Any time you're toting a gun in those foreign areas, you're a target. I recall back in the mid-1980's, during the El Salvador Civil War, guerrilla hit teams would roam the streets and roads in San Salvador, which was fairly removed from the guerrilla strongholds in the jungles to the east, in two man teams on a single motorcycle. They could get those two-wheelers between lines of traffic, and would run up next to your traffic-jammed vehicle, light it up like a sitting duck, and then sky the hell out of there while cars and trucks were locked down in grid lock. That usually provided them an escape after a hit, unless you were really observant and always ready.
In those conditions, you learn to carry as high a capacity handgun as you can lay hands on (generally in those days it was a Browning HP-35, because it had a 13 round mag which allowed you to be more obnoxious between reloads than most other handguns - this was before the modern 15 and 17 round mag standards) in a shoulder rig. The reason for that is that while you are seated in a vehicle, it's a lot easier to grab and draw from a shoulder rig than it is from a belt rig, not even counting the discomfort level of trying to get a hip-holster into a tolerable position while seated in a vehicle.
As a side note, you could find South African 17 round mags for HP-35's if you were lucky, which allowed you to be 4 more rounds obnoxious before having to reload. I had 3 of those for mine, (which was actually the Argentine version, rather than a genuine Belgian Browning) and paid a pretty penny for them. Nowadays, my regular carry pistol has 17 round mags as standard, with 20 round and 32 round "upgrades" available. I have some of those too, but they're generally too awkward for every day carry - imagine trying to hide a pistol with a 9" protruding mag under a light jacket.. The march of technology carries on.
So you would watch every direction simultaneously, with a concentration on the rear approach through your mirrors, and if you saw two gents on one motorcycle headed towards you, you'd just go ahead and draw and get ready for it.
The motorcycle would pull up, and the guy in back would try to light you up while the driver (the guy in front) had the primary responsibility of getting them the hell out of there after the hit. The object of the game was to watch for a muzzle, and if you saw one light 'em both up before they could light YOU up.
Technology has "improved" since then. Handgun mag capacities have increased. I reckon another tech improvement is being able to roll down armored SUV windows. The video mentions that the last two agent lit up in Mexico "rolled down the windows of their armored SUV slightly". I don't understand why they would do that, but more importantly, perhaps, I don't understand HOW they could do that. I've never seen an armored SUV that you could roll the windows down on. Those windows are made of multiple layers of laminated glass, and weigh about 300 pounds apiece, and all I've ever seen were sealed to prevent you from even trying to roll down a window you might not be able to get rolled back up in a hurry. That, too has it's drawbacks - it turns a rolling fortress into a rolling microwave if you get caught in an IED attack, which doesn't seem to be much of an issue yet in the cartel wars - they seem to prefer to send overwhelming numbers of secarios to hit individual vehicles in gun attacks.
They probably changed the window configuration to allow the guys inside to return fire during an ambush without exiting the vehicle, but that assumes you've got about a squad of guys inside to even return fire, like the contractors in Iraq ran. I think, personally, that a better strategy for a two-man team in Indian country would be to use your SUV as a battering ram to clear a path, and then roll like hell out of the kill zone, all the while calling for support for the inevitable pursuit.
My hat's off to the American guys doing this yeoman's work in Mexico in this day and age. They've got to have solid steel testicles to go in there and git 'er done!
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In those conditions, you learn to carry as high a capacity handgun as you can lay hands on (generally in those days it was a Browning HP-35, because it had a 13 round mag which allowed you to be more obnoxious between reloads than most other handguns - this was before the modern 15 and 17 round mag standards) in a shoulder rig. The reason for that is that while you are seated in a vehicle, it's a lot easier to grab and draw from a shoulder rig than it is from a belt rig, not even counting the discomfort level of trying to get a hip-holster into a tolerable position while seated in a vehicle.
As a side note, you could find South African 17 round mags for HP-35's if you were lucky, which allowed you to be 4 more rounds obnoxious before having to reload. I had 3 of those for mine, (which was actually the Argentine version, rather than a genuine Belgian Browning) and paid a pretty penny for them. Nowadays, my regular carry pistol has 17 round mags as standard, with 20 round and 32 round "upgrades" available. I have some of those too, but they're generally too awkward for every day carry - imagine trying to hide a pistol with a 9" protruding mag under a light jacket.. The march of technology carries on.
So you would watch every direction simultaneously, with a concentration on the rear approach through your mirrors, and if you saw two gents on one motorcycle headed towards you, you'd just go ahead and draw and get ready for it.
The motorcycle would pull up, and the guy in back would try to light you up while the driver (the guy in front) had the primary responsibility of getting them the hell out of there after the hit. The object of the game was to watch for a muzzle, and if you saw one light 'em both up before they could light YOU up.
Technology has "improved" since then. Handgun mag capacities have increased. I reckon another tech improvement is being able to roll down armored SUV windows. The video mentions that the last two agent lit up in Mexico "rolled down the windows of their armored SUV slightly". I don't understand why they would do that, but more importantly, perhaps, I don't understand HOW they could do that. I've never seen an armored SUV that you could roll the windows down on. Those windows are made of multiple layers of laminated glass, and weigh about 300 pounds apiece, and all I've ever seen were sealed to prevent you from even trying to roll down a window you might not be able to get rolled back up in a hurry. That, too has it's drawbacks - it turns a rolling fortress into a rolling microwave if you get caught in an IED attack, which doesn't seem to be much of an issue yet in the cartel wars - they seem to prefer to send overwhelming numbers of secarios to hit individual vehicles in gun attacks.
They probably changed the window configuration to allow the guys inside to return fire during an ambush without exiting the vehicle, but that assumes you've got about a squad of guys inside to even return fire, like the contractors in Iraq ran. I think, personally, that a better strategy for a two-man team in Indian country would be to use your SUV as a battering ram to clear a path, and then roll like hell out of the kill zone, all the while calling for support for the inevitable pursuit.
My hat's off to the American guys doing this yeoman's work in Mexico in this day and age. They've got to have solid steel testicles to go in there and git 'er done!
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“Trouble rather the tiger in his lair than the sage among his books. For to you kingdoms and their armies are things mighty and enduring, but to him they are but toys of the moment, to be overturned with the flick of a finger.”
― Gordon R. Dickson, Tactics of Mistake
― Gordon R. Dickson, Tactics of Mistake