What do you do to train your team?

[Cody Countryman]

Hey,
I was wondering what kind of drills you guys do to train with your Team and help them get better?

[ogrejager]

We generally play airsoft a lot. That seems to work.

[Snowman]

PointnShoot seems to work well.

[Darius137]

There are individual skills and team level skills to train any force.

First you want to define what you want to get out of training. What sort of games you play and how you expect to fight should dictate how your training fleshes out.

Then you want to do training for the individual, which can be things such as reloading magazines quickly, how to move instinctively between cover, how to aim properly and quickly, etc. "Shoot, move, communicate, kill" is a good motto.

Third you'll want to work on team level training, getting people used to working with each other and how to work as one strong unit, instead of strong individuals. A strong unit can defeat many strong individuals any day.

When you move, you'll have the basic elements of security (so you don't get ambushed and wiped out), control (so you move as a team and everything is organized), support (heavier weapons) and the main element (your primary shooters).

The mission of the infantry is to kill the enemy by means of fire (learn to use a weapon and suppress the enemy. When they fire a shot, you fire 3 back) and maneuver (if they are attacking you from behind cover, get an element from within your group around to their flank so they cannot possibly be covered from all angles unless dug in, which doesn't happen with airsoft usually).

[Darius137]

There are battle drills the Army or any military uses that follow these principles, and there are professional teams that use these techniques.

You'll have to adapt military technique to airsoft to make it successful. Often people fresh out of the Army won't realize this and a team of paintballers will walk over them on their own turf.

Train to the situation.

[Cody Countryman]

Yeah thats how I learned alot, is mostly by expeirience. Because I Started out Paintballing with a couple of my buddies, and we eventually formed a team. By the time we formed a team we already had alot of expeirence from paintballing alot, so working together, tactics, comunication all just eventually came natural to us by experience. Now im getting into airsoft also, so i really wanna train with the guys I airsoft with so everything comes natural to us. But I can;t really think of any good training idea;s, so i guess i just gotta play alot with them then!

And Snowman, I noticed your Location says Olympia. What school do you go too?

[Cody Countryman]

Thanks for the info Darius! I apreciate it.

[Darius137]

Yeah thats how I learned alot, is mostly by expeirience. Because I Started out Paintballing with a couple of my buddies, and we eventually formed a team. By the time we formed a team we already had alot of expeirence from paintballing alot, so working together, tactics, comunication all just eventually came natural to us by experience. Now im getting into airsoft also, so i really wanna train with the guys I airsoft with so everything comes natural to us. But I can;t really think of any good training idea;s, so i guess i just gotta play alot with them then!

And Snowman, I noticed your Location says Olympia. What school do you go too?

If you guys ever want to come down to the Portland area, my team does a training once per month. You can come talk to some of the teachers or cadre and get some ideas.

I like the idea of more teams out there training.

[Snowman]

I find that most of the time when our team tries to "practice", it degenerates into a regular skirmish.

I go to NCHS.

[Cody Countryman]

Yeah that would be nice! I probebly won't be able to do that till I get my license though. Which hopefully should be sometime during the summer.

[Cody Countryman]

Is that North Christian High School?
And I go to Tumwater High School, do you happen to know a kid named Logan Thorning? I think Thorning is his last name at least.

[Snowman]

Yep, Northwest Christian High. I know a couple people who go to THS, and as a matter of fact, Logan is on my team.

As not to clutter this place, to PM's we go.