Ever tried a command structure?

[-Cougar]

According to my experiences, there are always the two problems:

 

1. Most leaders are not really leaders, but people who think they know better

2. The other players have to "want" to be led. If they don't the best leader is worth nothing, cause people don't face any real consequences for not doing what is being told.

 

The best thing is to gather people and teams into platoons, that want to have a leader and do as he tells them. We do that, and it is a lot more effective.

 

We see that in events all the time, that unorganized players just lose battles for this very reason.

With an organized group of players you can do this:

 

or this:

[balberoth-the-destroyer]

Saying that all military tactics don't work in airsoft is as inaccurate a generalisation as saying that all military tactics work in airsoft.

Some work and some don't, the ones that do work tend to be the small-scale stuff, from individual movement techniques up to fireteam size tactics.

Anything larger-scale is barely applicable at best, but that doesn't make the entirety of military tactics invalid.

 

Proper military tactics often happen without you realising it, when I discover a group of friendlies bogged-down exchanging ineffective fire with the enemy I think "great, there's a base-of-fire element" and I go off with anybody who's willing to form the assault element.

The base of fire guys usually don't know that they've become the BOF, they just carry on doing what they're doing, and I try to use it as a component of a more effective tactic, just because they didn't know the tactic was occurring doesn't mean it didn't happen.

 

Anything above fireteam size is almost impossible to coordinate in airsoft on a walk-on day, and for a good reason, people have paid their money and will do whatever they want, and that doesn't include being bossed around as a pawn in somebody else's plan, even if the person in question is polite about it.

 

What I'm saying is, the basics of fire and movement work very well in airsoft, and that's the foundation of small-unit tactics, but you have to be a little creative to make it happen sometimes.

[ACManiac]

Often during games you can get a very informal structure going. In the beginning people go off on their own and ignore playing as a team. So my small team and I would work together with anyone who cares to join us. As the day goes on more and more people see the success we have and join with us as well. By the end of the day we would have like 4 randoms for every 2 of our team, enabling us to be like 2-3 fireteams. I think for random people to work together you have to lead by example to gain trust of the other players, and slowly more and more people will start to work together. It usually takes a while to make the structure happen. Often times players would tell me about how they had a great time working with us and becomes much more willing to work with people in later games. You have to be very polite though. Merely suggestions and just asking for covering fire to move and telling them you can cover them does the trick.

[oscar.cotton1993]

ACManiac is right. At many games there are alot of noobs. So when my team went we broke into squads two rifle men and one special weapon. I was left out so, What do I do? I go to a group of noobs ask them what their plan is and go with them. When they hit contact they all loose control and they ask the guy with the high powerd gun what to do and I asked who was team captain. And we followed his orders. Most of us got hit but it was all good. My point is if you want more organization, you have to create new leaders for the new players. Let them do some learning and do not shun them for not knwoing.

[sigma3]

Decisiveness wins followers and wins battles. Not unrelated.

[oscar.cotton1993]

Sorry got off topic. Yes Command structures are a plus, bot on and off the airsfot field.

[John_234]

Hmm, I have some mixed feelings on command structures. It's kinda like complex rules in a milsim game, or even a tabletop RPG - its completely dependent on the quality of the players.

 

At our home field there's a lot of new players that have good reflexes and just need a push in the right direction, so when they freeze up, often a "commander" arises that tells them to get out of cover and move up. Its never official, that sort of "structure" between the newer players and the walk-on newbies is a pretty normal part of playing there.

 

My last team, which is inactive now but still in touch, was a group of really good friends, twelve or so heads? Our "captain" was easily the best airsoft player I've ever seen, honest, a good shot with even the most basic of tools - a KWA Glock 19 missing its iron sights and a Echo 1 M4A1 with an ACM reflex sight. He had great stamina crossing the field and really knew how to work with people he didn't even know. He cut the team into fireteams that had a balance of our inexperiences and veteran players and set up comms for our mil-sim outings. His twin brother was our group sniper of sorts. Since we were all friends, it worked out well and said captain was the public face of the team that arranged games and made team alliances.

 

One time, I mouthed off because a site owner corrected my clumsy muzzle awareness. "Captain" asked me why I was ######, when I responded with a tirade he calmly explained what I did wrong and assigned me pushups (this was typical for newer players.) Didn't make it personal, just said that I was definitely in the wrong and there was no need to make a scene. He is a great guy, a great airsofter and really nailed the responsibilities of small-group command structure.

 

We did go to one or two large mil-sim outings with a concrete command structure. One of them was problematic, as the volunteer driver for our "technical" had he same patience, intelligence, charm and physical stature as a mentally retarded gorilla, but worst of all had access to a radio. So we would discuss tactical employment of the truck in a given scenario and he would chirp in with the conviction of an envangelist preacher to defend use of his vehicle that we "stole" without the permission he gave at the beginning of the day. There were moments where his stupidity literally drove the comms net for a two-hundred strong scenario into a shocked sort of silence. It was pretty bad.

 

Well, that and our event coordinator was a cheating *fruitcage*tard, which didn't really bode well for people following his presented command structure. It was still fun, but not really in the sense we'd expected and prepared for.

 

On the other hand, I often go to walk-on games and find the guys with comms and a solid team structure tend to kick the snot out of anyone else, so there's merit in structure even on the most basic level. Its just again, dependent on what your crowd is, and how receptive they are of that influence.

[Danke]

I think that many of the noted command structure failures often relate to game organizing problems. Not in a free for all drop in skirmish perhaps but anything with a hint of multiple objectives.

 

The last strategy based game I was at had a command structure and the game fell to pieces after the first objectives were reached. As has been said no plan survives contact with the enemy. So instead of the 3 sided battle with booby traps and other various surprises it became “ you guys go on the top of the hill, you other guys charge the hill again and again”.

 

It appears that some people build these scenarios like they were writing a book, each character has a role to play and things they must do as the day passes by. The problem is that the script is not flexible and as soon as real people plug in they utterly diverge from it.

 

If you build and play a scenario repeatedly you can rub the rough spots off but you can also wind up boring the players as it becomes stale. Also if a script tilts towards one side with a detailed scenario and the other side just gets told to wait in the woods till they see someone you know the guys with no objective are going to wander off and start making mischief.

 

I have a plan this spring for a day’s game. Once again, it’ll be a game with particular objectives and a back story. I am going to only hand out one objective at a time.

 

So instead of “Go to the woods, set up and secure a base, send out patrols, find the down aircraft and rescue the pilot, engage the rebel patrols, capture the rebel leader, find the dirty suitcase bomb, kill the bomb maker, recover the intel, rescue the princess, escort her to your base, call for an extraction, fight your way to your alternate, and so on” they will be told to got setup a secure base and that’s all. Once they do that they learn the next objective, and so on.

 

That way no one jumps the line, and also if things get offside you can jump to page six and not leave anyone wondering why they didn’t have to defuse the dirty bomb or whatever key objective you mentioned at the start that just vanishes in game. The teams just shift to an objective that suits the current gameplay. It will play out like a series of small skirmishes vs. a complex scenario. Then at the end of the day when you look back the entire picture will develop.

[Cannonfodder80]

If someone tried handing out punishments of doing push ups at my regular site, especially to a newer player, they would quickly find themselves being told to go *fruitcage* themselves. If you're going to try commanding others then keep it informal as if you go around acting like Gny. Sgt Hartman don't expect others to respond well

[John_234]

If someone tried handing out punishments of doing push ups at my regular site, especially to a newer player, they would quickly find themselves being told to go *fruitcage* themselves. If you're going to try commanding others then keep it informal as if you go around acting like Gny. Sgt Hartman don't expect others to respond well

It wasn't random people, and we more or less agreed to the scheme of things when the group was formed. If you did something stupid, it was a basic way to get it out of the way in an non-personal manner. I was one of the younger players and I flagged a lot of *fruitcage* people with a pistol that could have been live. I totally think I deserved it.

 

EDIT: Not implying we do the same sorta stuff today, as most of the younger dudes on the team are much older and wiser now, but even retrospectively I don't look upon it with ill will.

[DWZippy]

Someone should always be in charge. 1 person in charge of 5 folk is better than 6 people who all have their own ideas of the best plan of action. I'm not one for shouting, "orders" and punishment, but it's invaluable to have someone who knows what's going on. Anyone that says fireteams don't work has never been in a good one.

[John_234]

Small unit tactics are pretty awesome.