During the middle of April, I attended a four-day tactical training course run by Max Velocity Tactical. The class was Hostile Environment Advanced Tactics 1 (HEAT1). In a nutshell, the class is an introduction to team fire and movement techniques and procedures. Nearly all the skills you learn are published in the tactical manual, seen above. During my four days, I camped on-site in the parking lot, in the back of my RAM and I insisted on walking/jogging with all my gear to & from the ranges. The four-day course of instruction cost $1200. You will not find a better environment to learn and practice real light infantry TTPs under the supervision of highly skilled cadre (Max and Scott). In this review, I am not going to talk about the play-by-play of the HEAT 1 class, but rather discuss the big-ticket subjects that you should be taking away from this class. MY KIT SELECTION I tend to take every course I go to with the utmost seriousness, so I packed to live like a grunt again. I brought MREs, nearly all my magazines, camouflaged wet weather gear, and I planned on doing some form of PT every day, regardless of the long hours on the ranges in the heat. For all of you who have seen my YouTube channel and have kept up on my blog, you may know that I am partial to the British PLCE system for its load bearing ability. I placed the ALICE magazine pouches to mimic the positioning of the British PLCE pouches and used a Danish yoke to hold it all up. I did this because I need a system I can maintain and even replace parts on, when/if the need arises. I know many of you instantly are thinking that the MOLLE battle belts do the same thing. YES! However, most MOLLE pouches only take two mags instead of three, and the Velcro tends to make a lot of noise in the bush. ALICE mag pouch clips are brittle, which is why I have spare pouches. This way, I get the durability, ease of use, retention, and lightweight properties of the ALICE pouches and couple that with the lightweight load bearing qualities of the Danish yoke system. After working with several other systems, I feel like this is the most functional method of carrying a light infantry fighting load. The belt system alone weighs around 20 pounds when fully loaded The uniform I chose for the training was the French CCE F1/F2. It is a system I have been using for months and it works perfectly in Arkansas woodland, as you may have seen in my previous article. It breathes surprisingly well and it has been incredibly durable. Also, the pants and Jacket cost me little more than $50 for effective combat clothing. To handle all the leg/foot work, I wore Rothco Olive Drab Vietnam era Jungle boots. To protect my hands, I wore McGuire Nomex flight gloves off Amazon. For a hat, I wore a modified and slightly camouflaged MARPAT boonie hat. My rifle of choice for this course was the Palmetto Armory M16A2 clone. I replaced the charging handle with the medium BCM charging handle based on the recommendations of Scott, one of the Cadre. I added a silent two-point nylon sling and silenced it sufficiently with electrical tape. I changed the A2 series handguards for the OD Magpul handguard system, where I used clipped zip ties to mark my preferred hand position. With a complete clean & lube kit in the stock, I also used electrical tape to mark the stock where I needed my cheek to go for every aim. FYI, I don’t touch my nose to the charging handle because that is an unnatural position when quickly shouldering the rifle. STOPPAGE DRILLS I found the Max Velocity Tactical training on stoppages to be very efficient. A stoppage is anything that interrupts the firing of the weapon system, but doesn’t necessarily mean anything is BROKEN. The process, in short, calls for you to detect that the weapon has stopped firing, call “STOPPAGE”, safe the weapon (If able), improve your cover, evaluate the rifle, fix the issue, confirm that the weapon is functioning (fire two shots), and communicate that you are “BACK IN”. Day one might as well have been called ‘Stoppage Day’ because most of the day was spent running drill after drill learning how to efficiently communicate and safely correct stoppages. I particularly loved when we did blind stoppage drills. Here, another student would induce a random malfunction on your personal rifle and you have to run up to the line, try to fire, diagnose the issue, and perform the correct drill. RTR DRILLS On day 2 we were introduced to the RTR drill on the flat range, which stands for ‘Return fire (Reflexive), Take cover, Return appropriate fire’. On day 3, the RTR drill was conducted in a practical environment and we saw the importance of conducting the drill efficiently. This drill should be practiced daily and you should be comfortable with moving fast into the prone and then acquiring the appropriate position for responding to the threat. The reason I recommend going prone first is because it is better for you to take more cover from the start and then work your cover. If you just go to a knee, you may still be hanging out in the open and that is unnecessary time exposed to enemy fire. COMMUNICATION When working as a team, your vocal communication needs to be loud, clear (annunciated), and brief (“Break Rear, Peel Right, Moving, Set”). Some people may feel that it would be good to use short distance radios for this type of communications, and this is not a bad idea for medium distance tactical coordination/communication. In the real world, comms will fail you at unhelpful times, causing you to have to go back to high-volume vocal transmission; I.E. Yelling. During the HEAT 1 one, you can bring your radio systems if you wish, but using voice transmission ensures you are heard. Also, if you are on a team and you hear an order being passed, repeat the order down the line so people further down the line than you know what is being passed. In the military, we call that echoing orders. If “LOA, LOA” is called by the team leader, everyone within hearing should be echoing that command. If the command “PEEL RIGHT” is passed, those that hear it should echo it down the line so everyone clearly knows. Communication is part of the trifecta we go to MVT to learn; shoot, move, communicate. BARRICADES AND COVER Using your cover is a foundational skill that allows you to survive and continue to fight against an armed and thinking enemy. At MVT you will be put through drills to help you learn how to use cover, whether it is right in front of you or just somewhere between you and your threat. I recommend you be incredibly mindful of this and never forget that you don’t need to be ON or UP AGAINST your cover in order to use it effectively. In fact, the more distance you are from your cover, the better, in some cases. MOVEMENT ISN’T ALWAYS DONE ON FOOT Often times, you will see fire and movement done by people running from one point of cover to the next, or doing short rushes by standing and running. This is what you can expect to do a lot of in MVT. But remember, as Max will tell you, movement will more than likely only be able to be done at a crawl if you are fighting a skilled enemy. Don’t get comfortable standing and running. Practice moving while kneeling or crawling in the prone when you come out of this course and even prior to going. INVESTING TIME AND MONEY Four days can seem like a heavy commitment for some people, but I personally think that is a shallow excuse not to train at MVT. I have watched many people take two weekdays off work just because they didn’t feel like going. MVT runs the majority of their classes Thursday to Sunday, and those four days are non-negotiable when teaching such a detail-oriented subject as light infantry tactics. It is not something that can be developed in a single Podunk weekend course. Even with the four days you are given, you have to practice the drills you are shown or else the skills will fade away. The class is just enough to give you a basic understanding of fire and movement in a team setting. The job of refining the individual skills is on you. Oh, and before you use your family or kids as an excuse, don’t forget that the Cadre at MVT have families themselves, and they are doing this all year around, away from their families. Also know that MVT has had sons and fathers, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives go to training together. The responsibility to protect the family/home does not rest solely in the hands of the husband. Everyone plays a role, and MVT is where you can go to learn. Every class offered by MVT costs $1200/$300 per day. I personally have seen people blow through twice that much on a tenth gun in some novelty caliber and then never use it. How about you take some money and invest in real skills that you can build on. Gear means nothing without the knowledge and skill to maximize it’s potential. STOW YOUR EGO At MVT, each course of fire on the tactical ranges ended with a team AAR by Max. You may have thought you did okay, but Max may have seen where you slipped up and did something wrong. This is a good thing. Max and Scott are experienced soldiers and trainers who know what to look for and will let you know whether you did good or not in your drills. The important thing to remember is that you are at this course to develop yourself and without knowing where you are failing, you will struggle to grow. This type of supervision and feedback is worth every penny you spend on this course. You get to do live fire training in a team setting and you get immediate and detailed feedback on how you did. Don’t get butthurt if you get corrected by the cadre. Guns are loud and they will need to yell to be heard. Just listen to what they are telling you, correct yourself, and get back into the fight. The Cadre may poke fun at some of your mistakes. This is very common in the military and should be taken as humor, not as an ego jab. Laugh at your mistakes but don’t forget them. SUMMARY
I am going back to MVT for more training courses throughout 2023. I really appreciate what this company is doing and I also like the individuals I have had the pleasure of meeting while at training. Max Velocity Tactical is kind of a melting pot of individuals from all over the country, from all different backgrounds, but with one thing in common. They each understand what real preparedness means and they display their understanding through the monetary and time sacrifices they are making to improve their tactical proficiencies. I recommend you join them in their quest of tactical excellence.
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