CORNER DOOR
TROOP CLEARS
1. INTRODUCTION. In the realm of IHR/CQB, each shooter must be a thinker and a doer. Each must rely on the others initiative to win. The point man is the best thinker and doer. His fellow shooters are re-lying on him to keep a path clear forward and direct them to the next danger area.
2. OVERVIEW. This section is designed to introduce to the shooter, point man duties and how to clear and maneuver in hallways. The point man has a great responsibility, the shooters behind him are going to react off his actions and verbiage. Let us now talk about his duties.
BODY
1. CHARACTERISTICS OF A POINT MAN:
a. The point man is one of better thinkers in the troop. He can react quickly to any given situation and make rapid decisions. Adverse conditions or situations inside the crisis Site will have little effect on a good point man.
b. The point man is also one of the better shooters in the troop. The reason for this is that he may have to take critical, long range shots down the hallway. If the pointman is not accurate and misses, that gives the adversary the advantage, potentially allowing him to engage the whole troop as they are in the hallway.
c. The point man is preferably a smaller man. Someone who is agile and can move easily through breach points, over obstacles or through windows.
2. DUTIES OF THE POINT MAN.
a. The point mans primary responsibility is frontal security for the troop. He owns anything that pre-sents itself down the hallway.
b. The point mans second responsibility is to announce danger areas to the troop. This simply gives troop members a heads up. However, it is the individual shooters responsibility on observing and picking up the danger areas.
c. Because the point man may be confronted with taking long range shots in the hallway, his weapon is placed on semi-automatic.
d. Because the point man is responsible for frontal security, he must ensure that at no time does he di-vert his attention from frontal security. He cannot turn his head and look behind him. His eyes absolutely, must remain to the front.
e. The point man is the only one allowed to go past an uncleared door, or a set of doors, and only does so when it is absolutely necessary.
f. Once the point man enters a hallway, he should remain point man for that specific hallway, never re-linquish point. The reason is that he is the only one has seen everything in that hallway. He saw the bad guy go from one door to another down the hallway, whereas other shooters may not have.
g. If the hallway configuration is large enough to accommodate, then you may elect to run a duel point.
Duel point is preferred over a single point because you are afforded stronger security to the front. If run-ning a duel point, both point men will work as one. They move at all times abreast of each other, calling out danger areas on there respective sides. If by running a duel point it interferes with entry teams making entry into rooms, then the duel point must either blow past that set of doors, or turn into a single point.
h. The point man does not make entry into rooms unless he is faced with no more danger area forward of the last room, this includes windows and exits
It might seem a easy task, but as you will see, one mistake could cause disaster or create a lull in the action to slow your dynamics.
3. ENTERING THE BREACH POINT:
a. Keeping in mind that we always plan for worst case scenario, we probably do not have blue prints of the crisis site and know not what the floor plan is.
b. Therefore, we must assume that the other side of the breach point is an enclosure. For that reason, once the breach has been initiated, we will immediately attempt to flood through the breach point with four shooters. These four shooters will clear the enclosure. The reason why we are conducting a four man clear is to ensure that we gain a foothold into the objective. The four shooters will conduct the first three fundamentals in the enclosure. Since this is the initial breach point, we must immediately continue the dynamics. So after the first three fundamentals, the initial four shooters will sound off with the verbiage
"CLEAR", to get the troop to flow through the room and begin the clear of the crisis site.
c. The first four, after announcing "CLEAR", remain in the room and complete the remaining funda-mentals. If all four of the shooters are not needed, the ones not needed announce "LEAVING", depart, and rejoin the stack that is or have flowed through.
It is extremely critical that we gain a foothold into the objective. Once we have gained that foothold, how are we going to maneuver?
4. ESTABLISHING THE POINT:
a. Once the breach has been initiated, the first four shooters make entry in realize they have entered into a hallway. Once the four have cleared there sectors and they announce "CLEAR", the designated poin tman steps into the center of the hallway to show everyone that he has established point. Once clear has been given the troop flows through the Breach Point and receives supplemental verbiage from the point man. It is imperative that the shooter that will establish point is positive that all shooting has stopped be-fore stepping into the middle of the hallway.
OOOOOOO
O O O O
FOUR MAN INITIAL CLEAR POINTMAN ESTABISHES POINT
fig. 1
b. Once the point man has established point and the troop starts to flow through the Breach Point, the point man will sound off with supplemental verbiage:
(1) "DUEL POINT" - Means that the point man wants a second point to be established abreast of his position. The point man may or may not use this verbiage, depending upon size and configuration of the hallway. If the point man uses this verbiage, he must pause long enough for the second point man to take position before stepping off.
(2) "SPLIT THE STACK" - Informs the troop to equally stack on each side of the hallway.
(2) "STACK RIGHT" - Informs the troop to Stack the whole troop on the right side of the hallway.
The point man would say stack right when he sees that there are doors on the right side of the hallway, and no doors on the left side.
(3) "STACK LEFT" - Informs the troop to stack the whole troop on the left side of the hallway.
The point man would say stack left when he sees that there are doors on the left side of the hallway and no doors on the right side.
5. RECOGNIZING AND REACTING TO OFFSET AND OPPOSING DOORS.
a. Opposing doors: Opposing doors are those that are directly across from one another in a hallway.
When confronted with opposing open or opposing closed doors, we want to attack both simultaneously. If one door is open and one is closed, the open door is assaulted first. Once the open door has been assault-ed, the closed door is crossassault-ed, openassault-ed, and assaulted.
b. Offset Doors: Offset doors are doors on opposite sides of the hallway that will allow a poin tman to be positioned between the two doors without being exposed in either opening.
When confronted with offset doors, they are assaulted one at time.
c. Offset Opposing Doors: Offset Opposing Doors are doors that are not opposing, but do not allow a point man to be positioned between the two without being exposed to one or both of the openings. If both doors are opened, attempt to assault both as simultaneously as possible. If one is open and one is closed, regardless of which is nearest, the open door gets assaulted first. If both offset opposing doors are closed, the nearest door is assaulted first.
OPPOSING OFF SET OFFSET OPPOSING
TYPES OF DOORS
fig. 2
d. The point man prefers to hold short of doors, however, if the point man holds short and his position would interfere with entry teams, i.e., flashbangs, he must move forward of that door.
6. POINT MAN MOVEMENTS:
a. As mentioned earlier, one of the responsibilities of the point man is to announce dangers areas to the shooters who are in the stack. The pointman does this by both verbal and physical action.
b. The verbal action is as we have already discussed, by sounding off with the location of the nearest danger area and the condition of that danger area, for instance, "OPEN DOOR RIGHT".
c. The physical action is by his body movements. If the point man is faced with opposing open, oppos-ing closed doors, or offset opposoppos-ing open or closed doors, he will position himself
in the center of the hallway. By staying in the middle, he telegraphs to the stacks that the next danger are-as are on both the left and right side of the hallway. If the next danger area is on the right side of the hall-way, then the point man would off set to the left side. Again, by placing himself on the left side telegraphs to other shooters that the next danger area is on the right side of the hallway. Finally, if the pointman is positioned on the right side of the hallway, that indicates that the next danger area is on the left.