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Nick710

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  1. Legion Run n’ Gun – September 8-9, 2018 Rock Castle Shooting Center Park City, KY When I was asked to RO at the Legion Run n’ Gun, I had to get the map out to see just where Park City, KY is located. Turns out it's about an 11 hour drive away! My initial thought was that it was too far to drive and I hate flying with all my RnG kit and firearms, so I was going to turn down the invitation. Then I learned the event was sponsored by the Special Forces Association and that the event was held to help honor the soldiers of the 5th Special Forces Group (“The Legion”), so I couldn’t say no. I further learned that the stages were designed by combat veterans of the Legion and that several of them would be there to shoot and help run the match. I told Matt Stennett, the Match Director, to count me in. I served in the Special Forces from 1981 to 1991 and I’m a life member of the Special Forces Association (SFA). The SFA was established by former members of the Special Forces as a charity to help assist current members and their families. It just so happens that the 5th Special Forces Group is one of the most decorated and busiest of the active duty Special Forces groups with a heritage that dates back to the early days of the Vietnam war. So I marked the dates off the calendar and started making preparations. The Rockcastle Shooting Center is located just North of Park City. It’s a 2,000 acre shooting facility (that also happens to have a golf course) and a nice lodge/hotel located right on the property. It has a variety of shooting bays and ranges. The owners generously host the Legion RnG, donating all the proceeds of the match to the SFA. As is custom, the ROs arrive a day or so early and shoot the match on Friday, with the rest of the match taking place on Saturday and Sunday. A surprising number of familiar faces began arriving on Thursday evening and I learned that many of the ROs were veterans of Pawnee, Lead Farm and other such matches that I had attended. It was a great group of shooters and I was excited to be part of it. As I stated earlier, the stages all had a military flavor and each stage had a story written about a certain event peculiar to the 5th Group. The 5K consisted of 5 stages and the 10K had 7 stages. The 5K match was shot on Saturday, while the 10K match was shot on Sunday. There were a total of 75 5K shooters and 69 10K shooters. Within each match there were 3 divisions, Tier 1, Operator and Lightfighter. Tier 1 competitors had to carry a rucksack (that’s a backpack) that weighed at least 45 pounds. This was exclusive of guns, ammo and other gear. Operators had to wear rifle rated plates and Lightfighters carried whatever they wanted but they tended to carry only the minimal requirements. Friday started out a little cloudy but the clouds gave way to sun and it heated up very quickly. The start/finish line was located right outside the lobby door of the Lodge. All the ROs geared up and got ready to go. The stages were set around a large loop around the property, with the 5K cutting off sooner and looping back to the Lodge. The first stage was close to the Lodge on sharply downhill grade on the pavement. If would have been given the option of taking a kick square to the nuts and skipping Stage 1, I would have thought seriously about it. Signage pointed the way down a steep rocky descent to the waiting area. This stage was a combination rifle/pistol stage. The shooter started near a large black, sharply downward angled tube. At the start signal, the shooter entered the tube and slide downward to the “mud pits”, where a series of 6 pistol targets awaited. After advancing through the pits and the jungle engaging the pistol targets (4” steel flippers), the shooter emerged out of the creek to engage 4 more pistol targets (more 4” flippers). The shooter then ran around the creek bank to find an injured buddy (a 200lb rescue Randy covered in slippery fake blood). You had to drag your buddy about 20 yards or so to a “helicopter” (a platform suspend on chains), mount the shaky platform and engage a 6-plate rack with your rifle, being careful not to use any part of the frame for support. This stage proved to be the most physically demanding and resulted in the highest failure rate (not completing the stage within the 180 second time limit). To top this off, once you completed the stage, or timed out, you had to drag your buddy back to the start point! Then, you had to climb all the way back out the way you came in. Shooters spent great deal of energy on this stage and hadn’t even made it ¾ of mile and had 4 or 6 more stages to complete!! Out of the 75 5K shooters who started Stage 1, only 16 completed it within the 180 second par time. After climbing out of the hole, you wound your way around the trail to Stage 2. This stage consisted of 5 paper targets, 2 steel targets and a VTAC board. Sitting at the start point was a UTV with a driver. The shooter loaded his carbine and sat in the back seat of the UTV. At the start signal, the UTV took off and speed along a designated course (at about 10mph), the shooter shot at each paper target as it became visible, shooting each target obtaining at least 3 hits in the C zone. There were 5 such targets set in a row. The distance was about 5-8 yards or so with each target about 10-15 yards apart. At the end of the run, the shooter exited the UTV, ran up to a VTAC board and obtained 4 hits through 4 openings of the VTAC at steel targets about 100 yards or so distance. The paper targets were not visible to the shooter very long and you had to be very quick on the trigger and steady on the sights to get the hits. After you completed this stage, you headed into a heavily wooded area along a marked trail. The trail to stage 3 was steep, heavily wooded and steep (I said steep twice, on purpose). Along the way were several signs (such as “Green Berets are better than SEALs) and you finally came upon a sign that said “Free Candy” with an arrow pointed at a hole in the ground. As you approached the hole in the ground, you saw a wooden ladder that went down the hole. You were instructed to ground your rifle and go down the ladder, navigate your way to an RO waiting on you. The “Cave” as it’s known, is one of the most unique stages in all of RnG. You must have a headlamp or handheld light to navigate your way through the very narrow passages of the Cave. The way requires you to crawl on your hands and knees as the ceiling in a couple places gets pretty low. This is not a stage for the claustrophobic! When you reached the RO, you got your briefing and at the start signal, you advanced through the cave engaging targets. This stage consisted of 5 paper targets, each of which required 5 hits in the A zone to neutralize (pistol only in the Cave). There were friendly targets along the way, in some cases, friendly’s were very close to bad guys requiring very precise shooting. Hitting a friendly was costly as was not shooting a bad guy enough times. Once all the targets were engaged, you made your way back to the cave opening, retrieved your rifle and headed off to stage 4. Most shooters navigated the Cave with a headlamp and engaged targets with a WML. The Cave was very chilly and once you left it your optics and glasses fogged right up. However, in the ever increasing heat of the day, the fog cleared pretty quickly. Leaving the Cave opening, you followed another steep trail (I swear the entire course was uphill) through the woods, eventually finding a gravel road, where you found your way to Stage 4. Stage 4 consisted of a series of rifle and pistol targets, both steel and paper. At the start signal, the shooter engaged a series of paper targets with rifle (3 hits each) on the move, and then came upon a big horse looking apparatus, complete with saddle. Once there, you mounted the “horse” and engaged a series of steel targets from 50 yards to 300 yards. No support was available and you shot these targets unaided by support. Once these targets were engaged, you grounded your rifle and engaged a series of steel pistol targets. This stage proved to be very problematic for many shooters and the 200 and 300 yard targets were small and no support was available. This stage probably resulted in the 2nd most failures (31 of 75 completed within the time limit). After this stage was completed, or not, you ventured off to Stage 5. Once again, I swear the trail was uphill. Upon arrival at Stage 5, the shooter was given a briefing about retrieving some site sensitive material and shooting a HVT (high value target). However, along the trail somewhere, you should have noticed a Garden Gnome with a colored hat. The color of the Gnome’s hat corresponded with a door color (stage 5 was located in a pistol bay). Several different door colors were available. On the start signal, the shooter entered the house, engaged all the bad guy targets, especially the HVT, retrieved the site sensitive material and exited the house. If you didn’t get the right door, you were confronted with a bunch more bad guys that you had to shoot (3 if rifle, 5 if pistol), leave that house, go to the next house, and find the HVT. Once cleared you left stage 5 and headed for home. If you got the right door, you could engage the HVT (and his accomplices) and leave, if not, it forced you to enter another room and engage targets. You needed to pay attention along the entire course (you were advised to in the shooter meeting to gather intel along the way). Finally, you got a little downhill to the finish line, where a crowd enthusiastically welcomed you home. This match was scored with the new Practiscore system set up just for Run n’ Guns, except that it didn’t quite work out as hoped. Each stage had an IPad and wait time, stage time and FTN’s were all recorded. One issue was that the run time wasn’t calculated by the program. Matt had to compute the final scores by another method, but he got it worked out good enough to find the top placers in each category. Overall the match went very well. Friday, got pretty hot for the ROs to run their matches, Saturday wasn’t bad as the temps didn’t get quite as high and there was heavy cloud cover. Sunday, however, started with heavy rain and it rained all day. Making many of the stages not only tricky to shoot, but to maintain and score as well. I especially enjoyed hanging out and visiting with some of my much younger SF brethren. These young guys are literally the tip of the spear in the fight against our enemies today. All of them had multiple combat deployments around the world. Seeing them shoot and make their way around the course was awe-inspiring. They are physical specimens and hard chargers. Its no wonder our Army Special Forces are the most feared fighters in the world. Thanks to Matt Stennett for inviting me to this match and all the other ROs and competitors for making this a very challenging and enjoyable match.
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