Some Thoughts Brought to you by: L4D/2

[meaty-btz]

I am a zombie movie nut, and since it was on sale for cheap wife and I Steamed up a copy of both versions for peanuts.

But thats not what this was about, it was about what it brought to mind.
Training, or rather the specific gaps possesed by all non-millitary fire-arm owners and SHTF Scenarios (not just zombies).

Ok so you are Joe Good Gun Owner. You have taken tactical courses and studdied at least a little millitary theory. You are skilled with pistols, rifles, and Shotguns. You would consider yourself a good shot. You prepaired in advance, trained your family just as you would for earthquake drills (another SHTF Scenario anyways since mass destruction == no law). You stockpiled ammo, potable water, and non-perishable foods. You got yourself a good book on home medicine and triage/first-aid.

Sounds pretty good, right? It did to me too untill tonight when the glaring gap was RIGHT IN MY FACE. One fact stood out that is a FATAL weakness: Tactical Team Work in Practical Situations (covering fire, moving under fire, how to discern points of entry/choke points on the fly, fields of fire and how to set them up on a moments notice, how to move as a team to prevent Friendly fire- THE BIGGEST ONE-)

Be serious, how many of you train for that and are not: Millitary (active/reserve/retired) or SWAT/LEO? Have you trained your family? What about possible friends that will be involved with you? Is your child/friend/SO etc trained well enough that when everything is crazy and the adrenaline is pumping not to walk in front of your line of fire while they themselves are repositioning? Frakkin Louis! Soo many head shots lost to his bullet suckin arse..... In a tactical situation you need to know that as you move up that the guys behind you are not going to shoot you in the back on accident and they need to know and trust that you know how to move in such a way as to not block their shots/line of fire. In reality its something we lack. We probably could function fairly well with just ourselves and possibly our family but even a group of 4 becomes virtually a free-for-all in a tactical enviroment.

Communication? Hand signals? Got them down? Unprotected hearing during a fire-fight might leave you with only hand-signals as your means of get information across to your peers.

Anyways, the game brought it to mind because it models tactical urban combat with a bunch of Joes. The AI or via multiplayer (w/o voice link) creates a limited communication situation. Now toss in a new player to the game and you have your average Joe Gun Owner. They will walk into your field of fire because the don't know what you are up too. Limited FOV simulates tunnel vision common in the usual tactical combat situation. You really don't know and don't see what the rest of your team is up too. You are very likely to get seperated, cross fire, and even friendly fire. Kind of scary if you think about it. I read a ton of Keyboard Commandos talk, but sure solo, I am very certain they would do just fine. Its when you add a few people to the mix that everything falls apart.

Asking the Mil guys, Would you be pissed/ afraid to have a civi on your 6 in that kind of situation? I would assume yes.

Us Civies.. how would we school our selves to not be such a pain in the ***/risk to ourselves and others? If we don't we are kind of leaving off a huge piece of critical survival information. I mean this isnt about fighting zombies, its about how do you safely withdraw your family from a firefight encounter between two gangs of thugs in a Lawless situation? Do they know how to find cover, how to keep a cool head, fall back locations? Stuff like that which might save lives that really matter to us. It is just like having your family run disaster drills really if you think about it. A situation where you might actually need this kind of information and skill set would be the absolute worst possible situation to be in because: No body in their right mind would ever want to be in a firefight with their family involved. However we don't deal with if-thens, we deal with when-thens.. and when it happens it just might save you and your loved ones.

I probably should end this with a real world example we have seen recently on this forum. The LA Riots and the Video of the men defending their shop from looters. Now lets break it down: They were firing randomly into the crowd.. wow.. They were moving into and out of cover rather randomly with no real sense of organization. Several times I watched them cross eachothers field of fire, though it could have been camera angle. Also I noted that while they were returning fire randomly, they were actually also taking fire. Specificly the fellow in the vest, looked like some crappy surplus item, moving behind a column and I could have sworn I saw a puff of a bullet striking it. They were a danger to themselves and to anyone who happened to be nearby really. Even eachother unless it is a trick of the camera. So my above commentary isnt so far fetched as it would seem at first glance.

[amd64]

You forgot to mention the griefers/TKers (team killers).

These are the guys that will appear to be friendlies, then kill you and your team when you don't expect it, for fun or to take your stuff.

When you play expert pubs, you'll understand. : )

Sometimes, we set up expert pub games just to kill griefers, it's a blast giving them a taste of what they do to others' games.

[Spiggy]

don't think of it too seriously

and find better team mates

[PyroFox79]

So your one of those guys who try's to play video games as if they are real?

You are thinking about it too much man.

If you are really worried about this stuff try playing paintball. I know me and some of my friends who played alot managed to transfer it over to combat when we were in Iraq. Mind you we played tournaments not in the woods.

[-hanko]

So your one of those guys who try's to play video games as if they are real?

You are thinking about it too much man.

If you are really worried about this stuff try playing paintball. I know me and some of my friends who played alot managed to transfer it over to combat when we were in Iraq. Mind you we played tournaments not in the woods.

Better still, start with getting off the video and getting yourself to an Appleseed shoot... www.appleseed.org

-hanko

[meaty-btz]

lol, I dont think about it like its real. The real would be the LA Riots. I see something and it brings things to mind. That happens with anyone. The thought started with the posting of the LA Riots videos on this forum.

The game just reenforced my thoughts. Games != real, but they can provide food for thought. Zombies not a problem, lawless enviroments with gangs are a huge problem. Here in california we have a huge presence with Mexican Gangs, even small out of the way places have issue with them.

I was worried you guys would fixate on the game rather than the facts. I used to go paintballing often, in fact particpated in a group that would do "tactical sim" style events. We did night beach landings, light urban warfare with three parties and defensable buildings, etc. I still recall the feelings very clearly watching the entire enemy team walk by me ( I was conceiled) and thinking, I can take out maybe 3, possibly 4 but if I do, I am dead by the rest before I can get clear. While paintball does not equate real combat, fear however is a common response to pain, paintballs hurt. Natural response is fear. I rather enjoyed it. The night one was most exciting, no lights having to land from a rowed zodiac through pacific surf. Move up to a concrete bunker defended by tripwires with flairs and paint-grenades and the opposing team who had lights and fortified positions. We took a page from WW2 for quiet nighttime communication and friendly ident: clickers. So, yes, I actually have gone out and done things. But nothing family related, and these were just for fun simulations and while we jokingly took them seriously and planned our landing and had fun.. it wasnt really serious and we all knew it. We were there to have fun, and we did.


Put yourself in the LA Riots defending your property/buisness. You could be like the idiots on video, or you could have prepaired and understood your strongpoints and planned fields of fire and then you would just look like some entrenched gun-nuts/millitia rather than some idiots randomly crossing eachothers fields of fire and randomly walking into and out of cover while shooting wildly.

One last thing about paintball.. it was my first experiences with cammo. Looking back I recall my first thought being, wow it really works. 30 yards out, someone not moving and in full cammo in half-light would just dissapear. I learned to look for queues in the light patterns and most importantly... look for the gun, linear hard blocky shapes are not natural and once you train your eyes do stand out rather well in a natural background. Also I would turn my head to let my periferal scan a spot, periferal vision is keyed to movement and is more sensitive to it than the main vision area. Fun stuff really.

I am glad that something from fun training translated into Iraq. I have lost friends over there and Afganistan. I want you boys to return home safe to your families.