But before everyone runs off and signs up for the next available vehicle-centric tactical course, maybe the first step should be to investigate the realities of vehicle-based attacks, their likelihood, and real situations in which such attacks have happened, as well as the Tactics, Techniques and Procedures (TTPs) employed by both attackers and defenders.
It’s almost never an ambush!
Let us first look at the nature of these attacks and the misconceptions surrounding them. Many out there advocate techniques without having been indoctrinated into formal vehicle ambush and counter ambush training. Of note is the school of thought which purports that vehicle-centric, as well as many other types of attack in civilian situations, are ambushes. This is simply not true for all but a minute percentage of situations. However, the term ‘ambush’ is bandied around, in my opinion, in some sort of attempt to glorify these situations and condone a prescribed tactical course of action, which of course is available to all for a certain fee.
The definition of an ambush is ‘a surprise attack, from a hidden location’, the intent of which is to kill everyone in the ambush area called the ‘kill zone’. Furthermore, the attackers choose the location of the ambush, their numbers and equipment used, orientation, terrain. In short, everything is to their advantage. Ambushes haven’t changed since armed conflict began thousands of years ago. They are adopted because they almost always succeed in killing everyone they are targeted at. Ambushes, in reality, represent a minute percentage of attacks outside of true military conflict.
So, if an ambush is unlikely for most of us, then what is it? To analyse the types of attacks in which firearms are used in the civilian context, they can be split into two categories, both of which derive from criminal intent:
