do paintball tactics carry over to real situations??

[JJB2]

i was just watching a paintball tourney on espn2..... i got to wondering if anyone here had played alot and what kind of help would it be to real gunfight situations......

[Double Naught Spy]

If you were watching matches where they use inflated barricades, the answer is NO, not unless you have access to a team with unlimited ammo and can just hose a potential point of advancement until the opposition sticks out his head.

Paintball strategies sometimes involve sacrifice of a fellow combatant so that another can advance. That isn't a good real life strategy.

Some will work, no doubt, but some are absolutely horrible, no doubt.

Cover for paintball isn't necessarily cover for bullets.

Capture the flag isn't often played with real guns.

Cool uniforms are not always tactically sound in real life, especially brightly colored ones like some paintball teams wear.

Many paintballers reload like the FBI in the Miami FBI shootout, camped out behind cover with no sit. awaremeness and then get blasted by some opposition member who runs up on their situation. In paintball, you can get killed like that and it isn't a big deal. In real life, it can be a terrible tactic.

How often do you see folks retreat in paintball? They have to get to the flag to win. For regular folks, that isn't often the case.

[smince]

I've played for years and even written a few articles in Paintball mags. Most tournament tactics will get you dropped in a hurry in real life.

We have successfully used paintball for training. The new guns that look like M16's and MP5's can be used in urban scenarios with a little imagination and planning. We either limit the ammo hoppers to 20-30 balls, or require the use of the 12g CO2 cartridges(instead of the huge 12-20 oz tanks) so a "reload" becomes necessary. While the reloads are different than a real gun, sighting and feel of the gun are similiar enough. You learn the problems of running dry in a fight. Out to about 25mtrs there is little drop, so sighting is also reasonably the same.

Some of the new handguns even take a "clip" with 8 balls and a co2 cartridge. But they are on a size comparision with the HK MK23 or Desert Eagle.

It isn't perfect, but its usable.

[Kermit]

I think it would depend on the application. The tournament play like I saw on TV recently may not be the right application Last summer tho, my son & I took up paintball & I quickly learned a few things I can apply to real situations...at least applying the use of cover
Paintball is fun and another sport to dabble in

[gdeal]

There is a big difference between playing a game and knowing you are about to take someone's life.

[Osborn F. Enready]

My friends and I play on a square mile of land, that has forest, structures, grasslands and creeks.

We don't play with referees, we use the honor system. (25 people, all know each other well, so no trust issues.)

We use full camo, full gear, and play like its for real, and those tactics carry over except for range.

Camo is the hardest thing to get right in different enviroments. Practicing like this keeps you on top of it, and lets you constantly check at how well you can blend in.

It is also useful for house clearing. CO2 tanks, and hoppers are about as clumsy as backpacks and extra magazine pouches, so it makes you pay a little more attention to noise discipline as well as picking your routes wisely with as copious cover as you can muster.

Also, you can modify your paintball gun to use your real type of grips, and add-on your rifles sights, because sight alignment practice, and aquire-fire drills can't be often enough.

[Mikeyboy]

Watched it to. Real interesting but firing hundreds of round with something as short ranged and relatively inaccurate as a paintball gun would not translate well into a self defense situation with a civilian firearm. Otherwise they use simple military tactics (suppression fire, covering fire, etc), just on a smaller scale.

[5whiskey]

Paintball is an excellent training aid for exactly what mikeyboy said, military tactics. I could see it's use for room clearing as well, but it doesn't help a normal citizen all that much. I don't think it hurts any, either. It could teach you to be more situationally aware and keep all around security, but that's about it. It's an awesome aid for squad base tactics, though. You learn fire and movement and fire and manuever quite well through it. Not very good for a normal citizen self-defense situation though

[SonOfLiberty]

Thats funny, I was playing paintball yesterday in Bridgewater, MA. They have a course there called Ghost Town. (Lots of fun) My four man team ran together, and cleared from one room to the next doing very well. If somebody got pinned down, the rest of the team worked to eliminate the threat. I think paintball can teach team work and some movement, but its only semi-practical in a close quarters scenario. (like room clearing) It really makes you think though, because its so easy to get popped in paintball even with the low accuracy and the abundancy of cover. Makes me want more training...

[BlueTrain]

It wasn't paintball and I can't tell you anything about how they went about it but the British Army used air rifles for training in Malasia some 50 years ago. Protection included fencing masks for the face, probably not much else. From what I have read, it was considered a good idea but I don't know how widespread the training was, meaning if everyone did that or if only some units. Nor do I know what the object of the training was. Was it supposed to be more realistic or was it to help with close range shooting? The US Army supposedly used air rifles to help in marksmanship training for a while but I've not read anything about it recently.

[281 Quad Cam]

I played Airsoft for quite a while...

You may know airsoft as a version of paintball with smaller 6mm plastic BB's. The guns are 1:1 replicas real enough to fool a firearms expert from a few feet away. They are somewhat accurate and using the sights or a red dot becomes worthwhile. They are reloaded by magazines in the normal fashion. Pistols are SCARY real, and have lead to quite a few police shootings. They cycle their slide with each shot to load new BB's from the magazine into the "chamber." It is typically played using military uniforms and web gear to hold 1:1 replica AK and AR mags.

All that said........
AIRSOFT AND PAINTBALL ARE NOT IN ANY WAY RELATED TO REAL COMBAT.
With VERY serious and disciplined members under the right conditions, you can make it very true to life... But in my time playing with half the players being ex-army and marines and LEO, I never saw a game where it reached that level.

They are fun though. Really fun.

[Koz]

I would assume the reflexes and speed you learn while playing would help you.

[still 2 many choices]

You can shoot something like a sustained 700 rounds per minute, and everything you see around you is cover, not just concealment !!! I still think it would be fun to play.

[smince]

Check out some of these links for semi-realistic markers(guns):

http://www.englerpaintballguns.com/
http://www.ariakon.com/
http://www.specialopspaintball.com/
http://www.tacticalmarkers.com/
http://www.tippmann.com/
http://www.tommygunpaintball.com/ (even KAHR/Thompson are into this stuff)
http://www.warsensor.com/index_english.htm