Dubai SWAT Challenge is organized by the Dubai Police once a year, under the patronage and directive of the highest Ministry of Internal Affairs officials of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

According to the official rules, teams compete in 5 exceptionally demanding categories, within which competitors solve complex situations, all of which demand top-level fitness, tactical reasoning, problem solving and improvisation, various firearm systems handling and shooting, urban climbing etc.

The primary goals and values this competition and hosts promote regard to improving cooperation among elite units, exchanging of ideas and experience, mutual positive values, competiveness, solidarity and respect.

After the competition, we had a privilege to chat with Cobras competitors, all of whom participated in such a competition for the first time.

According to their words, this-year organization was “on a top level, literarily from the welcome at the airport, to the last competition day and farewell ceremony.“ They are generally satisfied with their final standings. Bearing in mind it was the first time, along with a preparation period of 20 working days only, during which they have been carrying out service duties as well, the projected goal was to win a ranking among the top 20 teams. For comparison, teams from the UAE, Russia and Belarus have been preparing for a year at the same courses, while the team from Kuwait, one of the main favorites to win the competition, has been preparing since May 2019. Competitors from the Russian Rosgvardia, as well as the Chechen team, had arrived two weeks earlier, in order to accommodate with the weather conditions, time zone and, of course, obstacle courses.

Unlike them, we had not had any courses, arrived a day before the start, but were not allowed to try out the courses, briefings have been conducted on daily bases, and were behind from the start, because we did not know how fast to move, without burning out and deteriorating our shooting accuracy, which was very important, because every miss induced a time penalty — additional 30 seconds.

Bane
Cobras operator

The Challenge Categories were very complex, demanding both in physical and tactical terms. The competitors were expected to be physically strong, good runners, agile, and superb shooters, especially at practical shooting, with lots of combat and tactical shooting. Marksmen results very especially important this year, because the team results have been depending on them in 3 out of 5 categories in total!

However, according to our SF operators, the last day was the most challenging — the obstacle course which many teams have failed to complete, because every competitor could have “attacked” the obstacle for 3 times tops, and if unsuccessful, the whole team would have been disqualified.

Summarizing the impressions, Serbian SF operators are full of positive impressions and agree that this top-level competition is a huge experience and will “serve as an guide in our training curriculum, as well as how our domestic competitions could have look like, being usually individual, except, for example, the parachute triathlon (Srb. padobranski višeboj), where, again, the focus is on the team.

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• COBRAS
• SAJ
• SAU
• UAE SWAT CHALLENGE

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