Student Review: Close-Quarters Battle (CQB) May 2025 – Tony
TL;DR: Fantastic class about a topic I hope that I never, ever have to do in real life.
My background: I’ve been taking MVT classes for several years now. This is the third time that I have attended this particular class (ironically it was the first class I ever attended, though realizing how much I’ve progressed in skills since that horror show does make me feel pretty good.) My military background was in a service support MOS in the Army during the 90’s and provided zero experience in small-unit infantry operations in general, and certainly nothing in CQB.
My goal: I enjoy using this class as a benchmark to see how I have improved because it was the first class I ever attended at MVT. Even though I know that I hope never to do this type of operation for real, it is something that I want to know how to do simply because of living in an increasingly dangerous and unstable world, and one never knows when someone will be in one’s home with violent intent.
Classmates: There was a good group of people, all of who, I believe, had taken MVT classes before. For some reason that truly perplexes me Max had difficulty in filling this class. In the past this was a class that sold out almost as soon as he posted the calendar, so I definitely find it odd. Fortunately for everyone at class, all the students were focused, not only eager to learn but able to quickly adapt. MVT always seems to attract some of the best people to train with as a rule.
Safety: This is a live fire class and as usual MVT’s safety protocols are simply top notch. I never worry about my safety at a MVT class because they are so conscious and focused on safety. Even with the rigorous conditions and movement of students, I always felt safe.
Class layout: This is a hybrid live fire and airsim class. The first day is on the flat range with basic live fire drills to start, followed by barrier shooting and doorway entry techniques using mock-ups. The following days are airsim only, beginning with force-on-target utilizing the MVT CQB building, and then moving on to a force-on-force component with a live OPFOR defending the structure.
I have a lot of general thoughts on this topic and the class, not to mention a special place in my heart for it. However, there is nothing better than to actually do it because you do not realize so many things until you are doing them. Watching a video, even one of the great ones that Max has produced on the topic, is not the same as trying to get through a doorway smoothly, with your weapon, not trip, try to find any targets and realize that you can be shot at any moment. One of the things that I bring up in many of my reviews is how Max and Scott are constantly updating their training, and this class brought that to the fore with a new version of a drill that they had worked on to deal with some specific type of situations. But there is nothing to practicing the basics, as is true of all these classes, repeatedly because if you cannot do the basics, you should not be anywhere near a building trying to do this for real.
To say that any one part of the class more educational or helpful to another is wrong, but I will say that I feel like the lessons that stick with me more come from the force-on-force against the MVT OPFOR. We had the opportunity to run numerous missions, I believe 6-8 but I did not truly keep count, against them and each iteration both brought new learning and smoother functioning in our teams. Demonstrating once again how important training and rehearsals are, and as the instructors frequently mention why you do not want to do these types of things with a bunch of rando’s you hook up with in an emergency situation. The OPFOR is dialed in and they have defended that building so many times, and worked together even more as a team, that it is a challenging environment every time.
I know that Max was disappointed with the apparent lack of interest this past year in this class and made some mention of not offering it in 2026. Hopefully that changes because this is a fantastic class that fuses numerous elements, and I can say from personal experience that it actually is a class that a first-time can attend, though you will feel overwhelmed and it would truly be better to take HEAT-1 first if possible. This is top notch training and how anyone can look at the state of the world and not be queueing up and clamoring to take as many classes at MVT as their budget allows, I do not know. Trust me, you are much better off signing up for this class than buying another three thousand rounds to stockpile because you don’t know what you don’t know until you actually train.
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