Double tap

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For the Hong Kong action move, see Double Tap.

The Double tap, or DT, is the tactical shooting technique of pulling the trigger of a weapon twice in quick succession to deliver two shots to the same target zone. It is used mainly in close-quarter (urban) scenarios in both police and military situations, by SWAT teams, Special Police, Special Forces, and conventional military forces.

1 Origins
2 Theory
3 Function
4 Performance
5 References

[edit] Origins

The origin of the double tap technique is credited to Colonel Charles Beckwith, the founder and original commander of the U.S. Army's Delta Force (SFOD-D). This tactic is still used by Delta Force, and has also been adopted by many other special forces and counter-terrorist military units, and police tactical teams.It is also taught to regular infantrymen in the U.S. Army. However, William Ewart Fairbairn is reported, in Ian Dear’s book Sabotage and Subversion about the SOE and OSS, to have instructed SOE personnel in this technique during 1944-1945 at the SOE training school near Arisag in Scotland. This would predate Delta Force and Beckwith would have been 17 years old. The Australian and British armed forces were using the double tap technique for close quarters and jungle style fighting prior to Australian involvement in Vietnam. This would pre date the formation of Delta Force and is one of the main reasons for Australian success at the Battle of Long Tan.

[edit] Theory

Control of fire has been an issue since reliable and effective semi-automatic weapons became available. The advent of fully-automatic weapons further exacerbated the problem, particularly in the military. Soldiers spent too much time with their weapons set to full-automatic, wasting thousands of rounds of ammunition on a very low hit probability. Consequently, when the United States Army's M-16 rifle came up for revision to the A2, the full-automatic setting was removed and replaced with a three-round burst. Extensive testing has shown that after the third round of sustained fire, accuracy drops off sharply as aim is thrown off-true by recoil effect. The situation is worse with a semi-automatic weapon, particularly sidearms, where recoil effect is worsened by repeated trigger pulls. During the Rhodesian civil war the double tap was used in a method called 'Drake Shoot'. In an ambush their soldiers would deploy in a circular 'all around' defence. The soldiers would then identify their opposition's location. If the rebels were behind cover then the Drake Shoot would be employed. The idea was that the first round would penetrate through an opponent’s cover, such as a tree trunk, and then the second round would then kill the enemy.

[edit] Function

The double tap is a technique meant to impose similar restraint and fire control on the users of a semi-automatic weapon while maximizing the potential of that weapon. After the first round is fired, the trigger is pulled again, quickly, while maintaining the same point of aim. Ideally, both rounds should strike within two inches of one another (one inch for trained shooters). Follow-up shots should be held for at least one second. This gives the shooter enough time to assess the situation and determine an appropriate course of action, but also allows the shooter's grip to readjust and steady.

[edit] Performance

Against armored targets, the double-tap is sometimes the only way to defeat the target's protection. While appropriate soft armor can stop almost any pistol-caliber round once, two rounds impacting the same spot will almost certainly defeat the armor. Likewise with hard armor, two rounds from a higher-powered weapon stand a much better chance of defeating the armor if the rounds strike closely. If the target is unarmored, the double-tap is devastating. While pistol rounds tend to have poor terminal ballistics characteristics, a pair of such projectiles, traversing the body in close track, can produce unrecoverable damage. While the concept of hydrostatic shock has been largely dismissed in ballistic engineering, the creation and effect of a temporary wound channel by the passage of a high-speed projectile is very real. The creation of two such channels in close proximity geometrically increases the probability of an incapacitating wound. Furthermore, since the center of mass is the most desirable target for a sidearm, firing two rounds helps compensate for the possibility that a low-caliber round might be deflected by heavy bone or might miss a vital organ.