War HOGG Vehicle Tactics Part II: Auto Glass Lies, Mobility Saves Lives, and “Cool” Gets You Hurt

Tactical training in action: Practicing vehicle defense techniques, focusing on the vehicle's role in protection and understanding ballistic impacts on auto glass for enhanced safety and self-defense readiness.

The Vehicle Problem Isn’t Going Away

Violence around vehicles is rising, and we spend a huge portion of our lives in or around them. That means a vehicle tactics plan isn’t something “tactical guys” talk about for fun, it’s a survivability requirement for law-abiding citizens, military, and law enforcement.

In Part I of this series, we covered the foundational skills that make everything else possible: marksmanship, barricade work, smart holster placement in a vehicle, and realistic carbine considerations. The point was simple: you don’t rise to the occasion, you default to your training. If your “plan” is hope, hope will fail you.

Part II is where people get wrapped around the axle because the internet loves this topic. It’s easy to watch a clip of someone shooting through a windshield and think, “That’s the answer.” It isn’t. You need the truth, not entertainment.

Before we go any further, here’s the frame I’m using for everything below: this is about lawful self-defense and duty response, and it’s about making decisions that keep you alive. If you want to truly build this skill set, get professional instruction and train under safe, controlled conditions.

Shooting Through Auto Glass: Hollywood Sells It, Reality Punishes It

In my opinion, shooting through the windshield should be your last option. There are too many variables that can turn a “simple” action into a mess, eye protection, distance, windshield angle, threat angle, ammo selection, and whether you’ve ever actually tested any of it.

Start with the most immediate problem: laminated glass. When you fire through a windshield, you can get glass shards coming back into the vehicle. If you take debris in the eyes, you can put yourself out of the fight fast. Then there’s the second-order effect people don’t think about: once the glass fractures and spiders, your vision can become distorted by the cracks and impacts.

"Assessing the Risks: Essential Considerations for Shooting from Inside a Vehicle". Click the image to watch the instructional video.

Now let’s talk about the physics reality: bullets don’t reliably fly straight through a windshield. Deflection is a real issue, and what you “think” the round will do and what it actually does can be two different stories. A lot of training demonstrations use full-metal-jacket ammunition, but that’s not necessarily what you carry for duty or self-defense, so if you’re serious, you test the ammo you actually rely on.

And if the threat is moving, the problem compounds. Even after you create an initial hole, repeating that exact path through fractured glass is not as clean as people assume, and early rounds can be erratic.

Side and rear windows are a different animal. They’re typically tempered “safety” glass that shatters into small pieces and falls away, until you add aftermarket tint. Tint can change how freely the glass falls, which changes the environment you’re working in.

Here’s the takeaway: if your “plan” involves shooting through glass as the first move, you’re building your plan on a foundation of variables. Variables are where people get hurt.

Mobility Is Still King, Even in Part II

One of the biggest mental errors I see is people treating the vehicle like a stationary fighting position. Your vehicle’s biggest advantage is mobility, and mobility gives you options. That’s why exiting the vehicle is a last option in my opinion, because once you give up movement, you often give up survivability.

This is the mindset shift: vehicle tactics isn’t about “winning a gunfight from the driver’s seat.” It’s about finding a path out of the danger area and getting back to safety.

Even if you never touch a firearm, this principle holds true for civilians: your best defense in and around vehicles is awareness, space management, and not letting yourself get boxed in. For law enforcement, it means thinking through traffic stop positioning, nighttime visibility issues, and what your response looks like if the environment goes sideways.

Exiting the Vehicle: Methodical, Not Panicked

If you do have to exit your vehicle, it needs to be methodical. Not frantic. Not “Hollywood fast.” Your decisions here should be built through rehearsal of realistic “what if” scenarios because the direction you take depends on the situation.

A big part of this conversation is seatbelt management, door control, and getting to a safe ready position that preserves your ability to fight and move. The specifics of how you do that should be trained with a qualified instructor so it’s safe, consistent, and legally defensible.

"Defensive Tactics: Learn Essential Vehicle Exit Strategies for Personal Safety in Increasingly Violent Times" Click the image to watch the instructional video.

There’s also a technique I want to address because it keeps popping up: bringing the pistol up near the head/temple during movement. I do not support it. If someone wraps you up, you’ve reduced your ability to fight with the pistol and made it easier for them to take it. And the idea of pointing a gun at your head should bother you, because if you trip, fall, or collide with something, you’ve created a catastrophic risk.

You want positions that preserve control, preserve awareness, and preserve mobility. If a “technique” looks cool but fails the common-sense test, it doesn’t belong in your program.

Movement Around the Vehicle: Cover With an Exit Plan

When you move around a vehicle, prioritize positions that preserve your mobility while using the vehicle for cover, and keep your intent focused on escaping the danger area.

This is where people get stuck: they “take cover” and then mentally stop. Cover is not the finish line. Cover is a momentary advantage while you solve the problem. Your movement should always be tied to a plan—either creating distance, breaking contact, moving loved ones to safety, or repositioning to a place that gives you better options.

Mastering Tactical Movement: Practicing Vehicle Navigation with Rick Hogg. Click the image to watch the instructional video

Using the Vehicle for Cover: There Are No Absolutes

Vehicles are inconsistent. That’s the truth. Some provide better ballistic protection in certain areas than others, and there are no clean guarantees because each vehicle is built differently.

A perfect example: during ballistic testing, rounds were fired from one side through the trunk area to the other side. The assumption was that pistol and rifle rounds would easily pass through thin trunk metal. The surprise was that they didn’t—because the trunk was packed with junk that stopped penetration.

That’s the kind of reality that should humble you. Sometimes “cover” is better than expected. Sometimes it’s worse. And you do not get to pick which one you’re standing behind in a real event.

What you can do is understand general cover considerations. The engine area can provide meaningful protection depending on layout. The axles and rims have substantial metal and can offer another area for cover. What you can’t do is pretend glass is cover—bullets go through glass, and your body position has to respect that.

I’m also not a fan of intentionally “stacking” vehicle pillars as a primary plan, because next to the pillar is often air or glass. Again: no magic tricks—just thoughtful use of what’s actually there.

Vehicle Armor: A Hard Conversation, But a Necessary One

Armoring a vehicle is a personal choice based on perceived threat level and budget, but for law enforcement there’s a practical recommendation: at minimum, prioritize protection for the windshield and the driver’s door/window.

The reality is that many agencies won’t have the funds, especially in an era where support and budgets can be unpredictable. If you’re a leader, you should be asking hard questions about grants and options, because survivability is not a “luxury feature.”

I’ve seen agencies experiment with improvised solutions like repurposing old body armor to add protection to the driver-side door. Whether that’s feasible depends on your fleet and door construction, but it’s worth exploring if it adds survivability in an ambush situation. If you do anything like this, you also need administrative discipline, maintenance teams need to know what’s installed, and armor panels should be tracked so they can be transferred when vehicles rotate.

There are also companies that offer vehicle armor solutions tailored to common vehicle platforms, including door panels and ballistic side windows that remain functional. Whether you pursue that path or not, understand the goal: mitigate the most likely threats to the driver compartment and improve your odds long enough to escape.

The War HOGG Standard: Demand the “Why,” Not the Wow

If there’s one thread running through Part II, it’s this: social media is full of tactics designed for clicks. You don’t need more tactics. You need standards, context, and a clear “why” behind anything you adopt.

That means being honest about what you can do safely, what you can do legally, and what you’ve actually tested. It also means not letting your ego turn a survivability problem into an “engagement problem.” If you can leave, leave. If you can create distance, create distance. If you can solve it without gunfire, do that. Firearms are life-saving tools, but they are not the first tool for every problem.

Build a Vehicle Tactics Training Plan That’s Responsible

With Parts I and II together, you’ve got a starting point to build a vehicle tactics program, but it’s not the end-all, be-all. It’s the wave tops to get you started.

A responsible training plan does a few things well.

It starts with fundamentals that can be trained safely: seated awareness, safe access to your equipment, consistent decision-making, and controlled movement around cover. It includes dry practice and scenario thinking, and it makes sure every rep is rooted in safety and legality.

For law enforcement, add the realities that tend to get ignored: nighttime vehicle stops, reduced visibility, and how those conditions affect threat identification and response. Seek additional training, and don’t accept techniques that can’t be explained with a clear purpose and a clear risk analysis.

And for everyone: train with professionals. Vehicle environments compress time, space, and angles. That’s not where you “freestyle.”

If your agency or unit needs training support, reach out through WarHOGG.com and we’ll help you build a program that makes sense for your mission.

Vehicle Tactics Bottom Line

Auto glass lies. Vehicles vary. Internet tactics are often entertainment.

Your survivability comes from a plan built on mobility, awareness, smart use of cover, and a training program that demands the “why” behind every technique. If you treat vehicle tactics like a disciplined, building-block skill set instead of a highlight reel, you’ll make better decisions when it matters.

Train Hard, Stay Safe, and I’ll see you On The Range - Rick