Tactical Tuesday Episode Twenty-Seven - Dynamic Room Entry: Surprise, Speed and Violence of Action: Part Two

In this episode of Tactical Tuesday with Modern Milsim, we continue our discussion regarding  Dynamic Room Entry Method.  Specifically, we discuss:

• Eight Essential Steps of Dynamic Room Entry (2:07)
• Individual Entry Team Movement into Center Fed Room (6:46)
• TTPs tp Avoid Common Mistakes While Performing Dynamic Room Entry  (16:04)
• Squaring Off (16:12)
• Stay off Walls (16:38)
• Avoid Casting Shadows Across Entry Point (17:22)
• Near Simultaneous Room Entry (10:15)
• Avoid Corner Fixation (17:48)
• Avoid Target Fixation (18:31)
• Avoid Overpenetration into Target Room (13:04)
• Individual Entry Team Member Sectors/Areas of Responsibility (18:56)
• Expect Close Contact (19:31)
• Cover Danger Areas (20:02)
• Individual Entry Team Movement into Center Fed Room (20:21)
• and more.

A new episode of Tactical Tuesdays is typically uploaded on the first and third Tuesdays of each month.
  
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To find “From Insertion to Extraction:  Advanced MILSIM CQB Tactics, Techniques and Procedures” :  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07THX1CFT/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1

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Chapters

• 2:07 Eight Essential Steps of Dynamic Room Entry
• 6:46 Individual Entry Team Movement into Center Fed Room
• 16:04 TTPs to Avoid Common Mistakes While Performing Dynamic Room Entry
• 16:12 Squaring Off
• 16:38 Stay Off Walls
• 16:55 Avoid Casting Shadows Across Entry Point
• 17:22 Near Simultaneous Room Entry
• 17:48 Avoid Corner Fixation
• 18:31 Avoid Target Fixation
• 18:56 Avoid Overpenetration into Target Room
• 19:31 Expect Close Contact
• 20:02 Cover Danger Areas
• 20:31 Individual Entry Team Movement into Corner Fed Room

Transcript

TACTICAL TUESDAY WITH MODERN MILSIM – EPISODE 27 TRANSCRIPT 

Welcome to another episode of Tactical Tuesday with Modern Milsim. Through this podcast, we will bring you real world tactics, techniques, and procedures that will enable you to succeed on the Milsim battlefield. It's time to make ready.

Hello, and welcome to episode 27 of Tactical Tuesday with Modern Milsim. I am your host, Craig White. As always, thank you for being here.  Now today we're continuing our discussion of dynamic room entry and related tactics, techniques, and procedures with an emphasis on the eight essential steps of dynamic room clearing, individual entry team movement, and common mistakes while implementing dynamic room entry.

Please note that this series of episodes is intended to provide a more basic understanding of CQB TTPs. For a more detailed explanation of these tactics, techniques, and procedures, Check out from insertion to extraction, advanced MIL sim CQB tactics, techniques, and Procedures, now available@amazon.com.

Also, a word of warning here, the CQB tactics, techniques and procedures described in this podcast have been adapted to MIL sim and necessarily do not represent proper CQB TTPs For use in real world situations.  Use them in MILSIM operations only. Items that would qualify as cover in MILSIM really represent concealment in the real world.  Remember that most actual pistol and rifle rounds will easily penetrate drywall and other building materials used in most American homes. Do not apply these CQB TTPs to real world situations. 

So with that in mind, let's get to it. 

Let's start with the eight essential steps to dynamic room entry.  Although each of these eight steps can be broken down to a myriad of sub steps based on what techniques and variations the entry team wants to incorporate into each step, they are intended to be a basic framework or priority of work for clearing rooms. 

So the first step is to clear the doorway and immediate area just inside the room.  It is essential that the point man initially focus upon and clear the entry point and the area immediately around it of enemy. Failure to do so can stall the breach of the room, will likely cause the team to incur unnecessary casualties and can also result in a failed entry.  If the point man fails to clear the entry point and immediate danger area to focus on clearing his near hard corner, he can miss enemy taking advantage of the moving angle to ambush the rest of the entry team.

Once the entry team has cleared the entry point and immediate danger area, the second step is for the point and second man to transition to their secondary area of responsibility…their respective near hard corners. The near hard corners of the room are typically some of the most dangerous locations in a room.  The enemy will frequently hide in the near corners in the hopes that the entry team will fail to clear them and can subsequently ambush the entry team. As such, it is important for point and second men to clear their respective near hard corners. That being said, do not become fixated on a corner. Clear it quickly, then immediately transition to your remaining sectors and areas of responsibility.

Clearing the corners does not mean to literally move to the corner to clear it. We call that digging the corner.  Once the point and second man have visually cleared their respective corners, they turn their attention to covering their secondary sectors or areas of responsibility while moving to their points of domination.

Now, the third step is for the entry team to dominate the room. Entry team members must establish their points of domination and locations where they can clear danger areas behind furniture and objects in the room with interlocking fields of fire.  With the dynamic room clearing method, either the first or second man will typically move along the side wall in an effort to clear dead space that would not be cleared from the near or strong wall.

The fourth step is to control occupants within the target room. If the scenario allows for it, entry team members must exercise control over both civilian and role players in the room by applying dominating presence, verbal commands, and physical contact. Each occupant in the room that is not a known friendly will need to be notionally searched to disarm them.  You will need to separate the wolves from the sheep in the room. 

The fifth step is for the entry team to secure the target room. Entry team members search closets and other areas of the room that were not cleared during the initial room entry, clear any remaining dead space, and set up security to cover any entryways into the target room just cleared.

The sixth step is for the entry team members to report their status up the chain of command. Entry team members need to report their status to higher command once the building or premises are secured as well as whenever the team member discovers critical information, completes specified tasks assigned to them, suffers more than 50 percent casualties or otherwise becomes combat ineffective.

Now these first six steps apply to each target room cleared by the entry team. They are repeated for each target room cleared by the entry team. Once the entry team has cleared its last uncleared room, we move to the eighth step. The team back clears or conducts a secondary sweep to return to the exit point for the building.  This step applies only once the entry team has moved to the limit of its advance and is ready to exit the building.  Elements of the entry team will proceed to re-clear areas the team has previously moved through to make sure they have not been again, occupied by enemy players. This is especially important when trying to extract a high value target out of the building.

Just because room was cleared when the entry team initially moved through the building does not mean it has not been re-occupied by the enemy when the team moved on to the next unclear room. 

And then the last step is for the entry team to cover and evacuate from the building. Once the entry team has back cleared to the building entry point, they must be ready to exit the structure with any prisoners and hostages while under fire.

So now let's discuss individual team member movement, as it pertains to dynamic room entry into a center fed room. Each member of the entry team has specific responsibilities and must take specific actions during the breach of the target center fed room. For purposes of illustrating these basic TTPs, each entry team member will be identified from the front to the rear of the stack in the following manner:  The point or first man followed by the second man, then you have your third man and finally the fourth or security man. The entry team will need to use speed and surprise to maintain momentum in clearing buildings. It should take an entry team no more than five or six seconds to clear an average sized room and less than eight to ten seconds including the time to clear the current room to reorganize and move to breach the next room.

So let's talk about point man entry. The point man should stack at a distance from the entry point that allows him to point his weapon at the door or entry point of the target room without extending his weapon muzzle beyond the edge of where it would be visible to the enemy. This allows the point man to cover the entry point and eliminate any enemy that decides to exit through it.

Maintaining some standoff distance from the door or entry point can help avoid projecting a shadow across that doorway or entry point. When stacking up, the point man should stay off the wall. The point man usually determines the direction of room entry based on the path of least resistance. If entering through a door, this direction will be primarily based on whether the door opens into the room or outward toward the entry team.

If the door opens into the room, the entry team should normally stack up on the hinged side of the door. The point man then enters the room by sliding across the door as it opens into the room and crossing to the opposite side of the doorway and along the near wall.  This allows the point man's rear to be shielded somewhat by the partially open door while the second man moves into position behind him.

If the door opens outward, the entry team should stack on the doorknob side of the door. The point man would then move across and through the doorway along the inside of the door as it is opened. Although this is the basic procedure for executing a dynamic room entry technique, point man may decide to perform a button hook movement instead of following the path of least resistance.

In whichever direction the point man decides to move, the rest of the entry team must move off of it. If the point man goes left, then the second man goes right. If the point man goes right, the second man goes left. Third and fourth men move in opposite directions from the team member ahead of them. If the point man decides to use the path of least resistance, he will move along the near wall opposite of the entry point from the second man and will engage immediate threats without stopping.  He will continue to move along the near wall until he reaches the near corner. Point man's primary sector or area of responsibility after entering the room is to clear the near corner on his side. Point man should not overly focus on clearing the corner before moving on to his secondary sector or area of responsibility.  Point man's secondary sector or area of responsibility is the interior of the room. Once Point man has cleared his corner, he rotates his body to square off to the center of the room while continuing to proceed along the near wall to his near corner. 

As part of the inter team's SOPs or upon receiving the command “One Dominate”, Point Man will move along the side wall and out of his near corner.  He should move along the wall only so far as required for him to clear dead space within the room. Upon reaching his point of domination, Point Man should continue to scan the interior of the target room until “All Clear” is called. It is important that only the point or second man move to their respective points of domination once the entry team initially breaches the room.  This is designed to decrease the possibility of fratricide should enemy be located hidden in the middle of the room. If the point man determines he is entering the room that is too small for the entire stack to enter, he will announce “short” or “short room”.  In such circumstances, the second man will enter the room while the third and fourth men provide security outside.

It is the responsibility of the point man to determine whether he wishes to have a grenade thrown into the target room prior to entry. Although any entry team member can perform this task, usually the fourth man will be responsible for moving up and actually throwing the grenade into the room.  In no event should point man throw in the grenade.  His primary responsibility is to cover the danger area represented by the door or entry point before the target room itself is breached. 

So let's talk about the responsibilities of the second man. The second man should stack up immediately behind the point man and offset at his outside shoulder away from the wall so that his weapon is also covering the target room doorway or entry point.  Doing so allows the entry team to put two muzzles on the most likely threat axis. Doing so also allows the second man to eliminate the threat should the point man go down. 

Now the second man moves through the entryway immediately behind the point man then moves in the opposite direction from him along the inside near wall.  The second man eliminates immediate threats as he enters the room and continues to move down the wall on the inside of the room toward the near corner on his side. Second man's primary sector or an area of responsibility is the near corner on his side of the room. Immediately upon clearing the corner, the second man will move on to his secondary sector and area of responsibility, which is the interior of the room.  Once second man has cleared his corner, he should rotate his body to square off to the center of the room while continuing to proceed along the near wall to his near corner. 

As part of the entry team's SOPs are upon receiving the command “Two Dominate”, second man will move up along the side wall and out of his near corner.  He should move along the wall only so far as required for him to clear the dead space within the room.  Upon reaching his point of domination, second man should continue to scan the interior of the target room until “All Clear” is called. Once the second man has cleared the corner on his side of the room, he should shift his area of responsibility toward the interior of the room.

So that brings us to third man entry responsibilities. Third man should stack directly behind second man while covering any danger area not already covered by other entry team members. This may require providing cover to the team's flank and to provide cover to threat axes from upper floor areas.

Third man enters the room and follows the point man to a point halfway down the near wall while facing into the center of the room. The primary sector or area responsibility for the third man is to eliminate threats located in the center of the room. The third man slot is often occupied by the entry team leader.

Depending on the entry team SOPs, he may also act as the team's breacher. In the event that he's acting as a breacher, the third man can enter directly behind the second man or wait and go behind the third man, which effectively reverses the roles of third and fourth men. 

And then finally, we have the fourth man or security element.  The fourth man or security should stack behind the third man and provide security to the rear of the stack. In doing so, fourth man should not turn his back to the rest of the stack. Instead, fourth man should angle his body in such a way that he can see the stack in his peripheral vision while still covering the rear of the entry team.

The fourth man's responsibilities to provide rear security for the rest of the entry team as they enter the target room. He covers the doorway from the inside of the target room after the rest of the entry team is inside it.  His other responsibility is to throw one or more grenades into the target room before team entry as directed by the point man and/or to breach or open the room door so as to allow entry of the remaining three elements of the stack.

He also often acts as the breacher to open closed doors for the rest of the stack to breach the room. In such circumstances, the fourth man enters the room immediately after the third man enters it. Fourth man is the last person to enter the target room. After taking a few steps into the room and clearing any immediate threats, fourth man turns to cover the door he just passed through to provide rear security. 

Diagrams that more visually depict individual movement of entry team members, breaching and clearing a center fed room will be posted in the comments for this episode's post on the Tactical Tuesday with Modern Milsim Podcast Facebook page. 

So now I would like to discuss various TTPs that are utilized to prevent mistakes common to performing dynamic room entry.

The first on my list is squaring off. Squaring off, also referred to as framework or using the frame, means turning your body so that your torso and your armor plates are perpendicular to the threat or danger area. By squaring up to the threat, your weapon should also be trained on it. In effect, you are using economy of motion to save precious seconds in orientating to the threat.

The second mistake is, stay off the walls. Do not bump or scrape against the walls. It can be heard by enemy on the other side of them. And of course, once you tip them off, they are more likely and able to react to you in such a way that you will be ambushed. 

Then the next issue is avoid casting shadows into the entry point, especially with target rooms that have open entry points.  Each entry team member must ensure that he or she is not casting a shadow. In front of the entry point, shadows will likely telegraph the approach of the entry team to enemy in the target room, who will likely anticipate entry into the entry points fatal funnel. Again, that allows them to ambush you. 

So the next issue is near simultaneous room entry.  Now when you're using the dynamic room entry technique, the point and the second man must enter the room as close to simultaneously as possible. Speed is not the answer here. The point and second man need to be synchronized. They must hit their corners and synch in real time to prevent rear and flank exposure.

And so that brings us to avoiding corner fixation. Point and second men need only to visually clear their near corners before turning toward the secondary sector and area of responsibility. Team members do not need to become fixated on the corners when no threat is present. You don't have to move all the way to the corner of the room to clear it.  Visually clearing it is sufficient. Do a quick sight check, then immediately move on to your secondary sector or area of responsibility. Once you put accurate fire on an enemy located in the near corner, quickly transition to the secondary sector or area of responsibility to make sure that when you engaged the enemy in the corner, that they are down.

So now I want to talk about avoiding target fixation. This happens a lot when people are inexperienced with CQB. Don't linger your attention on an enemy.  Once he is hit immediately move to your secondary sector or area of responsibility and engage any enemy you identify during your scan. If you don't see enemy in a certain sector, check other sectors.  Put in work.

And then we have another big issue here. This is called over penetration. You need to avoid that. Upon entry, no entry team members should penetrate into the room more than two to three feet from the near wall. This prevents entry team members from crossing over into and blocking other team members fields of fire.  We call this masking. If a team member encounters an obstacle that will force him further into the center of the room, he must either step over it, if possible, or stop where he is to clear the rest of his sector or area of responsibility. 

Another thing you need to be concerned with is to expect close contact while breaching the target room. All entry team members, especially the first and second men, should expect close contact.  While breaching the room, team members should push through the enemy they encounter while breaching the room. Most Milsim event organizers adhere to a zero minimum engagement distance or MED. Do not hesitate to shoot enemy while pushing through to your point of domination in the target room. 

And then last we have covering danger areas.  When clearing rooms, you should always be looking for the next danger area. Once entry team members clear their primary and secondary sectors or areas of responsibility, they should make it a habit to cover the next potential danger area. In other words, doors to adjacent rooms, short walls where people could be hiding behind them, windows and things of that nature.  If you see a security hole, cover it. 

So let's talk about use of dynamic room clearing with respect to a corner fed room. As with breaching and clearing a center fed room using dynamic room entry, each member of the entry team has specific responsibilities. And must take specific actions during the breach of the target corner fed room.

For purposes of illustrating these basic TTPs, each team member will be identified from the front of the stack to the rear of the stack in the following manner: First, you have your point or first man followed by the second man, followed by the third man and the fourth security man is bringing up the rear.

 So when we're talking about corner fed rooms, the point man should stack at a distance from the entry point that allows him to point his weapon at the door or entry point of the target room without extending it where he could be visible to the enemy. This allows the point man to cover the door and eliminate any enemy that decides to exit through it.

When stacking up, the point man should stay off the wall. As with the center fed room, the point man usually determines the direction of room entry based on the location of the unclear portion of the room. As point man crosses the line of departure of the entry point of the target fed room, he will be able to immediately clear the area in front of him.

The unclear portion of the corner fed room will be along the near side wall to the near corner with corner fed rooms. Point man will typically enter the room and move along the near wall to clear the unseen near corner.  Depending on the configuration of the corner fed room. Point man may also decide to buttonhook or use the path of least resistance to move along the near wall and will engage immediate threats without stopping.  He will continue to move along the near wall until he clears the near corner. Point man's primary sector area of responsibility after entering the room is to clear the near corner on his side. Point man should not overly focus on clearing the corner without moving on to his secondary sector. And in this case, that area of responsibility is the interior of the room.  Once point man has cleared his corner, he should rotate his body to square off to the center of the room while continuing to proceed along the near wall to his near corner. 

As with the center fed room and according to entry team SOPs or upon receiving the command “One Dominate”, point man will move along the sidewall and out of his near corner and should move along the wall only so far as required for him to clear dead space within the room.  Upon reaching his point of domination, point man should continue to scan the interior of the target room until “All Clear” is called. It is important that only the point or second man move to their respective points of domination once the entry team breaches the room.  As before, this is designed to decrease the possibility of fratricide should the enemy be located hidden in the middle of the room. 

As with the center fed room, it is the responsibility of the point manager to determine whether he wishes to have a grenade thrown into the room prior to entry.  And as before, although any entry team member can perform this task, it is usually performed by the fourth man who will be responsible for moving up and actually throwing the grenade into the room. In no event should the point man throw in a grenade. His primary responsibility is to cover the danger area represented by the door entryway before the target room itself is breached.

Diagrams that more visually depict the individual movement of entry team members breaching and clearing a corner fed room will be posted in the comments for this episode's post on the Tactical Tuesday of Modern Milsim podcast Facebook page. 

Now, once the entry team has breached and cleared a center fed or corner fed room, it should mark the outside of the room as cleared, as personnel needing medical attention and danger areas with tape, chalk, colored chemlights, and or other clearly visible means of conveying the information to other forces. This will assist follow-on entry teams to determine what contact to expect in the room. Entry teams need to be aware that a marked room does not mean that the enemy has not moved into that room if another entry team is not in the immediate area to confirm it is clear.  It just lessens the possibility that the room will be occupied by the enemy. When in doubt, use proper challenge/password combinations or other de-confliction measures to prevent fratricide. In addition, an entry team should mark the doorway outside of stairwells and other vertical access points so that other friendlies can be more quickly locate them.  Hallways should also be marked to reflect the limit of advance of your forces in the building. 

So the last topic I want to address during this episode is back clearing or secondary sweep. Once the entry team has reached the extent of its advance into the target building, it will have to re clear its path back out.  As a matter of security, entry teams should consider any room not currently occupied by or under the immediate control of their own forces as being potential danger zones. Assume that enemy forces have moved into the area you have previously cleared at some point after you left it. Back clearing is also necessary to protect VIPs being exfilled from the building.

Typically this back clearing toward the building exit is conducted using plating, holding cover, clear and hold, and clear on the move techniques. We will address these issues in future episodes of Tactical Tuesday with Modern Milsim. 

I hope you've enjoyed this episode of Tactical Tuesday. Tune in for our next episode when we begin our discussion of the Deliberate Room Entry Method, including the differences between Deliberate Room Entry and Dynamic Room Entry Methods, as well as Individual Team Areas of Responsibility, Individual Team Member Movement, and Related Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures.

If you have any topics you would like to see covered in future episodes of Tactical Tuesday, please let us know by posting it on the Modern Milsim Facebook page. If it's not one of the topics we are already planning to cover, we will likely add it to our ever growing topic list. If you liked this podcast, please subscribe to it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, as well as on many other podcast directories.

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To our listeners out there, thank you for tuning in, and I look forward to providing you with new episodes every two weeks. If you like what you're hearing on this podcast, please subscribe and provide us with a review. We want to know what you like and how we can improve. You can also contact us on our Facebook page at facebook.com forward slash modern milsim with any suggestions you may have.  

In our next episode of Tactical Tuesday, we will begin our discussion of the deliberate room entry method, including the differences between this method and dynamic room entry. We will also discuss individual team member areas of responsibility, Individual team member movement and related tactics, techniques, and procedures. 

If you want to know more about application of real world tactics, techniques, and procedures to MILSIM, check out from Alpha to Omega, a MILSIM Tactical Primer and Training Manual, as well as from Insertion to Extraction, Advanced MilSim CQB Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures.  Both books are available at amazon.com. As always, thank you for your support and I'll see you at our next installment of Tactical Tuesday.

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