Full disclosure: If you’re looking for specific tactics, you won’t find them here. However, if you stick around you might learn something. It’s beneficial to understand the why behind something versus just the how. This blog provides that.
In martial firearms contexts, CQB (close quarters battle) gets all of the attention. People see it in movies and video games and want to know how to do it. This is understandable. CQB is alluring in that it’s fast, intense, and frankly, just looks cool. While there is certainly a time and place for CQB, I think it’s more important to understand it in context. To do this, we’ll need to examine the history of it to better understand its origins and application.
Historical Context
WWII was really the first war that proliferated close combat in urban environments. Wars were no longer exclusively fought in trenches or rural country sides. Cities like Berlin, Stalingrad, and Paris were centers for large clusters of CQB fights. Buildings and alleyways had to be cleared to take control of areas, a task forces from both sides were largely unprepared to do. There were a few exceptions to this, such as units from the SAS and OSS, but even then, their tactics were crude by today’s standards.
Example of an OSS room clearing strategy. Two men would crossfire into the corners of a room through the doorway. Simultaneously, one or two other men would crawl under their lanes of fire and clear the blind corners. Other than being the most dangerous example of CQB imaginable, this presents numerous tactical problems. However, I won’t be an armchair quarterback. These men were brave and were doing the best they could with what they had. CQB was still in its infancy.
By WWII standards, there were really only two ways to clear a room. The first and preferred method was to first throw in grenades. Hopefully that already solved the issue by the time men started to pour in and clear it. This obviously isn’t taking a scalpel-like approach and completely disregards the potential for collateral damage. The second method was to arbitrarily pour lots of men into the room and hope for the best. This is a pretty cumbersome task when carrying a heavy long-barreled M1 Garand or BAR like most US soldiers had. Even worse, most of the other forces had to do it with mere with bolt-action rifles. In essence, CQB was usually an awkward and casualty producing ordeal for the assaulters. The defenders always had the advantage and this fact remains true today.
Taking advantage of this fact, the Soviets developed what the Germans would call Rattenkrieg during the Battle of Stalingrad out of desperation. Rattenkrieg roughly translates to rat war, which is highly appropriate given the context. The remaining Soviet resistance would provoke German forces in the streets and lure them into confined areas like sewers. In these environments, casualties amassed quickly on both sides. Soviets considered it the price of doing business, as they always had enough bodies to throw at the cause. In typical Soviet fashion, they were always willing to sacrifice more than anyone else to gain little in return. This central component of attrition is important to fully understand CQB.
Fast forwarding to the 1970’s the world started seeing a trend: terrorism. The need for hostage rescue in CQB environments was something new that conventional military and police were not equipped to handle. They could not simply shoot through walls or toss grenades into hostage filled rooms to eliminate hostiles like they were used to doing. They did not possess the equipment or training to deal with it.
Hostage rescue required extreme precision and specialized equipment. As a result, countries started developing their own counterterrorist units to deal with it. The most notable of these units were the SAS, SFOD-D (Delta), Mossad, and GSG 9 among others. They shared no resemblance to conventional forces of the time. They were streamlined with little to no body armor, used compact submachine guns, and traded frag grenades for flashbangs and tear gas. It was all about speed and surprise, not necessarily the safety of the operators.
The main priority of hostage rescue is in its name. Because of this, the speed of the assault is a critical component. The longer it takes to assault a structure, the more likely that hostages will be executed or bombs will be detonated. It was widely accepted in these counterterrorism units that the chance of losing men and sustaining casualties was high, if not guaranteed in these fast-paced environments. Let me reiterate that. The most highly-trained units in existence expected to lose men in these CQB environments. Many fail to realize this and don’t know their modern CQB tactics originate from these units.
Modern Context and Limitations
Many CQB tactics have trickled down to conventional forces today. However, they have been watered down and lost the most important aspect—context. Conventional forces can perform CQB but counterterrorist units are still gods comparatively. But how does this discrepancy in skill manifest itself if they both know the same basics of structure clearing?
Here is an analogy. Imagine a regular grunt or police officer as a taxi driver. They can drive and know their way around a city, but they don’t really know where they’re going until the last minute when someone gives them a route. They need to be prepared for bumps along the way and consider taking alternate routes if they run into traffic. They need to be very flexible in their approach because their context is ambiguous. Conversely, imagine a Tier 1 operator as a racecar driver. They’ve memorized the route. They know every turn on that track and know the exact speed they can maintain at any given moment. They have pit crews and much more resources for their driving experience comparatively. This is the difference in skillsets.
It is not uncommon for Tier 1 units to practice for a mission months in advance. Intelligence assets have given them the layout of the building. They know the habits of every living thing in that structure or compound. They know all of the vehicles and the layout of the surrounding area. They strike at times when they know the target’s guard is down and when they know they will have the element of surprise. Contingency plans are made and rehearsed ad nauseum. By most standards, they have mastered this mission as much as possible before they even start it.
This is the fundamental difference in special operations units and conventional forces. Special operations forces go on raids with lots of preparation. Conventional units react to what is going on around them with little to no preparation while out on patrol. While special units go on higher profile and riskier missions, they are calling the shots most of the time. They are assaulting known targets under known conditions. Regular units aren’t usually benefited from this. If they need to perform CQB, they’re usually doing it without the element of surprise. This is extremely dangerous because it gives the defenders time to prepare.
In saying that, even with all of this preparation, specialized units still sustain casualties on missions. It’s not from a lack of expertise or effort. It’s because shit happens. As disheartening of a reality as this is, an operator with millions of dollars of training can be defeated by an illiterate child with an AK aimed at a doorway in a third-world country.
Examining this more from the law enforcement side, you’ll often find standoffs with barricaded suspects last for hours or days. Many would look at this and ask why since police often outnumber suspects dozens to one. Other than wanting to preserve the suspect’s life, they main reason they hesitate to make entry is it’s risky and they don’t want to sustain casualties. They often don’t know the exact layout of the structure and they aren’t benefitted by the element of surprise.
Being ex-military now, I’m often asked questions about CQB. I’m not a subject matter expert. However, I know enough about its limitations it to give people boringly realistic answers. “So how would you clear this house or that building?” It’s quite simple. I wouldn’t. I would wait for them to come outside and engage them from a distance. In a war context, I would see if we could level the structure with ordnance or a vehicle. Clearing unknown structures in teams is extremely dangerous. Clearing them as an individual is borderline suicidal. I’m not saying I vehemently discourage single-person CQB, but I am saying that you better be willing to die for whatever you’re going after.
Ingredients
Now that the historical contexts, risks, and limitations of CQB have been discussed at length, we need to examine the key ingredients: speed, surprise, violence of action, and execution.
Speed is often misunderstood as rushing through a structure to clear it as fast as possible. What it really means is to have a sense of urgency while balancing security. You should never be running or jogging through a structure while clearing it, unless of course you’re taking cover from fire. The faster you move, the less accurate your shots will be and the more likely you’ll overexpose yourself or forget to clear a corner. You should be in a hurry but not at the sacrifice of security.
Surprise is arguably the most important aspect of CQB. Performing a raid on an unwitting target is considerably easier than one that is expecting you. This is why raids are often performed at odd times. Even having an amazing reaction time will not make up for the abruptness of suddenly having your door kicked in and simultaneously being blinded and deafened by a flashbang when you aren’t expecting it. Surprise is crucial for obtaining the highest amount of safety and security for the assaulters. Without it, defenders will simply booby trap the structure or have their weapons pointed at every fatal funnel.
Violence of action usually gets the most attention out of these three concepts. At face value, it might seem because people are full of bravado and want to talk about it, but there is actually a great reason for it. Consciously or subconsciously people generally want to inflict as little damage as possible on others to get their point across. This comes from years of societal conditioning and being civilized. You can watch it play out by watching your average bar fight. Normally, they start off with a shoving match. A few shoves are exchanged and when one decides that isn’t working a punch is thrown. This is usually met with the relatively equal force of another punch or kick. Rarely does someone gouge out another person’s eye immediately because they were shoved.
This civilized mindset needs to be thrown out of the window within the context of CQB. Fists and blunt objects aren’t guaranteed to be lethal because their force can be adjusted proportionately. With firearms all force is lethal. When you’re engaged in combat with a firearm there is no room for hesitation. You need to be the most violent you can possibly be. This doesn’t mean you need to be fueled by rage and emotion. It should be more of a clinical indifference with a complete disregard for the enemy. Your mindset is to win. Period.
When executed properly and under ideal conditions, CQB requires immense planning. Structural factors need consideration. What is the composition and which breaching method will work best? Blueprints and layouts of the target need to be memorized. If available, assaulters rehearse on mock structures. Contingency infil and exfil plans need to be created. Target lifestyle factors needs to be known, such as when they normally go outside to smoke, when they sleep, when they eat, if they have pets, and if there are other known inhabitants. Manpower needs to exceed enemy manpower for an overwhelming force advantage. Lots of intelligence needs to be gathered and this takes teams of experts.
Without these resources and planning, assaulters are going into the unknown which is always riskier. Combine that without the element of surprise against prepared defenders and the situation becomes increasingly deadly. Knowing this, it’s safe to assume doing all of this alone with no one to watch your corners is beyond dangerous.
Next time you see something on TV or run scenarios of you clearing your house alone, consider your context and weigh the pros vs cons. Do you have the home turf advantage? Yes. Are you prepared to defend yourself? Sure. Is your TV potentially worth your life, the intruder’s life, and the possible legal ramifications? Probably not. Is your family worth it? Absolutely. These are decisions I can’t make for you but they always need to be considered.
Stay tuned. Actual CQB techniques will be discussed in the next blog.
Pro-Gun Millennial 
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