Mozambique Drill

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this article if you can. (March 2008)

This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. (March 2008)

The Mozambique Drill (also known as the Failure Drill, Rhodesian Drill or 2+1 Drill) instructs the shooter to place a double-tap in the center of mass, followed by a carefully aimed head shot. The third shot should be aimed to destroy the brain, killing the target and thereby preventing the target from retaliating. It was added to the modern technique of gunfighting by Jeff Cooper based on the experience of one of his students, Mike Rousseau, while on duty in Mozambique. Rousseau was later killed in action in the Rhodesian War.

The Mozambique Drill considers the deficiency of the pistol round in stopping an adversary (see stopping power). Statistics show^{[citation needed]} that reactions in gunfights are extremely irregular – one must be prepared for the worst. Many times it is the case that after absorbing the trauma of the first shots, the enemy will disregard further ballistic insult. In this situation, "more shots" are not the answer.

Contrary to popular belief, the immediate aim of defensive shooting is to incapacitate a target so as to render the attacker incapable of further attack. Unlike what is commonly seen on television and in movies, gunshot wounds rarely kill instantly – or even incapaticate the attacker from the simple act of trigger pulling. When it happens, the incapacitation caused by gunshots is the result of neurocirculatory shock. The trauma resulting from impact and wound channel after two shots to a target's center of mass will produce a reflexive nervous system collapse in about 96% of cases. In the other roughly 4%, an adrenaline rush or the effect of stimulant drugs will override this reflex, and further shots will not produce this instantly-incapacitating shock^{[citation needed]}. Because and in case of this, the third shot should be aimed to destroy the brain, ensuring that the target's nervous system will shut down (regardless of stimulants) and leave the target unable to further attack. This third shot is most effective when placed between a target's eyes^{[citation needed]}, as a higher shot is more likely to deflect off of hard bone and a lower shot is unlikely to produce the nervous system damage required to instantly stop an attacker.

As part of the U.S. National Guard Combat Pistol and other military combat pistol competitions, the Mozambique Drill is called Body Armor Defeat, and is frequently a discriminator between the average shooter and a gifted shooter^{[citation needed]}, especially when it is timed.

[edit] Case study

In the first 10 seconds of the famous and tragic 1986 FBI Miami shootout in Miami, Florida, FBI Special Agent Jerry Dove fired a Winchester Silver Tip 9mm-hollow-nosed round into one of the suspects, Michael Platt. This round severed Platt’s right brachial artery before it entered his upper thoracic cavity, where it collapsed his right lung and caused further arterial bleeding. Then-common knowledge was that this would have incapacitated Pratt because that one round was an eventually-fatal one. That means, by expert medical opinion provided post-incident, it was believed that even if Platt received immediate trauma care, he would still have expired. However, Michael Platt didn’t perish for an additional four minutes – after which he either exsanguinated (bled out) or succumbed to a head shot administered by FBI Agent Ed Mireles during the closing moments of the firefight. But during those four minutes, Platt killed two FBI Agents – including Jerry Dove, and grievously wounded five others. While the mechanics or physical aspects of wound ballistics – how and why it took so long for the suspects to “bleed out” – played a role in their ability to continue the fight, it was the suspect's psychological determination that proved so deadly to those FBI agents.

[edit] See also

• Double tap
• Practical shooting
• Stopping power

[edit] External links

• Handgun Wounding Factors and Effectiveness
• Origins of the Mozambique Drill
• Mozambique Drill in action