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Neil Hawkins
14th July 2000, 06:12
Not really MA related I know but kinda CQC related.

I have been given a book that is trying to start a great conspiracy theory about a mass killing that occured here some years ago, and whilst it make some interesting points, it raises more questions than it answers. The premise is that a professional did the killing and then a patsy was left holding the gun, this was the lead up to the new gun laws being introduced here.

Three things struck me and I thought I'd ask for some input from the military/SF types here.

1. Have you ever heard of the Beruit Triple? It is described as common in SF and is a single sighting shot at a moving vehicle, followed by a second shot that takes out the driver and a third shot that disables the vehicle. From my shooting experience a rather difficult combination.

2. He claims that only a highly trained SF operator could shoot from the hip with an AR-15 and kill twelve, and wound a further ten using only 17 rounds in 15 seconds. All the kill shots were head shots. This again is a very big ask, none of the marksmen I've known could match this, and all said they would never shoot from the hip. It strikes me as an incredibly lucky burst of automatic fire.

3. Not related to the story at hand, but he says that one of the 'proofs' from the Kennedy assasination was that a story appeared in a New Zealand newspaper naming Lee Harvey Oswald as the assasin 6 hours before he was arrested in Dallas. I don't remember having heard of this before, has anyone else?

Regards

Neil

FastEd
15th July 2000, 06:23
I don't know much about SF stuff, but the AR-15 is a M-16 derivitive if I am not mistaken. If this is correct I do remember that these weapons have a particularly strong pull to the upper right when fired, especially when fired rapidly...that said it is pretty hard to believe anyone could shoot quickly and accurately from the hip with one. But then again I was never SF type.
ed chart

Tetsutaka
15th July 2000, 13:12
I don't even know where to begin. My experience [and my wife's too - I just asked her - she wond marksmanship competitions with it - nothing more] is the AR-15 has a very light kick. That also being said - she and I both think that firing it from the hip is a stupid waste of a fairly accurate shoulder-fire weapon.

If this supposed expert was in such a bad spot as to need to waste ammo by shooting form the hip - he took up the wrong position with the wrong weapon.

Besides, was this guy saying he was sweeping around with an AR in full auto? Anyone else have a problem with this? [wink]

As for the triple - I think they have it in the wrong order, but I won't touch that to give away "accurate" information. [pun intended]

Kit LeBlanc
15th July 2000, 18:18
The M-16/ AR-15/M-4 etc. is a highly accurate weapon. Very light kick. Close quarters combat shooting from 25 yards in, you can score head shots fairly easily, and if you work at it, quickly. You can shoot them with reliable center mass hits to 200 or more yards, farther with greater skills.

What do you mean by sweeping around? Turreting the weapon. acquiring the target, sighting, and squeezing off 2 or 3 round bursts is standard practice in subgun/full auto training(BTW, the AR-15 is not full auto). Spraying and praying is different. Either way, 15 seconds is a lot of time for 17 rounds, though from the hip with nearly all head shots is darn good shootin'. My sempai tells of Vietnam vet he knew who could keep a milk jug in the air with his AR from the hip.

Lt. Col. Grossman, of 'On Killing' fame, points out that one of the school shooters, Paducah Kentucky, I think, had never picked up a real gun in his life until he shot a few practice rounds before the incident. He played only video games. He walked into the school, saw the prayer circle, planted his feet and began firing. 8 shots, 8 hits, five were upper torso/head. These were moving targets (after the first shot or two.)

Kit

FastEd
15th July 2000, 18:28
Originally posted by FastEd
I don't know much about SF stuff, but the AR-15 is a M-16 derivitive if I am not mistaken. If this is correct I do remember that these weapons have a particularly strong pull to the upper right when fired, especially when fired rapidly...that said it is pretty hard to believe anyone could shoot quickly and accurately from the hip with one. But then again I was never SF type.
ed chart

Ya, my mistake, only when it is fired full auto do you get the strong kick to the right (well a whole lot of small kicks all close together). But then its been a while since I played with one...others here seem to know more about it.

ed chart

Neil Hawkins
16th July 2000, 07:42
I believe that the AR-15 is a semi-auto only derivative of the M-16, but they are adaptable I don't know whether the one used was semi or fully automatic.

As I said the details are sketchy which is my main problem with the whole thing. I certainly can't see a pro shooting from the hip, the hits are really high for bursts (you should see close groups in each target), so it is either single shots or spray and pray.

Either way I find it hard to believe.

Neil

William
16th July 2000, 13:14
I really have a hard time believing that a "pro" would be shooting from the hip. Most training, I believe, is done with some variation of a ready position, whether high or low, but the common factor is that the butt of the weapon is kept in, or close to, the shoulder pocket. This way you can get the weapon up and on target very quickly.

If there are units out there that practice hip-shooting on a regular basis, I would guess that it would have to be someone like Delta, SAS, or GSG-9 - somebody like that. Most SF units' main focus is teaching, not direct action. (And strictly speaking, Delta is not SF. They have their own assesment, selection and qualification process).

William Johnson

Tetsutaka
16th July 2000, 14:17
One of my former students [SFC in ODA-511] was highly skilled in small group forced entry techniques. I described the first post to him over the phone, and after he stopped laughing, he asked, "OK seriously, why'd you call me?"

Once we regained our composure, I got from him that the ONLY time they were ever allowed to shoot from the hip was when doing a door breach - which is of course conducted with a short barrel shotgun with a pistol grip.

He also said that if anyone would be stupid enough to shoot from the hip, even on the range, that they would have been beaten so severely by his team mates that he could no longer function, thus removing the potential threat to the group.

Nuff said?

Also, my father-in-law, who was a marksmanship instructor in the ARMY [thus the reason why his only daughter is one HECK of a shot] told me that the AR is a fine weapon to fire without getting a sight picture, as long as you have practiced LOTS. When I asked him about shooting the AR from the hip, he replied, "Look, son, if you're gonna shoot from the hip - grab a f*ing shotgun, or back up until you can shoot your rifle from the shoulder."

Again - nuff said?

Leave the "Sly Stallone" and "Norris Delta" crap for the movies, please.

Mitch Saret
21st July 2000, 04:12
I have to agree with those who disdain shooting from the hip. I was a pretty good marksman in the army. I never missed more than 2 targets whenever I qualified. I was good enough with a .45 to be sent TDY for three months as an instructor at the AMTU...Advanced Marksmanship Training Unit. I always thought it was neat to draw TDY pay while at the same base...Ft. Bragg. (All the Way, William, if you are in Division)

I did have opportunities to try different firing methods on the range. Not qualification of course, just practice. During the move out phase I tried shooting from the hip with the M-16..A-1 version, mind you, and big fat zero was what I hit. I could not believe it, and neither could any of my buddies.

IMHO pros would not shoot from the hip, especially when they were taking a shot that has to count.

hoshizawa
21st July 2000, 15:09
I'm currently in the SFQC and I've asked a couple SFOUT instructors and a few others and no one has heard of this.
Even the one person I do know who is on a team that is HALO/SCUBA and is in a C co( focus on dircet action, mainly door kickin' and they don't train for FID) hasn't heard of this either, sounds like a myth from the old SF days. Most of the hip shooting that I've seen is based on the guys in front of you and it would make more since to unload a few into him then go for the ground or cover. And if your doing that, your stuff might be kinda weak, well aimed shots/target in sight is the way to go in most cases. If you are moving at the ready with the butt high it's just as fast to raise than to lower and risk not hitting targets.


My 2 shots at it
Earnie Warnick

Pha-Q
21st July 2000, 20:07
Rhodesian army troops trained to fire instinctive from the hip. I know of some Green Berets who trained to fire from the hip. A bush sling or a patrol sling would aid in firing from the hip. What was the range that these shots where taken from? The most outrageous claim is 22 people dead or injured with only 17 shots fired. Were there any secondary explosions that injured people not in direct gun threat? all head shots??? This was either a very tall man or a man getting lucky at close range.
Stopping a car with small arms fire depends on a lot of factors: vehicle speed, range, weapon power, angle of fire, ability of the weapon user, etc... Where did the car go after being hit? Into a wall, ditch, vehicle, or other obstruction? Who ever wrote this book sounds like another jerk like me. An idiot who knows just enough to get himself in trouble. chuck

Neil Hawkins
22nd July 2000, 03:37
As I said before I kinda doubted his claims.

If anyone is interested the entire text can be found here http://vialls.homestead.com/portarthur2.html

Some quotes:
"In this his ultimate demonstration of combat shooting skill the shooter fired one sighting shot at a fast-moving target of unknown speed from an unsupported free-standing firing position, the most difficult of all; instantly and accurately compensated for vehicle speed and weapon recoil with the same blinding speed as the computer gunsight of an F14 Tomcat, then disabled both driver and vehicle with shots two and three. This man might have been an indispensable asset stopping speeding car-bombers in Beirut, but his professional skills were far too conspicuous for Port Arthur."

"The killed-to-injured ratio is used to calculate reliably how many injured survivors should be expected for every person killed for a given number of rounds fired. Even assault rounds as powerful as those fired by the Colt AR15 can only ensure a one-shot kill if the target is hit in the head, a six by six inch target: or in the heart, a ten by ten inch target. Together these areas form between one fifth and one seventh of the over-all body target areas, so for every person killed there will be between five and seven injured, expressed as "1 to 5" and "1 to 7".
The records show that a total of 32 people were shot in the Broad Arrow Cafe, so at best we would expect 4 dead and 28 injured, or at worst 6 dead and 26 injured.
These are very reliable military figures based on hard science, but the actual figures in the Broad Arrow Cafe were 20 dead and 12 injured - an incredible inverted ratio of 1.66 to 1, or nearly two dead for every one injured.
Special forces train continuously for months on end to achieve a ratio as high as this, which lies far beyond the abilities of regular soldiers, and is an absolute scientific impossibility for an intellectually impaired registered invalid."

"The above sequence is the best the forensic scientists could deduce from the crime scene and there may be small variations, but in the final analysis they matter little, What does matter is that at this precise juncture the gunman had killed twelve victims and wounded a further ten in 15 seconds flat, using only 17 rounds fired from the right hip. Such a staggering performance is on a par with the best combat shooters in the world, and two retired counter-terrorist marksmen ruefully admitted they would be hard pressed to equal such awesome speed and accuracy. Both agreed that attributing such a performance to an intellectually-impaired invalid with an IQ of 66 and severely limited cognitive functions, amounts to nothing less than certifiable insanity on the part of Bryant's accusers. In military terms a fatal shot to the upper neck counts as a head shot, so for all practical purposes those who died during the first 15 seconds were killed by head shots fired with lethal accuracy from the gunman's hip."

As you can see his use of language is designed to stimulate a response from the reader, and it masks to a certain extent the 'facts' he is trying to get across.

I'm interested to hear any further comments.

Regards
Neil

[Edited by Neil Hawkins on 07-21-2000 at 09:49 PM]

hoshizawa
22nd July 2000, 05:14
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Pha-Q
[B]Rhodesian army troops trained to fire instinctive from the hip. I know of some Green Berets who trained to fire from the hip. A bush sling or a patrol sling would aid in firing from the hip.

I totally agree with this though slings in most circles are considered bad ju-ju and highly not recommended for use except during certain situations. These days the money units get to train with is just as bad as the regular army, unless you are having a spendex at the end of the year. It's a trained firing method but not to that degree of marksmanship. You would definately have to spend beaucoup hours and rounds on that kind of madness!LOL Someones sounds a little outhere in la la land.

Have a good one!
Earnie Warnick

Dave Kolb
2nd August 2000, 02:26
Neil,

I would hope that you are not going along with the absurd line of thought that Martin Bryant was not responsible for the events at Port Arthur.

I would have thought that those bewildered and shocked people confined in the cafe, many of whom elderly with walking frames and the like, would not have presented particularly difficult targets. They certainly could not be compared with targets that may present themselves on the battlefield. I would suggest that those hit/kill ratios if reliable have no relevance in this particular case.

Neil Hawkins
2nd August 2000, 02:33
Dave,

I can talk to you about this on the weekend but, no I don't believe it at all. My aim is to prove to some people on the coast who have taken this hook line and sinker that some of the 'facts' are far from such.

He does raise some interesting issues and the Tasmanian police did themselves no favours by stuffing up some key investigations but nothing I've seen convinces me of a conspirancy.

I just thought some of the more outlandish claims he makes would interest some of the LE and Military types here.

Catch ya at training

Neil

scoundrel
14th August 2000, 11:40
"I totally agree with this though slings in most circles are considered bad ju-ju and highly not recommended for use except during certain situations."

Actually, I can't think of too many circumstances where you wouldn't want a sling. If patrolling, they can free up your hands when needed for performing certain tasks (negotiating obstacles, using equipment, etc.). In a CQB scenario, assault slings let you transition from primary to secondary weapon without dropping it somewhere.

Steve