Grouping your team

In some replies to satan and from reading I noticed another strategy possible when It came to how your team is organized. For starters, it eliminates the hard CO position which requires so much responsibility that it really saps the fun out of airsoft. Instead it implies the use of multiple leaders. The drawback of grouping is that you need about 20/25 people on your entire team to group in 5's who all carry varying primaries (of course most of us are going to have M4's, M16's, and G36's)

Slob also mentioned another grouping earlier saying you would have your raiding group, your defense group, your CQB specialists, and your special weapons. (Mind If i added some) Each of these groups appoints a leader, such as a team. these leaders are then given the task of working out with one another and co-ordinating their groups into the strategic plan of the day.

-Raiding and defense groups could be made up like so: 2 riflemen, 1 DM, 1 support, and 1 grenadier.
-Now for special weapons, these people would be your engineers, unmanned vehicle specialists (who...me?), your 'rocket man', and maybe 2 riflemen.
-CQB specialist are obviously going to have small arms (MP5, P90, MP7, M4 shorty...ect.) This specific group will raid a building or defend a building depending on the objective. This group is not neccesary on a woodland field, if you only play woodland and you have a extra 5, make them a raiding group or defense group.

Another tip, your defense group should be primarily support or heavy weaponry.

Im open to constructive criticism so have at it.

Where's the suicide bombers? (jk)
Right now I don't have much to criticize.

Love it nice piggyback off some of my tactics comments:). I do use something similiar to this whenever we play yes Im CO but my word is just final. We have all our sqaud leaders meet together first and then communicate over the comm. But I have my Spec Sqaud which is 2 riflemen 2 snipers 2 DMs and a Heavy gunner all ghillied and trained in stealth. Although there a sqaud they move in a wide spread to stay stealthy until they group for an attack.

The raiding/defence group you have assigned IMO is what a typical squad should be- very well balanced and useful for everywhere. What exactly is your definition of a grenadier in airsoft terms??

Jim

Nice Thread Lone Wolf,
( My response is going to be Loooonnngggg )
Here are some things to keep in mind when you start developing( Training ) your Teams,

First capabilities, not just weapons, but individual capabilities as well, and what tasks you are asking them to preform,

Example, I´m 45 years old, Blind in one eye, almost Deaf in both ears, have a bad Back and the knees are starting to act up as well, because of injuries that I sustained in the Military, I have to be extremly careful how I manuever on the Playing Field, if not, it is guarenteed that I will break one if not both Ankles,( This is Just an Example ), I can look at a map, and based on what the mission is, I can with real good accuracy tell you where the opponent will be and in what strength, , how they are organized, and what their defensive plan is. With certanty I can get you to exactly where you want to be on the Field, even though it may take a bit of time.

So now it comes to your Planning, and Team designation, Would you want a player like this in your Strike Force ?? If Time allows, sure why not, Would you want this Player in your Entry Team, if you are playing CQB ???? MMMMM, more than likly, no.

Second, What Teams do you want to Develop ?

Most Special Teams can accomplish more than one mission, or be trained in multiple missions that have the same basic principles. I´ll use some of my personal Favs to explain.
Ambush Team
Strike Force
Raiding Party
Manuever Force

The above 4 are all based on Violence of Action ( Overwhelming Fire Power ), Speed of Execution ( Maintaining the Iniative ), its just thier carry on mission that change.

Ambush Team, to inflict damage and demoralize your opponent.( Engagment of a moving element )

Strike Force, to cause the maximum ammount of damage to your opponents Strenght, while sustaining the minimum amount of damage to yours.( Attacking a Fixed location, but no entry, Hit Hard then Run Away )

Raiding Party, to gather, capture, rescue personel or equipment, through the use of fast aggresive offensive action. ( Attacking a Fixed location, Entry, Search, Withdraw )

Manuever Force, To engage, and with the maximum amount of effort, remove an opposing force from the Playing Field. ( Attacking a Fixed location with the objective of driving your opponent off, and keeping the ground won )

Even if you are in a small team, getting Special teams trained and developed, will eliminate alot of stress and confusion for the Operational Commander.

Don´t go getting Hung up on Names or Titles, I know that they sound ``Cool´´ but alot of what we do reguardless of Job Title is all the same,

Combat Engineer = Grunt with a Shovel
Designated Rifleman = Sniper in Training
Assistant Team Leader = Your getting Blamed when it goes Wrong also
Scout = Little better than a DR, but still a Sniper in Training
Heavy Weapons Team = Covering Fire/Fire Support
Sniper = an extremly well developed DR

Third, Remeber to use your teams inside of thier capabilities,

Using a Heavy Weapons Team in a strike force, is going to slow you down, and if it all goes wrong you may find yourself trying to fight your way out instead of just melting away into the terrain.
Putting a Sniper Team inside of your Ambush element would be a complete waste of talent and capabilities.

The Last an probably most important aspect to remember when developing and using Special Teams, Thier plan, must be a intergrated part of the Overall Plan, this means talking to and being talked at by Special Team, Team leaders.

All your Special Teams will be Mission specific,

If you are going to be taking up a defensive posture, then your team, as a whole is going to have to work as a complete unit, reguardless of what they might have for developed special teams. Again this goes back to being Hung Up on Team Names, `` We are the Strike Force, we don´t do Defense ´´, The best way to think of Special Teams, is to think of them as Special capabilities elements.
Everybody is working towards the same Goal, but some are more job specific. When it all comes down to Brass Tacks, reguardless of how you organize or develop your Team, everybody wants to be successful and have Fun.

Tu-Shea, nice reply...lol
Player capabilities is a variable that has to be consider. then again when they choose their role, they are going to choose the one best suited for them.

and of course training special teams is going to make any common sense, practice makes perfect.

Now what is this designated rifleman? We have riflemen then we have scouts as trainee snipers.

A Designated Rifleman, is your basic Grunt with a twist, he/she normaly works in a support role of an attacking force, Think of this position as Sniper 101, thier main role is to provide accurate covering fire, not just spraying and praying. 1 BB, 1 Hit !!

The term DR and DM are interchangeable in real world militaries because some languages don't have a word or grammatically it doesn't make sense to have one or the other(marksman, rifleman).

The only thing I would add/change is the Ambush team.

In my experience an ambush team should be made up of no more than 3 people. Why? Because even if its an open play the loss of one of these teams will not sway the battle. Also if an incorrect ambush or an unsuccessful ambush occurs then you have not wasted valuable players. Also I will say that snipers are not best used in an ambushing fireteam. Instead of a sniper if you want someone who has a little bit of range then include a DM, or even a rifleman with a longer gun(M16, or full length G36 etc etc). A scout squad would be a perfect choice for this role, as they fill many of the ambushing needs.

If you want to argue it with the whole "what if a platoon walks into your ambush area" argument, then have the ambush squad report that platoons position to a larger element that can turn around and ambush the OPFOR platoon.

otherwise it looks good, almost all the games I have played have used something similar to what was described above. Even the US armed forces use "fireteams".


sticks

Right, im starting to get ideas on how to re-organize the structure

ok,
Blitz - 2 riflemen, 1 DR (correct?) and Engineers/grunt skill
Scout - (sniper team) sniper/spotters/elite skill
Defense - Im guessing primarily support and heavy weapons would be fine still? decent skill
(Mission Specific) Specialized team - varies???/ elite skill? or would skill level also vary?

Now you can probably spread out blitz teams in blitz alpha, beta, Charley...ect. since you are only using 3-4 per group. and give each blitz team a 'decent' player.

Classifying skill levels is for tommorow...don't bring it up here I will later.

Sniper inside the Ambush element, Sticks your right, BAD idea, but using a sniper team as a security element is a super Idea, and if anybody should manage to get out of the Ambush zone, they can always engage Targets Of Opportunity



As for size of any of these teams alot of factors come into play,
How well are teams Trained ?
How often have the done these missions together ?
Weapon systems available ?
Size of the Opponents force ?
Terrain ?
Time, Day-Night, Been Playing long ?

I don´t want this to sound like Horn Blowing, but I am going to use a mission from the last big OP I was at,
My mission was a Delaying Action, a series of back pedalling ambushes, designed to win Time, for Friendly elements, in this case it was so that our sister Platoon, and Allied Company could Build a Defensive Perimeter around a broken down Tank, allowing the Tankers the time and security needed to Identify the Problem, and repair the tank. I had to delay the attacking forces for at least an hour.
Estimated size of Opponent Forces was 90 to 110 Players. 24 against 90, ooohhhh this is going to be Fun !!!
After looking over my platoon, doing a mission analasys and map recon, I picked 3 locations for platoon sized ambushes, instead of briefing just my Squad leaders, I briefed the whole platoon as to what I wanted and expected at the same time so that everybody was on the same sheet of music.
To make a long story short,
1st ambush resulted in 14 sent to respawn,
2nd ambush resulted in 13 respawn 13 captures,
3rd ambush resulted in 32 sent to respawn,
My losses were 2 Respawn and 1 captured ( and it was his own Fault )
Even though we were really pleased with the numbers, what was really impresive is the amount of time won, instead of an hour, we were able to disrupt and slow the opponent down for 5 1/2 hours, the tankers were long gone when the opponent forces made it to the defense, and at that point it just became a Wild West shoot out.

What made this a success ?
Everybody, down to the last man knew exactly what to do.
Everybody worked together.( except for my POW )
Everybody knew thier position and areas of responsability.
Nobody was trigger happy !

I think that TheJim summed it up best, it dosn´t matter about the size of your Team, as long as they are,

Quote :

very well balanced and useful for everywhere