Force on Force Training

[Jeff White]

I thought I'd start a new thread since we seem to have hijacked Steve's thread on which class to take first.

Paintball, Airsoft, Laser Tag and other games aren't training

This might upset some hardcorps gamers here but I believe it to be true. The tools of those games can be used to make training more realistic but if you play those games and think that you are trainging to survive an armed encounter, you are kidding yourself. None of these games is realistic enough to simulate combat. they can't be or they wouldn't be games. Competitors will do things they couldn't get by with in combat in the free play atmosphere on the paintball field or in the airsoft match because the limitations of the simulator and the rules of the game allow them to. In many cases, concealment becomes cover. Players can use the relatively slow velocity of paintballs and airsoft pellets to expose themsleves for a longer period of time then they could with live ammunition or lasers. MILES (Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System) as used by the military is probably the best tactical engagement simulator out there. But even it has a lot of limitations and requires good observer/controllers to get the maximum training value out of it's use.

So how do I train with my paintball/airsoft gun?

Don't despair, you can use these tools to conduct meaningful, realistic training. The first step is to forget about winning and losing. Playing armed hide and seek in the abandoned house on the back 40 of the family farm is training, but is it meaningful training? I would have to say that for most of us here it wouldn't be meaningful training. But there is a way to make it meaningful training.

The first thing you have to do is sit down and write out a list of all the little things you have to do to safely clear the abandoned farm house. At the top of the page, make two columns. One for the individual skills needed and one for the group or collective skills. You will need to train on the individual skills first, because you can't begin to function as a team, even a two man one, without everyone being up to speed on the individual skills needed to accomplish the task. Lets say, just for the purpose of this discussion that you are going to train a two person team to clear the farmhouse. What individual and collective tasks will you have to be proficient on to accomplish this? (This list is not all inclusive, but an example.)

INDIVIDUAL TASKS

1. weapon ready positions (low, high, indoor ready)
2. tactical movement
3. pie a corner
4. use white light
5. target ID (IFF)
6. communications techniques
7. search and scan techniques
   [/list=1]
   
   Collective Tasks
   
   1. Move as a team member
   2. enter a room
   3. clear a room
   4. engage a threat
      [/list=1]
      
      Now that you've decided what you need to train on, you need to decide how to train. Start at crawling speed. Sit down and have a thorough discussion of the task and how to perform it. Demonstrate the task for the student. First at full speed, then in a step by step, by the numbers mode. Allow the students to ask questions, repeat the demonstration as necessary. Now get them on their feet and start them performing the task, at crawl speed. Critique each step and make sure your student performs it correctly before moving on to the next step. After they master all the steps, pick up the speed. Once your student can perform the task to standard at full speed, you are ready to try the task in a force on force role. Choose the person who will assist you by being the bad guy very carefully. This person must be disciplined and understand that his/her sole role is that of a training aid. Just a tool, like the airsoft guns you are using. They aren't to add anything to the scenario. No sneaking up behind or hiding in the opposite corner and popping the student in the back of the head. They aren't ready for that yet. the OPFOR must be able to observe everything from his unique perspective and be able to articulate what he observed during the review of the exercise without interjecting emotion or his own opinions. After each itereation of the exercise, conduct an after action review. This is accomplished by the instructor moderating the reveiw. Have the student state the mission and then have the OPFOR state his. Then ask each side what happened, step by step. You'll find that the student will teach himself and you will only have to keep things on track or make minor corrections. The student also will retain these lessons better then if you just stood there and told him what he did wrong. Guide the AAR through leading questions to bring out points they miss. Then go back and repeat the scenarion. Remember train, assess, retrain. Once you have performed all of the individual and collective tasks to standard, you are ready to go free play. This is a slow process. It has to be, the topic is too important to take lightly. If you have a class of ten, expect to spend the better part of three days working up to the free play armed game of tag you started out wanting to do. The free play exercise needs to be controlled the same way the smaller ones were. It's only free play in the sense that the OPFOR can choose their own positions and make their own plans. They still must have the proper guidance about using techniques that may work with paint or airsoft but would be inappropriate for live ammunition.
      
      You can have a lot of fun with this, but don't lose sight of the fact that you're training, not gaming.
      
      Jeff
      
      
      edited to correct numerous typos

 

[Denny Hansen]

Good post, Jeff.

Denny

 

[BerettaNut92]

Thanks Jeff I'll reread it and redigest it (and call some 'volunteer' meat puppets to come over and play )...

Just curious, did you come up with all of this on your own??

 

[Jeff White]

Skunk,
I wish I could say I came up with this on my own. Wiser men then me developed it. It's the culmination of years of Army training experience. It was first formalized in the early 1980s as part of the Battalion Training Management System and then it evolved with the technology. The methodology does work as our Army's performance in combat has proven. The after action review concept was developed when MILES began to be used. I used this methodolgy in conducting training in the Army and for the police departent.

Training is fun, but it's also hard work. Force on Force training is very valuable, but you have to put preparation into it or it's not much more then an adult game of cops and robbers.

Jeff

 

[sanchezero]

Nice, Jeff.

With FOF becoming all the rage and very accessible with airsoft replicas I think it's easy to get caught up in the 'live action video game' fun, but it is kinda counter productive , though sometimes I just can't resist .

I definitely agree that focus is important to get the most benefit out of your time.

 

[dave3006]

Jeff, all FOF is training, including paintball. It does not take a genius to recognize that paintball cover and .308 cover are different things.

You practice many versions of FOF and learn from what applies to real life and discard the rest. You can do your own analysis. It is not a black art.

 

[Jeff White]

Dave,
I never suggested that paintball was a black art....Just that it isn't the most effective way to train FOF.

How does the untrained paintballer or airsofter learn what works in real life and what works on the game field? I have heard a lot of paintballers brag about whipping the guys from FT younamit who showed up to play last Saturday. But I doubt the results would be the same if the paintballers showed up at JRTC.

Let me ask you this. How many hours of paintball do you think it would take to train to the same standard in my three day training scenario? Where is the feed back and evaluation? I suppose you could say the sting of the paintball and bright colored paint is the feedback, but where is the AAR that explains to our trainee why he felt the sting of the paintball?

I will agree that you can learn something from it. But who is there to make sure the right lessons are learned? A sucking chest wound is a hard way to find out you learned the wrong thing last Saturday at the paintball field.

Jeff

 

[Devonai]

As I mentioned in the other thread, sometimes you can make an otherwise useless day at the field have some value IF you are willing to do everything right per training. You may get killed more than you win but if you're paying attention you might learn a thing or two.

I should say that the vast majority of my combat training is either with MILES gear or with Observer Controllers calling all the shots, not paintball. Sometimes I wonder why I'm defending paintball at all except that I have taken away a few useful lessons from the experience.

When I played paintball, we did in fact hold after action reviews. The opposition scarfed hotdogs and guzzled coke while my team discussed what happened and why. It became painfully obvious that our infantry training courtesy of the National Guard wasn't going to be of much use against the suicidal and reckless tactics of the hardcore paintballers. Not without a couple of paintball firing GPMGs anyway. Still, we continued to endeavor to use our training whenever possible to try and do it "right."

That being said, I will probably not play paintball again. BLUFOR tends to be more polite than those damn kids anyway

 

[dave3006]

Here are mistakes I have made in Paintball that have got me eliminated:

1. I stupidly exposed my head over the top of my bunker. You should always peek around the side. You give the other guy less to shoot at.
2. I set a predictable pattern of shooting and was eliminated.
3. I relaxed and looked around during a lull. I got shot.
4. I moved to a different position without thinking about who I would be exposed to. I got shot. Cover.
5. I moved for no good reason. I got shot. Impatience.
6. I ventured off on my own. I was pinned down and flanked by three players. Numbers count. One guy is in a disadvantage against two skilled people. You need friends with guns.
7. I was eliminated by a very well camo'd player in a jungle game. I did not scan my approach well enough. I almost walked right up to him.
8. I ran to cover without suppressive fire and was shot.
9. I picked the wrong group of people to pair up with and was over run by the other side. They were newbies. You would be surprized to know what it feels like to be over run.
10. I was eliminated 3 seconds into one game. I wasn't mentally prepared at the whistle. There is no grace period.

The beauty of all my stupid moves is that they are burned into my memory. I make these mistakes much less now. This is only a partial list. Most importantly, I have EXPERIENCED these mistakes and internalized the lessons.

I have done smart things too. But, the mistakes are more important because they are the things that get you dead.

Dave

Survive first, then win.

 

[dave3006]

Ten more mistakes that have got me killed:

1. My shadow gave me away around a corner. My opponent was ready and shot me.
2. Late in the game, I went back to a "safe" area. It was full of bad guys. They shot me. Never assume something is clear.
3. I got too close to a newbie. He shot me (my own team). I never underestimate the stupidity of new people with guns.
4. I listened to the bad advise of another player. He was calling me to move to a certain location. I did it and got eliminated. Never do anything anyone tells you to do without thinking it through first. Sounds stupid. But, true.
5. I used a car for cover. I got shot in the foot. Cars are terrible cover. Your feet are exposed if you peek around the sides. If you hide behind the tires (front tire in real life by the engine block), you have to look over the top. You then expose yourself to the entire field.

I can picture the time and day of all these mistakes. I think in many ways they do apply to real fighting. Can't learn this in a book. Someone can tell you these things. But, until you have done them, they are head knowledge and not fully internalized.

 

[Penforhire]

Good post Jeff.

I would add one positive thing about relating an average game of paintball to real life. The ease with which you can be hit by someone you had no idea was there, and by an inaccurate weapon! Gives me a whole 'nother level of respect for, say, patrolling Beirut. No way would I want to be that kind of target. And without huge superiority of numbers, being the aggressor against a trained stationary enemy is just a losing proposition.

 

[Sludge]

Nice post Jeff.

You didnt mention it specifically, though it could fall under your system, but I also think that Airsoft is a great training tool for force on force for things like car jackings, and other things a CCW might encounter. Where you start out in a weapons retention situation or a situation where you really must engage hand to hand against an armed attacker before you can even think about bringing a the handgun out of the holster.

Personally I prefer the airsoft guns. The airsoft guns are about the same weight, modeled after the real thing and can even have the blow back slides to simulate recoil. Ammo is limited too. All of which add to their role as a training aid.