Talk:Close-quarters battle

Opening heading
CQB as a term has been replaced by the military almost entirely by MOUT. The article should be merged. (THIS IS INCORRECT FACTUALLY. CQB HAS NOT BEEN REPLACED BY MOUT, BUT IS A COMPONENT OF A MOUT MISSION. A UNIT TRAINS IN CQB IN ORDER TO HELP ACCOMPLISH A MOUT MISSION. AUTHOR - THE GUY WHO WROTE NEARLY 95% OF THE NEW STUFF HERE IN WIKIPEDIA'S CQB SECTION)

Also the link saying only military SF units are trained in CQB has been removed, as it is factually totally wrong.

This article needs some serious working. Swatjester 09:59, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Disagree: Although this may be correct for the US Army it is not universally the case and it is important to acknowledge uses by the USMC and other military forces around the world. CQB is still very much in use within the current and historical literature. Also, current US Army manuals tend to focus on platoon or larger groupings, not squads or fire teams. There are also non-urban uses of CQB. Rorybowman 04:34, 18 January 2006 (UTC)


 * incorrect. The army focuses on MOUT at the team level, hence the current tactic of a 4 man flood. Swatjester 06:17, 18 January 2006 (UTC)


 * The practice of a single tactic by one branch at a particular time is not an argument. CQB began with military usage but has now been expanded appreciably to include applications in police and corrections, as well as military applications outside of urban warfare such as hostage rescue, vehicle boarding, extrication and a variety of military operations other than war (MOOTW). - Rorybowman 14:48, 19 January 2006 (UTC)


 * "The Base" trained insurgents in close quarters combat at the Mes Aynak training camp opened in 1999 in Afghanistan, according to the 911 Commission reports, Chapter 5. Soldiergurl (talk) 01:39, 4 March 2009 (UTC)


 * And yet Mêléeit's not significantly different enough from MOUT to warrant it's own article.Swatjester 19:42, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

?
Why was my redirect to Urban warfare reverted? Sam Spade 15:53, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Merge CQC into this article
I think this article and CQC should be merged. Any thoughts on this? Isaac Crumm 07:40, 6 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I second this. They're almost identical. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Special:Contributions/ (talk)
 * Peter Vasiljev 04:08, 26 August 2007 (UTC): Thirded. Putting up a "merge" template.

This feels like a manual that got picked up from somewhere else
I'm a bit worried. The Urban Warfare page is good, but large portions of this feel more like a SWAT manual than an informative dictionary entry on CQB. Phrases such as these illustrate my point:

"Remember that CQB takes place in a three dimensional environment; the threat may be in front, behind, left, right, above, or below. By being aware of the surroundings as well as the movements of the other operators' gaps and vulnerabilities can be minimized."

"Each individual will clear the immediate threat area, within two meters, in the direction that he is moving."

"Remember that controlled fire is critical for the safety of innocents and operators. Target discrimination is mandatory."

I Googled select phrases and didn't find anything, but I'm still troubled. Wikipedia isn't a manual, so if this is orginal, it needs a bit of reworking into an encyclopaedia friendly format. Some of the jargon could also do with trimming - phrases like "operators" are possibly a bit technical for a general purpose encyclopaedia.

I'll poke at it in a bit if no one responds.

ManicParroT 03:27, 5 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree. Feel free to edit it, I'll be around to help if needed. Most of the article as it is in its present state has been written by Ghostscg (talk). He has actually completely rewritten the article (which was a little more than a stub), and while he added a lot of information, it was completely written with an inappropriate tone and formatting. It was actually much worse before, with a lot of second person
 * I've added two cleanup tags (inappropriate tone and inappropriate person) to the article so hopefully more people will start working it. Should we also move this article from Close Quarters Battle to Close-quarters battle? —Squalla 15:04, 5 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Additionally, we need to make a distinction between close-quarters battle (CQB) and close-quarters combat (CQC). The two terms are sometimes used interchageably within some contexts, though they are not quite the same thing. I believe CQC could be considered "part" of CQB, in that CQC more specifically refers to hand-to-hand combat rather than any type of confrontation (e.g. firefights) in a confined space. —Squalla 15:15, 5 December 2006 (UTC)


 * If the article were inverted and the detailed section on police-style dynamic entry were a subsection that showed a common implementation of CQB that would solve some fo the problems. This would leave the detailed example but place it into a larger context (and imply how similar tactics might be applied in other CQB situations such as high-risk cell extraction, psychiatric wards and boarding parties). Such a detailed example is nice, but is not the entirety of CQB. Rorybowman 02:05, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Merge mêlée into this article

 * much of the content at melee could be merged here, however Melee is a particular medieval type of tourney fighting. Better to create Melee (medieval) and disambig the modern and gaming info here. I'd be happy to expand the medieval page, when I get time. Gwinva 20:55, 20 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I do not think that Mêlée should be merged into this article because it is a term which has been used for many centuries and has little to do with the specific meaning given to this article. As for a specific "Melee (medieval)" why. Are we to have dozens of short articles for each type of warfare? Afterall there have been Mêlées throughout the history of warfare. CQB should be mentioned in the Mêlée articled as a paragraph or a section with a main article template to this article. --Philip Baird Shearer 17:30, 26 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, I agree with you Philip. I realise my comment above was unclear, so I'll clarify.  I don't think the articles should be merged.  Perhaps there is some overlap in the modern and gaming, in which case direct (or link) those here.  Retain at least the historical context on the original page, since it has a specific meaning in a medieval context (and probably, as Philip says, in other historical contexts). Gwinva 20:50, 26 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I do not think that Mêlée should be merged into this article either. Some concepts may be the same but CQB is a more modern tactic that has come with totally different goals and only in the last 40 years. Perhaps mention should be made in the Melee article but CQB should have its own space.


 * They should not be merged, melée can happen on an open battlefield, and CQB is mostly inside of buildings. Is seems a consensus, I think the merge tag could be removed.


 * Oppose. In a mêlée a unit (a ship, plane, soldier, or a group of them) operates independently on their own initiative and judgement. Trafalgar is an excellent example from the mêlée article; a dogfight that evolves into a "furball" is another. CQC may be very well coordinated, and it primarily refers to infantry operations. Mêlée has a long history of use and deserves its own article (with a reference to CQC). Laguna CA (talk) 01:21, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

SWAT-style
I'd say to define who are the a) foremost and b) most widespread practitioners of CQB we need to understand what is necessary. To my understanding there are two styles of CQB:

(I came up with these names/styles myself, BTW, so if you've never heard of them, no biggie.)

- infantry CQB Its purpose is to take and hold ground - the infantry's raison d'etre in general.

- police / antiterrorist / humanitarian CQB Its purpose is "to save lives" (LAPD SWAT motto/purpose, if I'm not mistaken): - POSITIVELY identify threats - remove threats (get compliance with commands, then restrain) - kill threats with POSITIVE AIM (if removal not possible) - do all of this as fast as possible, no mistakes, especially no dead hostages - this is all preliminary to disarming bombs or clearing way for bomb squads, etc etc

On the other hand, "PURE" CQB "skillz" may be said to be that which enables someone to defeat someone else's capability to make war on their butt, the fastest, merely in close quarters.

Anyway. Food for thought. Or just flame me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.180.216.131 (talk) 09:17, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Question
Quoting the article: "The goal is to establish overlapping fields of fire, so that multiple shooters can attack at once from different directions without danger of hitting one another."

Can someone who understands this subject please explain this sentence? Seems to me that one would want "non-overlapping" fields of fire. ??

Wanderer57 (talk) 20:26, 22 July 2008 (UTC)


 * From what I know the point of having overlapping fields of fire is to make sure that the team has the entire area that they're clearing covered so that the threats have less chance of escaping. Overlapping fields of fire does not necessarily mean that it will cause friendly fire. However, when the fields of fire covers a friendly that is when the the likelihood of friendly fire increases.--Jimothy 183 (talk) 21:45, 21 February 2009 (UTC)


 * "Overlapping" is a superfluous adjective in the context of preventing friendly-fire accidents. Shooters adopt fields of fire to assure complete coverage of the contested area and to discipline fire away from friendlies. Overlapping fire serves the first purpose, but is irrelevant to the second. Soldiergurl (talk) 01:27, 4 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't fully understand how the word overlapping is superfluous. Perhaps you could elaborate on your explanation? Jimothy 183 (talk) 13:31, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

comments re article
Fascinating.

A couple of notes: After the second paragraph, the section "Violence of action" seems to me to wander off topic.

Likewise, the last sentence in the section "Private industry" seems off topic.

I don't understand any of this well enough to try to improve it.

20:36, 22 July 2008 (UTC)Wanderer57 (talk)


 * I'd like to add that I think we should include a paragraph about CQB in the military at the end of the article to go with the parts about CQB in the Police and Private industries just for the sake of completeness. I'd also like to suggest that we change the heading from Police to Law Enforcement.
 * Jimothy 183 (talk) 00:22, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Tone
After more than a year with no responsive concerns expressed on the talk page, I removed the "tone" tag. Unless all of Wikipedia is to be cited for tone inappropriate to Wikipedia (which might be okay) there is on this talk page expressed no reason to single this one out. The tone of most Wikipedia articles reflects the experience of authors or sources. This is no different. Computer-language articles reflect the tone of computer-language experts. Social science articles reflect the tone of social science experts. Lets let it be for now. When a well-organized soviet steps in to take over WMF as will be necessary for all the other failed corporations in the world, we can sort it out then. We should at that time have better access to the training manuals from which this paramilitary instruction article was derived. Short: help is on the way. Rewrite under the new regime. Soldiergurl (talk) 01:54, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Just because other badly written articles exist is not reason to give up trying to fix this one. Tags should stay up until the article is fixed, or deleted. Not sure what in particular was being cited re:TONE but it seems pretty obvious in the current incarnation the article is an "instruction article", something that goes counter to WP:NOTHOWTO. I have tagged it as such. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 01:59, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Breaching buildings
A Breach (warfare) article is to cover the act of breaching buildings. This image may be cgi'ed and added to this article:

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: page moved to Close quarters combat.   A rbitrarily 0   ( talk ) 14:31, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Close Quarters Battle → — Relisted. Ucucha 18:20, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Close Quarters Combat is more commonly known than Close Quarters Battle. Wiiki pe  dian  12:27, 20 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't think it should be capitalized. No opinion on whether "battle" or "combat" is more common. The one external link that the article has uses "battle". Jafeluv (talk) 16:57, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

I see CQB and CQC as different things (the first individual and fire team, the second squad and platoon) taking place very near the enemy, but my training was long ago. Pick one name, redirect the other to it, and concentrate on making a better article. Eventually, it will be large enough and good enough to split to Close Quarters Battle and Close Quarters Combat. In either case, both are capitalized, it's an acronym that's not assimilated (radar being an example of that.) htom (talk) 20:27, 4 June 2010 (UTC)


 * They're capitalized in the acronym (so it's CQC, not cqc), but when written in full it's "close quarters combat", "radio detection and ranging" etc. See the manual of style. Jafeluv (talk) 23:33, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Ambiguous descriptions/excessive explanation
I know that the overabundance of instruction is a recognized problem, but I must also say that, even after reading most of the article, I simply have no idea what CQC is. It presents CQC as a concept, a tactic, a fighting style, and who knows what else, all in the opening, and then proceeds to explain how to do (poorly).

None of the sources help this matter. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.200.125.152 (talk) 10:05, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

This article honestly sounds like it is written by a 12 year old playing CoD. No mention of entry techniques except for a "Dynamic entry" which is a type of entry not the method of entering. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.183.7.115 (talk) 23:35, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

CQB
CQB directs to this article, but is not mentioned in it. I redirected it from Close combat to here. It is mentioned in the references. Could someone with knowledge about this topic integrate the term in the article? Manorainjan (talk) 14:37, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

2+ yrs. later: Close-quarters battle (CQB) and hyphenation?
You're still right and, although the phrase "close quarters battle" does appear in several places, this article does not abbreviate it nor differentiate it from CQC.

Also, shouldn't both phrases have a hyphen between the 1st 2 words? Thanks, Geekdiva (talk) 20:11, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
 * CQC is a made-up term by Kojima from the Metal Gear Solid series. Not sure why the hell it's being used over CQB, the original all-encompassing term for exactly what this article is describing.2601:49:1:5316:FD82:A55:7724:1CCE (talk) 01:09, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

Judging by searches for the terms I did on Google, and if the endless results for training courses mean anything, the terms "CQC" and "CQB" simply mean the same thing (modern military/police close combat at short distances) and are used interchangeably, referring to both firearm and hand-to-hand combat; CQB in particular is often used and listed secondarily as a synonym for CQC. The only differences I can find are a handful of sources (none of which are reliable, such as everyone's favorite search result destroyer Quora) and contextual connections (such as the name of the Close Quarters Battle Receiver) that imply CQB specifically refers to close-range firearm combat, while CQC refers to either specifically hand-to-hand combat or both firearm and hand-to-hand close combat as an all-encompassing term—but again, none of these are reliable, and they appear to be the exception and not the norm.

Also, no, it's not "a made-up term by Kojima" from Metal Gear. It appears the term existed before, and Kojima just used the generic term "CQC" to name a specific martial art developed in the series, probably because it just sounded cool and technical (as he usually operates). AdoTang (talk) 13:29, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Berlin
I know that the BBDE was disbanded in 1994, but did everyone forget that EVERYONE (Including SF units) came and trained from them, as they wrote the book on CIC/CQC? 2603:90D8:C3E:1AAB:493D:1817:F088:386C (talk) 17:31, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Consistency
As the article is titled Close-Quarters Combat, I'm going to change all the CQB to CQC throughout. At current count, there are 31 uses of CQC and only 14 of CQB (including the redirect info, which won't change). If there are any issues, please let me know...otherwise, I'm going to jump right in.

It seems most uses of CQB were added by AdoTang back in 2023, January and April. I'll tag him, so he can add his comments. AdoTang

WesT (talk) 19:34, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
 * For consistency, the article should change all usage to CQB and the page should be moved back to CQB -- the initial move was poorly discussed 14 years ago, and the rationales were simply not supported. Per WP:COMMONTERM we should be using common terminology. CQB is the preferred term by the U.S. and most other militaries. CQC is a synonym that, outside of the context of being used inappropriately in the Metal Gear games which bloat it's Google search results, otherwise has much less official and common usage. The article was originally CQB, and the merge 14 years ago simply didn't achieve anything remotely considering a consensus that it should have changed to CQC. ⇒   SWAT Jester   Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat! 22:32, 13 June 2024 (UTC)