Years before we delved into the use of cover like the science that it is, we were taught to square up to it and drop the outside knee. As a young student, it made sense to me, and that’s what I did. That instructor learned it in SWAT school. Pretty legit, right? Years later, it was easy to teach, and other young students found it easy to remember.
However, force-on-force training exposed a number of flaws. But not to worry. I had another instructor who wore a French Hat in Army shade 297, and he said, “Pfft, Swat School? Lemme tell you what we learned at SFARTAETC. Square up to your target, and drop the inside knee.” It didn’t sound too groundbreaking, but this dude told me, “I’m an instructor for SFAUC, dont question my godhood.”
However, Force-on-Force training exposed some flaws. Like it does so often. So much for Black BDUs and/or French Hats. The truth was, both techniques for kneeling behind cover had strengths and weaknesses, and if you didn't like the weakness of one, you’d just use the other one. They are Yin and Yang.
Like any good student, I needed to question these opposite techniques and set dogma aside. That isn't popular at any of the schools previously mentioned, but that's OK; those schools are free and still not worth the price of admission.
If we dig into “Outside Knee Down” (OKD), we see the advantage pretty quickly. No part of the leg protrudes from behind cover. The bad guy cant shoot it if its safely tucked away. That does seem to be the prime directive when using cover. But we need to get at least a rifle and one eyeball out there to effectively fire at that bad guy. Now, our center of balance is on a dangerous precipice, and the slightest adjustment could cause our entire torso to be lying on the ground outside of that cover. If I happen to be sharing that cover with a teammate, the slightest brush from him and I’ll be pouring out into the open.
Another serious downside is that our whole body is not primed to launch back behind the cover. We can slowly shamble back behind cover if we find it too dangerous out there for that one eyeball and our rifle. I don't know all of the readers out there, but personally, if it’s too dangerous for me to look around cover, it’s too dangerous to slow roll back behind the bullet stopper.
Not to worry, we tried a snazzy little method to counterbalance that hard lean. We kick the inside leg out sideways, like an outrigger. Physics is real, and now we’re not so precariously balanced as we lean out. Unless that outrigger protrudes from the other side of cover. Or that teammate would like to occupy some space behind the bullet stopper, and we leave him no room with that outstretched leg. Or he gives us an MCL tear occupying the same space as that outrigger.
Lastly the thing that many folks struggle with but folks tend to pretend isn't real: The oblique muscles on the inside are holding all the weight of our armored torso that is balanced out there. I haven't seen many dudes whose Serratus Anterior is the strongest muscle in their body. Watch a dude lean out this way and time how long he holds it before moving his eyes back behind cover or moving something out to prop himself up.
Not to worry, Outside Knee Up (OKU) is to the rescue, right? Our center of balance has a literal kickstand underneath it. There’s no off-balance shooting being attempted. No dangerously placed outrigger sticking out the other side to get Step On. The Oblique muscles aren't even contracted, let alone fatigued. We even have a foot planted to launch ourselves back behind cover if we find ourselves looking down the muzzle of a bazooka. Maybe our Unconventional Advisor was onto something. Except there’s a fucking leg sticking out from behind cover. “Not to worry” I’m told. “Just plant your tricep on the inside of your knee” and you can protect over half of that leg, with your obviously unimportant shoulder and arm!
Go ahead and re-read that before we continue.
OK, it sounds like both methods suck. And Force-on-Force validates that opinion. Every concern I listed above has gotten dudes stung with those little hornets. I didn't make those up, I observed. That leaves us back at square one though. Everyplace one excels at, the other sucks at, and vice versa. But it doesn't take long to stumble on an obvious solution.
Remember that cover that we just moved into, we hopefully moved into from the side. Lateral movement trumps fore and aft movement in most situations. If we are moving Easterly to get into cover, where is it written that we have to turn our torso to the North before we utilize the terrain between us and our bad guy? Why is that the doctrine being taught? However, the real question is why is doctrine and dogma being taught at all.
When we laterally moved into our cover, and our torso was facing 90* from our bad guy, we no longer had to pick what the Outside Knee does; we just omitted having an outside knee. We decided this was worth copious pressure-testing in a Force-on-Force environment. Thousands of dollars in UTM rounds later, and we removed most of the downsides to OKU and OKD. We planted one of the feet right at the edge of cover, keeping the toes behind the bulletstopper. Dropped the other knee and then we leaned forward while rotating our torso towards the bad guy until our rifle and an eyeball were poking out to return fire. No Outside Knee (NOK)
Our center of balance has a fit planted underneath our chest. No balance issue. The back, which is much stronger than the obliques, works very lightly to keep us out there. We didn't need to kick the other leg out of the opposite side of cover, nor out so our swim buddy couldn't get in the cover with us. We were primed to launch back behind cover as needed. Nothing outside the required anatomy to make effective hits had to hang out in no man's land. The fact that we were already facing this direction as we moved into cover is just a bonus.
You are free to utilize cover whatever way you want, the last thing I want is for you to take my word as gospel. I’m here to get you to question all of it. And if you can find a force-on-force supplier who doesn't grovel at the feet of their king and will sell to you, I want you to pressure test it for yourself. I’m just giving you another technique to test.
I’m also going to remind you of two other things. 1: Army acronyms are retarded. 2: Given the cost to taxpayers to build them, most Government-run schools are essentially fraudulent when one compares the value to the cost.