Weapons Fighting Just as free play and competition are the heart of developing realistic unarmed skills, so it is with weapons fighting. Weapons fighting to be learned and practiced efficiently can be broken down into two categories, Combat Marksmanship and Contact Weapons. It is important however, just as in unarmed Combatives, to remember that the tendency is to specialize, becoming focused on one aspect of fighting, and drift away from the reality that in actual combat, the range changes very quickly. A fighter who fails to train for that transition will soon find himself ill prepared. Unarmed Fighting, Contact Weapons and Combat Marksmanship are each pieces of the whole and we must purposefully look for the weakness in each training method in order to integrate our techniques. Close Quarters Marksmanship Jerry Barnhart 10 time USPSA Champion changing mags Much work has been done over the years by the civilian “practical shooting” community. In it we can see both the strengths and weaknesses of a competitive approach to Marksmanship training. First, it has been an almost unmitigated success at producing competent battlefield marksmanship. However, just as in Unarmed Combative Sport, there is a tendency to focus on the game, at the expense of realistic combative ability. Non-tactically sound techniques arise in order to gain a competitive edge.   Practical shooting competitions such as those put on by the International Defensive Pistol Association and the International Practical Shooting Confederation should be combined with scenario driven training that can be done with products such as SIMUNITION™.   Contact Weapons Contact weapons are any weapons that require physical contact with the enemy to be effective. Examples of contact weapons are a club, a fixed bayonet, a knife, etc.   As the use of contact weapons is seldom a soldier’s principle means of defeating an enemy, and considering the wide variety of possible weapons and weapons types, our training must not be focused on specific weapons but on giving soldiers the ability to utilize any weapon effectively.    Weapons are categorized by the type of attack. For example the attack method that would be used with an entrenching tool is virtually the same as any other weapon being utilized in an arcing, swinging type attack. We will therefore train on all such weapons in a similar manner and classify them together. Classifying contact weapons in this way gives us three types of weapons corresponding to the three methods of attack. They are Bludgeoning, Long thrusting and Short thrusting weapons.   Crafty Dog Strikes at the Gathering of the Pack Bludgeoning weapons-   Bludgeoning weapons are any weapon that is utilized in a swinging or arcing type of attack. This can include anything from a baseball bat or entrenching tool to a fire place poker. Attacks with enough power to be dangerous can only come in at predictable and classifiable angles of attack. This allows defensive maneuvers and counter attacks to be trained. The training implements are sticks of varying size usually of rattan as it is a vine and is fibrous and therefore does not break as easily as woods, which have a grain to them.   One of the principle means of learning is to spar/fight with just enough padding to avoid injury but not enough to eliminate the pain of impact. The Dog Brothers and others from Kali and the Philippine Martial Arts have pioneered this type of training.  Although safety will always force a certain unreality on weapons training, just as in unarmed fighting, we must look for the most realistic methods and then try to understand the limitations of the methods we use. Marines Bayonet Fencing Long thrusting weapons-   The principle weapon in this category is the rifle with fixed bayonet. Though there is a modern tendency toward shorter and lighter weapons, the fact remains that in most combative engagements soldiers will be armed, and many will begin with your weapon pointed directly at the enemy.   Thrusting attacks can be broken down into four quadrants with the apex being your weapon, just as in fencing. These quadrants correspond with the four primary angles of attack from bludgeoning type weapons. Deflecting thrusting types of attacks is subtler than blocking bludgeoning type attacks but in this way they can be taught as an extension of the other techniques. It must also be remembered that most weapons are capable of both thrusting and bludgeoning type attack for instance a bayonet thrust and then a but stroke.   Commando Training WWII Short Thrusting weapons-   This concerns primarily the use and defense against knives.   Offensively, The most important thing about using a knife is the ability to deploy it when needed so that your enemy cannot use it against you. After that comes making the best use of its design features and striking where it can cause the greatest damage.   An enemy will rarely let you know you are in a knife fight until it is too late. You must therefore assume that any enemy may be armed.  An example of how you may train for this is to use a stun gun to represent a bladed weapon. If your enemy is ably to get to his weapon and deploy it…..