With all this in mind before I set off on Friday 29th July I
picked Eli up from the airport and together we drove north to
Tac House Spartan in Chesterfield. I’d not been to this particular
facility before so when we rocked up I was taken immediately by
the imposing old factory buildings that make it up. Set over three
floors it’s a maze of semi-lit rooms and warehouse spaces that
sees a mixture of gaming, and training in relation to professional
users.
Eli and I were greeted onsite by Dave who runs the site
logistics, and immediately he gave us a walk round of the ground
floor and ushered us to where the majority of the weekend would
be spent, the “Skills Room”; this is a self-contained space within
the bowels of the site set up specifically for CQB training with
multiple “room spaces” made from plywood that can be changed
easily and quickly simply be opening and closing doors. The room
also comes complete with an array of falling plate targets of
different colours set at different heights that can be positioned
anywhere as required.
Shortly after we arrived Martin, the Site Owner, joined us. No
stranger to the CQB environment himself, he assured us that
everything the course attendees needed would be provided.
We were bunking onsite and he explained that there would
be someone around to assist at all times. We were given free
reign of a very impressive indoor training area that would be
the classroom for Friday evening, and he provided constant hot
ASSEMBLING THE TEAM
water for tea and coffee all weekend. I have to say that Martin is
a thoroughly switched on yet friendly and approachable guy, and
he and the whole Tac House Spartan staff could not have been
more diligent nor done more to make us feel at home.
By 2100hrs, the “kick off” hour for the course to start, the full
group had assembled. John, Michael, and Anthony (soon to be
known to one and all as “Ronin”!) had all trained together before.
Tony was visiting from Hong Kong so took the opportunity to join
us. Adam and Greg I’d met before and are solid guys. Percy joined
us from the staff having been encouraged by Martin to do so, and
Ajax (AJ), the youngest of the group, had taken it upon himself to
come along and better his growing skillset.
After introductions Eli immediately got cracking with the
classroom part of the course. He first briefed us that the course
would be all about identifying problems, and about solving them
safely, efficiently and effectively. To start things off he showed
us a short section of live-action video of different CQB situations
from all over the world, and immediately encouraged us to
share our thoughts about what we’d seen; from this point it was
obvious that he intended to push the guys not just physically, but
mentally as well!
As the evening progressed Eli moved on with a superb
PowerPoint presentation, discussing Room Anatomy, Common
Room Shapes, Hard Corners, Soft Corners, Entry Angles, and
introduced the principle of analysing a situation using this
information, how we could work out the room in some cases
before even entering by examining the external features.
GE
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