Customer Reviews

Paintball and Airsoft Battle Tactics

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I was looking for a book that could give me advice and food for thought to pass on to my team mates and bring them to the next level. I found mostly nothing of this.

There is a grand total of 4 pages mildly specific to Airsoft and paintball, all the rest is pretty dry military jargon that - as an ex-military - I find far too SOP for my taste. If you don't understand the double meaning of SOP then this book will bore you, if you do, then you know you need to stay away.

The drills succeed the rare exploit of being at the same time unpractical, shallow and over the top. You won't know how to dislodge a camping player, you won't know how to set a diversion, you will not know how to effectively pace an attack, defend in depth, conduct a coordinated assault or, more modestly, a plain vanilla one. You will not know how to use the most nimble guys in your team, how to use a sniper while trying to break through a line of players, make use of airsoft grenades if you have any, lay to good use a volley of suppressing BBs, reposition yourself to maintain pressure on the other team or do anything that actually happens in an airsoft game.

You will obviously not find anything like a scenario. No "blackhawk down", "bring back the evidence", "body count", "bunker assault", or even the simple "capture the flag"(!). For the matter, you won't find any discussion of typical airsoft/paintball situations.

What you will find is a smoke and mirror re-packaging of unadapted (and mostly shallow) military drills trying to capture gullible paintball and airsoft players. Good marketing, but go and spend your dollars elsewhere, probably on a real military book or this one instead Paintball Warrior Tactics: Secrets of serious bushball players

I also bought the book, Light Infantry Tactics: For Small Teams, by the same author. I found his Infantry book to be very good, but I found that this book leaves something to be desired. It's all about the promise and delivery.

The book is supposed to be for paintball and airsoft, yet it seems to do little more than re-package military tactics with a different cover.

No don't get me wrong. It's good information, and can be VERY well used, with some adaptation. But the pictures show regular LCE/LBE harnesses, not paintball vests. No pictures show airsoft or paintball safety masks in use, and a great deal of tactics are not applicable in most scenario paintball or airsoft games. They're simply too complicated for players who don't train week after week. For the players who DO, however, this information can go a LOOOONG way.

If the book had discussed the tactical differences between the military doctrine and paintball/airsoft, I think the book's value could have been tripled, if not more.

For the team leader who can adapt such things without much outside direction, this book goes miles. For those who cannot, this book may not do much without outside help.

I received this book 1 months ago. When I knew this book is written by Christopher Larsen, I know that this indeed would be the definitive guide to any airsoft or paintball player. If you don't understand what I mean, Chris Larsen is also the author of the book "Light Infantry Tactics: Small Teams", which already is a reference book for many airsoft players (..and quite possible, for real soldiers too).

Many materials in "Paintball and Airsoft Battle Tactics" are derived from "Light Infantry Tactics...", but adjusted with airsoft & paintball players in mind. Nevertheless, the tactics and the battle-drills are the same regardless of whether you are fighting a real battle or just a wargame. The only difference are: the range of the weapons (and "weapons") and the lethality (and "lethality") involved are of course incomparable.

Some of the materials in the book include: why and how to camouflage, handsignals techniques, leadership skills, infantry movement techniques, and battledrills for offensive, defensive and special operations. The methods explained typically apply to unit size from fireteam to platoon level. What this book differs from "Light Infantry Tactics" is on the emphasis to airsoft & paintball, taking into account the characteristics of both games. It also has a lot more schemes and color photographs which is very helpful in understanding the concepts.

One of the many things I like very much from this book, is that it's written in an easily understood language to explain technical military concepts (if you ever read military references such as US Army Field Manuals etc, they usually tends to be heavily conceptual or technical AND voluminious- which can be quite intimidating to some). However there is some areas in this book that needs an improvement: a discussion about "human factor". I wish it had another chapter which discusses the human factor such as: morale, overcoming hesitation and fear, how to motivate teammates - a very critical element to mission success.

Nonetheless, this book surely enhances our understanding on how to fight and how to fight as a team. Discuss and practice the materials with your teammates, and your team will benefit in battle.

Verdict: an excellent addition to your library.

Ordered this book expecting a book on battle tactics relating to paintball. That is to say situations that play out everyday on your average paintball field. Where bunkers are created ahead of time and the enemy is easily apparent. There is no real reason for patrols since the total length of an infantry patrol in line formation is a quarter of the field.

Instead what I found was a book on small infantry tactics and patrols. As other reviewers stated, this is for the hardcore mil-sim crowd. From what I can gather the author repackaged another one of his books and put the word paintball in the title. No discussion on paintball weapons or bunker tactics faced in the everyday world. If you plan on playing a scenario game in Cambodia with 5000 people it would be great. It makes good reading but at full MSRP it is definitely a disappointment.

This book is for hardcore scenario teams ... ONLY. The book claims it will teach both the "novice" and the "maestro," but the novices need not apply. The book is written by a military trainer, and the only adaption he makes from true military tactics is to add the phrase "...keeping in mind the maximum range for most paintball and airsoft systems is sixty meters" four or five times throughout the book. There is not even a single picture of someone using paintball equipment in the book - and there are a lot of pictures, all of people armed with what looks to be true weapons or very good facsimiles.

If you are new to paintball, this book will go WAY over your head with acronyms you will not understand without flipping to the glossary every few sentences and information you don't need.

If you are a regular player like me, the hand signals and basic attack patterns will come in handy, but the book takes itself way too seriously for your tastes. Unless you have a dedicated scenario or woodsball team, 90 percent of the pages in this book will be useless to you (as well as pretty boring).

If you are, however, that rare class of scenario player who lives for this stuff, it's a good book to pick up. It covers tactics thoroughly at the squad level, with appropriate nods to the next two or three levels up, with plenty of descriptive pictures, diagrams and walkthroughs.

I believe that some of the negative reviewers are either "seasoned vets" of paintball/Airsoft or were thinking of another book. From what I can see here, the tactics are there, along with practice techniques.
Maybe people don't know the difference between tactics and strategy. Tactics is the heart of a battle plan or strategy. Strategy is the plan, how the plan is devised, the goal of the attack. Tactics is the execution of that plan!
As far as I can see from my online view of the book, the tactical ideas and techniques are in this book, with illustrations.
Not sure what else one could want!
AirSoft is combat at close quarters, necessary because of the limitations of the weapons. From watching a lot of YouTube videos of AirSoft games, there is lots of yelling out movements, etc. So, everyone knows where you are if you must yell out tactical movements.
Better to use the hand signals, which should be practiced by the team members, so that some bit of stealth can be used.
Why waste the camo and paint if you are going to stand up, run, yell and shoot?
I can't help but believe that this book could be very valuable. Just an opinion.

Like the tile says VERY MISLEADING TITLE these guy's in the book arent even paintballer's or airsofter's. in the book it looks like just a military drill. i mean there hardcore like it's teaching you camping out and they have like field phones and laptops....it nuts. i would not recommend this book for airsoft or paintball tactics unless your the type that can spend a lot of time and a lot of money playing this game. But i do have to admit it does have some good steath tips and other things like that. overall the book is OKAY.

Larsen's previous full-format, photos-included book (vs. some thick, dense tomes for specific battle staff purposes), Light Infantry Tactics, was intended as a way to bring together all the disparate information already out in various U.S. military publications about the operation of a unit smaller than a company. And for those folks it works great. But for me, without the basic background, it was always still a little lacking, and some topics needed explanation still.

This book, on the other hand, elevates those explanations to a new form. The format of the writing is somewhat improved, with many more actionable tasks, and better organization. But what thrills me are the diagrams, and the "photo diagrams" I guess you'd call them. Photos people in the woods, with arrows and lines explaining what they are doing. Now, it's possible to absorb every tactic and battle drill without too much thinking or wondering.

Most of these are team tactics, so it's useless of you are the only one who understands a specific battle drill. This book is also superior to any other battle tactics reference I have seen in that each subject is laid out almost like a textbook. This works great when trying to teach your team these fundamentals. Unlike some other references, you don't have to learn it yourself then develop a course; you can almost just pick up the book, read a section out loud, show off the graphics to everyone, and then go try it. Everything is that clear and easy.

And these things really work. You can actually get your team together, walk thru something for 20 minutes, then go out in the field and improve your performance immediately.

This is one of the most informative books that I have ever read. Even though I haven't finished yet, I still ahve learned so much from this book. A must buy for any one who is starting out in airsoft. Even helpfulk for the most experienced players.

Oh yeah, this pertains more to airsoft than paintball.

After reading the book I knew I'd found what I'd been longing to
see someone take the time to put out. This book transforms those
need to know concepts and tactics which have taken the military
hundreds of years to perfect into terms just about any dedicated
MIL-SIMer can relate to. Topics like how to create your own SOI,
to what to do when things don't work as planned add up to a book
that's sure to have a very positive impact on your performance at
that next scenario or FTX.