Urban Shield Recap (Forcible Entry Equipment & Sniping Demo)

It was an early Friday morning when I received a call from Joey "Chief" Rubio the owner of CQB City. He asked if I could come out to Urban Shield to accompany him and head Global Security Academy (GSA) instructor Davide Giorcelli for vendor/demo day. Davide unveiled his newest offerings to the LE/MIL community; Tactical Ballistic Products (i.e., goggles & glasses). Having used these products on private security details in Afghanistan, and in parts of South America. The anti-fog, and anti-scratch goggles were a hit with many LE/SERT/SWAT members who stopped by the GSA booth that day.

I did get a chance to wonder around and check out some of the other vendors; Blackhawk, Safariland, 5.11, & EoTech just to name a few. Also, a robotics display was up. While I wish I grabbed a card and more information the robots are commonly used by EOD teams to disarm explosives. One cool thing to note is that it employs an XBOX 360 controller and the reason for that was because that many of the newer users are used to that type of control. Since this is catered to the LE community a number of the products on display and for sale are not available for regular purchase from civilians like myself (in the state of California). It was interesting to see Magpul 30rnd PMAGS out on display.

Out on the range there were a number of vendors demoing new products. At one of the ranges there was sniper demo. The target was at 100 yards using .308 winchester round on an unknown rifle and optic. Officers lined up to show off or see if they could place holes on paper targets. As you will see in the video below the rifle was suppressed and there was a spotter.

Also out on the range I met up with Forcible Entry Equipment founder Chuck Ferry. As a firefighter Chuck looked for a resettable door prop so that he could train getting through a door. He found that no such door was available so he developed his own. Currently being used by Sacramento law enforcement departments the resettable door prop can re-used many times and allow for users to fine tune and adjust their entry techniques. This is the type of system that hopefully will be employed at CQB City some day for training and airsoft purposes. I would check out Forcible Entry's website for cool videos using their door prop and some DET cord =)

Pictures:
Additional pictures available on the Flickr