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First day at Blackwater.

Pretty tired. Sitting here with six gun bloggers (now that Sebatian/Snowflakes in Hell came upstairs). They're probably concentrating on the shooting so I'll cover what led up to it.

First a trip to sponsor Blackhawk, which made the holster and other equipment we're using. VERY inventive folks. They operate with development and manufacturing in tandem, which reduces time to market. And all made in USA. One competitor outsourced all operations and closed their ship. Blackhawk bought the premises. The employees were fired on Friday, and on Monday Blackhawk was calling them with job offers, in their same old building.

Some of the stuff they developed -- uniforms with two built-in tournaquits on each limb. With body armor, bleeding out from a limb wound becomes more more prominent as a source of KIAs. Hit, you can try to hunt up the issue tournaquit and apply it. Or, with their uniform, pull upon a velcro flap, yank on the tournaquit to take out the slack, and start turning the handle. The folks speaking said that they are constantly improving based on comments from users ... move this pocket here, that feature there, we'd like to see this.

Then on to the Blackwater training facilities. 6,000 acres of them. An auto driving course with things like berms that obstruct views, so an ambush can be set up on the other side. A checkpoint where you can (for extra cost) be trained in ramming the blocking vehicles out of the way, (And a scrapyard where they put the rammed vehicles when they're too beat up). 500 vehicles to drive so you can train in what you drive. Oh, and three shooting ranges just off the course so you can pull in for gun training. The auto course needs repairs since they set off explosives on it. An area with sprinklers to simulate rain-induced skidding.

Threel shoothouses (largest 5000 sq. ft.) that we'll use Sunday, Walls and second floor built out of bulletproof steel sheathed in plywood to catch fragments. Up in what would be the attic, catwalks so instructors can stand above. A few doors were blown in -- there'd been training in breeching charges recently.

Urban areas for shooting, too, and known and unknown distance sniper ranges out fo 1200 yards. Not to mention two ship simulators, and one train one, in case you needed to train on that. Plus the more standard ranges, altho even those include moving targets.