Stirling Airsoft Training Days

[Ian_Gere]

COUNTER TERRORIST, BATTLEFIELD, PERSONAL SECURITY DETAIL & AIRSOFT SNIPER TRAINING

Stirling Tactical Solutions will cover selected aspects of CT BATTLEFIELD SNIPER and PSD on your chosen course for the day. The training days are designed to be progressive. Training during the morning deals with the theory and practice before going into 'live' style scenarios after lunch to develop your skills while under fire...... Each training session will only be able to cover a limited amount of the syllabus. Returning trainees will move onto further stages as their experience and participation progresses. Please look at the four courses below and choose which course suits your needs![/size]

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Righto, so looking at this I see "TRAIN HARD - FIGHT EASY" and think "Absolute Cock"... you know? Not that there's anything wrong with the concept, it's just that I imagine it goes down well with the kind of person who turns up to an airsoft skirmish with a MOLON LABE patch on their chest. But I wouldn't have got that far if I wasn't interested and I am, in the sniper syllabus to be precise. So the topic, friends, is this: are they any good?

[jcheeseright]

Ex UKSF instructors, about as legit as it gets. They cater mostly for the more serious mil sim types but obviously don't tolerate walting!

[Longshot]

I just find it hard to take the concept of playing airsoft 'seriously' that seriously.

[NickM]

I did a day with a guy that is serving SAS (he said) and one of the Stirling instructors who claimed to be Ex UKSF, I don't doubt their skills its just hard to find evidence to back up such claims by the very nature of their job. Doing CQB training, it was great fun, I learned a lot but... it hasn't been all that useful because many of the guys I encounter at sites don't know the same stuff so I haven't been able to use the skills as part of a team since. I would love to give the sniper training a go but I shall probably not use them as I will shortly be moving to Norwich and Gunman have their own training type events from successful airsoft snipers, not as good as real steel if that's what you are wanting but actually their skills are more relevant in my eyes.

[BrightCandle]

Admittedly its a different world, but I used to play a lot of Arma 2 and Arma 3. A big part of making an effective fighting group is training and importantly ensuring a minimum level of training for everyone. Even in a computer game where everyone wants to be playing tactically and cooperatively, and with a tonne of online guides to do it, which they have all read, you find that getting emergent tactics even at a basic level is a real struggle. True coordination, like that necessary in MOUT and CQB, is something that has to be practised together as a team. Its only really when everyone is doing the exact same moves in the same way that you find it all starts to click and work, and it takes a lot of repeat practice even after the skills are learnt to keep it fresh.

 

Its actually my number 1 concern with airsoft so far. Playing on my own I am not getting that tight tactical game, its mostly a lot of lone wolfs or very uncoordinated teams, they just haven't spent the last 4 years running platoons of guys in realistic computer games and they just don't do it the same way or know how to do it. I suspect there are sites where I could just slot into a team and it would really work well but its a real challenge with a bunch of random players and the teams that have this working already, they do not invite random nooby players to make their 4th man.

[Baz JJ]

You're right about teams.

 

I skirmish occasionally but it leaves me dissatisfied as you have a few mates who play as mini teams within a large team and then lots of lone wolves, plus people who just have no tactical awareness and run around a lot making lots of noise.

 

There are some very serious people out there who spend hundreds and hundreds of pounds on having authentic imported kit and treat milsims and training as deadly serious. Ive seen some just spend 1500 quid on a nightsight. Good luck to them, but its not my cup of tea.

 

I feel there has to be something in the middle - a compromise.

 

We've got the milsim coming up in September and theres got to be some mileage in dressing the part with easy to get hold of, reasonably priced kit and forming up early into small force fire teams, If people want to meet up earlier to train or talk tactics at distance, then that is all good. Somebody asked me if they could play a sniper and have a spotter. Sure, no problem, sort it out in your fireteam, Research, discuss, train. If you want to go on a course to improve your knowledge, thats great, but you can learn a lot by reading and training together.

[Ian_Gere]

I recently did some training @Skirmish and learned a fair bit that is useful in airsoft, but as above, it requires other people who also know the drill for it to be effective. Fire control orders, for eg. Weekend before last 3 out of the 4 of us who had trained together played on the same team and naturally we had the shorthand down - suppress the enemy to enable one or more people to close and fight through. But trying to get other people to either i. fire at the cover so the opposition can hear it and know they will get hit if they pop their head out (and keep doing it long enough), or ii. move out in the open under cover of suppressing fire, was the same old herding cats story.

 

I find it especially frustrating because my health has been so bad that i'm even more unfit now than when we trained together, so I know what to do, but i just can't do much it myself. I mean, what is so difficult to understand about, "Fire at the wood so it rattles. They'll know they're gonna get hit, right? And you youngsters that can run fast, get up there, and pop round firing." Apparently much... but yeah, sniping: I can't see me managing to improve my cardiovascular fitness much, if at all, this year, so I want to get better at sniping. I've read a bit and seen a bit on telly, but I think that learning with practical application would be better. But what I don't want is a day spent imagining I'm Mark Wahlberg, learning a load of RS tips etc that have no practical use in a skirmish.

 

Has anyone been to a Stirling event?

[NickM]

Some of the guys on my team went to one of their milsims at the Sandpit, they loved it but as it was pretty hardcore milsim they humped up and down cardiac hill 3 times in about 6 hours, the other team had to assault to the top of it. I've seen it and I wouldn't want to walk up it unless I absolutely had to. Let alone in full kit and a gun.

 

But they did do a boat insertion for the other team on the other side of the lake. They seemed to be the ones doing helicopter insertions. Overall I'd say they know what they are doing and they cater to a very specific audience of fairly hardcore milsimers.

 

As for teamwork this weekend was a classic.

 

My team Reds were holding one side of a building on the ramp at the sandpit, the Blues were in the generator building with a single doorway to fire out of, they were keeping us pretty well pinned down as it was impossible to see into the building. Another team of REDS were working their way around the side of the building in what we thought was a blind spot for them to get into position retake the generator building. They moved without supressing fire because they didn't explain what they were intending, 3 of 6 were hit and realised how exposed they were the other 3 retreated. I was the only red in cover with the range to supress the door, I explained what I was intending, they could medic the first three then move forwards while I provided supressing fire through the door. I emptied 3 190rnd mid caps and a 450rnd high cap. Obvious result when they didn't move forward and their mates had to walk back to regen. We then had to mount a whole new assault and actually ended up loosing a significant amount of ground.

 

I don't like the lone wolfing in airsoft personally, unless that is the style of play for that position in the real world, ie a sniper/sniper team who would move off to a position where they could call in intel. As it happens that worked brilliantly for the final push in the afternoon where myself and another member of the team setup an overwatch position on a ridge where we could observe the movements of the blues and guide the rest of our team through the mounds of rubble without too many casualties on our side. That gave me a massive amount of satisfaction knowing we had worked as a team to help achieve the reds final objective.

[jcheeseright]

The instructors at Stirling are all airsoft players as well as ex SF bad men, weird combo but there you go. I can't imagine much of what they teach being directly related to shooting in honesty, as at airsoft ranges if you're struggling then there's not a lot that the principles of marksmanship are going to do to help!

I expect it's likely to be more about concealment, observation, movement etc. proper soldier skills that'll have an application in a game, though perhaps not the average Sunday skirmish as their focus will be their core audience: the mil-simmer.

[Ian_Gere]

I think it might be a good idea to email 'em. Thanks for the input so far, lads