Skills needed for a Milsim team

[specialist]

I'm thinking about putting together a team of people who like Milsim style of play and who genuinely want to build up skills, put them into drills/SOPs, practice drills/SOPS in training and Milsim day / 24 hour combat missions.

There are a few places now that offer airsofters professional standard training such as Stirling Airsoft. There are plenty of sites now including GZ where Milsim can work very well. I've put together a skill set that I think a team should strive to gain but I'd really welcome the views of our community here on this forum and share the thinking.

My starter for the common/core skill sets for members of a Milsim team are:

Admin
- Field kit for weekend/24 hour (what clothing, food, ammo, weapons, maintenance)
- How to pack a bergen and setup a patrol pack
- How to select and set up webbing pouches etc
- Mission specific Load-outs (Webbing, weapon, ammo, weapon accessories etc)

Weapons skills & safety
- Firearms safety (British/US Army set)
- Assault Rifle – weapon Configuration & drills
- Support Weapons- Role of SAW and drills
- Designated Marksman- Rifle configuration, role and drills
- Pistol- Basic drills
- Grenade Launchers- Role and drills
- Prepping weapons for wet weather

Small unit infantry tactics
- Camouflage
- Hand signals
- Patrolling
- Contact Drills
- Fire Team tactics & drills
- Ambush/ counter-Ambush drills
- Section Attacks drills
- CQB/ FIBUA (Inc Room clearance drills)
- Fire orders (e.g. sustained, snap shooting etc)

Night Fighting Tactics
- Movement, attack Formation & coordination/ patrol drills
- NV Scope- Role and employment/ drills
- IR Devices/ Markers-Target designation & Signalling drills

Communications
- Call sign structure (British Army)
- Radio protocols/ radio speak (British Army)

Navigation
- Compass & Map reading
- GPS Navigation- how to use a GPS with a Map & compass and to project Oppo positions

Weapon Maintenance
- Cleaning
- Basic repairs

Do you think the above is a reasonable core skill set? Can it be divided into basic, medium and advanced skills? Anything missing?

[Lonewolf873]

Re: Skills needed for a Milsim team

to be honest mate i think thats way to much much to be realisticly training for with airsoft.
i mean all thats good and well when training for the army for example but for airsoft i think its way to much although i think that contact drills and the basic infantry stuff is good.

and ive never thought GZ was a good place for milsim, its good for aggressive airsoft but i wouldnt say milsim.

[bravotwozero]

Re: Skills needed for a Milsim team

Thats a long list for something we do at weekends. Perhaps you might be interested in the TA?? Airsofts a game, we dont have to be well drilled soldiers.

[Kitten]

Re: Skills needed for a Milsim team

You have a lot down, but admitedly, a lot can be ignored....

Teaching airsofters how to use thier aeg... pointless
grenade launcher drills? dont bother
pistol? useful, but not always
You have to realise that you are dealing with a milsim team, that most players will have played airsoft before... you can cut down a lot of the teaching... its somewhat beginers....

Admin: VITAL, airsofters are generally horrific at this... look around a safezone any game day...

Squad drills: Important, but you need to tailor it to airsoft, range wise, and movement wise... its all well and good having a 10 man squad stretched over 100m on a patrol when you have real bullets... but in airsoft, you're going to loose half of your fire power because they are simply out of range.

Best way? get the team together, get them used to playing together, add to that slowly. Best way? get them all in the pub and get to be friends.... know eachother....

cqb, fibua, etc, forget it till you are good at the basics... TRUST ME, its far too complicated to deal with till the squad works together in green stuff...

Night training: ditch the nv side till you actualy know your arse from your elbow without it at night... dependance is a bad thing when your bateries run out.

Nav: work with maps and compases if you must, leave GPS as suplimentry...

If you cant do the basics, and rely on technology for anything, you're screwed when it breaks... and murphy says if you rely on it, it will never work. There goes that paddle....

Coms: get used to mk1 voice coms first talk to eachother constantly, be aware of the rest of the team, THEN progress to radios.... THEN progress to militery radio protocol.

Handsignals? Yeah go for it.

Just remember to KISS... and its all good...

[sniperiain]

Re: Skills needed for a Milsim team

does FIBUA mean Fighting In Built Up Area?

[Alfer]

Re: Skills needed for a Milsim team

then a hi cap toter jumps from a bush and whips your arse whilst your looking at org'ing kit,

Mils Sim airsofting can only be achieved if every one is doing it.

only real things to worry about is that you know how to use com's and work as a team.

[Kitten]

Re: Skills needed for a Milsim team

precicely... this is airsoft... not real war... its HARD to get it to work that well

[Lonewolf873]

Re: Skills needed for a Milsim team

does FIBUA mean Fighting In Built Up Area?

yes your right there but i beleive its now refered to as obua (operations in built up areas).

i do like the entusiasm specialist has but anyone who has ever tried to organise an airsoft team would understand the difficulty in acheiving what he is suggesting.

[cyberi4n]

Re: Skills needed for a Milsim team

Pretty much agree with Kitten et al on this. It's a game after all, and most of the stuff the OP suggested can be dispensed with - and this is from someone who mainly plays milsim days and the 24hr milsim events. Agree though that the enthusiasm is spot on. gettig the team to play regularly is the hardest part of all imho

[specialist]

Re: Skills needed for a Milsim team

then a hi cap toter jumps from a bush and whips your arse whilst your looking at org'ing kit,

Mils Sim airsofting can only be achieved if every one is doing it.

only real things to worry about is that you know how to use com's and work as a team.

Yep, I was talking Milsim. There's no Milsim on a walk-on day.I do really mean Military Simulation as an organised event.

Milsim events I'm referring to are role play scenarios with low/Mid caps only and typically 600 rounds max for the day. Sometimes its 200 rounds with 2 x 200 re-supply at re-supply RVs or from captured ammo.

So if anyone jumps out with a high-cap, they're at the wrong event!

[specialist]

Re: Skills needed for a Milsim team

Pretty much agree with Kitten et al on this. It's a game after all, and most of the stuff the OP suggested can be dispensed with - and this is from someone who mainly plays milsim days and the 24hr milsim events. Agree though that the enthusiasm is spot on. gettig the team to play regularly is the hardest part of all imho

Setting up OPs is quite a commonly employed tactic on the Milsim events I've attended. It only takes wwo blokes with Bionoculars/ Telescopic sight and a radio to observe a route/path or encampment for an hour or two, Reporting back on the radio about camp traffic/ oppor patrol movements/ oppo vehicle movements really does help. Calling in the QRF when the camp is lightly guarded is one scenario where I been on both sides of the engagement.

At a recent 24 hour milsim event, two Oppo in ghillies kept watch on my camp (probably on stag duty) and knew exactly when our patrols went out and returned. At the one time when we sent out everyone except for the guards, we were hit hard by the stirling team- it was ugly but mercifully quick:-)

[Kitten]

Re: Skills needed for a Milsim team

heheheh, which one was this?

[specialist]

Re: Skills needed for a Milsim team

You have a lot down, but admitedly, a lot can be ignored....

Teaching airsofters how to use thier aeg... pointless
grenade launcher drills? dont bother
pistol? useful, but not always
You have to realise that you are dealing with a milsim team, that most players will have played airsoft before... you can cut down a lot of the teaching... its somewhat beginers....

Admin: VITAL, airsofters are generally horrific at this... look around a safezone any game day...

Squad drills: Important, but you need to tailor it to airsoft, range wise, and movement wise... its all well and good having a 10 man squad stretched over 100m on a patrol when you have real bullets... but in airsoft, you're going to loose half of your fire power because they are simply out of range.

Best way? get the team together, get them used to playing together, add to that slowly. Best way? get them all in the pub and get to be friends.... know eachother....

cqb, fibua, etc, forget it till you are good at the basics... TRUST ME, its far too complicated to deal with till the squad works together in green stuff...

Night training: ditch the nv side till you actualy know your arse from your elbow without it at night... dependance is a bad thing when your bateries run out.

Nav: work with maps and compases if you must, leave GPS as suplimentry...

If you cant do the basics, and rely on technology for anything, you're screwed when it breaks... and murphy says if you rely on it, it will never work. There goes that paddle....

Coms: get used to mk1 voice coms first talk to eachother constantly, be aware of the rest of the team, THEN progress to radios.... THEN progress to militery radio protocol.

Handsignals? Yeah go for it.

Just remember to KISS... and its all good...

No sure I agree with everything here. There is a time and place to employ drills. Sometimes it's just not needed or appropriate- I agree,

I have assumed that we are not dealing with a Milsim team to to begin with- we are building one up made up of people with various skills and experience. Have you not seen how some (but admittedly the minority of) Airsofters hold their rifle? Some definitly need to learn some basic drills!

Small unit tactics do work in airsoft- been using them for years. The Stirling team employ small unit tactics constantly to extreme success. Anyway a squad should not be bigger than 8 and spacing over open ground should be around 10M spacing - so 80M is a max in a line but there;ll be that +/- factor!

Not really talking about how to put team together or to build team in this topic- just trying to get a list of core skills together so that training is more coordnated and consistent. A sort training needs analysis.

CQB / FIBUA needs to be practiced at places like Catterick, Longmoor and others. Basic building and room clearance drills must be part of the team skill set.

As for NV, ditch it? No way, I've had the largest proportion of hits using my NV scope on some 24 hour events. On one organised section attack I lased (out of range of the opfor weapons) opfor positions for the SAW gunner and the flanking team. NV can be made to work if you employ it in a certain way under certain conditions. Takes practice but can be a load of fun. Night movement and attacks need to be planned, tested, practiced until it works and then used as a drill for training.

Well, however well MK1 vocals work- on a patrol I'd be tempted to get my silencer out and drop the MK1 vocal whose trying to give our position away! Sometimes the scout needs to move a good 20 to 30M ahead where hand signals may not be visible. Radio comms between patrol memembers and with the Command & Control base needs to be learned properly and practiced. Milsim does not work without good structured and disciplined radio comms.

I believe the skills/drills mentioned in this reply are not rocket science- they are basic skills that are not always necessary but still need to be learned and worked within the team- at some stage anyway,

[specialist]

Re: Skills needed for a Milsim team

heheheh, which one was this?

I think it was Op Bartos.

[bravotwozero]

Re: Skills needed for a Milsim team

didnt relise people liked playing soldiers this much