couple of these and a bouncing ball target which is up for three minutes, the more you hit it, the faster it goes and the smaller the target gets. By the end it was very small about 12 inches and really moving. The projection was against the wall of a room used for lectures. The range also had its own armoury and cleaning room for practical maintenance and training. If that wasn't impressive enough, this was one range in a complex that had three ranges. One of the others had a number of buildings inside it unfortunately I didn't ask about the third. I have to admit I have never seen anything like it, this was seriously impressive.
The Equipment
All firearms officers carry a handgun and a Tazer at all times, no matter what they are doing. The standard handgun is a Glock 17 because it is cheap, accurate enough and most importantly reliable. Other forces use different weapons but this is the standard weapon for this area. Some people claim that there are more accurate handguns but there hasn't been a problem with that yet and in the last live incident no round missed the target.
What is carried in the firearms car
If the range is longer then all officers in the car have a semi automatic assault rifle which is a 5.56 round with a very impressive sight, so they would use that if required. The car also carry's a Rubber Bullet weapon which can be used to disable someone safely if the range exceeds that of the Tazer. A weapon to deal with a wild animal is also on board, it varies but a pump action shotgun is the usual choice, as well as smoke and flash bang grenades.
Finally in the car is a very large rucksack that weights about 40lbs which is a very comprehensive medical kit. It includes all kinds of equipment to deal with gunshot wounds including oxygen, defibulators, tourniquet's, special bandages and dressings for gunshot and other wounds.
Being brought into service to supplement the current semi automatic assault rifle is a new one with a 7.62 round as experience has shown that a round with more stopping power is needed in a terrorist situation.
Specialist Equipment
Snipers rifles vary but the Accuracy International 7.62 is commonly issued with sights that are capable of clearly seeing the target up to 650 meters. The gun is capable of much longer ranges but the key is clearly seeing. Every time a round is fired that officer is automatically part of an investigation has to be able to describe in detail why they fired, including what they saw that as they fired. A very small number of 0.50 calibre snipers rifles are in the inventory but there not that popular due to the weight and in an urban situation you are not going to need the range. I'm not an expert on AI Rifles but these break down without spoiling the zeroing so the stock and sight come off and the whole thing can be carried in a rucksack. This enables the teams to deploy without attracting attention. This might be standard for an AI rifle, or it could be a mod, but its something that I found interesting.
Training
Officers are normally trained for a couple of weeks at their own force ranges to ensure they can shoot, pass the physical and understand the legal matters covering firearms officers before going to this training facility for detailed training which takes about four weeks.
All firearms officers are trained to rigorous standards on all the weapons and equipment in the firearms cars. This also extends to the varied approaches to different situations and a lot of officers fail the course due to the communication skills with suspects or individual they are trying to deal with. The standards are such that despite the initial training the failure rate is quite high.
All firearms officers are also trained to what I will call combat medic standards ( the official term was different but I cannot remember it) Such is the level of medical training if the ambulance service is overloaded or an ambulance is some distance away for whatever reason, its not unknown for them to ask if there is a firearms unit in the area. All the medical kit is matched to the ambulance service so if the firearms unit arrives first the equipment on the patient can be plugged into the ambulance without anything having to be removed and replaced.
Specialist training is given to officers who use the sniper rifles and also to senior officers who are trained to command firearms incidents.
Cars
The standard firearms car is a BMW X5 with some modifications. As you will have gathered they carry a lot of equipment and these give performance whilst also dealing with the weight. They are also set up whilst all the equipment is in a safe within the car, its available from the front seat so one officer can be equipping themselves with what they need while traveling to the incident.
You might recall that during the terrorist attack in London, the time taken between the first 999 call coming in, and all the terrorists being killed was eight minutes. To a large degree this was because when the first car arrived the officers were literally coming out of the doors fully armed, protected and ready for action. Nothing needed to be retrieved from the safe or anywhere else.
The day was fascinating. There was a detailed briefing and discussion about the level of support that firearms officers get which varied from force to force and professionally this was very interesting. However moving on to the stuff you are more interested in.
There was a demo of how they dealt with a terrorist attack with a wounded civilian that had to be retrieved. The range had been fitted with a number of walls and general street furniture, the targets were pop up targets. The officers arrived in a couple of firearms cars and it was a live firing exercise using the hand guns, semi auto assault rifles, smoke and flash bang grenades demonstrating how they cover the officer giving the first aid to the victim, stabilise the victim, and bring them to safety.
I had a go at the bouncing ball target in the laser range then we had a go with the Glock 17 at a stationary target and then pop up targets.
All in all a really enjoyable interesting day. I don't know how this compares to the training in others countries but people often comment about British police officers being unarmed. I thought you might find it interesting to know that if an armed officer does turn up, they really are trained to a very high standard.
