Armed Combat - Martin J Dougherty - E-Book

Armed Combat E-Book

Martin J Dougherty

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Beschreibung

Overhead block, upward stab, step-through lunge, bayonet slash; knife fighting, handgun shooting, sword play. If your enemy is armed, you need to know how to deal with him. SAS and Elite Forces Guide Armed Combat teaches a huge range of armed close combat techniques, including tips on fighting stances and postures, movement and evasions, quick draws, parries, fend-offs, blocks, cuts, thrusts, strikes, and stabs. Our expert author will teach you how to tackle single opponents and groups using blunt weapons, blades, firearms, and improvised weapons. Presented in an easy to follow format, SAS and Elite Forces Guide Armed Combat is divided into separate chapters covering fighting skills mindset, what to attack and where to defend, blunt weapons, sharp and pointed weapons, firearms, unarmed techniques, training drills, and improvised techniques. The author also offers plenty of short, handy tips on key topics such as bayonet training, quick draw techniques, copying with injury and dirty tricks. Written in easy-to-understand steps and accompanied with more than 150 black-and-white illustrations, SAS and Elite Forces Guide Armed Combat guides the reader through everything they need to know to overcome an armed aggressor in any hand-to-hand combat situation.

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SAS AND ELITE FORCES GUIDE

ARMEDCOMBAT

DEFENDING YOURSELF AGAINST HAND-HELD WEAPONS

MARTIN J. DOUGHERTY

This digital edition first published in 2013

Published by

Amber Books Ltd

United House

North Road

London N7 9DP

United Kingdom

Website: www.amberbooks.co.uk

Instagram: amberbooksltd

Facebook: amberbooks

Twitter: @amberbooks

Copyright © 2013 Amber Books Ltd

ISBN: 978-1-909160-72-9

PICTURE CREDITS

Illustrations: Tony Randell (© Amber Books Ltd)

Photos courtesy U.S. Library of Congress.

All rights reserved. With the exception of quoting brief passages for the purpose of review no part of this publication may be reproduced without prior written permission from the publisher. The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. All recommendations are made without any guarantee on the part of the author or publisher, who also disclaim any liability incurred in connection with the use of this data or specific details.

DISCLAIMER

www.amberbooks.co.uk

CONTENTS

Introduction

PART ONE: THE ESSENCE OF ARMED COMBAT

1. Fighting Skills and Mindset

2. What to Attack and Where to Defend

3. Weapon Threat versus Weapon Use

PART TWO: USING WEAPONS

4. Blunt Weapons

5. Sharp and Pointed Weapons

6. Firearms

7. Improvised and Miscellaneous Weapons

8. ‘Unarmed’ Techniques in Armed Combat

9. Weapon Training Drills

PART THREE: IN ACTION

10. Unarmed or Improvised Response

11. With Blunt Weapons

12. With Sharp or Pointed Weapons

13. Fighting with Guns

Final Notes

Glossary

INTRODUCTION

We often hear that something is a ‘dangerous weapon’ but in truth that phrase is meaningless. A weapon is a weapon and nothing more. It can be used for good or ill, or not at all, but it needs a guiding intellect. In the hands of a pacifist, the most lethal implement is harmless. In the hands of a psychopath, a fairly innocuous object can kill. In the hands of a friend, a weapon is a source of reassurance. Similarly, anyone can kill with their bare hands or an improvised weapon if they try hard enough. It is us that make weapons dangerous, not the other way around.

Armed and Dangerous

This soldier is armed with a fully automatic carbine. As a backup he has a handgun and a knife, and probably a grenade or two as well. These are simply tools; what makes him dangerous – or not – is his willingness to use them and the choices he makes about when and how.

Humans today occupy a position right at the top of the food chain, but it was not always so. The natural weapons available to humans are fairly puny, and we are neither spectacularly fast nor powerful. True, human beings are agile, but this is more useful as a defensive trait, allowing us to escape predators by climbing into places that they cannot go. As a species we are best suited to hunting small game and gathering fruit and vegetables. As such, we rightfully occupy a place in the middle of the food chain, prey for some creatures and preying on others.

What changed that status was tool use. As well as being agile, humans are clever, and our species learned to improvise and later craft tools to assist in survival. Of those tools, arguably the most important were those falling into the subset we call weapons – tools intended to cause harm to other living things.

Armed with spear, club and crude hatchet, a lone primitive human was a match for creatures that otherwise would kill and eat him. With a bow, and as part of a similarly armed party, our primitive ancestor elevated himself to the status of apex predator, capable of bringing down the largest of land creatures. Firearms simply tipped the odds further in our favour.

Improvised Weapons

Almost any object can be pressed into service as a weapon, but stabbing and puncturing implements are perhaps the easiest to use of all.

Thus it is today that armed humans are the most dangerous creatures inhabiting planet Earth, and this creates a situation where the most serious threat is not a sabre-tooth tiger or wolf pack, but another human.

The weapons that made us masters of our world also make us a threat to one another. Fortunately, the same tools can be used to defend and protect as to attack and destroy. Weapons are tools, and, like all tools, how they are used very much depends on the user.

Types of Weapon

There are essentially three types of hand weapon, sometimes categorized as ‘Pointed, Sharp, Blunt’ or ‘PSB’. Each has its own unique characteristics, influencing how it is used or defended against.

Sharp Weapons

Sharp or bladed weapons come in two general types: those that have enough mass to hack deep into flesh; and those with lighter or smaller blades, which need to move along the surface in order to cut.

Pointed weapons include all stabbing implements such as the tip of a knife or sword, a screwdriver or anything that can be driven into a target. Pointed weapons are potentially the most lethal of all hand weapons as they cause deep wounds that can reach vital organs or cause massive internal bleeding. Pointed weapons can be pushed into the target with little effort and do not need a big swing to be effective. Conversely, they are only dangerous along a straight line from the tip. Anything off this line is not in danger until the weapon is redirected.

Sharp weapons have a cutting edge, and must move in contact with the target in order to be effective. Such weapons include knives and swords, as well as improvised sharp-edged weapons such as broken bottles. A sharp weapon that is held immobile cannot cut, but conversely a slashing action can make contact with flesh at any point and cause injury; it is easier to deflect a stab than a cut.

Blunt instruments rely on impact to cause injury, using a combination of the weight and the force with which they are swung. A blunt weapon can be used to cause pain or force compliance by grinding it against a sensitive area of the body, such as a baton used to apply a restraint hold, but for the most part blunt weapons are swung (or sometimes thrust) to impact the target area, causing tissue trauma and breaking bones. An immobile blunt weapon, or one that there is little room to swing, is not a serious threat.

Blunt Instruments

Blunt instruments are easy to obtain. The most dangerous of them concentrate force at the striking point by their shape. This is what makes a hammer capable of inflicting serious wounds.

Telescopic Baton

Spring batons consist of sprung-steel sections contained within a metal handle. A flick of the wrist extends the baton, and it can be used to deliver stunning blows to joints or the side of the head.

Some weapons are a combination of these factors. For example an axe uses impact to cause injury, but concentrates the force of its blow using a sharp edge. Others use the principles in other ways. Projectile weapons (i.e. firearms) cause a penetrating injury much like a pointed weapon, but do so by a combination of the mass and high velocity of the bullet. A firearm at close range can be used as a fairly reasonable club, but can best be thought of as an extremely long pointed weapon – anything on a line from the barrel to the nearest solid object is in severe danger if the trigger is pulled, but a gun that is pointed elsewhere can cause little harm unless it is redirected.

Stopping Power vs Lethality

We often hear of the lethality of weapons – their ability to cause the target to die – but this is actually a lesser consideration to the soldier, police officer or civilian facing a desperate threat. What matters is stopping power, not necessarily killing power. Stopping power is the ability to ‘stop’ a target, i.e. to make him cease whatever he is doing and collapse. The concept is normally connected with firearms but can be applied to all weapons.

Sniper Team

A sniper team provides a good example of lethality versus stopping power. If the sniper shoots, it will be at fairly long range and the emphasis is normally on lethality. A target that can continue to act for a few moments is not normally a problem. If the security element must fire, the threat is close and must be stopped before the team can be endangered; killing the target is far less important than stopping him from shooting.

A target that is ‘stopped’ may or may not die, but in the immediate future he (or she) will not be able to act against the weapon’s user or any other intended victim. For the soldier in combat, the lone police officer facing multiple assailants or the civilian under attack, this is what matters. An enemy who is out of the fight is out of the fight whether he dies then and there (or later) or makes a full recovery. An enemy who can continue to shoot or fight for a time, even if he will collapse and die eventually, is still a threat until he goes down.

Using a Taser

Tasers deliver a paralyzing electrical shock that instantly incapacitates the attacker. The operating switch on the device can be applied to deliver subsequent shocks.

Thus when choosing a weapon for close-range combat, military personnel and law enforcement officers prefer a weapon that will ‘put down’ an opponent over one that is more likely to kill, but not straight away. An assassin or a sniper might choose lethality over stopping power, but those who fight primarily at close range want the opponent downed or disabled and incapable of fighting on – anything else comes a long way second.

As a general rule, pointed weapons and firearms are the most likely to kill of all weapon types, with blunt instruments the least likely and blades somewhere in between. However, it is possible to kill with any weapon, whether this is intended or not. For this reason, knives are not ideal for civilian self-defence. It is very easy to kill someone outright with a knife, even if the intent was only to injure or frighten, and not all knife wounds kill straight away. Thus a knife suffers from the twin problems of being perhaps too lethal and not quick enough to disable an opponent. For self-defence, a blunt instrument is more likely to cause incapacitating injury without being lethal.

For soldiers in combat, this consideration is not as critical – the aim is to win the fight by whatever means, and killing the enemy is an integral part of warfare. A knife is an ideal tool for what amounts to assassination, such as taking out an enemy sentry quickly and quietly. It also makes a good, versatile fighting tool with many other applications, and is easy to carry. For this reason a knife is an essential part of a soldier’s kit, but a police officer will normally carry a baton for situations where less lethality is desirable.

Generally speaking, a skilled and determined fighter armed with any weapon (or even none) is likely to be more effective than a frightened or half-hearted person equipped with an excellent weapon. Having said that, a weapon is a great ‘force-multiplier’, enabling the puny human to take on dangerous animals or a single skilled fighter to take down a series of less effective opponents. All else being equal, any weapon is better than no weapon.

Legality of Weapon Use

For police officers and military personnel, there are clear guidelines about when weapons can be used. Law enforcement officers work with a threat/response model whereby lethal force is only used where absolutely necessary, such as when an officer perceives a clear threat to someone’s life or safety. This means that there are circumstances where it might be legal to use a baton but not a handgun.

Searching for Hidden Weapons

Most people who carry weapons with the intent to use them (as opposed to trying to smuggle them into a secured area such as an airport) carry them in accessible locations that are easily and quickly searched. A more detailed ‘pat down’ is necessary to reveal well-concealed items.

Security Expert Tip: Know How to Use It

Some people obtain weapons for self-protection or home defence, but benefit primarily from a placebo effect – i.e., they feel safer because they have a gun in a drawer or their bag. Carrying a weapon that you do not know how to deploy and use effectively makes you a liability to yourself and everyone around. If you obtain a weapon, get trained with it.

Much the same comments apply to military personnel engaged in security operations, but for troops operating in a war zone the response is more all-or-nothing. Enemy combatants can be engaged with any weapon that has been issued; noncombatants cannot. Some hostiles muddy the waters by hiding among and dressing like the civilian population, so the question can become one of correctly identifying enemy targets. Once identified, they can be engaged as necessary.

For civilians, the legalities of armed response more closely resemble those for police/security personnel than soldiers in a war zone. Response must be appropriate and proportionate to the threat and the circumstances. Under most conditions it is illegal to harm someone or even to threaten to do so, but when acting in self-defence a civilian is permitted to use necessary measures to ensure their own safety and that of others. This may include the use of a weapon.

Severe Threat

Laws vary from one place to another, but as a rule a person who is facing a severe threat will not be prosecuted for using a weapon. What matters is the severity of that threat and the level of force used to nullify it, and this is a matter of general threat level, not like-for-like.

For example, using a firearm against a knife-wielding attacker would generally be considered acceptable as both are lethal implements. There is no requirement to put aside the gun and find a knife of your own to ensure a fair fight.

Bodyguard Tip: Train Your Loved Ones

It can be worth looking at your situation as regards family and friends as if you were their bodyguard. The last thing you need is people you are trying to protect panicking or even rounding on you to give you a telling-off for being paranoid, violent or whatever. Brief your family and friends on what you might do in a dangerous situation, and how they can help you. This is most likely by getting themselves out of danger and calling for help.

Unarmed Threat

Once a confrontation or fight starts, instinctive behaviour is to use your hands to attack and defend. Someone who passes up an opportunity to strike in order to reach into a pocket is almost certainly going for a weapon.

Concealment and Deception

The aggressor has used deception (asking the time) to distract his target while he deploys a knife from a concealed location. Although very simple, tricks of this sort can be extremely effective.

Law Enforcement Tip: Know Where Your Gear Is

If you carry a weapon or have one stashed for home defence, make sure it is always in the same place. There is no time to scrabble through your sock drawer for the .45 you’re sure is in there somewhere, or to grab for the place where you used to carry your weapon. If you own or carry a weapon, rehearse deploying it and if you change its position, retrain yourself to get to it quickly.

Normally, using a weapon against an unarmed attacker is likely to be considered excessive force; however, much depends upon the circumstances. A frail, elderly person who uses a gun or a knife to deal with an attacker who could otherwise easily overpower them is not likely to face prosecution; what other options were available?

Perceived Threat

Perception is also a key factor. A homeowner who sees an object in a midnight intruder’s hand and shoots, or hits him with a heavy object, can argue that his use of the weapon was justified by the fact that he saw what he believed to be a weapon. If it turns out to be something harmless then the homeowner is not necessarily transformed into a psychopath who shot or maimed an unarmed man… he used what seemed like a proportionate response to the situation as he perceived it.

To put that another way: if you genuinely believe that circumstances exist whereby an armed response is justified, then using a weapon is probably legal. For example, if police see someone brandishing a handgun and looking like he is about to shoot, they are not required to wait until he actually kills someone before they can open fire. They are legally entitled to act on their perception of the situation, and their actions will be judged on that perception. If the weapon turns out later to be a harmless replica, the shooting would still be justified.

Extreme Threat

Tackling a firearm user whilst unarmed is extremely dangerous and should only be done if you have nothing to lose – if you believe you are about to be killed, then anything you do is better than passively waiting for it to happen.

As an aside, this means that it is obviously not a good idea to run around the streets with imitation swords, knives or firearms. Anyone who does so (and who survives the response) has no justification for complaints of excessive force if and when they are confronted by armed police officers. If you have what looks like a weapon and you act like it is a real one, then you can expect others to react as if it is, too.

Certain actions can make it seem as if an individual is armed and reaching for a weapon. People involved in a confrontation instinctively keep their hands between them and the opponent, or wave them around in what is known as posturing, trying to exert dominance. A hand that disappears under clothing or into a bag during a confrontation is almost certainly coming back with a weapon. The time to deal with this is before the weapon is deployed; once it is in action, a response might be too late.

Our hands are our main weapons, and it is instinctive to keep them more or less between us and a threat during any confrontation. Some people will splay their hands in order to look bigger and more intimidating, but nobody sticks their hands in their pockets whilst involved in a heated argument, unless they want something that is in the pocket. If hands come up, especially with clenched fists, then an attack is imminent but at least it will not be with a weapon. Hands that disappear under clothing are a sign that something much more serious is about to unfold.

Police officers and security professionals are taught to watch for ‘tells’ that someone might be carrying a weapon and will react if they are suspicious. Normally this is by means of situation control techniques – physical repositioning, clear, spoken commands and possibly the deployment of a weapon as a broad hint to desist. However, someone who looks like they are drawing a weapon on a police officer can expect to be shot, hit with a baton or otherwise robustly dealt with. Other weapon users will react similarly, and with less restraint, so it is a generally good idea to keep things calm and make sure that the person you are arguing with can see that you are not reaching for a weapon.

Special Forces Tip: Use It Or Lose It!

If someone brings a weapon into a situation, they create a potentially lethal scenario, in which they are likely to have to use the weapon or be disarmed and have it turned on them. The time to consider whether or not you are willing to use a weapon against another human being is long before an armed confrontation develops.

Trainers’ Tip: Be Prepared, Not Paranoid

There is no need to be a paranoid lunatic and assume that hordes of assailants are waiting around every corner. Most people do not encounter armed violence in their lives, so preparation is a matter of ‘just in case’. For those who go in harm’s way as part of their job, a higher level of training makes sense because the risk is greater. If preparing to defend your life is taking up so much of it that it’s not worth living, then you’re overdoing it.

In many areas it is quite legal to carry a weapon for self-defence or have one in the home for the same purposes. If it is not, then carrying a weapon is a criminal offence. This can create the odd situation where actually using a weapon might be justifed in self-defence, but having it in the first place was not and so a prosecution may occur.

In Britain, for example, it is illegal to carry any object for the purposes of using it as a weapon, even if that object would be legal if used for its normal purposes. So a plumber who has a large wrench on the car seat beside him might face some hard questions if stopped by the police. The same wrench in a toolbox in the back seat along with other tools of the trade would be perfectly legal. Under British law it is acceptable to grab an object for use as a weapon if the threat necessitates it, though it may be necessary to explain why the object was present in the first place.

Weapon Transportation and the Law

I own a lot of swords, and carry them around from place to place. They travel in a big zipped-up bag with ‘fencing’ written on the side, along with masks, gloves, jackets and other paraphernalia associated with historical fencing. If challenged about the weapons, I have a good reason to be carrying them – these are fencing weapons and I’m going to a fencing class or coming home from one. All the other fencing-related stuff makes this seem quite plausible, so the answer would probably be accepted at face value.

If I were to run down the street waving one of my swords at people, I could (and should) be arrested. The weapons are actually designed to be safe to fence with; we hit one another with them on a regular basis. However, they look real and could cause harm if swung hard enough. Someone seeing one being brandished would have cause to believe it was a serious threat, and this might justify an armed response.

A rifle carried in a proper bag is a lot less threatening than one openly carried in your hands.

In other words, common sense needs to be applied to transporting any weapon. Waving what looks like a real sword in a threatening manner could get me shot, and the person doing the shooting would probably not be prosecuted, yet carrying them in the bag is quite legal.

Legitimate Use of Weapons

If you use a weapon that you are legally permitted to have, then the only question is whether the use of that weapon constitutes reasonable force under self-defence law. However, weapons are forbidden by law in some localities. Taking a weapon into such an area ‘just in case’ would not be lawful and you might be prosecuted, even in circumstances where you were justified in using the weapon. If, on the other hand, a confrontation turned nasty and you used a weapon that happened to be there (perhaps a kitchen knife or a tool that was present for a legitimate purpose), this would be an entirely different situation in law from going armed into a confrontation you could have avoided. If violence is brought to you and you have no choice but to defend yourself, arming yourself may well be justified, even if weapons are not normally allowed in that locality.

Someone who grabs a knife from the kitchen to deal with an armed intruder, or a group of intruders who seem intent on serious harm, has a pretty solid explanation for why the weapon was there, and the circumstances seem to necessitate it. Similarly, our plumber might be justified in grabbing his wrench from the toolbox in order to stop a gang from carjacking him; the object was there for an innocent purpose, but circumstances indicated that a weapon was necessary.

In localities were weapon carry is legal, the situation is simpler. There is no need to justify why the weapon was present if it is legal to have it, but of course its deployment and use must still be necessitated by the circumstances.

As a general rule, if you could not avoid the situation or withdraw from it safely, and the only way to effectively protect yourself or others was to use a weapon (or threaten its use), then that would be considered a legal use of force.

Hidden Knife

A small knife is easy to conceal in the hand and remains ready for instant use. A good rule is that if you cannot see the palms of someone’s hands, you have reason to suspect they may be holding a weapon.

PART ONE: THE ESSENCE OF ARMED COMBAT

Effective use of a weapon is dependent on the mindset behind it. Control, timing and focus are essential to succeeding in combat - the fighter who masters his fear, picks his moment with care and strikes with both precision and intent will walk away alive. This mindset, combined with a solid understanding of how to use a given weapon, is invaluable to the soldier or law-enforcement officer.

Weapons trainers spend as much effort on ‘combative mindset’ as they do on actual weapon-handling skills.

1

Combat of any sort is frightening and often painful, even for the victor.

Fighting Skills and Mindset

Regardless of the weapons involved, victory often goes to the side that is most motivated, best trained or simply the most willing to fight on when things are going badly. Fighting spirit and aggression count for at least as much as weapons-handling skill.

Making an attack with a weapon is always a risk. If the opponent avoids or blocks the strike, the attacker is more vulnerable to a counterattack than if he had remained ‘on guard’ to protect himself. Indeed, there are some circumstances (such as an armed fighter vs an unarmed one) where the would-be attacker is more or less invulnerable until he commits to striking a blow. However, standing around ready to defend is not a route to victory either.

Picking the Moment

Winning a fight with weapons is a matter of picking the right moment to attack, and using timing and control of distance to land a telling blow without being hit in return. Most attacks are simple, direct and brutal. There is little of the subtlety found in sports such as boxing or fencing, where athletes try to trick one another into making a mistake using subtle feints or clever combination attacks. More commonly, an armed opponent will rush in and strike when he thinks the moment is right. If he succeeds, the matter may be over instantly. If not, his opponent may be able to successfully counterattack. There are essentially three ways to defeat an armed attack:

Fence Position

Something as simple as keeping your hands in between you and an aggressive person can deter an attack by making them keep their distance. This is known as a ‘fence position’ and is not aggressive or threatening, but helps keep control of a situation.

• Intercept the attacker

• Evade the attack

• Block or deflect the attack.

Interception is a matter of hitting the opponent before he can land his blow. This can be a risky technique, though sometimes it is the best option. For example, a soldier or police officer armed with a handgun can shoot an onrushing knife-armed attacker before he gets close enough to strike. This is where stopping power is of paramount importance; if the attacker falls dead after stabbing his target, then the interception has, to all intents and purposes, failed. The same applies to most hand weapons; if the attacker runs right on to the point of a soldier’s knife but is still able to cause injury or death, then interception was the wrong choice.

Law Enforcement Tip: Confidence and Resolution

Combat is frightening, even for trained personnel. It is necessary to maintain the resolve to fight through and win, even when the odds are poor. Confidence in your skills, training, comrades and weaponry are vital to maintaining this resolve.

Evading a Blow

Simply ducking under a swing may ensure it does not land, but it is better to use the evasion to close in and launch an effective counterattack. This soldier has moved forward and to the side, and is now well positioned to demolish the attacker.

Evading the attack is a matter of moving so that it does not land. One option is to sidestep or move back so that the attack falls short, or to duck under a wild swing. The drawback with evasion is that it does nothing to stop the opponent from simply making another attack.

However, evasion can be combined with an interception. For example, a soldier might sidestep a bayonet attack and shoot the attacker, or duck a swing with an entrenching tool while stabbing with his knife. This turns the evasion into an offensive-defence that has a good chance of putting the opponent out of the fight. The opponent has closed the distance and made himself vulnerable to a counterattack; the defender evades to protect himself while taking advantage of the opportunity to land a return blow.

Blocking is a matter of putting something in the way to stop an attack. Usually this is a weapon, but sometimes an object can be used defensively as a shield. A block takes the force of the opponent’s attack, whereas deflecting the attack is more subtle. The attack is knocked aside rather than being stopped cold. Generally speaking, stabs are easier to deflect than cuts or swings. Often, a combination of these methods is used. For example, a soldier might sidestep a bayonet thrust and at the same time push it aside with a sweeping motion of his arm, giving him a double chance of defeating the attack. A police officer might step back out of reach as an knifeman thrusts at him, striking the extended knife arm with his baton to combine interception and deflection.

Deflection Defence

Attacks that are coming straight in, such as a knife thrust, can be deflected to the side with a sweeping motion. This combines deflection with an element of evasion.

There are other options in the face of an armed attack. One is to get behind something solid, i.e. to take cover. This is the only good option in the face of a firearm unless the defender is close enough to grab it or can shoot first. Cover can be used against hand weapons, but as a rule someone close enough to attack with a hand-held weapon will be able to climb over cover or run around it, so at best the obstacle gains the defender time for a counterattack.

Body Armour

The final option is to hope that body armour stops an attack or that any injury inflicted is not too serious. Sometimes there is no better option than to take a knife slash on the arm in order to protect the neck; if this permits the defender to get a fight-ending blow in, he should then be able to obtain medical attention and will have won – albeit at a price. Accepting a knife attack to the body in the hope that a stab vest will function correctly is not a combat technique that police officers are taught (with good reason), but it may be that there is absolutely no alternative. If the officer emerges alive and victorious from the fight, then the gambit has worked.

Body Armour