SO19 and CO19 explained

[co19]

I aggree with Treefrog, I would rather have a good copper next to me who can evaluate a situation taking into account years of experience than a sniper.

No offence but police firearms and the military are two totally different jobs, if I was in Helmand province i would not like co19 officers around me I would want a platoon if not a company of infantrymen.

[sentinel]

The whole ethos of Police Firearms work is different to that of the military; we have to account for every round fired, so the training concentrates on this. We may not employ suppressive fire, even though we may want to.
I know of a few direct entrants in to the training wing, one from SF, some from other constabularies. Must say the guy from SF went off to ops for some peculiar reason and found himself unsuited to ARV work so applied to another armed department, which he is finding much easier.
If you want to leave the army and join the police, then crack on - it's a mighty fine job, but don't expect CO19 to knock on your door begging you to join. It's two years probation and passing the courses first.

[diplomatic1]

CO6 ARVs number about 50 officers now, ID are still in there infancy due to SMT reasons (no change) CO19 are the main Firearms Dept, but CO6 are a more proactive unit conducting stops CTC based operations (road blocks) and supporting BOCU initiatives. Currently the Team are having great success in South London. We do work well alongside our CO19 colleagues, but are making our own name also

[diplomatic1]

Yes i agree with some of what sen says but its not all true. Some of us on the CO6 ARVs are guys and girls who have come from elswhere county ARVs military, and want to progress. DPG has a bad reputation of old guys near retirement, and drive by incidents that are non diplomatic hoping someone else will deal. Both ID and CO6 had some silly idea that they could put three blokes in a car and call them enhanced officers, basically trained to do containment and vehicle stops, and training varied between 3 days to a week, what crap. ACPO changed things about three years ago, and we are trained to entry level CO19, only not search trained. This an area that will be reviewed, but a handfull of guys are transfering to CO19 to enhance their firearms carrers TST/SFOs.

[Dazza445]

and bear in mind that not all 19 are search to contact trained either...

[co19]

Thats the shocking aspect of it, as not enough people were passing the courses they had to get bums on seats, even if they were not fully trained bums.

[TJIF]

I'm just wondering if people failing the courses was due to the poor standard of those being selected or for some other reason?

I remember some years ago (and my memory reaches all the way back to D11) the department went through a phase where the course instructors were failing high numbers on courses and explaining that the studes just weren't up to it.

It actually transpired that as each new set of instructors came up the chain they were making things harder and harder (each set of instructors vying to outdo the others) citing the fact that 'we had to do it, so can you'......this carried on until courses were nearly impossible to pass unless you were an olympic gymnast with ESP.

When this was identified, and things returned to normal, these 'heroes' bemoaned the fact that ............'standards had dropped'...............this, despite the fact that most of them had started out with a speed loader and a model 10 (one or two with a break frame Webley)

TJIF

[co19]

There is some element of truth in that statement with regards to a handful of instructors, but I have seen decent people fail courses I was on, only to come back again and again till they pass on some occasions.

Saying that and I have seen it occasionally (as everyone sees in all walks of life) that some really useless people get through...amazingly

[matt7101]

How many units are armed in the MET? ( i no CO19, DPG and heathrow)
Do CO19 provide alll training or do seperat units train there own?

[martin ross]

how many men are there on each firearms team. and what is each mans specific job.