Ever tried a command structure?

[WhiteHawksan]

I think you meant. Some people let their egos run hot and start ordering people about like they somehow have more tactical skills than Rommel.

 

Principal follwos over, but tactics do not.

 

As I mentioned earlier, at airsoft, you engage an enemy at 40m, now, I'm assuming a fairly fit airsofter, no XXXXXXL weekend warrior, he can run 50m, ion maybe 7 or 8 seconds. You won't be able to hit him while he's sprinting, if you think you can, you're deluding yourself. You might get lucky. But lets assume for this that you don't. All real world tactics based at 400m infantry engagement are based on the fact that you're 400m away. at 40m away, in 8 seconds I'm 40m away 50m in another direction. Or, 90m away and out of range. You can engage and withdraw from combat very easily in airsoft without getting hit. It changes the game entirely when someone can simply, run out of range in broad sight and you haven't much of a chance of hitting them.

 

That's just to do with engagement distances. I could list on and on and on. Penetration of rounds, casualties and effect. Spawn, the fact that the dead when they come back know where you were etc.

 

There is no airsoft general school, and no zen masters. You don't know much more than the next man, so trying to order people about like you're some kind of Desert Fox is simply pretentious bull

[Hoot]

I've seen many a military men fall flat when airsofting the first time. It's just not the same thing. That being said, military small unit tactics can and do work. If practiced can be very effective. I've seen it and I've done it, not every time, but a lot of the time.

 

Somethings are simple and some are more complex, but most military/law enforcement small unit tactics can be adapted to work for airsoft extremely well. In the states a lot of people do want to be Rambo, but in SoCal at least there are quite a few different teams and some are more serious than others.

 

I know my group of guys uses lots of military based tactics for simple movement and it's usually very effective. But then again we make up the small number of players who have experience in out in the world.

[Danke]

Here's my story; this weekend we're out at a skrimish. A bunch of new guys and the regular vets.

 

The last scenario of the day is a VIP escort mission. The VIP is armed and has to be moved down a marked route to a goal within a time limit. No respawn for the escorts and one hit on the VIP ends the game. The escorts can only venture 10 feet off the road. Anything past that is out of bounds.

 

My team is 3 insurgents. We have free reign of the field and no respawn etc. 2 experienced players and one new. 2 radios between the experienced players and I am the defacto commander.

 

In the past this scenario has always played out with the insurgents getting a bad case of buck fever and being wiped out despite the fact they control the ground.This time I laid out a hasty plan, put the new guy and the other player deep in the back 40 and myself out as bait. I'd start to draw fire when the VIP reached nice spot for them to run up from behind.

 

As soon as the game went live the first thing the new guy did was lone wolf his way off from his partner and get shot. The second thing that happend was that my guy's radio battery died.

 

Despite those 2 glitches the plan worked as advertised. The escorts zeroed in on me and I kept them engaged long enough for my partner to shoot the VIP.

 

I won't make any bets but I'm guessing the next time the new guy plays he'll wind up keeping his eye on the ball.

 

.

[sigma3]

There is no airsoft general school, and no zen masters. You don't know much more than the next man, so trying to order people about like you're some kind of Desert Fox is simply pretentious bull

 

You seem to be suggesting that leadership is not a skill, and that everyone is innately of the same ability. Forgive me if I'm misinterpreting you, but - bull *fruitcage* *suitcase*.

 

Some people who intend to lead scream and stamp and shout about and generally act like *albatrosses*. That's a sign they are not good leaders. Good leaders get people to follow them... that's all there is to it. The ability to come up with a plan -- ANY plan -- and work with others to execute it is fundamental to success. There's a lot of different leadership styles, some are better suited to what we do than others. Depends on the group of guys, of course. I agree fully with Hoot... there are obvious areas where real world TECHNIQUES (NOT tactics -- major difference here) do not apply. There are MANY areas where real world tactics DO apply, and work astonishingly well, ESPECIALLY when used against total amateurs.

[signal319]

Define tactics and techniques (I know there is a difference, between tactics, techniques and procedures but what is your interpretation?).

Leadership has a multitude of definitions, and that is something that would require its own thread. Command and leadership are also fundamentally different, for instance, one doesn't need to be able to lead in order to command. But issuing commands does not in itself make for good leadership.

[IBMedic]

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that there is leadership in a lot of airsoft games, just not the traditional kind.

 

What you often have happening is this:

 

There is one or two guys in the team, whether it's a preorganized or pick up team that are clearly above the rest in terms of skill and experience. And once the other player realizes this, they follow them implicitly. They may not take orders per se, but they do respond to suggestions.

 

Obviously, how well this works depends on who is "leading". Ironically I find that the most skilled players are also the ones who are more lone wolf in their tactics. They've fought through years and decades of airsoft/paintball/military that they have a good tactical sense and depend on no one else but themselves cause there simply aren't too many people out there at their level of skill and still willing to defer to them in terms of orders.

[WhiteHawksan]

Military:

Combat Techniques don't work

Tactics are easily translated

Strategy doesn't work.

 

In a unit leadership level (4-10 men) whoever is the most skilled should be followed. Everyone contributes to a plan, then 1 person takes command of the plan, because things get confusing when multiple people are issuing the same order.

 

At a team level, 3+ units, airsoft strategy is an unknown, there are reasons for this.

No strategy specifically for airsoft, sure you can learn, improvise etc. But there's no manual.

Inconsistency, squad A =/= Squad B. If squad A has 8 regular players with comms, bombs, and experience, and squad B are only playing their 3rd game. Ever. Squad A are going to be substantially more effective. This applies to friend and foe alike.

 

You have 2 squads, your objective is to take a defended building. there are 2 Enemy squads inside.

What do you do? Do you know the capabilities of your team? Unlikely, no-ones going to admit being rubbish. What about the enemy team? Do they have a clue? Are they 2 elite squads, or a bunch of noobs packed off on guard duty?

Because of the range and difference in levels of skill/training in each team/team member, you can have spartan style results very easily. Conventional strategy simply does not come into play.

[sigma3]

Well, that example you've just given is a really good example of a breakdown between airsoft and "real world." In the real world you simply wouldn't assault that building. In airsoft the situation is made even worse by lack of tools (no strategic surprise, no effective smoke/flashbangs/artillery/psyops/whatever). Yet in airsoft you will of course find more people with "suicidal" mentality and you might succeed despite all the disadvantages.

 

Either way, there's still a place for conventional tactics. You can still learn a lot from recon, probing attacks, suppression, and so forth. If you're playing a long term game you could wait hours for your chance to strike. You could assign a sniper to wear down the enemy one by one. There are still some options that a disciplined team could bring to the table.

 

Obviously, how well this works depends on who is "leading". Ironically I find that the most skilled players are also the ones who are more lone wolf in their tactics. They've fought through years and decades of airsoft/paintball/military that they have a good tactical sense and depend on no one else but themselves cause there simply aren't too many people out there at their level of skill and still willing to defer to them in terms of orders.

 

Yes, and that's precisely why you'll find the teams that have experience working together leading the way on the battlefield. Having the confidence to know that there's even one or a couple of guys watching your back who are gonna be right behind you makes a HUGE difference to the things you can do. My team certainly isn't the best out there, but we've been playing together a while, and we put in the time to do training sessions, practice hand signals and radio comms, and when we get out on the field at an event that allows us to cut through the ###### and get things done. I can't tell you the number of times at a big op where I'll see a whole squad of friendlies stacked up in a window or around a corner, trading ineffective fire with the enemy, accomplishing nothing. When we see this, we know we can use them as a base of fire, find a route to the objective, and hit it hard. At least three times this past weekend me and as little as one other guy were able to clear entire buildings that a full squad had been shooting at for ten minutes without result. Sometimes that meant we got lit up and killed. Oh well, it's airsoft. We took a lot more of the enemy with us. A big part of leadership is being able to simply step up and say "Guys, this is the stupid thing we're about to do, let's go."

[signal319]

The problem with most games I play at is almost always a distinct lack of momentum and manoeuvre. Both sides end up trading ineffective fire until one bold guy makes a dash for it and gets taken out before he's covered 20m.

 

My conclusions thus far:

- Effective leadership stems from players with confidence and / or skill, and the effect it produces is the inspiration for others to follow, even when things are going wrong.

- The fundamental differences between airsoft and real battle make the employment of conventional war-fighting strategies by and large useless, especially considering that the majority of airsofters are untrained and the same resources that would exist in the real world don't exist for airsoft (such as recce assets, fire support, the elements of surprise and fear). However, this does not stop the successful employment of conventional military thinking and basic skills at the tactical level. (Up to "platoon" level.)

- The majority of airsofters are unwilling to let themselves be bossed around by someone who claims to have superior ability in both command and leadership. However, if said airsofters look at how an individual plays, and think "well, he seems to know what he's doing", then they are more inclined to listen to tactical suggestions from that person.

 

 

All that is true when you're in a random group of weekend warriors, but it doesn't mean you can't still apply the same fundamentals of leadership and tactics and get results. Some people let their egos run hot and get angry if someone else tries to tell them what to do. Other people in that exact same situation think, "Thank god, someone who knows what they're doing and is willing to lead" and follow.

 

There is a night-and-day difference between a group of guys who have trained together as a team and a bunch of guys who happen to be wearing the same color at a skirmish. A big part of that difference is knowing who your guys are that have leadership chops, who's actually going to listen to orders, who can get the job done and who can't. This is the same as leadership in ANY organization.

 

I think I know what you're getting at. We've been to a couple of days where our team collectively excelled. One instance at a site last August stands out in particular. In one game we had pretty much the entire site locked down, with two of my lads on the upper floor fighting to keep the enemy up there while I was on the middle floor with the majority of the team as an occupation force. We had constant comms so we were able to identify where the enemy had escaped to and consequently we could go and deal with them. Now when I asked for two or three volunteers to go down to the basement to flush a few stragglers out I was met with no fewer than eight or nine bods all like "oo pick me pick me". Why? Well maybe throughout the day we'd quite possibly been amongst some of the most communicative and aggressive players on the field, always taking the opportunity to be first into any room or whatever, going for it and never backing down, always maintaining momentum. We seemed to have inspired a lot of confidence amongst the other guys. In each game, we never had any grand strategy or overall game plan - we simply talked to each other and responded to each situation as it unfolded. Our radios were instrumental. Another time, at another site, we stopped for play at lunch, and one of our team-mates came over to us and said "I like you guys. You seem to know what you're doing!" Make of that what you will. Either way, in this case, the "leadership" came through inspiring a sense of confidence in us and a willingness to follow even when we made tactically poo decisions.

 

On the other hand, that very same day, we had someone on our team that didn't take very kindly to my vocal and aggressive style of play. We'd been moving towards the objective and of course we got bumped. My instinctive reaction was to RTR and locate the enemy - standard stuff. Started to put some rounds down and saw about five or six enemy to my front. I called out a quick target indication to my team mates, and one of them said "stop shouting, you'll give our position away" or something of the sort. Things like this really get me. I mean, we've just been bumped, they can obviously see us and know where we are, what's the point of trying to avoid being heard. I mean, I'm shouting because I want to get stuck in there and take them out, not pussyfoot around trying to drop BBs on them from outside anyone's effective range and just waste time and ammo. Some people seem to still take the attitude that you should still be "stealthy" even after you've been contacted. I suppose up to a point you can do that, but by and large, if you're being shot at, THEY CAN SEE YOU. Anyway, rant over, don't want to sound like too much of a keyboard warrior.

 

The marshals, however, seemed to like our approach and rewarded me at the end of the day with a free bottle of ammo and a free pass to my next game at the site. Top blokes!

[scorch]

At my local site we had a large "scenario day" with 2 commanders per team. Because I was one of them and my team are used to how things work and formed about a third of our "team" for the day, we all split up and I used my team as squad leaders to filter information down to the rest of our players.

 

The other side had our rival team on it, but not in as great numbers so they had a diminished capability for keeping the info flowing.

 

We ended up winning by a massive margin, having over double the points of the opposing team at the end of the day with only one cock-up, and even that was caused by being too quick. We'd pushed too far forwards after calling in an airstrike, and lost a couple of guys to it.

[scorch]

At my local site we had a large "scenario day" with 2 commanders per team. Because I was one of them and my team are used to how things work and formed about a third of our "team" for the day, we all split up and I used my team as squad leaders to filter information down to the rest of our players.

 

The other side had our rival team on it, but not in as great numbers so they had a diminished capability for keeping the info flowing.

 

We ended up winning by a massive margin, having over double the points of the opposing team at the end of the day with only one cock-up, and even that was caused by being too quick. We'd pushed too far forwards after calling in an airstrike, and lost a couple of guys to it.

[IBMedic]

More and more I'm of the opinion that the key to effective teamwork is having small teams to begin with. it's easy to work with one other person, and often, one other person is all you need.

 

3 people is a little harder, but if you have one player that is a clearly skilled player then it usually works out.

 

Anything more than that and things start to break down real fast.

[sigma3]

True. This is why the military uses a system that makes sure that any one person is only ever responsible for tracking 3 other people.

[3vi1-D4n]

It very much depends on the mindset of the players, incentives, and the type of game, to be able to establish a command structure.

 

I go to a CQB arena to play, and no matter how good your team mates want to play as a team, the game's objectives, terrain, and respawn rules do not allow teammwork, or a command structure. Trying only leads to animosity between friends and other players. Basically the game is designed to scratch a trigger itch, and when players demand performance from a team, they get frustrated.

 

In a half ar$ed scenario game, falls into the same problems.

 

The florishment of teamwork and establishment of command struture is totally dependent on the goal of the game, and many people just want to treat it as a game, rather than an experience to test oneself. If the players don't feel as they have anything to lose, they will act without consequence.

 

I have been to some non-milsim scenarios where there are well defined objectives, harsh respawn rules, limited ammo, limited weapons, long duration with no resup, carrying heavy gear in the middle of nowhere. The most wonderous part is that, during these scenarios, command structure was naturally formed, and people started to look out for each other. As people have their skin on the line, they really try and do better so they make an attempt to work with each other.

 

With the right scenario in close country environments, airsoft is a better training tool than blanks and simunitions.

 

So it does depend of what you want airsoft to do for you.

[adadqgg]

I'll probably catch some flak for saying this but...

 

I don't really put too much stock on teamwork for airsoft.

 

Why? Quite simple: there is no command structure. People are disorganized and things rarely come together. Just my own experience and observation.

 

So... has anyone tried out actually giving command authority to a single player within the team, as in making someone the squad leader with the power to order teammates around?

It is true that most of the time people just run around like headless chicken.

 

That is with regular events.

 

When you get a organized structure going in an event, that is small step for you, BIG step for milsim.

 

Most importantly, the event needs to support having command structure, not just having it to try to look legit.

[Agent Hunk]

Disagree with some of what's been said. I like to shoot my gun as much as most, but the strategy and tactics of longer objective based games will always be my favorite. Out smarting and out maneuvering the enemy is more fun for me and my squad.

 

Which isn't run like some tyrannical regime. I'm the leader because I started the team and have the most airsoft experience but we all share ideas and generally trust each other to make the right call. Just last game I was pinned down but holding my own while my teammate was out of reach talking to another team (particular game at 4 factions). I didn't scream into my radio for him, or chew him out when I died. Just asked what was up when we met up again, turns out he saw an opportunity to complete an objective that was miles more important then the "recon" we were on and he went for it. A heads up would of tipped our hand.

 

Most smaller teams I know and work with are like this. The exception being the large "teams," who don't even seem certain of their true numbers and not everyone knows everyone else. I've seen smaller units run circles around them. When I say large teams I am talking about standing teams, not just a bunch of people thrown onto one side for a game. That's different and sometimes unavoidable.

 

All big games here have a command structure of at least a CO for each side. The smart ones ensure they develop it more. Solid communication is a game changer. You are always going to get the kids who just run off and shoot stuff but here most players are willing to work within the chain of command.Those who don't quickly regret it and listen or leave because they keep getting walked over by the enemy because it's impossible to contact or support them. If you have a command structure you can make sure one squad isn't stuck guarding a position all day, but gets to go out and stir up trouble while another squad takes over the base.

 

Earlier this month I was at a game where command was a joke so we never got any missions and just got stomped on all day since we were half their strength. I've seen smaller forces accomplish much more with solid communication and direction.

 

Going to disagree with no one more qualified to lead in airsoft then the next guy. I've played under and against people not qualified to lead a bake sale. It's not even so much about being a brilliant tactician. But when you show up to a game, with no maps, no radio, and no sense of the objectives, I see no reason you should be leading anyone. To the opposite spectrum you don't need to be yelling, screaming, and threatening everyone. Just get a feel for each group in staging, before hand on facebook, etc. With that you can get a good idea of strengths of everyone you are with.

 

 

Either way, there's still a place for conventional tactics. You can still learn a lot from recon, probing attacks, suppression, and so forth. If you're playing a long term game you could wait hours for your chance to strike. You could assign a sniper to wear down the enemy one by one. There are still some options that a disciplined team could bring to the table.

 

Agreed with this. Some places even have medic and squad rules that enhance the effectiveness. I guess it all depends where you play and the rules they use.

 

Nothing wrong with learning about conventional things and reworking them for airsoft. It's miles ahead of the sit behind a tree and empty your magazine and hope you hit the other team "strategy."

 

 

Call it pretentious if you want but it's not. Different people have fun in different ways and airsoft has enough games for all of them. The issues arise when people go to games clearly geared towards a different style and stir the pot.

[3vi1-D4n]

On the idea of leadership:

 

...In my experience those who start shouting orders are usually the ones who hang about at the back and don't have a clue what they're doing...

 

True, but strangely people still follow them as majority don't know whats going on. Those who do, run off to do their own Lone rangering.

 

Most milsim I've been to is the same. Normal games with some pretentious *albatross* rolling off how he was in the SASEALSBSFBI team 9 and barking orders over a radio which are more likely to get you killed than are of any tactical value.

 

Barking commands is always bad, as it indicates proper briefings/orders/intentions have not been expressed or delivered properly, However I notice even the best of leaders can get into a trap where they rely on their radios too much because the team members they have is untrained and aren't following commands or keeping comms.

 

The big question is: What is Milsim? (Seriously we could debate for hours on this)

 

Airsoft needs to be played more like a computer game than real life as far as I'm concerned. Basic military skills come into play, but it is a sport with its own unique quirks and differences from real-life combat.

 

Actually guns is just a tool. If we are immune to bullets and have practically unlimited supply of ammo, we would treat real steel the same as we treat airsoft.

 

Military skills/tactics/procedures serves to maximising your resources' effect on achieving the strategic and operational objectives while minimising the effort, risk and chance of your own casualties/fatalities. Military skills is predominantly planning, leadership, and management principles while understanding/using the tools (weapons). Military science works to continually develop these skills in order to be more effective and efficient. Military action cannot have one without the other and goes hand in hand, as it is with Milsim.

 

Like WhiteHawksan said, there's no one uniquely qualified to lead airsofters into "battle" any more than the next man.

 

Disagree.

 

A poor leader barks commands, demands performance, sets unrealistic goals. We all start off there though.

 

Leadership is about realisation of a goal, and then how one brings about people with different strengths and skills, planning and scheduling their actions to craft out a machine to achieve it. To achieve this, a good leader trains, teaches, and put emphasis to promote a positive team/organisation to sustain itself.

 

While there is varying styles of leadership out there, fitting for each type of team. There are some VERY GOOD leaders who can adapt and change their styles. A good leader knows when to let go and when to step in, empathic towards his/her team mates, craft realistic plans and goals, understand the limitations of the plans, deliver the plans, motivate and coordinate team mates, and evaluate what went right and what went wrong.

 

Most important part of being a good leader is knowing when to step down, or to disband the team.

 

So there are definately people more suited/qualified to lead than others.

 

I play with a group of really skilled dudes here and none of them use stocks on their M4/MP5 variants. They all use a foregirp instead and they beercan hold it.

 

Would never work in a real rifle with real kick, but this is Airsoft, and so they can get away with it.

 

Its not really about the weapons. Airsofters and real steel shooters always talk about how the weapons will win "the war".

 

The game is about exercising the collective will to excell. If the incentive of the game is not worthy enough to motivate people to excell towards the intended collective goal, then people will search individual goals to satisfy themselves (lone rangering), which often leads to arguing and ego boosting activities as a consequence (trying to justify individual satisfaction).

 

Its about aligning the right people with the right tools in the right numbers in the right directions at the right time. The right game structure will support this. The wrong game will just be another disorganised clusterf**k.

[Danke]

Airsoft is a very good example of a meritocracy. Players that can lead well will gravitate to that position and the others will follow them based on their track record. Regardless of why you're playing airsoft I'll wager a stiff bet that there is not one out there who does this to get peppered with welts and loose every game or scenario they participate in.

 

Now you can also be a good leader but for the purpose of your enjoyment step back from that role. If you spend your workweek in a leadership role then you may not want to be on the field making the calls.

 

You can be a very good player and not be a good leader. It's two very diferent skillsets.

 

If someone does not want to lead you can't force them too. If someone does not want to be led you can't pressure them to obey.

[3vi1-D4n]

Airsoft is a very good example of a meritocracy. Players that can lead well will gravitate to that position and the others will follow them based on their track record.

 

True to an extent. It depends on the game and the objective of the organisation/game.

 

I have seen people gravitate towards totally incompetant leaders in badly designed games. The reason is that the bad leaders don't realise its a totally fruitless game and continually push for his own agendas and take as many people along for the ride, and people have nothing better to do but to follow the person with a plan. People who plan bad games, are those from organisations are geared short term enjoyment, where there is a for high turnover/low commitment, and hence bad leaders gives the people direction in a badly designed games. Over time, people will get fed up (Arab springs comes to mind).

 

This then promotes a poor standard of leadership, as many people will think that this is THE only way to lead.

 

Now you can also be a good leader but for the purpose of your enjoyment step back from that role. If you spend your workweek in a leadership role then you may not want to be on the field making the calls.

 

Yes. It does depend what you want out of airsoft.

 

But if you truly live by good leadership principles you would naturally promote meaningful existence and continual improvement in self and others. That will naturally resonate in the personality.

 

You can be a very good player and not be a good leader. It's two very diferent skillsets.

 

Different but not mutally exclusive in this society.

 

You might be very good at shooting, but if you can't work with someone else to cover their back or to provide covering fire for an assault, you are useless to the team. That realisation of where to cover and when to provide covering fire is the basis of leadership; knowing what needs to be achieved, when/where to achieve.

 

If someone does not want to lead you can't force them too. If someone does not want to be led you can't pressure them to obey.

 

Agree, though...

 

Everyone wants to be lead, as it is in our instinct to follow. Its the situation that determines whether we do our own thing or whether we should follow.

 

It is whether the game's collective objective and supporting incentives are enough to guide people to their desired objective, that determines the likelyhood of people following or doing their own thing.

 

Very simply:

 

A game where you throw people into a foreign land, to navigate out of the area, which has a high threat level, with limited weapons and resources, naturally people will form a team as survival (the objective) depends on this.

 

A game where it doesn't really matter if the objective is achieved or not, where the penalty for bad behaviour is not strong enough to discourage this from happening, creates a game where people seek their own inidividual objectives to enjoy the situation.

[WhiteHawksan]

I think people misconstrued what I meant a little.

 

What I mean is people can be good LEADERS but not airsoft STRATEGISTS.

 

I do agree with Hulk though, some people are just inept. But for those who've been in the military, and seen tactical planning meetings and such like, they don't make these plans up off the top of their head like we do in airsoft, there's manuals, training, experience and a whole host of other stuff that goes on before they put a plan down.

 

It's like me writing a computer program, sure at the time I just waffle it out my head, but it's based on principles, years of training, best practice, security, reusability, knowledge of hardware, software, compatibility etc etc.

 

In airsoft, it's basically just your own experiences and common sense.

 

Some people have a bit more than others, some people shouldn't be trusted to run a bake sale without disaster occurring, however, there are no specialist airsoft strategists, all too often it's the people that like to believe they are who don't really have a clue who try and take control and push to be their fantasy general and cause such annoyance and grief.

[3vi1-D4n]

Yeah. airsoft is based on own experiences and common sense, but the experience is often dependent on the game style you were introduced to. As soon as you are used to hicaps/quick respawns/meatgrinder games, you will tend to adapt a playing style which will not be able to change or adapt to a team based/heavy tactics and strategy environment.

 

Hence if you start off on the wrong foot it will take a long time to change.

 

There are tactical (operational) leaders and strategic leaders. Both does the same thing in a way, which is to recognise the need, the resources to fill the need and to coordinate the resources, but also to build internal capacity. Strategic leaders deal with intentions, positioning, point of differences, doctrine and overall picture, which is at a very high level. Tactical leaders deal with here and now, interpreting enemy actions/intentions, formations, and getting the right arcs of fire, and keeping guys trained so that they can be alive long enough to do their job. They are both similar just at different levels.

 

Reason there are no specialist airsoft strategists is because:

 

- Strategy is dependent on whether the goal is worthy/costly to aim for. In airsoft the goal doesn't involve life or death, or money, or the livelyhood of people. Getting hit is acceptable. Its like playing poker without money you won't see people fold because there isn't really any pressure.

 

- And because there is no external incentives to improve, for most people there is no need to actually put some thought into it. This means people don't really put the same effort as real life with real rounds.

 

- This means that there are no institutions/combat schools like Westpoint/Sandhurst to train potential leaders and strategists.

 

It really is a shame because airsoft can offer an excellent learning environment for training yet still be fun enough to have a few laughs. Only through this way it can become an actual sport. But it can't, because it would take too much effort to build enough people with that military science mindset.

 

This is why you will rarely be able to see coordinated platoon/company level deliberate attacks in most airsoft games, as it will be fought either individually, or in scenarios it will be in small teams of 4-10, and will nearly always be uncoordinated.

 

However if you change the respawn penalties, up the FPS and limit the resources available, then players will then see the need for leadership, planning, teamwork, and command structures.

[sigma3]

Yes, exactly. Consequences and game design shape player behavior. I've always believed this in all forms of game design... and it needs to start making its way into more airsoft games. I've seen games that had unique rules that COULD have been interesting ruined because some players refused to behave differently from their normal trigger-happy selves. The correct move probably would have been for game staff to immediately ask them to leave, because otherwise everything else just falls to their level.

[Danke]

The more reliable gas guns get the more common they'll be and the better chance of no spray and pray hi-cap users.

 

When you have to think and pick your shots you have to think about other ways to get the job done other that welding the trigger down till a BB eventually hits the the other player.

[3vi1-D4n]

....I've seen games that had unique rules that COULD have been interesting ruined because some players refused to behave differently from their normal trigger-happy selves. The correct move probably would have been for game staff to immediately ask them to leave, because otherwise everything else just falls to their level.

 

The funny thing for me, I ran a game where the DS wanted to see more trigger happy battles, and change the game penality rules to have 10 sec respawns from the 15 mins respawns for one whole team, without informing other DS and players. The 100 man game crashed and burned.

 

Its almost like trying to determine economic policies. Some people see short term stimulus packages (monetary policies, dropping interest rates, allows people to take more risk -> Hicaps, unlimited ammo, quick respawns) being the key while other see a longer term government interventions (infrastructure, education, fiscal policies -> forming command structure, training teams, and creating games which is more taxing/challenging to promote collective enjoyment, rather than individual enjoyment).

 

How does it relate to airsoft? Actually...everything. Scary to say, but a conservative airsofter will run games different from a socially focused airsofter and will produce very particular player mindsets, game styles and teams.

 

Quite fun now thinking about it, planning an airsoft game is like running a small country

 

Getting back to the initial quote, asking someone to leave a game is kinda like deportation then?

[FireKnife]

Just to chuck in my 2p.

 

Well in the case of the average Sunday game you will get three groups:

 

1. The team that are all mates with each other and practice as a team.

2. The small groups that are mates / hire players and just want to have fun and shoot things.

3. The lone players that either flank or ignore command and orders, more focused on racking the K/D ratio etc.

 

Now within the first option you get a basic team setup, they know what each other does, they can be effective in the field and keep to themselves for the most part, so for them, outside of their own team it wont' really work. For the second option they are there to have fun, they might heed the odd word from other players but to them it is a game and they enjoy it blatting away. The final option are there to do what they want and go home after, they can;t be bothered with command and see other players as fodder, something to keep the bbs off themselves.

 

While you do get other types of people attending games these are the common ones and each either doesn't care for the concept of a command structure or has one that is within their own group.

 

In Milsim games i am sure it works well but the best you are going to get in a Sunday game is teams that operate within themselves (i have tagged along with a few in my time) and know themselves, but don't include others due to being unsure as to how they would react to an order.

 

Oh and to finish off you do also get those that sit behind the lines and bellow orders to move up, in those cases i just step back behind them and say, 'ok your at the front, lead by example'

 

'FireKnife'