The primary purpose of reality-based, force-on-force (F-o-F) training is to develop experienced-based, “been there, done that” decision-making: to mentally, psychologically and emotionally program the mind for success.
It's important that training scenarios present realistic behavioral threat cues under highly stressful, realistic conditions to learn how to recognize threat indicators, interpret them, and apply appropriate tactics. I believe it's essential to have an understanding of the mechanics of conflict to gain the most from AirSoft F-o-F training and to ensure you don't learn bad habits that can get you in legal jeopardy or killed.
Training scenarios must be tightly scripted to force the trainee out of his comfort zone – compelling him to make decisions under extreme psychological and emotional duress – and to ensure the trainee's reactions are the only variable. Under these highly stressful conditions it's not unusual for trainees to mentally freeze or to make stupid decisions with deadly consequences.
The intent is to obtain realistic gunfighting/alternative-force experience so you have "prior experience" to draw from as you program your O-O-D-A Loop to orient quickly to a situation, allowing you to "Observe" and then intuitively "Act", bypassing the need to consciously progress through “Orient” and “Decide”.
IMO, the whole purpose of realistic force-on-force training is to exercise the "orientation" part of Boyd's O-O-D-A Loop. It does several things, some of which:
* Provides the successful experience needed to develop self-confidence, and condition your sympathetic nervous system (responsible for triggering psycho-physiological reactions to fear) against activation in a real fight. Ideally, the mind regards an actual force encounter as "just another training drill," which frees it to creatively address tactical problems. ("Training should be bloodless battle and battle should be bloody training." -- Roman Legion Maxim )
* Provides experience required to develop intuition (gut feeling), enabling you to more quickly "read" and orient to an unfolding situation.
* Forces you to apply your intellectual knowledge in high-stress situations that penetrate your mind-time-space, shoving you out of your comfort zone and reveal possible conflicts between what you KNOW you should do versus what you ACTUALLY do.
* Identifies your personal weaknesses, which allows you take action to improve yourself. The training should allow you to "train to failure" but not "train for failure" (i.e., "got ya!" scenarios).
In regard to gunfighting, it appears that sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activation (fear response) is the biggest reason for poor marksmanship. When the SNS is inoculated against activation by reality-based training, actual gunfight marksmanship increases substantially. You perform as you have trained (provided you've developed unconscious competence-level marksmanship skills), which decreases your overall mental load to allow you to solve spontaneous tactical problems.
It appears that most people who’re unfamiliar with F-o-F training are preoccupied with learning if they can hit a live, moving target, hence the obsession with marking projectiles. While this is okay under certain conditions, there's a lot more to be gained than merely learning whether or not you can get good hits on a live bad guy. Indeed, marking projectiles have the potential of programming the bad habit of expecting to see where your hits land on an adversary during a gunfight. Better yet is to have the bad guy role player realistically "react" when he is shot at or hit a predetermined number of times. This is part of scenario development.
Properly employed, AirSoft F-o-F can be a powerful training tool. Improperly used, it can set up trainees for failure. Beware!
Properly structured, emotionally charged scenarios are key. Good role players are also required.
Marksmanship is nothing more than hand/eye coordination skill, i.e., manipulate the trigger without disturbing the sights.
The inexperienced who question the value of AirSoft for marksmanship training ought to consider the observations of Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (
www.killology.com), as cited in the book, Training at the Speed of Life, (Volume 1, p. 58), in regard to first person shooter video games:
In Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill, Grossman and DeGaetano detail how:
Michael Carneal, the fourteen-year old boy who walked into a Paducah school and opened fire on a prayer group meeting that was breaking up, never moved his feet during his rampage. He never fired far to the right or left, never far up or down. He simply fired once at everything that popped up on his 'screen.' It is not natural to fire once at each target. The normal, almost universal, response is to fire at a target until it drops and then move on to the next target. But most video games condition participants to fire at each target only once, hitting as many targets as possible, as quickly as possible in order to rack up a high score. It's awful to note that of Michael Carneal's eight shots, he had eight hits, all head and upper torso, three dead and one paralyzed. And this from a kid who, prior to stealing that gun, had never shot a real handgun in his life.
Equipment
Gun:
I use KWA "G19" gas blow back (GBB) AirSoft pistols for F-o-F training. The KWA has similar (not identical) heft, feel and dimensions of an actual Glock 19, costs about $120.00, and can be used with my leather Glock 19 holsters. I've had good experiences ordering from
www.airsoftatlanta.com
I've fitted my personal KWA "G19" with XSSight Systems (formerly Ashley Outdoors) Big Dot (non-tritium) sights to match the 24/7 tritium Big Dot sights currently installed on my Glock 19 carry gun.
Accuracy of the KWA "G19" is more than adequate for F-o-F training.
I also painted over the blaze orange markings on the muzzle end of the slide. For reality-based training it helps to have realistic looking training aids. The intent is to condition the mind to regard the AirSoft pistol as a real handgun (instead of a toy gun).
BBs
Don't use white BBs for F-o-F training or personal defense training; otherwise you'll learn bad habits (looking for BBs in flight, expecting to see where your shots land on the target). Also, don't load the magazine to full capacity. Load it to the actual capacity of your PD gun. Better yet, for reality-based training, about a half-dozen rounds is adequate per scenario.
Marking BBs can only be fired reliably in spring action AirSoft guns.
Propellant
I use ordinary propane gas for propellant instead of "green gas." You can purchase an adapter from either Airsoft Atlanta or Airsoft Innovations for about $30.00 (see
www.airsoft-innovations.com). A cylinder of propane costs less than $2.50 compared to a bottle of "green gas," which can cost $10 - $15 (plus shipping).
PPE
If you plan to use Airsoft for F-o-F you need protective gear. I use a goggle/mask system and throat protector from JTUSA designed specifically for Airsoft F-o-F applications (see
www.jtusa.com/airsoft). In addition I suggest gloves with armored knuckles and crotch protection. (If someone made armored pasties I'd recommend them too as hits to the nipple can be extremely painful.) Airsoft BBs sting when they hit, and then the pain seems to increase in intensity for a few seconds immediately afterward. They can also raise quite a welt. I suggest clothing no heavier than jeans and a long sleeve t-shirt to retain the pain penalty value of getting hit.
In my experience, getting hit hurts, and then after nerves in the immediate vicinity of the hit recover (about 3-5 seconds), the pain increases in intensity for about 15-20 seconds. For me, its: "Ow," pause, then, "Son-of-a-beyotch that hurts!"
Spring guns are a great way to get started with Airsoft, IMO. I have a couple of $20 Walther P99 replicas that are accurate enough to shoot down a hallway and are plenty adequate for CQB training and for developing presentation skills (getting hits out of the holster). Plus they're the only ones that can shoot marking BBs with any degree of reliability. (Paint marking BBs get stuck in the bore about 1 in 5 times, in my experience, which is probably why they aren't recommended for anything other than spring guns. I haven't mustered up the courage to try them in my GBB pistols.)
When I made the move from spring to gas guns, boy was I impressed. I could perform dry fire (if you want to call it that) training with a "Glock" and not have to cycle the action after each shot.
Perhaps the best thing about Airsoft is that you don't need any special facilities to perform projectile based training, although the BBs can put shallow pockmarks in sheetrock from direct hits. (The BBs can also be a hazard to small knick-knacks and picture frame glass.)
Learning Resources
Depending on how deeply you want to get into F-o-F training, you might consider Kenneth Murray's new book "Training at the Speed of Life" (see
www.armiger.net). Murray is co-inventor of Simunitions. Volume 1 covers, in extraordinary detail, the psychological aspects of reality based training, training safety, and scenario development. It's not not light reading nor do I recommend it if you have only a casual interest in F-o-F training. Anyone who purchases this book with expectations to just jump right into F-o-F training after reading it is going to be severely disappointed. Doing it right isn’t easy. There's a lot more to it than just getting a bunch of buddies together and having an improvised skirmish. It will, however, open your eyes to the enormous value and power of reality-based training.
