THE OODA LOOP REVISITED by Gabe Suarez

[Paladin]

Article of the day:

THE OODA LOOP REVISITED (For Those Unfamiliar With Them)

On a daily basis, defenders find themselves in situations where quick judgements are required during dynamic situations, often leading to life and death decisions. These actions, decided in milliseconds, will later be examined at length. Those conducting these after-incident examinations are often persons who neither understand the dynamics involved, nor the way a critical incident develops.

Whether these incidents occurred 100 years ago or 100 days ago, the dynamics of an urban fight remain amazingly constant. They are oftentimes, unannounced high-intensity, short duration events characterized by sudden violence after which one or both parties are either down, or have quit the fight. Moreover, these events tend to occur at very close range and often in poor light. Under these circumstances, some points become very clear.

Fighting ability being equal, aggressive, pro-active fighters tend to win, whereas defensive, re-active fighters tend to lose. Now, I hear you guys out there moaning that our policies dictate that we have to be defensive. It is true that our policies and laws dictate that “Defense� must always be the over-riding concept in our tactical activities. Exactly how this defensive concept is applied, however, remains to be answered. Anyone who understands fighting knows that offense and defense are two sides of the same coin, and that the two concepts complement one another.

Incidentally, let’s be honest with ourselves. Fighting is exactly what is going to happen with an armed adversary who decides to invite himself to dinner. We are going to have to fight him.

The defensive application is simply the actual r-e-a-s-o-n-s we are deploying our resources in the first place, not necessarily the actual tactics used. Once the decision has been made to deploy, you see, it must be offense all the way. Can you imagine, for example, winning a fist-fight by only blocking your adversary’s punches and never throwing a punch yourself? Not likely is it? Fighting concepts, whether with fists or firearms, remain constant.

One thing, which must be present, is our full understanding of the Rules of Engagement under which we operate. In general, the Core Defensive Concept motivating most police use of force policies can be characterized, as we discussed, by the acronym I.D.O.L. (Immediate Defense of Life). This concept is the foundation of the majority of deadly force laws, and it must guide our actions. When faced with a tactical problem requiring a likely deadly force decision, ask yourself the question, “If I don’t act against this man - right now, will someone be killed or seriously injured by him�? If the answer is “no�, or if there is any doubt, then wait.

Regardless of the time and place, the techniques, tools, and tactics will only come into play if you are aware of the situation. Some very well armed and trained individuals have lost their lives due to indecision or simply because of inattention. It should be obvious that if we wait to see the other man’s muzzle flash, or allow him to point his weapon at us, it will probably be too late to do anything about it. When you stop to consider that it takes less than a tenth of a second to press a trigger, an armed adversary takes on a suddenly dangerous tone. You see, even if we are very fast, our reactions will never be as fast as his initial action. If we allow him an opening, our life is literally in his hands. The trick is to “react� before he gets his attack fully on the road. In other words, we must act first, and cause him to react to us. If we hesitate, we are truly lost.

Once IDOL is understood, our actual awareness of the surrounding environment, or our Situational Awareness, will be of great importance. “Where Am I & What is Going On Around Me?� Swift reactions are good, but getting ahead of the event is even better. Getting ahead of the event, and staying ahead of it is best of all. Lack of Situational Awareness gets people killed or seriously injured.

Take for example, the case of William Hicock, the famous old-west shootist. Hicock, one of the best pistol shooters in his day, feared by his colleagues, and winner (not merely a survivor – a winner) of numerous gunfights, is shot in the back and killed - by surprise - because he was not paying attention to his environment.

Where Am I? What is going on around me? Good situational awareness allows you to see the event (or suspect) and analyze the unfolding circumstances before the event is on top of you. This being the case, you can approach it from a position of advantage, rather than be surprised by it.

In 1989, a man named Mike Spick wrote a, now out-of-print, book titled The Ace Factor. In this book about successful fighter aces, (pilots were men who’d killed over five enemy planes in aerial combat), Spick describes good Situational Awareness as the factor separating Aces from other pilots. He says, “These men avoided high confusion melees & excelled at picking off stragglers. They were very aware of their natural limits and avoided situations where they could not keep the upper hand.� While we generally do not have a need to “pick off stragglers�, the issue of avoiding uncontrollable situations, and maintaining the advantage are good points to remember.

Good Situational Awareness lies in making use of the presented or available information. This is not only information of the adversary, but also personal knowledge about your own abilities and your own situation when you see the enemy approaching. With good S/A, you begin to project your actions into the future. Instead of the adequate “Where am I and what is going around me?�, you seek to develop, “Where am I going and what will I do when I get there?� Simply seeing and being aware of the potential problem at hand is not enough. What you do when the problem begins to unfold is also very important. This is the point in the thought process where most problems develop.

Col. John Boyd – USAF was a scholar in military tactics, and probably had the greatest influence in America's war machine doctrine of any man in his generation. One of the studies he undertook was that of aerial combat in the Korean War. He noted that the American Pilots had a 10:1 kill ratio over the North Koreans. He also noted that the MiG was a faster plane that could outclimb the F-86 of the American forces. He wanted to find out why, if the MiG was in fact a better and faster airplane, were the Americans doing so well against them?

Boyd’s studies revealed that one factor relating to our successes was that we had better trained pilots. That was not the whole picture however. The F-86, he learned, allowed dramatically better visibility than the MiG, and it had a set of hydraulic controls that allowed almost instant maneuverability.

Boyd reasoned that the better-trained American pilots could observe their enemy more quickly due to having greater visibility, and they could decide on a course of action faster due to good training. Once the course of action was decided, the faster control on the F-86 allowed them to execute maneuvers much faster than the MiG. Thus an F-86 pilot had little lag time in observation-orientation-decision-and-action. They could operate inside the adversary’s response time envelope.

The resulting extension of these findings to all areas of personal combat developed a concept that all conflicts were as duels between competitors. In these duels each competitor Observes his opponent, Orients himself to the opponent and the unfolding events, Decides on a course of action based on that orientation, training and experience, and finally Acts out his decision.

This is the OODA Loop. Whoever can move through this process faster, gains a remarkable advantage over his foes by disrupting their ability to respond in a timely or effective manner. The Orientation portion of the cycle is the most important, and the weak point whereby an opponent may penetrate the decision cycle.

Each of us bases our decisions on observations of the outside world that are filtered through mental models (sometimes called paradigms) that orient us to the opportunities or dangers presented by our observations. In confrontations, an opponent makes decisions based on his orientation to the situation. This orientation changes and evolves because it is formed by the ongoing interaction between observations of unfolding events and a mental dialog that strives to make sense of the situation.

These mental dialogs take two different forms of activity: Analysis – Or attempting to understand the observations in terms of existing mental models or patterns of knowledge. And Synthesis – Or the invention of new patterns of knowledge when existing patterns do not permit the understanding needed to solve the problem at hand.

With faster orientation and action, and through aggressive pressure, it is possible to destroy the adversary’s existing mental model (or orientation to the world) as well as deny him the time to synthesize a new one. Aggressive pressure, and the enemy’s inability to cope with the extreme crisis causes indecision, fear, confusion, and overloads his thought processes. This promotes compliance and surrender. It is possible, through sound tactical principles and aggressive pressure on an enemy, to resolve a situation without incident.

Operating within the enemy's decision/reaction cycle allows a great advantage in that the mission will be carried out before the adversary can respond, perhaps even before he realizes what is upon him. For example, It can be argued that the Japanese operated within our OODA decision loop at Pearl Harbor, just as we operated within Saddam Hussein’s OODA Loop in the First Gulf War.

With this understanding, we can see that an aggressive operator who initiates the action after proper observation, orientation, and decision will have an overwhelming advantage over a reactive individual. The basic reason is that the aggressive operator’s cycle is at the end or action phase, whereas his opponent’s cycle is at the beginning or middle. The aggressive operator has already oriented himself to his opponent (sometimes simply recognizing that he is, in fact, an enemy is enough), and decided on a course of action based on that orientation.

The accuracy of the decision is determined at the Orientation part of the cycle by the information available to the operator, as well as how it is filtered and organized. The orientation phase is the most critical part of the cycle since it shapes the way we interpret the situation.

Everything is based on having good Situational Awareness - Where Am I ?, What is Going On Around Me ?, Where Am I Going ?, What Will I Do When I Get there? An unfolding confrontation may be avoided, or it may be overcome unannounced, from a position of advantage. The concept of the OODA loops, as applied to modern gunfighting, has far reaching implications. (So Thank You Col. Boyd!!!) It explains why waiting for the other guy to act first is foolishly suicidal, why a man with a firearm in his hand must be handled very carefully, and it may explain some other things. This concept may explain the reasons evident when a good guy shoots a rapidly turning bad guy in the back instead of in the intended chest. It may also explain the nature and source of lag time and how to best overcome it.

If we understand this concept and apply it, it will work for us and not against us. If we stay true to the concept, and utilize our knowledge of human reaction time to our favor, we’ve gone a long way to reduce the dangers of close quarters confrontations.

[txaggie]

Paladin, these Saurez articles are great, please keep them coming!!