Skills and threats evaluations identify primary best of battle proven threat neutralisation as well as high risk options

 

Constant skills evaluations and skills evolution ensure the most current primary practices are included in our mil CQC training packages to arm the combatant with best of safest, effective and proven capabilities required to neutralise formidable foes.

The process of evaluation is diverse and involves rigorous testing of both current skills including battle proven skills from yesteryear and the most currently developed options.

We often as part of consultancy evaluate styles and techniques of allies/associates and for familiarisation purposes evaluate techniques of enemy fighting styles. This involves conducting combat and counter training of non-allies/enemies styles/techniques as part of our exponents, proponents and instructors skills primary status recognition and combative flaws and faults identification training. We have established systems and procedures that make up a complete process for evaluating and rating skills/techniques in relation to probable levels of objective achievement safety and identified risks and dangers.

The heading picture shows just how some military life or death close quarter’s combat threat neutralisation means and methods have stood the test of time. It also clearly identifies the fatal likelihood of the depicted unarmed ground fighting techniques that could get anyone killed if used in military close combat actions on where weapons are the reality.

Ground fighting for the battlefield along with a wide range of other unarmed non-military take on bodily contact techniques is suicidal when enemy combatants are armed and all enemies should be considered armed and dangerous. The unseen weapon is a major deadly threat that can produce a fatal outcome in an instant and is a major consideration with skills development for operational/battlefield objective achievement reasoning.

Techniques that can be easily combated/countered with a weapon that require close to body contact range could never be considered as safe and effective for the battlefield and as a result would not be included in our mil CQC trade-craft training packages.

This important skills selection principle should all but eliminate most take on techniques for life or death military close quarters combat actions on. Military CQC take out by deadly or foul means must eliminate the enemies capability to pose a threat. There are many mil CQC means of enemy incapacitation or elimination that can stop even the most formidable fighters in their tracks.

Always presuming your enemy is bigger, stronger, fitter, faster, highly skilled, armed and intending to kill you would eliminate most take on fight techniques selection for military kill or die actions on.

Some skills through changes in threat, weapons advances, changed enemy tactics and new techniques as well as changed situational specifics over time will make some skills redundant/obsolete and there may be the need for such skills to be replaced by the most current proven safest/most-effective means of threat neutralisation. Newly developed superior capabilities tactics and skills will be tested and proven by our training group CQC Master-Chief and Master Instructors as part of primary practice evaluations and evolution.

All such skills will be based on the underdog using over kill human anatomy destruction means and methods of over dog enemy threat neutralisation.

This reasoning eliminates take on techniques that are contested in gender categories and age and weight divisions or traditional techniques that were not developed for military kill or get killed actions on.

In our trade-craft this is the facts of the matter of high risk threat neutralisation that Master-Chief Instructors base skills development and the process of skills evolution on.

Our European mil CQC skills must be fit for purpose/ objective achievement and based on military armed and unarmed combat primary role specific trade-craft practices and principles and nothing less.

This file is on the Todd systems of military armed and unarmed combat and military self-defence and especially military elite close combat primary trade-craft training that the Todd Group specialises in. This file will clearly identify some facts of the matter on what are primary battlefield skills and what are not by the terminal modus operandi of the threat neutralisation methods.

Our mil close combat training division was established in 1927 by our founder the late SGM Harry Baldock and we have the longest global history as private specialist training providers of our European military elite close combat trade-craft training and have an instructor lineage directly from WW11 and next generation military Master-Chief instructors of no other training providers.

We are the holders of the mil close combat doctrine and training packages as well as being skills developers, consultants and advisors in our trade-craft and related fields.

For decades we have written military CQC manuals that are restricted and won’t be found in the public domain like our entire current primary dirty and deadly trade-craft resources.

We are also designers and makers of military close combat training equipment and weapons as this is part of what our predecessors leading military elite Master-Chief instructors have done before us.

The Todd Group mastery and full time commitment is in military armed and unarmed combat and military self-defence as well as close protection and law-enforcement defensive tactics. We also have the longest history in NZ in civilian self-defence training provision and combat sports coaching and the publishing of related manuals and magazines.

This combined knowledge over more than 90 years is important in the development of military CQC skills and the neutralising of enemy styles techniques. We have produced many champions in combat sports for over 100 years and have a designated combat sports school head coach at Todd Group HQ.

We have extensive knowledge in civilian fighting styles/combat sports codes necessary for instructing skills to combat such means and methods as part of our mil CQC courses enemy styles/techniques combat and counter measurers training. For a military close combat system to evolve it must first be a military close combat trade-craft made up of primary proven skills sets training packages that have been developed specifically to provide best of battle proven enemy threat neutralisation capabilities.

Instructors with traditional or competitive styles and codes backgrounds that are not trained and qualified in military close combat only have knowledge in their arts, styles or codes and as such can only base their training on other than current military close combat.

To have an in-depth understanding you need to be knowledgeable in the origins, reasoning, means and methods behind skills development and selection as primary proven trade-craft practices through being a highly trained and qualified expert in the development of such specialist tactics and skills.

It comes down to there can be no mistakes in skills selection or second best or lesser options when it comes to means and methods that are for military kill or die actions on.

To the trained and qualified mil CQC eyes high risk techniques can be immediately identified and instructors of such techniques self-identify as not having been highly trained and qualified in military close combat tactics and skills primary practices and principles by instructing tactically flawed high risk low level chances of objective achievement techniques.

If they had been highly trained and qualified they would not be instructing techniques that expose the combatant to increased risk and reduced chances of threat neutralisation.

Our European origins of mil close quarters armed/unarmed combat have always been developed to combat enemies and enemy fighting styles by the most current and proven deliberate and terminal means and methods. It doesn’t get any closer or more personal and deadly than in close quarters kill or die battle field actions on.

Covert enemy elimination or overt gross motor skills over kill human anatomy destruction of life support systems or less than lethal incapacitation by limbs destruction or rendering the enemy in an unconscious state enable enemy elimination or the taking of the enemy as a detainee.

Incapacitation injury

Mil CQB/CQC was and has always been based on deadly and dirty/foul over kill means and methods of enemy threat neutralisation.

Approving techniques that expose combatants to increased risks should never be considered by a high level mil CQC Master-Chief Instructor for training combatants under their command/instruction.

Common sense and practical smarts can often be absent when people think they know what mil CQC is and think that their sporting or traditional based arts techniques would be the best means in an operational kill or die actions on. The heading picture should be a reality check for those that think anything less proven than over kill foul, dirty or deadly best of battle proven immediate man stopper means should be instructed to military combatants for life or death battle field close quarters actions on.

To even consider techniques that were meant for less than lethal kill or die actions on could be superior to best of battle proven overkill skills, shows a lack of mil CQC trade-craft knowledge not to mention a disregard for the combatant’s safety.

Threat neutralisation for life or death operational usage needs to be quick, ruthless and over kill as every wasted second reduces the chances of safe effective outcomes through exposure to terminal weapons threats and additional enemy combatants.

We conduct skills re-evaluations whenever there are any issues raised with existing tactics and skills which are very rare.

Some evaluated skills require initiation and execution components changes or adjustments while others may need to be made redundant/obsolete and replacement skills developed.

We are coming up to having ten decades of military close combat training provision which has provided us with long term post actions on reports and information on skills employments vital to skills evaluations and evolution. Post actions on reports are most important in the adoption of battle proven tactics and skills. The battlefield and trench warfare of the world wars was a major testing ground for military close combat and being direct line instructor qualified instructors and successors to some of the leading allied military Master-Chief instructors of that era has meant we have a special and unequalled lineage in our mil close combat trade-craft.

The evaluation and testing processes for proving skills as primary trade-craft practices is extensive and incorporates wide ranging trade-craft means and methods of testing skills to failure.

These testing methods involve testing practices that are exclusive to military operational threats and operational considerations and best means of threat neutralisation.

There are practices that are rated as unsafe and ineffective that Senior and Master-Instructors learn of in skills development and evaluation training and there are check lists of high risk techniques and practices to ensure they are never adopted including specific components or actions that increase risk and expose combatants to increased dangers.

Required momentum lines and angles of entry/assault and skills set up initiation and execution components must all be checked and tested to determine effectiveness and safety.

The complete strategies including contingencies must also be tested especially for commonality with the primary skills and cohesion to ensure maximum momentum in employment is maintained.

Tactics and skills must be tested against combatants of different physical make ups and against wide ranging styles/techniques.

They must be evaluated under covert and overt employments and under the conditions of different environments and terrain.

Gradient, low light/darkness and many other factors must be evaluated to determine the specific skills capabilities and ensure any negative factors are identified.

They must fit with battle dress considerations to enable committed expedient employments and not be restricted or prevented by battle-dress/body-armour.

Having a designated active research and development division is vital in primary skills selection.

Evaluation protocols are used to check every component and requirement of a skill initiation and execution. Single principle options to neutralise complete threat categories are the general modus operandi. Taking all clinching skills and using a penetrative weapon or multiple unarmed eye spiking are such examples tested against all grabs, holds and submission techniques.

Mil CQC unarmed Clinch breaker Mil CQC armed option choke escape

Tactics and Skills Evaluation Information

Generally when our CQC skills are tested against our same systems skills by our own enemy party, objective achievement levels of difficulty are increased and the likelihood of immediate threat neutralisation is reduced through same system countering out factors making compromised overt threat neutralisation problematic and less immediate.

Outside of skills evaluations being conducted for individual skills as a result of identified performance objective achievement or safety concerns we conduct complete training packages re-evaluations approximately every 2- 5 years depending on need.

These evaluations include all our regular and elite skills sets and our signature primary CQC practices.

This has always been our standard practice SOP over the past 94 years to ensure we best close combat capabilities arm our understudies.

The effects over time of changes in threats and weapons innovations make ongoing detailed evaluations of tactics and skills essential.

Our primary terminal mil elite close combat skills developed by our predecessors predominantly still provide highest level threat neutralisation over a century on as they were over kill from the outset.

Testing some such long term primary skills against non-military traditional and sporting styles based techniques has certainly proven the ongoing effectiveness of the skills our pioneer predecessor Master-Chief Instructors and the flaws in some non-military techniques of modern times.

In fact some previous skills/options have had to be made dormant through international conventions that have deemed them too ruthless/inhumane.

Safety testing is a very important factor of skills evaluations to ensure from initiation through the execution phase the combatant has fitting hard targeting/hard cover guarding and kill zone clearing primary capabilities.

Tactics and skills evaluations are time consuming and require a test to destruction/failure mentality and process that needs to be thorough and all-encompassing before any decisions/changes are made.

There must never be any influence of an instructors only or preferred external fighting arts or combat sports styles or codes.

The mil Master-Instructor must follow in the path of our predecessors with developing skills that can stop entire threat categories by a single means now and in the future by their brutally effective over kill modus operandi.

For example to combat clinching ground fighting and submission techniques using the primary back up weapons or a dagger will enable quick kills and did in years gone by and will in the future.

This being fact of matter providing hard cover drawing and employment of weapons to combat or counter unarmed wrestling or grappling techniques maximises enemy threat neutralisation.

I have spoken with elite forces allies in years gone by that come from services that were considering simply issuing short daggers to combat or counter bodily contact unarmed enemy threats as such penetration would put an immediate stop to hostilities regardless of the enemies take on fight expertise IQ or experience.

In unarmed or by improvised weapons means of enemy threat neutralisation foul dirty and deadly destruction of life support vitals and delicate human senses as part of enemy elimination is the next best option to immediate armed options of enemy elimination.

There are many factors and considerations that require detailed checking not only from our own skills systems perspective but also from the perspective of neutralisation of the most current enemy styles/techniques.

To lead the way in military CQC training provision requires highly trained and qualified Master-Instructors fully versed in skills evaluation and skills development to ensure the evolution of our mil close combat systems provides the most current highest level external threats neutralisation capabilities. The leg is longer than the arm, the combat boot provides foot safety and achieves increased contact effect and the modus operandi of the objective being to destroy the integrity of the knee joint and or knee cap ligaments is more role and usage specific than bone on flesh kicks and as such increases safety and objective achievement rates.

Everything is very black and white fact of matter in skills evaluations and development.

A smaller combatant facing a considerably bigger skilled enemy using grappling is disadvantaged but by means of a weapon or the destruction of life support human anatomy targets with terminal objective achievement will be the victor.

Staying at the forefront of threats requires a dedicated training and research and development division constantly monitoring our trade-craft training and undertaking external threats evaluations.

Mil CQC Master Instructors must be fully trained and qualified in specialist trade-craft practices and must be able to identify in a flash high risk suicidal techniques and discard them. They must be highly trained in how to develop highest level fast and as guaranteed as humanly possible primary threat neutralisation means and methods.

Grappling on the battlefield terminated by means of the rifle butt or bayonet by a brother- in- arms

While in combat sports time in the clinch or on the ground is common practice in kill or die actions on it is suicidal.

Foul/deadly close combat skills are for the purpose of as close as it gets to immediate enemy dispatching and this is what is required not take on time consuming techniques that expose combatants to increased risks and dangers and can be overcome by deadly means immediately.

Combatants must know how to make themselves as harder targets as possible as part of their skills employments by primary self-protection means to prevent effects of enemies counter actions and this comes down to quick deadly targeting or foul targeting means that if effectively employed will achieve instantaneous threat neutralisation.

Over kill assaults must equate to continuous dirty deadly threat neutralisation to stop formidable foes and as such all skills must be supported by cohesive contingencies as part of full skills employment strategies.

Urban violence self-protection and street fighting where dirty means and methods are used to injure, wound or maim have a similar effect but predominantly do not end in terminal outcomes.

In mil unarmed combat thumbs in the eyes, fingers up the nostrils, biting delicate targets, compromising the airway/spinal cord, destruction of the knee joint/cap ligaments, targeting the genitals and many other foul unarmed effective means of incapacitation/elimination to achieve threat neutralisation provide best capabilities and are methods that have much higher chances of putting a stop to an over-dog enemy aggressor quickly.

Deadly foul skills require minimal training time to achieve best levels of competency in arming combatants in the shortest time frames with high level capabilities to neutralise highly trained physically superior enemy combatants. Assault strategies must be relentless and never allow for recover and counter actions.

The most important factor of effective formidable foes threats neutralisation is mental toughness which is the most important capability that must also be enhanced for without intestinal fortitude under the adversity of a life threatening actions on the chances of being the victor are unlikely.

Decades of development and testing assessments with military elite went into the development of our Brain to Boot military CQC/CQB/MSD manual and training packages.

There are mil trade-craft training sayings like ‘boots are for combat and bare feet are for bathing’, ‘the most deadly dagger is the one you don’t see but feel in your death gasp’ or ‘the only head kicking in mil CQC is to a decked enemy’. These are based on important considerations in developing and adopting skills as primary practices for battle field CQC. The fact of the matter is even formidable foes highly trained fight skills capabilities stand no chance against deadly terminal armed threats.

Even unarmed less than lethal targeting of delicate human senses or life support vitals can incapacitate a formidable enemy in an instant.

Escaping clinches or ground holds by armed means requires minimal physicality and is another example of the reasoning behind best skills selection for military battlefield purposes.

The backup weapon or dagger will force an immediate release of a hold and put an end to hostilities.

Eye gouging enemy incapacitation Grappling and attempting to submit an armed enemy is suicidal against an armed enemy

Important Evaluations Considerations

Dirty and deadly CQC provides the mil combatant with the highest chances of stopping a formidable foe in their tracks.

There are no gender categories, age or weight divisions on the battle field or in the street and there are no rules, so to take on a highly trained physically superior enemy with techniques that are not role and objective achievement quick threat neutralisation fit for purpose battle proven ways is not the best and safest means of objective achievement for military CQC.

Those that would even consider lesser than best of proven mil CQC threat neutralisation options in a last resort unnamed combat military life or death actions on need to ask yourselves, would thumbs driven through your eyes stop you from grappling with your enemy or your airway being destroyed not to mention your spinal cord being compromised?

Then there are the realities of mil combatants being armed with multiple weapons that could destroy life-support systems, penetrate organs, sever arteries and produce many other lethal terminal outcomes in a fraction of a second.

This is why so many of our European military CQC tactics and skills have stood the test of time and have proven to be so effective in battle and is also the reasoning why the most current developed skills are based on same/similar brutally effective over kill principles.

Settling for lesser is certainly not our mil close combat mentality or modus operandi.

There is a very specific process in developing new/replacement skills that needs to be followed as well as an arduous regime to test the limits of the skills to failure.

Taking Into Account Facts of the Matter of Operational Battlefield/Trench Warfare Weapons

To the armed combatant in battle-field actions on, armed over kill options would be the first and final actions taken under a kill or die threat.

Would clinching, wrestling, grappling or ground fighting on the battlefield be wise against an armed enemy not to forget his brothers-in-arms that have primary weapons as well as their back up weapon and other threat neutralisation non-ballistic weapons?

The combat dagger enables combatants to stab/cut themselves free from grabs holds and submission techniques achieving a release with minimal effort putting an instant end to a seizure or submission techniques period.

Clinching with an armed enemy is suicidal

Military enemy grappling/wrestling threats ended by armed options in the clinch and in ground combat

The primary weapon with a fixed bayonet and the rifle butt will effectively dispatch a ground fighting enemy from above in an instant and is another indicator of the suicidal realities of ground fighting on the battlefield.

Not a great place to be on the ground with an armed enemy above

Using take on techniques on the battle field like submission techniques against a formidable enemy that is armed and can take you out in a heartbeat is suicidal. Armed options are the most guaranteed primary means of stopping an enemy for the battle field.

You must always believe the enemy is armed and remember a deadly covert weapon employment equates to a fatality.

Improvised weapons such as sticks/spikes used to penetrate the eyeballs or rocks used to target the cranial or cervical vertebrae can stop take on techniques instantaneously and don’t require high level competency or fine motor skills actions.

Improvised terrain provided rock to threat neutralise an enemy instructed to a mil elite combatant on a CQC course of instruction

Provision of Best Capabilities to Increase Chances of Victory Over Defeat

You must always remember even a wounded or injured enemy combatant can dispatch you in a heartbeat with lethal deadly overkill take out close combat skills, especially by armed means.

Common sense must prevail in objective achievement and risk deduction skills evaluation and selection so as not to compromise combatant’s capabilities. Risk increasing actions like bending down to punch a grounded enemy when stomping with a combat boot is much safer and more guaranteed to threat neutralise must be determined in threat evaluations.

Evaluations identify techniques that increase risk and ensure they are never adopted like flesh on blade techniques in crossed arm dagger defence. Fact of matter razor sharp daggers penetrate organs and cut flesh arteries and tendons and such techniques will most likely get you wounded or killed.

The old adage that an enemy even in their death gasp can kill you is very true and should enforce the correct tools for the job as the priority. Even in a submission technique application where an extremity is broken or dislocated at the joint, it takes minimal effort to dispatch the enemy with a ballistic or edged weapon.

Facts on Mil Elite CQC in Skills Evaluation/Selection

True trade-craft military CQC is not competitive and as such is not made up of risk increasing inferior techniques for operational threat neutralisation. Civi arts or sports techniques are for very different purposes than in a battlefield life or death actions on. Stopping an enemy in their tracks as quickly as humanly possible is what is needed.

There should be no confusion a military close quarters lethal actions on is nothing like taking on or competing against an opponent in competition with officials and rules.

Mil CQC focuses only on battlefield/operational close combat tactics and skills of enemy disposal or initial disarming and disabling to achieve disposal of the enemy threat if it is in fact true mil kill or die close combat.

The objective is not based around civilian training practices like inner peace, a pacifist mentality or making you a better person, it is about keeping you alive and this means overcoming violent threats by combating violence with superior ruthless brutally deliberate violence capabilities as in terminal sudden aggressive shock actions take outs.

In kill or die battle field actions on anything less might well be the reason for defeat over victory and a combatant’s demise.

No one that is mil CQC savvy with mil CQC smarts should ever think evolving to a safer superior means is achieved by changing from battle field proven mil CQC kill or die tactics and skills to traditional or sporting take on fight or submission techniques for military life or death battle field actions on threat neutralisation.

The trained proponent’s mind-set in CQB/CQC/MSD is that of winning not merely surviving by a best of battle proven means. Such trade-craft experts are not influenced by civi flash and dash latest biggest bang promotions of styles of the masses as they know what is needed for the battle field and what can get you killed.

If it’s for the masses has gender categories and weight divisions it is tactically and combatively flawed for the battlefield against armed and dangerous combatants that do not play by any rules and only stop when they have taken their enemy out.

Then there are the realities of battle dress webbing/body armour and packs that would hinder or prevent being able to effectively apply many non-military techniques.

The mere fact that such styles and codes are contested in gender categories and age/weight divisions proves that such take on means and methods do not best arm the underdog up against deadly formidable foes with deadly intentions.

In our thinking at Todd Group HQ to arm combatants with techniques that do not provide them with role duty threat and situation specific best trade craft capabilities to safely and effectively put an end to hostilities is a travesty.

This file will outline how our European military elite CQC/MSD is a progressive trade-craft that continually evolves to enable combatants to be able to dispatch formidable foes by overkill foul and deadly means not by increased risk take on less immediate or guaranteed means or methods.

To effectively do this it is important to understand the differences and the disparity between civi take on fighting arts styles/techniques and military lethal methods of enemy threat neutralisation.

Sudden Aggressive Shock Action, Dirty Tactics, Distraction and Deception Setup Initiation

Mil CQC can be covert or overt depending on situation and objective and requires set up and initiation trade-craft practices that maximise threat neutralisation.

Skills evaluations include initial identification of individual skills set up initiation tactics and actions.

Interfering with mental and visual focus by employment of tactics that cause confusion, hesitation or loss of momentum are common in mil CQC trade-craft training skills set ups.

Some cause autonomic reactions such as self-preservation reactionary actions under threat while others cause overload by combination/multiple aggressive actions.

Deliberate targeting of life support bodily targets or delicate human senses as well as painful set ups that interfere with enemy actions through the mind being affected by pain are some such methods.

Combative tactics to interfere or compromise balance and stability are important tactics/skills components that are employed cohesively with combative strategies of enemy threat neutralisation.

Such interference tactics of enemy visual and mental focus or physical dirty tricks to enhance skills employments can be the difference between threat neutralisation and objective achievement or failure and are musts in the mil combatant’s bag of tactics and tricks that are part of individual skills initiation and execution evaluations.

Exponent Proponent Instructor Rank and Scope

While there are millions of exponents that have been trained in Basic military CQC courses of instruction arming them with the required operational capabilities to neutralise enemy close quarters threats, the numbers of Master-Chief instructors and Master-Instructors that have put in decades to earn their rank and that are qualified in CQC research and development are minimal.

There are many mil exponents of CQC including basic courses instructors that have completed minimal training requirements but are certainly not Master-Instructors and do not have credentials in doctrine writing or development of primary skills specific to close combat threat neutralisation requirements in skills evaluation and skills development.

Basic training level instructors certainly have not been trained and qualified in such trade-craft areas of expertise as skills research and development and usually do not have decades of dedicated close combat instructing service logging up thousands of hours in research development and the conducting of courses.

Trades apprentices have to complete approximately four years of full time training to become tradespersons so to become a qualified proponent of mil CQC and qualified high level instructor where terminal outcomes require proven practices delivered by high ranking instructors requires thousands of hours of training time and passing testing phases.

Mil CQC leading instructors must be competent in all aspects of mil CQC trade-craft training including CQC drills training, setting up and conducting varied combative specialist courses of instruction and testing phases along with undertaking assessments and CQC report writing.

Mil CQC systems are cohesive trade-craft practices that consist of same/similar systems commonality and they include full strategies for individual skills initiation and execution.

We have identified some self-proclaimed instructors seeking employment that have never even been trained tested and qualified in mil CQC that could not provide courses reports and proof of instructor qualifications which makes them nothing more than civi styles instructors.

Skills Development Factors and Considerations Past and Present

In the development of mil close combat skills expert Master-Instructors considerations include would it be smart to employ a skill against an enemy combatant that has multiple weapons capabilities or an unarmed enemy that has access and time to gouge the eyes, destroy the airway, sever the spinal cord, penetrate internal organs, target the genitals or destroy the ligaments of the knee joint/cap. Knowledge is power and includes knowledge of enemy combative primary practices.

Some skills evaluations identify the requirement of range execution changes or changes of lines of assault or the change of tactics including set ups dirty tricks to interfere with the enemies mental and or visual focus.

Just like grappling with the enemy on the battlefield or ground-fighting any techniques that involve turning your back on your enemy and exposing the nape of your neck or internal organs are suicidal.

Never turn your back on your enemy in close combat

Those that instruct such techniques for mil CQC have never evolved from non mil styles to mil CQC systems.

Some mil CQC tactics and skills of ancient origins and times have stood the test of time and the reasoning is simple because they were best of battle proven primary terminal means of enemy elimination then including in ancient times and still are today.

Some military outfits over the years have introduced traditional or sporting based styles and codes or hybridised/bastardised versions of such. One reason for this is after the Great Wars European mil CQC became close to being lost and the Todd Group is the only private specialist training provider of our European military elite training systems packages with our direct lineage from our former military expert predecessors. The will to punch it out grapple or wrestle can be taken away in a millisecond with a weapon or by unarmed destruction of human life support systems or delicate human bodily senses. The combatant is best at what are their primary capabilities and for mil close quarters actions on there is no substitute for best of battle proven CQB/CQC/MSD.

Mil CQC methods of unarmed assault to combat clinching

Skills Employments Dress Kit and Roles Evaluations and Considerations

There are obviously less lethal skills in mil CQC highly trained military combatant’s bag of tricks that include methods and means of incapacitation, detainee handling, crowd combat, urban operators mil self-defence, riot breaking, close protection CQB/CQC and other less than lethal threats required non-lethal capabilities.

Many techniques will be identified as tactically flawed if executed in full battledress/body armour but are still practiced as CQB/CQC by some and sometimes only in clean fatigues or PT kit.

Some reasons why many techniques like throws and high kicks are not mil CQC skills

Obviously for high repetition intensive training clean fatigues or PT Kit can be the selected dress but it is important that skills for military close combat can effectively be employed in full battle dress/body armour and that training includes some full battle dress practice.

Techniques that cannot effectively be employed by all combatants in full battle dress or body armour should not be included in CQC basic training packages.

Evaluation testing if undertaken would have identified skills that do not work in full battle dress/body armour.

The traditional or sporting type kicks above the knee joints, throws with a pack on and punching techniques against body armour, webbing and helmets are not included in our mil CQC packages. Such techniques included in mil close combat training packages should be immediately identified if the modus operandi is safety of exponents/combatants and fast effective gross motor skill over kill threat neutralisation. Such techniques should be immediately binned and made permanently obsolete as they reduce combative capability and can hinder or prevent objective achievement putting the combatant at increased risk.

Wrestling, grappling or unarmed fighting with an enemy that is armed with multiple weapons options ranging from primary to back up weapons and penetrative and bludgeon type weapons that can wound or dispatch the most formidable fighter would not be included in our mil elite primary enemy threat neutralisation training packages.

Rolling around ground fighting in battlefield actions on takes time and exposes the combatant to not only an armed enemy but also their brothers-in-arms and as such is tactically flawed for military actions on. The enemy’s boots, rifles and fixed bayonets and rifle butts as well as daggers and many other trench warfare weapons make putting a stop to infighting and ground fighting quick and easy.

Ground fighting risks from enemy brothers-in-arms

Trench warfare maces used in the great wars dispatched enemies with brutal efficiency and this is just another indicator of proven terminal means of battlefield overkill enemy elimination superior to flesh on flesh take on fight skills.

Tactically Flawed Practices Easily Identified in Skills Evaluations and Important CQC Principles

Both hands should always be employed in the retention of one’s weapon as part of threat neutralisation and when you see techniques that promote single hand retention and use of the free hand to strike or clinch with the enemy you should know your weapon is at increased risk of being taken from you and used against you by an enemy that understands the importance of both hands in stripping you of your weapon when they identify the opportunity of your single handed retention.

We have had visiting instructors of civi self-defence styles demonstrate such low level retention skills oblivious to the risks and when their skills failed every time they were mystified and upset that they had taught operators these tactically flawed dangerous techniques. This shows volumes of their lack of technique evaluation capabilities.

Not being able to fast map assess and adjust and employ contingencies with cohesion maintaining or regaining momentum can leave the combatant cast in the kill zone.

Having complete strategies as part of skills mastery can be the difference between objective achievement and defeat.

Employing a less effective plan B option than a primary threat neutralisation option out of a pacifist mentality in a mil CQC actions on then being overwhelmed and unable to employ plan A is a negative under formidable threats.

Any skill that you would be afraid to test your skills against in training such as cross armed knife blocking defence has little chance for you to achieve safe effective disarming threat neutralisation against an aggressive unpredictable formidable foe.

Blocking techniques can leave bodily vitals exposed and offer extremities for the enemy to seize and secure then employ a grab and stab or some other deadly armed option. In our Mil CQC hard cover guarding and deflections are the primary means of stationary protection and preventing contact when the kill zone can’t be cleared by evasion.

Foul dirty and deadly armed and unarmed skills are not legal in fighting arts or combat sports for good reason but in a kill or die military close quarters combat actions on they are what gives even the under-dog facing an over-dog aggressor assault the best chances of stopping them in their tracks.

History Wasn’t Always Correct and the Same can be Said in Current Times for Some

Not considering military unarmed combat an important capability in combatant training can be fatal when a combatant is disarmed of their issued weapons capabilities and under high risk assault.

History shows that ancient and early mil battle field close combat didn’t always come up with the best means and methods from the outset and this is very apparent when traditional or sporting styles or codes techniques have been adopted for mil combative purposes, but with true trade-craft mil CQC being a living progressive trade-craft, tactics and skills evolve with time to increase safer more effective objective achievement, giving the combatant the most current battle tested and proven capabilities.

Lessons learnt in battle are operational fact and are important in the evolution of mil CQC.

Traditional based techniques that were not battle field threat neutralisation developed are often set in stone and have not evolved like military CQC and could not be considered the best threat and role specific means of defeating enemies on the modern battlefield.

We need to remember that CQC was developed to combat enemy fighting styles by ruthless overkill means and methods and to adopt former enemies fighting styles/techniques from historic times is far from military close combat current skills evolution. Col Rex Applegate would refer to military instructors instructing traditional styles techniques as the flowing robe brigade and he told me of his dissatisfaction of observing such people instructing such risky ineffective techniques.

The Evolution of Military Primary Close Combat Skills and Those Responsible for Decision Making

The research and development in true mil CQC leading to tactics and skills being accepted as primary practices is undertaken by Master-Chief instructors assisted by Master-Instructors all trained and qualified in the mil close combat trade-craft that includes doctrine writing as well as tactics and skills development.

The covert or overt gross motor skills modus operandi essential in skills development and selection as primary practices in the military gross motor skills over kill military science of mil CQB/CQC comes down to simple facts of the matter of expedient often silent over kill threat neutralisation.

Testing mil CQC skills to failure in required objective achievement will identify the matter of facts that will lead to skills being adopted as primary skills or binned as not being effective safe options. Usually primary skills tick all the requirements of objective achievement but in some cases multiple options are tested to destruction and compared to identify best outcomes. There is a similar practice used to compare mil CQC skills against non mil techniques to determine objective achievement outcomes and identify the close combat best for role and objective achievement requirements. Basic considerations like would punching it out be better than using your primary weapon or would trying to submit an enemy on the battle field on the ground be better than using your dagger and the list goes on of best safest most proven battlefield means of threat neutralisation factors and considerations that determine primary skills and those that are not.

Testing skills to failure and only approving/adopting them because there is no better or safer means of objective achievement is the training division developmental modus operandi.

This process to the trained eyes and minds identifies and eliminates tactically flawed high risk techniques from ever being included in operational CQC training packages.

Skills are developed, enhanced, adapted or replaced out of the necessity to stay ahead of enemy capabilities and not for any other reasons.

Fatal penetration will always be fatal penetration are such fact of matter trade-craft reasons of primary threat neutralisation decision making.

The living military trade-crafts that our European military CQB/CQC/MSD have been derived from and are based on have long battle proven histories. There are humorous sayings to describe longevity such as when Alexander the Great was captain for the Corinthian League or when Adam was fullback for the Israelites that are often used by CQC proponents to point out long military CQC proven histories. True mil CQC training packages comprise of the most current primary trade-craft training that includes being based on military combative sciences that are not exact sciences but comprise of the best means of human destructive threat neutralisation capabilities.

The best of battle proven skills are the most current tested and proven capabilities of specific threats neutralisation that have either endured as primary threat neutralisation methods or have evolved and made previous methods obsolete.

It is not evolving in a military close combat mind-set by training in styles codes or individual techniques that are for sport or civi hobby traditional fighting arts training and that are not the most proven quick best means of threat neutralisation when the intention is for military kill or die close combat actions on.

The Todd Group constantly monitors and evaluates our tactics and skills as well as external threats to ensure our primary mil close combat training provides the highest capabilities to defeat formidable foes by the most deliberate proven means as part of training packages evolution.