Beginner's Guide

[Indeo]

Source: Renegade Recon (Beginners Guide)

Individual tactics 1: Camouflage

Camouflage

Camouflage is often neglected and overlooked part of infantryman’s basic skills for battlefield survival. Indeed, camouflage is for some sign of ”professionalism”.

The purpose of the camouflage is to blend into surroundings by having same colors as the surrounding enviroment and "breaking" any obvious shapes or patterns that would give target signal for the enemy. Unnatural shapes will stand out in nature and human eye will naturally pick out these. Trained and experienced players will be intentionally and instinctively looking for these unnatural shapes. Truly experienced players, when expecting tough opponents, will proceed extra carefully when they know that opponent is capable of camouflage that utilizes concept of breaking unnatural shapes.

Battle Dress Uniform (BDU)

You get BDUs and other uniforms in all patterns these days: Woodland, Desert, Black, Tiger Stripe, Urban, Digital camo, etc. For woodland pattern there are great number of variations as most countries have their own to fit their local needs and to distinquish themselves from other armed forces. Indeed BDU's other important function besides camouflage is to be primitive recognizition tool to tell who’s friendly and who's not. Part of camouflage, especially in special operations, is use of enemy uniforms to aid in infiltration. Use of enemy uniforms is, however, generally regarded to be against the "rules of war".

Face & head

Whatever action you take in game you will use your head first and the most, that’s an unavoidable fact. The most likely and frequent target signal you are emitting to the enemy is your face and head, so it needs to be camouflaged well.

Balaclavas, boonie hats, face veils, etc. all serve the need to camouflage and protect head and face. Uncamouflaged white shiny face stands out in forest like newbie in hardcore game. Most necessary of all head camouflage tools is the camo paint, but as it is prone to wear off within several hours of hard going. Use of base paint can help to preserve the actual face camo paint longer. Face camo paint alone will not be sufficient. Face veils and camo nets are crucial to make complete camouflage because they break the shape of your head and makes it blend to the surroundings.

Indeed, in most cases the shape of head is something that will give you up even if you have blended with the colors of your surroundings. To break up the shape of your head use improvised camouflage attachments like vegetation or camo netting. Remember hats and helmets give large target signal, more than your head.

Natural camouflage

Equipment makers such as Bushrag make low-cost camouflage attachment tags that can be sewed or ironed to your BDUs. You can attach vegetation and leafs to these tags to complement your camo BDU.

Night is obvious tool for camouflaging and to take full advantage of it black clothing works the best. It will allow you to perfectly blend in to darkness of night, but remember that once light comes up you will be exposed with dark clothes for their sharp contrast with everything else.

Other natural camouflage is lack of movement or extremely slow movement. Human eye picks out movement naturally so once you stop moving your chances to avoid detection increase immensely.

[Indeo]

Individual tactics 2: Patrolling

Patrolling

This part handles individual patrolling techniques and skills. Please refer to team lessons for team patrolling.

Patrols are fundamentally missions to gather information (i.e. is there any enemy presence in certain area) or to conduct combat activities (if this would be military the term would be ”operations”). Units and teams conduct three types of patrols: reconnaissance, combat and tracking.

Adopt right state of mind...when you go out for patrol you become the hunter and not the other way around. Your single purpose is to find the enemy and take him out.

Alert level

At all times individual or patrol needs to be alert to survey the area for enemy precesense and to respond any enemy activity against the patrol.

These can be categorized to three alert levels:

”Green”
No reason or signals to expect hostiles and in friendly territory. Weapons are still slung at front in TACTICAL SLING CARRY position for quick deployment. Panning area routinely for visual signals.

”Yellow”
Possibility of hostiles, but in friendly territory. Weapons in TACTICAL CARRY position, but secured. Intensive panning of area for visual signals and routine stops for audio signals.

”Red”
High possibility of or actually known hostiles in area. Weapons in HIGH TACTICAL CARRY position and live. Intensive panning of area for visual signals and frequent stops for audio signals. Use of most secure terrain and if possible, always close to positions that allow cover against enemy fire.

What to observe

Visual signals
· Any movement in immediate area
· Ideal positions for enemy ambush or concealement
· Extruding and unnatural shapes in terrain (possible hostile)
· Tracks of recent movement (folded brush, footprints, etc.)
· Sudden animal movement (birds taking off etc.)

Audio signals
· Sounds of human movement
· Sudden animal sounds (indicating human presence)

[Indeo]

Individual tactics 3: Fire & move!

Moving under fire

The standing rule is that within two seconds the enemy can aim their weapon at you and shoot. However, with experience you can judge the situation by yourself whether or not you should move longer than two seconds. For example, there is no point start dashing over open ground and dive after two seconds just because of this. Obviously laying on open ground makes no sense. Dive for cover only if you have it and only if you can get out of there.

The modern infantry combat calls for fire and move preferrably with overwatch. This part of boot camp is, however, only about individual movement under fire and overwatch is not considered here (in airsoft you are often moving just by yourself or with minimal support).

Before starting any movement try to suppress the enemy with cover fire. Then dash for maximum of two seconds before taking cover. Fire again from your cover, but make sure you do that from unexpected place and that you do it very quickly (the enemy naturally expects you to continue the movement to same direction).

Make sure to change your direction of movement with as often as you cand so that it is difficult for them to hit you. Mind you, this is all one big gamble when you are charging towards enemy who is able to shoot at you.

[Indeo]

Individual tactics 4: CQB

CQB

You should be always covered by your team mates in CQB position; being alone in situation where the threat can appear from multiple directions with no warning is not recommended.

Avoid CQB movement and clearing alone. However, if you have to do it by yourself then be prepared how to do it. There is several simple guidelines that will help you:

1. Observe for target signals and positions where the enemy can get shot at you with little or no warning. Quickly priotirize the positions in your mind. Cover the most threatening with your weapon and observe remaining within field of your view with presence of mind to engage any of the positions. Stay away from the most threatening positions as much as you can and try to work yourself to them with minimal exposure.

2. Avoid giving indication of yourself to enemy. Avoid making sounds with rush movement (this is if you are moving stealthily in the area and have not been noticed), be careful not to expose your weapon or equipment to areas that you haven’t secured.

3. Focus to your movement and building clearing process as you try to maintain tactical cohesion. In otherwords stick to your gameplan and don't fall over. Do not let your mind wander or become undiscplined about your movement. With high-stress situation like CQB untrained individuals easily break any cohesive movement or become disoriented. Focus.

4. Hit accuracy. Why the real deal operators keep training shooting everyday? When it comes to the CQB you need to place the rounds to target as accurate as possible. Miss counts for nothing and makes everything else irrelevant.

One of the things you learn from airsoft is that speed, aggression, shooting ability and training are crucial in combat situations.