US-Afghan Night Raid Deal

The US and Afghanistan have cut a deal on controversial night raids.

Afghanistan and the United States reached a deal on Sunday to curb night raids on Afghan homes, giving Kabul a veto over the operations despised by most local people and clearing the way for a wider pact securing a U.S. presence.
Night raids on suspected militants have helped fan rising anti-Western sentiment ahead of a withdrawal by most Western combat troops to be completed by 2014, but are backed by NATO commanders as a key anti-insurgent tactic.
Their conduct had been one of the biggest hurdles in negotiations on a broader strategic pact governing a future U.S. role in the country, including advisers and special forces soldiers to help safeguard stability for at least a decade.
The deal, which has taken months of negotiation, was signed by Afghan Defense Minister General Abdul Rahim Wardak and NATO's top commander in the country, U.S. Marine General John Allen.
"Today we are one step closer to the establishment of the U.S.-Afghan strategic partnership. Most importantly, today we are one step closer to our shared goal and vision of a secure and sovereign Afghanistan," Allen said at the deal's signing.

By: Brant

GameTalk - Doctrine and Tactics

Should games enforce historically accurate battle tactics and doctrine, or should they allow players to use ahistical methods in the name of game-play and "what if" theories? Do you allow the French and Spanish fleet to turn into and meet the British at the battle of Trafalgar (thereby preventing the Brits from "cutting the line")? Must Napoleon's Infanty close on the enemy in an assualt column formation, or can they deploy into firing lines?

By: Jack Nastyface

Sound Off! Tactical, Operational, or Strategic

Where is the war won?

... At the tactical level, the land of the NCO, the last 100 yards, where bullets fly and bodies drop?

... At the operational level, where resources are synchronized, multipliers are applied, and the XO loves it when a plan comes together?

... At the strategic level, where the politicians call the shots and the only rifles in use are on parade, where vehicles are bought by the hundreds, and nations are rallied to the cause?

Sound off with your thoughts in the comments below!

By: Brant

More Thoughts on Tactical Intel and Wargaming

Expanding on one of the ideas discussed in yesterday's article...

In the tactical world, we have several different tools we use to ensure that we get the right data at the right time.

One of the key methods involves the use of map graphics. We use transparent overlays on standard-size military maps (1:50k) and use graphics to indicate enemy actions: locations of units, routes for movement, places we expect them to attack or defend, etc.
For every operation we draw at least two sets of these graphics. The first is the most likely course of action, based on our knowledge of how the enemy fights. That knowledge may come from doctrine, observed behavior, or (best of all) an inside source. The second course of action is usually what we call the "most dangerous" and is based on what we think the enemy would do if they had perfect knowledge of us and our plans.

Enemy COA 1

Enemy COA 2

as always, click to enlarge the images

Once we have two sets of graphics drawn out, we take the two overlays and lay them one on top of the other. This lets us visualize where the differences/similarities are between the courses of action. Where the COAs diverge are areas that we need to target with some form of observation, to try and identify which course of action the enemy is pursuing. In a time-constrained environment, these graphics will often become the basis of our own plan, where the divergent points become the focus of recon efforts, and the similarities become target reference points or engagement areas, since we expect the enemy to appear there regardless of COA.

NAIs - Where to look for differences

Targeting/Engagement Areas - Where you expect to find the enemy

as always, click to enlarge the images

Once we've identified where we need to look, the next step is to identify when we need to look there, since some information is time-specific. When I say "look" I don't just mean literally "a guy on a hillside with binoculars and a radio." It can be a variety of sensors: ground surveillance radar, JSTARS, UAVs, counter-battery radars, or other sensors. We determine when we need to have what type of coverage based on (a) what we are looking for, and (b) how easy we can get the appropriate sensors in place. Sometimes the best we get is a satellite overflight from the NRO, but we have to take what we can get.

In the end, we have our list of Named Areas of Interest (NAIs) and what indicators we are looking for there. Then we assign at least 2 sets of sensors to each. Some may be duplicative; some may only be backup measures. The commander may also give us some guidance on his priorities, and require that we have three or even four sets of eyes on certain things, if they're deemed critical. Based on what we find in each of the NAIs, the commander may trigger certain actions among our forces to react to the new info.

Depending on the amount of time available to (a) plan and (b) execute, we may develop more than two COAs, but we virtually always develop at least 2. We may also alter the amount of analysis we do during the mission of before the mission. NAIs are often based on analysis conducted before the mission, where we project certain indicators and the meaning of those indicators. If the indicators are triggered, then that adds to the overall picture we can confirm/deny.

This is pretty specialized, I know. But it's also pretty important, and we practice/refine/rehearse this a lot.

Here's some random annoying guy explaining all of this, using graphics that look awfully similar to what's up above.



By: Brant

Battle Lab: Recon and Wargaming

this was originally published over at Wargamer.com, but after their site reboot, most of the links/graphics are broken, so we're republishing it here

Integrating Tactical Intelligence into Board Wargaming

What is Intelligence? What is Tactical Intelligence?
Intel is critical information needed to make decisions; that information is currently unknown, or known but likely to change. Tactical intelligence is specific to the battlespace in which a commander operates, and is needed to make decisions of a direct military nature, involving the employment of battlefield operating systems to accomplish his mission.

For example, a commander may not know the strength of the enemy's force at all - a situation common in naval combat. In this case, he is dealing with a "pure" unknown. In another case, he may be familiar with the enemy's initial strength, but following attrition for maintenance and expected harassment and interdiction firesH&I fires, it can be expected that the enemy will hit the commander’s main defensive belt at something less than full strength, but the exact strength is uncertain.

Another common occurrence in reality, but rare in games (especially historical ones because of the way that scenarios are designed), a commander might have a fairly complete enemy order of battle – and his reconnaissance may even have eyes on the enemy – but he has no idea what the enemy objective is.

In any case, that commander has information about the enemy that he needs. That information is intelligence. It's often developed through inference, and it's rarely an exact science. Based on what can be seen, what does that tell us about the enemy's strength, intentions, and capabilities? Based on what is known, what can be extrapolated?

These are the challenges that commanders face in a real-world intelligence development environment.


much, much more, including some sample scenarios, after the jump

Humor: RTT CQB Man

These two very funny videos are a couple of years old, but I just discovered them recently. I really enjoyed the handy tips on re-loading and clearing malfunctions, so you can get in the primary, slayin' bodies, good-ta-go!

RTT-CQB Man, Episode 1


RTT-CQB Man, Episode 2


By: Guardian


edited by Brant to embed the videos

Are Tactical Failings Really Technical Ones?

MG(R) Scales has some hard questions in a new article about small unit dominance (from Armed Forces Journal asking whether or not the gizmos at the soldier level are really the right ones.

We are better now. Today, we have the best-trained soldiers and Marines in the world. Since 9/11, the ground services have made enormous strides in pushing the latest gear to soldiers in the field using the Rapid Fielding Initiative. We know that investments made recently to better equip soldiers are saving lives. In World War II and Vietnam, an individual infantryman cost about $1,900 to equip. The “ratio” of killed to wounded in small-unit action in both those wars was about 1 to 3.4. Investments in Iraq and Afghanistan have increased to $17,000 per infantryman. The killed-to-wounded ratio is now about 1 to 9, and the casualty rate has decreased from 3 percent to less than a third of 1 percent within close-combat small units.

Investments have been sufficient to make small units better. But occasional incidents in places such as Fallujah and Sadr City in Iraq and Forward Operating Base Keating and Wanat in Afghanistan make it evident that the American military hasn’t come as far as it should in its ability to dominate in the tactical fight. Failure to dominate at the tactical level to the degree we are capable is all the more incongruous because success in today’s “hybrid” wars is achieved by the patient and often dangerous application of force by thousands of mostly Army and Marine squads, platoons and teams. These small units patrol and operate principally from isolated outposts and forward operating bases, along primitive roads and trails, and among the people within villages and towns.

This incongruity is amplified with the realization that our tactical failures are nothing new. In World War II, infantry was the third most deadly job behind submarine and bomber crews. In a half century of wars fought after World War II (a period often termed “the American Era of War”), submarine and bomber crew combat deaths have dropped to virtually nil. Yet as a proportion of total combat deaths, infantry has increased from 71 percent in World War II to 81 percent in wars fought since. Thus four out of five combat deaths have been suffered by a force that makes up less than 4 percent of uniformed manpower within the Defense Department. Half of those deaths occurred while simply trying to find the enemy and almost all occurred within less than a mile of contact. In Afghanistan, 89 percent of all deaths occur in small units and more than 90 percent occur within 400 meters of a road.

The final incongruity comes with the realization that soldiers and Marines — those most likely to die — are, when compared with their colleagues from other services, often the very ones still least well-equipped and trained for their very dangerous calling. Since World War II, our air and sea forces have dominated in their respective domains; ground forces have not. Put aside the humanitarian aspect for a moment and consider the national strategic consequences of this cosmic incongruity. Our enemies from Lin Piao to Ho Chi Minh to Osama bin Laden all recognize that our vulnerable strategic center of gravity is dead Americans. Thus it comes as no surprise that the common thread among all of our enemies over the past half-century has been the imperative to kill Americans not as a means to an end but as an end in itself. So why don’t we do better at lessening our strategic vulnerabilities by doing a better job of preserving the lives of those most likely to die? The answers are many and complex.

By: Brant

BUB: Life in the Arghandab

The Arghandab Valley in Afghanistan is currently the closest thing to a front line out there. The stories are varied, and compelling, and at times make you really wonder how informed some of the strategic decisions are.

The story of demolishing villages to "save them" sounds remarkably Vietnam-esque...

On October 6, 2010, Lieutenant Colonel David Flynn, charged with clearing a tiny village in the Arghandab district of southeast Afghanistan, called in 49,200 pounds of rockets and aerial bombs, leveling it completely. According to Paula Broadwell, a former adviser to General David Petraeus, Flynn believed that the village of Tarok Kolache was empty of civilians and full of explosive traps. The Taliban, Broadwell recounted for ForeignPolicy.com, had "conducted an intimidation campaign" to chase away the villagers and promptly set up shop inside the village. In earlier attempts to clear it, Flynn's unit had taken heavy losses, including multiple amputations from homemade explosives and several dead. He decided the only reasonable way to "clear" the mine-riddled village was to bomb it to the ground. When Tarok Kolache's residents tried to return to the homes their families had maintained for generations, they found nothing but dust. Flynn offered them money for reconstruction and reimbursement, but getting it required jumping a long series of bureaucratic hoops, some of them controlled by notoriously corrupt local politicians. Flynn, and later Broadwell, who is also writing a biography of Petraeus, declared it a success.

As soldiers arrive on the battlefields of Afghanistan, they face enormous expectations to show "progress." It is an impossible situation: the military's counterinsurgency strategy requires, by all accounts, years to implement and even longer to succeed. Yet officers are pressured, both by political considerations in Washington and command expectations in Kabul, to accomplish big objectives on very short time frames. Because it's rare for a tour of duty to last more than 12 months, commanders are severely constrained in what choices they can make. It's difficult to be slow and deliberate when one must show progress, right now, in time for a Congressional hearing or a strategic review. Those pressures constraint incentives and shape day-to-day decision-making. Officers, perhaps understandably, look for ways to demonstrate short-term gain, sometimes at the cost of long-term success. Today, Tarok Kolache is "cleared." Three years from now, when the Obama administration says it will begin reducing troop numbers, how stable, safe, and anti-Taliban will its remaining villagers really be?

Tarok Kolache is the kind of horror story that always accompanies war. "This is not the first time this has happened," a platoon leader who served in Kandahar recounted to me. There, the destruction of mined villages is common. Last November, the New York Times reported that demolishing unoccupied homes and towns had become routine in several districts in Kandahar. Because the war has displaced an estimated 297,000 Afghans, many of whom will flee during extended violence and later return, homes are often empty. In October, the Daily Mail quoted this same Lt. Col. Flynn as threatening villagers with their town's destruction if they did not report Taliban activity to his soldiers (the village in that story, Khosrow Sofia, was later burned to the ground much like Tarok Kolache). In neighboring Helmand province--even more violent than Kandahar--Marines have explicitly threatened villages with destruction if local civilians didn't volunteer the locations of near IEDs.

But as explained in several outlets, the tactical reasons were absolutely sound, even if the strategic ones were a little fuzzier.

To clarify something from Broadwell’s post, Flynn sent his men into the villages to attempt to clear them out — but there were just too many bombs. A July raid on Khosrow Sofla was repulsed by the density of the explosive charges. A Special Forces sergeant told Flynn it was the “most sophisticated IED network he had ever seen.”

A different clearing operation had to be turned back after his men discovered there were more bombs than they had material with which to safely detonate them.

That led Flynn to seek out alternatives. “It was comforting to know” that the civilians had fled, because “we [could] employ the full suite of our weapons systems” — everything from grenades to .50-cal machine guns to attack helicopters and close air support — “without worrying about killing civilians.”

The alternatives before him were stark: He could take out the buildings. Or he could keep moving in on foot, with more of his men getting maimed or killed. And if he cleared the villages without taking out the buildings, he couldn’t know that Afghans would be safe moving back into them, since the Taliban had rigged them to detonate.

So by late September, Flynn called together Tarok Kolache’s malek and the other area residents to let them know that he was planning, essentially, large-scale demolitions. “We didn’t show them a plan and say, ‘We’re going to destroy everything in the village, is everyone OK with that?’” he says.

“But they were made aware there would be significant collateral damage in the village. People didn’t say, ‘Yeah, blow up the village,’ but they kind of understood — they’d been at war for 30 years. This was the biggest fight that had gone on in the district.”

What's life like for those foot patrols out there? The Atlantic has one of the most engaging and tense stories about a platoon on the ground that you will find.

Knollinger called for a medevac, and soldiers lifted Moon onto a stretcher and carried him into a plowed field, away from the crater and any secondary bombs. Back at the combat outpost, a dozen soldiers piled into four armored trucks and sped down Route Red Dog to provide added firepower against follow-on attacks. Moon lay in the sun. The bleeding had stopped. A half-dozen soldiers stood or knelt around him. “Where are the medevac birds?” Moon asked. He faded toward unconsciousness. “Wake up, Moon!” a soldier yelled. “Stay with me!” Gerhart, blood smeared across his uniform, stepped away from Moon and toward me, his voice low and quivering. “He’s gonna fucking die, man.” The trucks arrived, and soon after, the helicopter could be heard on the horizon, beating toward us. “Water,” Moon said, his voice a low moan. “Water, please.”

Shooting at medevac helicopters had become standard procedure for insurgents, so as the bird approached, low over the fields, soldiers in the gun trucks and on the ground opened up. In a rising racket of machine-gun and rifle fire, bullets shredded trees and kicked up dust in the grape furrows. The helicopter settled into the field and soldiers shielded Moon as dirt swirled over them from the rotor wash. They loaded Moon onto the bird, and his partner, Rush, climbed in beside him. The helicopter lifted and the gunfire ebbed. Knollinger crossed himself. For the next two hours, soldiers scoured the pomegranate orchard, the canal, and a marijuana field for pieces of Moon’s equipment, weapon, and legs, all of which had been scattered across a 100-foot radius. They found some of each, and walked home.

This had become a near-daily occurrence for Charlie Company. “The enemy knows if he punches you in the nose, and you sit down, he’s won,” Charlie’s commander, Captain Ryan Christmas, had told me two days earlier, on the Fourth of July. “But if you come back with a strangle move, you’ve won.” As I stood with Christmas in Charlie’s command post, more grim news crackled from the radio. A bomb had ripped through a foot patrol, wounding two soldiers and killing one, Specialist Clayton McGarrah, who had been in Afghanistan eight days. He had set down his backpack on a hidden mine’s pressure plate. “Another tough day,” Christmas said, and pressed his fingers to his temples. “I can’t even see his face. That sounds terrible, but he just wasn’t here that long.” Christmas had done three other Afghanistan deployments and one to Iraq, but this had been the most trying. Every day since he had taken command of Charlie a month earlier, his men had been sniped at, ambushed, or blown up. “All our family and friends are home right now eating hamburgers and shooting fireworks,” he told me. “And that’s good. I’m happy for them. But they need to understand the price of that freedom.”

And as the war progresses, the enemy is getting younger and younger, and is going to force the US into some interesting quandaries about whether or not to return fire.

U.S. Staff Sergeant Aaron Best made no apologies as his soldiers escorted 14-year-old Ahmad, blindfolded and handcuffed, onto their outpost in southern Afghanistan for questioning.

"Don't be fooled," said Best, "I have detained so many teenagers. These fighters are getting younger and younger."

Ahmad, whose real name has been concealed to protect his identity, was picked up by a U.S. patrol along with a 15-year-old boy in Arghandab, in southern Kandahar province, one of Afghanistan's most volatile regions, because they were behaving suspiciously.

Ahmad and his friend were hiding in vegetation, observing the soldiers, when they were spotted. The boys scurried away and when Best's men finally caught up to them they tried to resist arrest, making the soldiers even more suspicious.

Both boys, along with several older detainees picked up on the patrol, tested positive for traces of ammonium nitrate on their hands, a chemical found in gunpowder and explosives. Ammonium nitrate is also found in certain fertilizers and, although they are banned in Afghanistan because they can be used to make homemade bombs, they are still used by some farmers. The detainees could simply have been farm laborers.

Ahmad and the others were kept overnight for questioning by Afghan police and released the next day to village elders who said they would vouch for them.

Whether or not Ahmad and his 15-year-old friend had been laying homemade bombs or had even fired weapons at U.S. troops before, Best's men will probably never find out, but the arrests illustrate a worrying trend reported from soldiers on the ground: that they are encountering an increasingly younger fighter.

"Over the last eight to nine years there has been a dynamic change in the age of fighters. Most fighters now are between 14 and 18 years-old," said Lieutenant Colonel Guy Jones, commander of 2-508th Parachute Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, based in Arghandab.

"In 2002, fighters were 22 to 30-years-old and commanders were between 32 and 40," said Jones who is on his fourth tour in Afghanistan.

By: Brant:

Wanat AAR

Military.com's Kit-up blog has a brief summary of the Taliban's performance in the Battle of Wanat, in which Afghan insurgents nearly overran an isolated US outpost in eastern Afghanistan on 18 July 2008.

The attack showed more tactical sophistication than the Taliban are usually given credit for:

Initial enemy fire was accurate enough to target effectively COP Kahler’s most powerful weapon systems. The TOW vehicle was destroyed by several RPG hits fired at short range. None actually hit the TOW system itself, which theoretically could have been removed from the vehicle and mounted on the ground until the ammunition caught fire. While insurgent fire neutralized the mortars, it also damaged the enemy position in the bazaar.

Had the Taliban changed one key element of their tactics, they might have won a rare tactical victory over Coalition forces:

While the insurgents massed a relatively large force to attack Wanat, not all their forces appear to have been committed at the same time. Had they done so, the effect may have been decisive.

This might have had serious political consequences given the already-shaky public support for the war.

The entire 270-page report on the Battle of Wanat is available on-line from the Army's Command and General Staff College.

By: Guardian

Lean, Mean Professional Wargaming

TSJ Online has a very good article about Decisive Point by Michael Peck.

Lunsford’s games are the polar opposite of the U.S. military’s traditional big, one-size-fits-all simulations. Instead of complicated, high-fidelity designs that stumble over their own complexity, Lunsford and his company, Decisive Point, produce small, tightly focused games that cover everything from tactics for platoon leaders to counterinsurgency to logistics and force structure. With tightening defense budgets and the U.S.’s insatiable appetite for training games, Lunsford’s smaller, cheaper approach might be the wave of the future.
Lunsford, a former airborne battalion commander and CGSC instructor, creates teaching aids — games that can be quickly learned and played by West Point cadets or CGSC students in a few minutes.
“The design has to be something they can learn in 10 minutes or less,” Lunsford said. Perhaps more important, this makes it easy for the instructor to learn and teach, so that he can begin a lesson with a bit of game play and still have time to teach the rest of the materia

By: Brant

Afghan Soldier Goes Fishing

Afghani Soldiers Are Fishing With Their Own Style-Shooting RPG Into Water And Collecting Dead Fishes. Its Fast And Easy.

By: Shelldrake

Radio Waves Counter IEDs

Popular Mechanics reports that a new radio wave-based technology may help to defeat the threat of roadside IEDs.

Last week the Pentagon revealed the existence of a new weapon in the war against roadside bombs: a beam of radio-frequency energy that can detonate hidden Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) at a distance.

And its creators say the potential does not stop there—the beam could be also used to set off other types of warheads before they reached their target. In theory it might be used to set off ammunition before the enemy even has a chance to fire. "The capabilities are not limited to improvised devices," Lee Mastroianni, program manager at the Office of Naval Research (ONR), told Popular Mechanics.

The ONR remain tight-lipped about virtually every aspect of the technology, which is highly classified. But there are enough details to piece together a fascinating picture of the new device.

Radio-frequency devices can output extremely powerful, short-duration bursts of energy using a technology known as a Marx Generator. This uses a number of capacitors that are charged in parallel and then discharged simultaneously in series. Texas Tech University's Center for Pulsed Power and Power Electronics has been working on this area under contract for the ONR, with the specific aim of developing pulses strong enough to defeat IEDs. Their 3-million-volt Marx Generator is the size of a bus, and it is probably not a coincidence that the anti-IED beam weapon is said to be the size of a tractor-trailer. The TTU team is also working on a one-shot pulse generator the size of a coffee can and antennas suitable for carrying and directing an intense burst of energy lasting less than a billionth of a second.

There are many questions about the new device, such as the range, width of the beam and the types of explosives that it will work on. However, whatever the capabilities of the current system (which are classified), the next one may be different. "As with any radio-frequency system, the directionality and beam width are design parameters that influence the overall system design and can be tailored, based on application, during the design phase," Mastroianni says.

It may prove impossible to generate a beam with a long enough range to be effective, and, at this early stage, other game-stopping technical issues may arise. Then there are also the issues that can come up when first using new weapons. Pre-detonating roadside bombs may cause all sorts of damage, for example, which may be blamed on the team setting the bomb off instead of on those who planted it. However, if (as has been suggested) an airborne version could sweep the road ahead of convoys, it could make things much more difficult for the bombers. Especially if they happened to be next to their bombs when the device flies overhead.

By: Shelldrake

Fast-roping 101

Important tip on fast-roping from Abu Muquwama:

I'll take a window seat on the express train to Hell. I don't like being hit in the leg by the beverage cart.

By: Guardian

CNN Reporting Taliban Being Trained By Iran

while surfing the mobile phone in the airport I found this little nugget at CNN. I'd post the link but I can't get the copy/paste to work correctly in the address bar.

Iran is helping train Taliban fighters within its borders, according to U.S. military and intelligence officials.

The United States has already said that the Taliban may be receiving limited training from the Iranians in Afghanistan, but the officials told CNN that training in the use of small arms was occurring within Iran.

"We've known for some time that Iran has been a source for both materiel and trained fighters for Taliban elements in Afghanistan," Army Lt. Col. Edward Sholtis said Monday. But, he said, it is unknown whether that training is occurring with the support of Tehran, or it is "simply something that is happening beyond the government's control."

By: Brant

Guns and Gear: Weapons and Tactics in Games

Brant asked me to take a break from my usual gear porn and serious musings on self-defense to share some thoughts on how weapons and tactics are represented in games. After all, this is primarily a gaming-oriented blog :).

Unlike most of my colleagues here at GrogNews, I am, first and foremost, a console gamer, not a PC gamer or a tabletop gamer. The relative merits of electronic vs. tabletop gaming and of the various electronic gaming platforms can be debated for hours (or megabytes, as the case may be), but suffice to say that there are some great strategic and tactical games on consoles. At the strategic level, Sid Meier's Civilization: Revolution comes to mind, while Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six series and Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising are among the best tactical games on console platforms. In terms of popularity, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (MW2) is at the top of the heap right now, with Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and Medal of Honor following in its footsteps with hopes of topping its gameplay and technical accomplishments and at least approaching its commercial success.

In today's posting, I'll touch on some features that I would like to see in a tactical-action game on the PC or next-gen console platforms. Some games do some, but not all of these things, right, while some of the other ideas have not yet (to the best of my knowledge) hit the market.

Distinct Models for Weapons and Ammunition

Terminal effects (e.g., damage inflicted) are fundamentally a property of the cartridge, not the weapon from which it was fired. An M855/SS109 NATO 5.56x45mm, 62-grain penetrator cartridge fired from an M4 is fundamentally the same as one fired from an M16, an ACR, an Tavor TAR-21, an F2000, a FAMAS, or any other weapon chambered for 5.56 NATO. There can be differences in terminal effects based on different muzzle velocities from different barrel lengths, but these effects only come into play at medium ranges (beyond 100 meters).

Yes, MW2, I'm looking at you. Why is someone shot by an M16A4 or a TAR-21 dramatically more wounded than someone shot by an M4?

Magazine Compatibility

While we're on the topic of ammunition, a small improvement that a lot of games (yes, MW2, I'm looking at you again) could make is to recognize compatibility of magazines between various weapons. If my squad-mate is armed with an M16A4 and I'm armed with an M4A1, we can use each other's magazines. In fact, the M4, M16, ACR, TAR-21, F2000, FAMAS, AUG, G36, L85, M249 SAW, L86 LSW, and many other weapons can use the STANAG magazine most commonly associated with the M4/M16/AR-15.

Penetration

This has really improved over the past few years, but some games still don't get it right. The other night, I was playing M.A.G. while my wife worked on her laptop on the sofa next to me. I was playing a sniper role, popping 1-2 enemies at a time and then displacing left or right along a long fence line. I was really racking up the kills when my wife, who is not anywhere near as into weapons and tactics as I am, looks up at the screen, hears the enemy's return fire hitting the fence, and innocently asks, "What's the fence made out of?" "Wood," I responded and then realized what she was pointing out: the game had lulled me into treating a wooden fence as hard cover.

Movement and Positions

For a game to be in any way realistic, it has to model the real biomechanics of a how trained shooter moves, the positions that they take, and the effects of movement and position on accuracy. Ideally, games should also model fatigue and the effect of pulse and respiration rate on the stability of your body as a shooting platform.

I can't tell you how many times I've been killed in on-line games by some 12-year-old bunny-hopping on the approach and circle-strafing for the kill. I've completed some fairly high-speed training (especially for a civilian), but I must have missed the session where they covered bunny-hopping and circle-stafing as individual movement techniques.

Ricochets

Richochets are a real issue with small-arms fire, especially in urban environments that can be used to one's advantage or can present a risk (either from friendly or enemy fire). For example, a skilled machine gunner can "skip" rounds along a wall to hit otherwise protected targets. FM 3-06 discusses this and other factors that designers of realistic tactical action games would be well-advised to study.

Reaction Times

I haven't done any controlled tests on this topic, but it seems that games vary in how they treat reaction times of friendly NPCs and AI opponents. I know that SWAT 3: Close Quarters Battle and SWAT 4, from the now-defunct Sierra Online, did it fairly well, because they actually had a difficulty setting to control the reaction times of AI opponents.

Wikipedia offers a decent overview of the topic and a column in a recent issue of SWAT Magazine also discussed the topic of reaction times with an emphasis on its tactical implications. At a minimum, I think a game should include some delay for the reaction time of the character observing the stimulus, making a decision (do I shoot or not? do I need to re-load? do I need to turn left or right to face a threat? etc.), and then actually executing the action (squeezing the trigger, executing a tactical or speed re-load, turning, moving, etc.).

Go/no-go reactions are also faster than choice reactions. If the AI is already covering a door that it expects the player to come through, it just needs to decide to fire when he sees the player come through the door (like readying an action in D&D). If, on the other hand, the AI is just standing around smoking and joking one moment and in the next moment he's covered in his buddy's blood and brain matter from a suppressed 7.62 round to the head, he has to go through a lot of choices: drop prone? dash for cover? unsling my weapon and return fire (where did the shot come from)? freeze in panic? etc.

There are other areas to consider (like the teamwork between a sniper and an observer that it takes to make a one-shot kill against a fleeting target at 800 yards or a better representation of terminal effects, including the effects of body armor), but perhaps those would push the game too far toward a simulation for realism fanatics like me.

In conclusion, I'd love to hear what you, our readers, think. What makes a good tactical-action game? What games do it really well and, conversely, what are some of the worst representations of combat in games that claim to be realistic?

[Edited to fix a typo.]

By: Guardian

Carrying a Handgun: Separate Facts from Fallacies

The March 2010 issue of SWAT Magazine has an excellent article on "Carrying a Handgun: Separate Facts from Fallacies" by Pat Rogers. Rogers a retired Marine Chief Warrant Officer, a retired NYPD Sergeant, and is one of the most respected tactical trainers in the business through E.A.G. Tactical.

Some of the key points that Rogers makes are:

A gun is not the answer to every problem...

Carrying your favorite handgun is not as simple as it sounds. It requires a
gross shift in your attitude, demeanor, habits and choice of clothing...

If you carry a gun, you need to carry all of the time, and every place that
you legally can... (*)

The gun you carry is going to be a compromise...

Rogers also covers various types of holsters and guns for CCW, including the pros and cons of revolvers vs. pistols.

See my earlier post on "Lessons Learned the Hard Way" for a note on another excellent article in the same issue of SWAT Magazine.

By: Guardian

(*): Yes, Steve, you caught me being a "sheep" once. That was a (fairly rare) case of do like I say, not like I do :).

Lessons Learned the Hard Way

The March 2010 issue of SWAT Magazine has an excellent article by Paul Gardner entitled "Al Tarmiyah Firefight! Lessons Learned the Hard Way." As a Marine Rifleman in Iraq in 2003, the author was severely wounded in a firefight, permanently paralyzing him below the waist. With the grit and determination for which Marines are famous, Mr. Gardner recently completed Trident Concepts' Combative Carbine 1 course despite being confined to a wheelchair and, in the article, he describes in detail both the firefight in which he was injured and how the lessons he learned in the Trident Concepts class that would have prevented his injury.

Gardner summarizes the lessons learned that he learned as follows:

• Assuming [that he] killed the bad guy with one shot to the torso area.
• Performing a slow reload.
• Retaining [his] empty magazine during the middle of such an intense
  firefight.
• Stowing an empty magazine in the same location as [his] fresh magazines.
• Looking down at [his] weapon while reloading.
• Having [his] rifle in the Low Ready [position] while reloading.
• Standing bladed and not taking advantage of [his] ballistic plates.

Note that the last lesson is situational. If you are a soldier, law enforcement officer, or the rare civilian equipped with body armor and ballistic plates, squaring your body to the target takes maximum advantage of your ballistic protection. If, on the other hand, you do not (like most civilians) have ballistic protection, the bladed (or Weaver) stance (as taught at GunSite Academy, which I have attended, and some other schools) gives your opponent a smaller cross-section of your body to shoot at and may result in a more stable stance.

Gardner's article alone is well worth the cover price of the magazine and the same issue also has an excellent article on concealed handguns by Pat Rogers. SWAT Magazine is available by subscription or at well-stocked newsstands.

By: Guardian