Tactics and Training with airsoft guns

[281 Quad Cam]

Agreed, I have used (duty) weapons modified to shoot paintballs for FOF training and I thought it was great training. There must, however, be someone with knowlege to impart, someone to guide the exercise, or it just becomes a juvenile game with silly toys.

Agreed as well...

I've played quite a bit of airsoft. It starts out very realistic, creeping, stalking, closing with the enemy. Moving in groups, making patrols, doing recon on the other teams positions. Trying to distinguish friend from foe in the woods, taking aim and awaiting a clear shot.

Than the first shot lets rip and it degenerates into a 3rd grade blast-o-rama and the game never returns to a hint of reality. The aimed first shot quickly gives way to correcting the visual stream of white BB's in flight. Magazine capacities run to the 500's. Guys are letting rip 2,000 BB's a game while I burn maybe 50-60. Sometimes geeks are cheating and not calling "hit."

I always had one kiddo out there threatening that if he saw someone not calling out when hit, he would load up his metal 6mm BB's and fire those. I always said, not me unless he wants to be countered with some 9mm JHP's. Ofcourse I wouldn't have done that. Luckily he never decided it was worth the legal consequences to launch 6mm metal bullets at 400-500 FPS at humans.

After several months I quit playing airsoft. Its not likely I will return.

 

[OneInTheChamber]

actually, black hawk down was not filmed with tokyo mauri's . Tokyo mauri's are all plastic; you must be thinking of classic army m4a1's, which have a metal body that is identical to the real thing. Trust me, I've owned both Tokyo Mauri's and Classic army airsoft guns.

 

[KogaShuko]

I dont see how "Constructive" airsoft could be bad. I used to play paintball a long time ago. I started when I was 11 and played regularly rec and tourny ball before I joint and after I joined the military when I turned 17. I am 23 now and havnt touched a paintball gun since well before I went to Iraq. However, I did it before the walmart influx of players and I never once played backyard ball. Some of the tactics I used. I did plenty of wooded training in the army but hardly any MOUT stuff. Instead the concepts were similar in rl in the desert. I was lucky enough to be over there with a few other people that actually played with me regularly. It was very interesting to say the least to see people with no MOUT experience at all.

So in whole as long as it is done right I dotn see why people should knock airsoft. However, if it is like backyard paintball and the kids are just running around in the woods trying to shoot like rambo and capping each other in the @$$ then it is useless.

I dont think the real thing ever resembles sitting and waiting for an aimed shot. Once you start shooting at each other a lot of that aiming is over. Most people dont understand how chaotic a fire fight gets. Stuff is flying everywhere, you cant hear or see anything, stuff exploding, and anything else you can imagine happening.

 

[Capt. Charlie]

281QC wrote

Than the first shot lets rip and it degenerates into a 3rd grade blast-o-rama and the game never returns to a hint of reality.

This can happen to skilled & serious people as well. When I worked for USNPS in 1976, a team from Las Vegas SWAT was brought in to teach an intensive, 5-day course in officer survival. We did night & day exercises in everything from high risk entries to countering "Panther stops" (any old timers remember those?). There were no simunitions, paintball, or Airsoft back then, & we relied on real weapons with blanks.

The last day of the training, we were given an all day scenario / test involving a barricade/hostage situation. Vegas SWAT guys played the bad guys. It started out well enough. Our team started with a briefing with floor plans of the building sketched out, BG weapons estimates, etc. Then the actual tactics of deployment were discussed and assignments handed out. My assignment was a right flank forward observer. The area was heavily wooded with no approach from the rear, requiring the main body of the team to approach head on, under cover, military fashion. When I got in position, the main body advanced, and of course the SWAT guys spotted them and opened fire.

Everything was according to Hoyle up to this point, and then it went to hell in a handbasket. Instead of retreating (hostage, remember), setting up a perimeter, and attempting negotiations, our team opened fire. I tossed two smoke grenades in front of the building for cover during retreat, but it only added to the melodrama, and within minutes, the whole thing deteriorated to a combination of WWII and the OK Corral. What the hell, we had LOTS of blanks! Even the SWAT guys later said they had a blast (literally ), but the training value? Zip. Zero. Nada. The rest of the training was priceless, but admittedly, during the scenario, we were 10 yr old's playing cops & robbers.

Whether it's airsoft, paintball, or simunitions, it takes everybody involved to keep things on a serious note, both instructors and students.

 

[Recon7]

I have never trained with airsoft, but i have with blanks. It can reinforce things you are told. I blasted a buddy of mine once point blank with a blank. he entered a room and exited from a different door back into the hall I wuz in. we both learned a lot about teamwork / communication in a tactical sense. the lesson woulda been just as good or better if i had pegged him with 6mm plastic.