The Istanbul teams for sure registered improvement in performance compared to earlier years as far as I can judge from the videos of course. I hope that we will also see improvements in the other units around Turkey. I see that their concepts in hand to hand combat evolved and improved by implying the right physical force to the enemy and right usage of the personal mass in the control techniques. From circus style techniques we started to see more harsh moves and better technique skills with the guys that can actually be applied in a real threat situation. Normally there is a global problem of police forces limited to much in options for self defense because of the rules for police violence making the police schools teaching often techniques which are good technically but hard to apply in a real life violence situations. Here in these demos we see the perfect balance of violence and control for this type of unit including the needed violence to counter escalating situation and the needed control in order to prevent heavy injuries or fatal end.
The things I personally want to see with them is implementation of the high ready weapon position in CQB. In certain situations it is more practical to use that position rather than low ready because it can give you more room for weapon pointing, faster access, more maneuverability, the chance of enemy blocking your gun around a corner in a limited penetration is smaller and it gives you extra options for counter and self defense.
I would want to see usage of heavier shields in certain situations and implementation of markings with bright colors+bright lights for extra distortion effect and better target recognition similar to the ones used by the Russians for example.
I also want to see a wider implementation of hi tech products in surveillance/recon like for example the STM DAR Behind the Wall radar, micro-nano UAVs and also UGVs with integrated RCWS and shield systems. We saw the last concept recently in the large scale exercise of the Irish security forces in Dublin City University when terrorist attack was simulated.
I hope the initiative of SSB for the developing of three classes of UGV's will give fruits and our counter-terrorism and emergency situation response concepts will improve by adding more high technology tools, coordination and professionalism in fighting the hard situations.