Our first big op. It may not be big to many, but i'm used to 20 guys in a neighbors 10 acres.
Props to Riddick. Got kicked around on Survivors first day, but managed to get some good kills, learn a lot and have fun. My boy loved it as well.
I think I enjoyed the shorter games on Sunday to the scenario on Saturday, but I'm new to big operations like this.
Here are some after action lessons learned and comments from my perspective, FWIW...
1. That high ground thing really means something. Fighting up that @#$# hill all morning was hard and didn't get us far. We lost it early on on that @#$# hill. As this was my first big op, I really needed to up the aggressiveness - we let the hill go because nobody else was there and I didn't wanna get trapped with just us 3 up there and get slaughtered. Lesson learned - good clean aggressive play would have made a difference.
2. Leadership issues. Survivors saturday didn't have a well-defined chain of command and it showed. Lots of small squads oping on their own (mine included). Not meaning to diss on our commander - groups of guys like this are hard to heard - but the military guys had us beat from the get go with org. Not sure how to solve this besides an iron will and some early prep - the forum participation would help - and Riddick/the commander should really think about ways to encourage that. Not to pick on anyone, but I saw some hilarious attempts at democratic leadership in the field - great case studies on how to not command.
3. Comms were a problem. FRS just wont cut it very well in this area. MURS is much better. We're getting Wouxun radios (ordered last week, but didn't have them in time) can run on FRS/GMRS/MURS and Ham frequencies. The Ham freqs (and technically the GMRS) stuff is out of bounds for non liscenced operators, but the others are not. MURS would work much, much better, but the radios cost more. Shrug, we're going to a nice MURS setup for our squad. Also hear good things about Puxing and Baofeng radios - they are a bit less spendy, but not sure if they are as spectrum capable as the wouxon radios. PS. My HAM radio can listen in on FRS, but not transmit without mods. The admins were using Wouxun radios, FWIW.
4. Holy crap my load out was heavy. Pared it down some. I'm not as young as I used to be and I could feel it. A couple of the "hefty" guys kept mentioning that this was a skinny guys game, and they were right. As they say, cardio, cardio.
5. I'm going to focus our small squad with different areas of expertise - only one guy carrying tools, electrical tape etc. But someone should have it. I heard lots of "hey, who has a battery" or "who has electrical tape" - reminds me that having the stuff you need is important.
6. Still have not figured eye/face pro. I had ad fogging issues Saturday - FogTech or no. Sunday was better, with a diff set of goggles, but the field of vision sucked. Need to think about this a lot more and spend some real cash for real protection that works. I did like my mesh face mask worked great, but was finicky and sat on my face a bit much - will need to tweak or look around.
7. My new SR10 KWA rifle ran like a champ after a bit of fincky stuff early on. Ditched the side arm after day 1 as it never got used. My mid caps seemed to be flaky with the new KWA, so ended up using high caps most of the time. Ended up liking them, even though I've always thought of myself as a midcap snob for realism sake. Sometimes pragmatics wins in the end. I bet everyone humping .223 around would kill for a 350 rnd mag that weighted ~10 oz.
8. Loved my 5-11 boots comfy like running shoes. Loved the knee pro- but need better pads as mine shifted a bit under weight. What do you expect from harbor freight.
9. Probably going with a helmet. Used to not think much of them, but having a place to mount the GoPro would have been nice. Probably wont' get the rail mount for it - rather have 1st person perspective from the head. Or wire something custom up for the left shoulder.
10. Had fun with TKO - picking locks and getting the intel early. Skills (bow-staff, nunchuck, lockpicking) are cool. I took classes from
www.onpointtactical.com a few years back (friends with the guy who runs it and I did some of their photo work) and we learned a lot. Scout, urban escape and evasion etc. Skills over equipment, baby. Anyone can buy stuff.
11. The inevitable Drama Llama showed up and I saw lots of pissing about "the other side not calling hits" etc. I was on survivors on Sat and Military on Sunday and the moaning was the same on both sides. Shrug. I think its just part of the game - people gotta man up and be honorable, but its never going to be perfect. Roll with it brothers.
That is all for now. Cheers.