Paintball

[kingnothingugm]

Anyone here paintball? I have never but...I bet it would be a great way to practice defensive tactics.

[22dave]

I have been asked to "play" but the reality is, if someone shoots me- I am going to shoot back. I don't feel comfortable with this "game". I may be wrong but I have better things to do with my time.

[chemfantry]

king, it depends on what style of game you are playing. in speedball, like you see on tv, where you run from inflated barricades trying to capture the flag, it is more about angles and there are little or no real world tactics envolved. you will get little training effect out of this. in the style where you have two teams in the woods and try to capture the other teams HQ, there is some aspect of military tactics practiced there. for the average CCW carrier, you wouldnt get much training effect out of it. the military uses a similar training tool called simunitions to practice shoot houses and MOUT so that there is a live enemy shooting back. it is a step up from the old MILES laser system. it was a fun game in highschool and college, but there is only limited training effect IMHO.

[kingnothingugm]

The reason I bring it up is because the popular assumption is that militia or other military type training is illegal. There are few ways around this. 1. go to your local LE agency and explain to them what you intend to do and how it is a right guaranteed by the Constitution. (Right to free speech. Right to assemble. Right to keep and bear arms.) 2. Go below the radar. Paintball would be about as close as you could get to "military" type training without attracting attention from local, state and FED LE.

[delta13soultaker]

When I was stationed in Germany in the 90's in a mech Infantry company, my platoon did paintball for PT ever 1st and 3rd Thursday of the month...it also carried over to part of out Sergeant's Time training. We got a big discount for renting/buying bulk gear.

It was good training; I liked it better than MILES. (Simunitions hadn't become well excepted yet.) We went squad versus squad in the woodline behind or across the street from the battalion. We practiced our tactics right out of FM 7-8 and had great fun. It was entirely NCO led and built good teamwork.

Fast forward a few years I'm stationed in Texas and still have a bunch of paintball gear. Some guys in the unit were doing speedball every weekend. They also dabbled in capture the flag, sudden death etc.

I hooked up to go paintball with them a few times. Some guys there were Army, but lots they brought with were civilian friends. When it came to tactics...NONE, all they had was ego but no technique. Everyone wanted to be chief or Rambo the ninja sniper. No scenarios, no planning, no operational brief, no command and control, no teamwork, no overwatch, no support by fire, no supported maneuver, no security, no coordinated effort or actions on the objective, no casualty play, no prisoners...just advance and shoot.

I had fun, but as Chem said, just a game...I quit going because there are better things to do on a Saturday. Maybe my expectations were too high.

King, if you have a serious group of disciplined boys and a clearly defined goal to practice small unit tactics with realistic fire and maneuver, paintball could be a valuable tool. It is safe, cheap, legal and self-adjudicates attrition that cannot be argued. It is a bit limited, like MILES, in that concealment stops the "bullets" like cover would, so keep in mind it can build deadly habits to your survivability.

The biggest drawback to civilian paintball is your paintball gun has almost no characteristics of the weapon you'll really use. That is a serious training obstacle only overcome by lots of live fire exercise.

The second biggest drawback is realistic casualty adjudication. Cheaters will keep fighting when concealment (shrubs, grass, branches, plywood) stops paintballs or lasers as if they were behind good cover. This type of thing instills habits that cost lives and failed missions. To overcome this, you need an OC (observer/controller) who is unbiased and can "kill" or "wound" players on the spot for surviving something that real bullets would've scored kills. Without OC's, you're setting yourself up.

The third biggest drawback, I put this 3rd because I don't know who your fellows are, is the human element in that type of training. You know, the guys that cannot lose or be wrong. If egos can't be left in the truck, then no training tools will facilitate any time of proficiency yall want to achieve...may as well stay home and knit hats for them egos to stay cozy.

Biggest plus...safe. Paintball facilitates darn near anything you want to practice as long as some common sense is enforced. (Goggle, gloves, etc)

Second biggest plus...low profile. So long as you don't turn the curb into a parking lot or have 30 guys screaming near a neighborhood, you can skip your training around different areas to use a variety of terrain.

Third biggest plus...paintball + OC's, you're not going to find anything better to enforce survivability techniques and teach coordinated fire/maneuver without investing in expensive simunitions, which even with proper equipment sim rounds hurt people training. (A good friend of mine will be blind in his right eye before he's 40 because at 29 years old a 5.56mm sim bullet pierced the corner of his ESS goggles at Ft Lostinthewoods' MOUT site.)

If you have the right caliber of guys, some training will be a force multiplier.

[kingnothingugm]

Originally Posted by delta13soultaker

When I was stationed in Germany in the 90's in a mech Infantry company, my platoon did paintball for PT ever 1st and 3rd Thursday of the month...it also carried over to part of out Sergeant's Time training. We got a big discount for renting/buying bulk gear.

It was good training; I liked it better than MILES. (Simunitions hadn't become well excepted yet.) We went squad versus squad in the woodline behind or across the street from the battalion. We practiced our tactics right out of FM 7-8 and had great fun. It was entirely NCO led and built good teamwork.

Fast forward a few years I'm stationed in Texas and still have a bunch of paintball gear. Some guys in the unit were doing speedball every weekend. They also dabbled in capture the flag, sudden death etc.

I hooked up to go paintball with them a few times. Some guys there were Army, but lots they brought with were civilian friends. When it came to tactics...NONE, all they had was ego but no technique. Everyone wanted to be chief or Rambo the ninja sniper. No scenarios, no planning, no operational brief, no command and control, no teamwork, no overwatch, no support by fire, no supported maneuver, no security, no coordinated effort or actions on the objective, no casualty play, no prisoners...just advance and shoot.

I had fun, but as Chem said, just a game...I quit going because there are better things to do on a Saturday. Maybe my expectations were too high.

King, if you have a serious group of disciplined boys and a clearly defined goal to practice small unit tactics with realistic fire and maneuver, paintball could be a valuable tool. It is safe, cheap, legal and self-adjudicates attrition that cannot be argued. It is a bit limited, like MILES, in that concealment stops the "bullets" like cover would, so keep in mind it can build deadly habits to your survivability.

The biggest drawback to civilian paintball is your paintball gun has almost no characteristics of the weapon you'll really use. That is a serious training obstacle only overcome by lots of live fire exercise.

The second biggest drawback is realistic casualty adjudication. Cheaters will keep fighting when concealment (shrubs, grass, branches, plywood) stops paintballs or lasers as if they were behind good cover. This type of thing instills habits that cost lives and failed missions. To overcome this, you need an OC (observer/controller) who is unbiased and can "kill" or "wound" players on the spot for surviving something that real bullets would've scored kills. Without OC's, you're setting yourself up.

The third biggest drawback, I put this 3rd because I don't know who your fellows are, is the human element in that type of training. You know, the guys that cannot lose or be wrong. If egos can't be left in the truck, then no training tools will facilitate any time of proficiency yall want to achieve...may as well stay home and knit hats for them egos to stay cozy.

Biggest plus...safe. Paintball facilitates darn near anything you want to practice as long as some common sense is enforced. (Goggle, gloves, etc)

Second biggest plus...low profile. So long as you don't turn the curb into a parking lot or have 30 guys screaming near a neighborhood, you can skip your training around different areas to use a variety of terrain.

Third biggest plus...paintball + OC's, you're not going to find anything better to enforce survivability techniques and teach coordinated fire/maneuver without investing in expensive simunitions, which even with proper equipment sim rounds hurt people training. (A good friend of mine will be blind in his right eye before he's 40 because at 29 years old a 5.56mm sim bullet pierced the corner of his ESS goggles at Ft Lostinthewoods' MOUT site.)

If you have the right caliber of guys, some training will be a force multiplier.

This was my general belief. While it won't be an end-all training method and it won't be as effective as Government funded training or actual combat, it will have an effect on teamwork. It will also have the advantage of helping to weed out the "invincible" types. Individuals who are never wrong or can't be beat for any reason only have a negative affect on a unit and can be evaluated. Common sense and, like you said, someone to observe and "kill" or "wound" could make this an effective training method. It can be fun, creates comradery, helps to build trust, expose those with good leadership, and when planned correctly can enforce good techniques and tactics, and is cheap and under the radar. I agree with what you have said. It is a cheap alternative to "actual" training, but, as close as some will ever get to combat training. If combined with other methods, it could make a big difference in a combat situation.

[islenos]

Originally Posted by delta13soultaker

No scenarios, no planning, no operational brief, no command and control, no teamwork, no overwatch, no support by fire, no supported maneuver, no security, no coordinated effort or actions on the objective, no casualty play, no prisoners...just advance and shoot.

Remember, Professionals are Predictable, it's the Amateurs you gotta watch out for. Playing against civilians will sharpen your skills in Counter Guerilla Operations.

Enemy advances, we retreat.
Enemy halts, we harass.
Enemy tires, we attack.
Enemy retreats, we pursue.
-Mao Tse-Tung

[delta13soultaker]

Originally Posted by kingnothingugm

This was my general belief. While it won't be an end-all training method and it won't be as effective as Government funded training or actual combat, it will have an effect on teamwork. It will also have the advantage of helping to weed out the "invincible" types. Individuals who are never wrong or can't be beat for any reason only have a negative affect on a unit and can be evaluated. Common sense and, like you said, someone to observe and "kill" or "wound" could make this an effective training method. It can be fun, creates comradery, helps to build trust, expose those with good leadership, and when planned correctly can enforce good techniques and tactics, and is cheap and under the radar. I agree with what you have said. It is a cheap alternative to "actual" training, but, as close as some will ever get to combat training. If combined with other methods, it could make a big difference in a combat situation.

Right.

The hardest thing to train, if you're going to US conventional proven tactics (FM 7-8) is the basic fundamentals.

Staying on line, for example. Sounds very easy. Your new guys will bunch up and mask each others fire in a 20' movement.

Alternating bounding techniques. Some will not grasp that they are fighting as a team; they'll shoot when they should be moving or move too far.

I'm up, they see me, I'm down. Some guys think they can bound 50 yards before someone can shoot them.

Counter-attack/security. Sounds easy to just pull security facing outwards on the objective while the actions on are executed. (Search the enemy dead, find the wounded, stabilize the wounded to move, consolidate enemy weapons etc). Nope...undisciplined will be watching whats going on inside instead of outside...junior leadership will fail to move guys to interlock sectors of fire. The easiest time to massacre a small unit is in about 5 minutes after they take an objective and start getting distracted by the stuff in their perimeter.

Everything that seems simple will be complex.

Standards must be clearly defined and relentlessly enforced.

Clearly define a goal for each drill and train the drills individually:

(Crawl) Do Barney-speed kindergarten level walk throughs of your tactics. Make a sand table and rock drill it. Get feedback so you know they know. (Don't let people war game and what if your basic tactics. What if this that? Okay what if? No what ifs, this is the scenario.)

(Crawl more) After a talk through/rock drill through is successfully completed, have a few guys already up to some proficiency on the tactics. Have them do a low speed demonstration while they talk through their actions.

(Walk) Go through the drill at low speed and short distance. Talk and explain. Once successful, let them go through on their own, dry fire. Stop the drill to make corrections, recock and start over as many times as necessary.

(Run) Once they are not messing up walk throughs, let them go combat speed with ammo (paintball). Their first couple times will be FUBAR.

After each live run through, have the OC's listen while you ask the unit what was the mission, what was the plan, what was supposed to happen...then what actually happened. NO fingerpointing, no blaming, no ego, just honesty. They and the OC need to pick 3-5 things they did good and can maintain, and 3-5 things they sucked at and should improve. Leadership must take notes. Make sure you let the OPFOR leadership toss in a sustain/improve too...he's a valuable training asset.

Hope this helps you get started.

Also...remember that battle drills are a culmination of individual techniques. Your men cannot execute a small unit tactic correctly if they first aren't proficient at individual skills...low/high crawl/3-5 sec rush, use of cover, buddy bounding, load/fire/malfunction procedures, action on contact/3-D's (shout distance, direction, discription of enemy), getting on line, searching dead, searching prisoners, treating/stabilizing/moving casualties.....

None of your guys can be perfect, but toss the non hackers.