Most people who have played First Person Shooters or are military lore buffs know all of this stuff, but for those few who might not know, a few terms to start out with;
Flanking/Outflanking : This is when a force maneuvers to attack an enemy from the sides or rear. Flanking allows you a better angle of attack on an enemy using cover, and forces them to divide their attention between two or more directions. In almost any extended firefight, someone will maneuver to outflank the enemy.
Covering Fire: This is shooting at the enemy not so much to hit them as to keep their heads down, usually while an ally moves to a better position. An example would be firing on a machine gun nest while someone gets close enough to throw grenades in.
Ambush: Basically a surprise attack. Usually at a time and place which gives the attacker a tactical advantage. A typical Ambush might be blowing up the front and back vehicles in a convoy with rockets to block the way forwards and back, then firing on the middle vehicles from the rooftops. Ambushes typically run parallel to an enemies line of travel, in an L shape, parallel with a short leg in a flanking position or V shaped. It is never advisable to attack from both sides in a way that might have your shooters hit each other. Conventional wisdom says if you are ambushed it is best to retreat immediately the way you came rather than try to push through or fight it out. The enemy will anticipate this, but you at least know whats behind you. The best you can do is get as many of your people out alive to fight another day. Fighting from the "Kill Zone" will likely get most of your unit killed. In a military ambush the targets, in order of importance are the radio/communications guy (he can call for reinforcements or artillery), the commanding officer (he will try to keep their force organized and moving when you want them panicked and disorganized) and the heavy weapons detail (they can inflict the most damage on you). Everyone else is a target of opportunity.
I was thinking of talking about weapons. Describing the specs of the guns seen most often in action scenes, but that's a lot of information that can already be found elsewhere. What I would suggest as far as firearms go, is to picture the scene you want to write in your head. Figure out what kind of armament the people involved would be carrying; Ak-47's like a drug cartel or communist army? Maybe silenced sub-machine guns for commando types. Perhaps the typical load out for an American police officer. Once you have a general idea, go online and look them up. Get a general idea of things like how far they can shoot accurately, how many bullets the standard magazine holds, what kind of stopping power they have and so on. Finally, go on Youtube and find a video of someone shooting the gun you want to use. Listen to how loud it is, see how much it kicks. Just have that visual reference floating around in the back of your brain while you write.
OK for the actual shootout, there are two kinds. Stationary and Moving. In a stationary shootout, the participants typically hide behind cover, exchanging gunfire til the dynamic changes in some way, IE someone gets hit, runs out of ammo, a gas line is ruptured and everyone gets out just ahead of the explosion. A moving gunfight is more dynamic. In this situation to stay in one place is death for one of the parties involved. Examples include the opening of Saving Private Ryan where the Nazi's had the beach zeroed in and trying to find cover and hunker down meant death for you and the people behind you. The famous Bank Heist in the movie Heat is another. Staying in one place meant dying at the hands of the police or being captured. With the moving gunfight you need to figure out a way to end it. The Bank Robbers make it to the getaway vehicle and the scene transitions to a chase. Or they get to a place where they can get out of site, get rid of their disguises and weapons and blend into the crowd. With either kind of shootout, any cover is better than no cover at all, but most furniture and a lot of walls will not stop bullets. This is a great reason to go antiquing with your wife. In the event of a shootout you want a nice 3 or 4 inch thick solid hardwood tabletop or desk between you and the bullets. Having a character wear body armor is a great way to maintain the realism of people getting hit when bullets are exchanged without necessarily having to kill your character. Although body armor is not a get out of injury free card. You'll still suffer bruising and perhaps broken ribs.
Which brings me to my next point. Guns are kind of an all or nothing proposition. You can't shoot someone and guarantee you won't kill them. You could try to shoot someone in the knee, miss by inches and hit them in the femoral artery causing them to bleed out before help could arrive. Size doesn't seem to correlate with gunshot wound survival. Sometimes big guys go down to one lucky bullet while much smaller guys have survived being shot half a dozen times. So exchanging bullets is serious business, every time. Therefore gunfights should be planned carefully. If your bad guys shoot it out with your heroes and hit nothing, you've devalued the threat they represent. They become the cliche storm troopers or bond bad guys who can't shoot straight. This may tempt you to include an expendable character with your heroes to take the bullet and demonstrate the high stakes, but be warned, your readers will always spot a "Red Shirt". If you are going to include a sacrificial red shirt character, plan ahead. Introduce him early, and pretend he's a real character. Give him dialogue that doesn't involve retiring in three days or having a new baby, sure fire signs that someones about to bite it. Let him make contributions to the good guys efforts. Maybe give him a subplot with a love interest who is not the main heroine, because that's another death omen. This way people might be surprised and actually care when he buys it. In fact, it's not a bad idea to have a guy like this on hand even if you never kill him. He's there if you need him, and until then he's a useful character.
One last thing, just a couple of pet peeves. Don't hold your gun sideways and shoot like a gangsta. You can't aim it that way and it ejects hot brass at your face when you shoot. If you're in an extended firefight and you kill a guy, for the love of god take his weapons and ammo. You'll need every bullet or grenade you can get, and it's one less thing for the bad guys to pick up and use against you. Also if someone on your side is shot, at least make the attempt at first aid. Put some pressure on the wound. Try some CPR. People often survive this sort of thing with a little help so long as people don't stand around just looking at his body. Even if the character is supposed to die for the story at least it doesn't look like your other characters just let him go. Also not a big fan of pistol whipping. If you're close enough to hit someone with your gun, he's close enough to take it away and shoot you with it. Especially if you stopped pointing it at him so you could hit him with it.
OK, that's it for gunfights. Next time I'll cover chase scenes, and that will be a wrap for this action scene series.
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