Ready or Not Missions Tue Night 011023

[Bones]

I was quite pleased with last night's session! Although we did not successfully complete a mission, I felt that we fared way better than usual and things felt more focused, coherent, and tactically sound. We worked as a team much more than before and moved with intent and purpose. More proper tactics and methods were used than before, and everyone worked very well together, staying together, taking on roles as needed, and so forth.

The team worked well moving as a unit, and with a focus of intent. For instance, when coming up to an area with multiple doors, we didn't just all run off and go checking doors at random on our own, we chose one door, cleared/secured it, then moved to the next together, cleared and secured it, then the next and so on. This prevented someone from opening a door while another party is checking a different one and then the first party gets shot and and killed, and the second party is not ready since they were occupied with their door, then they get killed. It took discipline to not want to run off and do that and we stuck to it for the most part. We do need a bit more work with stacking up properly, especially in a close quarter environment but it was much better than it had been before.

It was great too that certain officers volunteered their role in the stack while the others backed him up. Normally the roles are assigned and made redundant in case of loss, but this worked fine too. We entered the room more tactically than before, not just rushing in. Remember when entering, one officer goes in one way and the other crosses and goes the other way, sweeping and overlapping field of fire as they clear their near corner then far corners until everyone is in and the room is clear. We did that for the most part but I think there was still some confusion as to where to go for each officer. We'll need to work on that. But after we cleared the room, we secured it fine and lastly did the necessary reports/securing evidence/perps/civvies etc. Great job!

I felt that everyone was much more restrained on the trigger which was good. I heard alot more "Police! Get down!" than gunfire. As you recall, SWAT is a life saving organization. Everyone did pretty well at that. I feel, and this is Ready or Not more than everyone else, that these missions are almost always dynamic rather than stealth scenarios with every perp being armed to terrorist standards. I don't find that to be realistic as I don't expect that in a real SWAT raid that you would ever have to face a squad of trained terrorists with assault weapons as much as you would a psycho holding his battered housewife hostage while barricaded. Maybe it's the missions we are given, but because of that, it seems like we are always going up against people armed with AKs or M4s and that simply doesn't seem real in a municipal law enforcement scale. So it is a bit hard to not be on the trigger and kill rather than save lives when every perp there want to raise his submachine gun at you. But again, I think this is more a RoN thing. In SWAT 3 and SWAT 4, there were missions that were more realistic. For instance, there was a mission where they had tracked down a suspected serial killer and they had to rescue his hostage from his barricaded house. Or there was the service of a search warrant for a suspected arms dealer that turned out to be a harmless kid who just liked playing army so much (imagine rushing in there and accidentally shooting him!). Get the idea? Stealth entry, sneak in, locate the suspect, and neutralize, not kill him immediately. RoN gives the feeling that every mission is dynamic rather than stealth--the hospital has already been attacked, the server room has had shots fired with fatalities, the birthday party was raided by assault weapon armed thugs. I think the scales are tiled too much to one side.

But anyway, getting back on track, I can see us getting a little trigger happy over that but I feel we showed pretty good restraint. Where it gets dicey is when the perps all out go after us--SA goes down and officers tend to "panic" and run off to shoot back and kill. This happened a small amount of times but for the most part, when the call to regroup went out and everyone fell back and got together, we were a solid unit again and a very powerful force. I liked that. You truly could feel that situation falling apart prior to that so I'm glad everyone regrouped and brought the situation beck into more control. We didn't just fall apart, we sensed the situation deteriorating and acted more like operators rather than keystone cops.

Good job with use of tactical devices. Every door was wanded. When there was someone in the room, no one rushed in guns blazing. Rather, flashbangs were deployed and then the team entered. Remember to only deploy flashbangs when the order is issued to, and when you are about to throw it, call "Flashbang flashbang!" or "Banger!" That way everyone else knows to prepare for the blast/look away etc. There were a few times when I was blinded last night because someone deployed a flashbang without calling it, and one time where we had flashbanged a room properly then on the way in, someone else tossed a flashbang and ended up flashbanging us. That could have been deadly, and luckily, as I recall, no one was killed from that.

Side story...that reminded me of when my brothers and I were in my sister's High Risk Entry class. I spoke with my brother about this on New Year's Eve as he played one of the suspects in the killhouse when the SWAT team tossed in a flashbang. He said before this he knew what a flashbang was and he was actually excited to see it in use and to be a part of it. He was all psyched up about it. But when the flashbang went off, even though he went around a a wall for cover, he could feel the shock wave penetrate through the wall he was hiding behind and the flash of light in combination with the bang was so bright and so loud, that it literally stuns you into not being able to do anything but be paralyzed. Then as your senses come back slowly, you are still cognitively incapacitated and can't do anything but hear the ringing in your ears, the dizziness in your stance, and the wonderment in your head. He said after that ONE experience, he was not psyched up about having to go through it again and that sensory assault was pain in itself. He said he felt so traumatized by it that when they said they were going to do another run, he felt the panic and anxiety from it at the mere thought of having to be subjected to that again.

Keep that in mind as to how important and useful the proper employment of a flashbang is and can result in, not just for the suspect, but also for an officer that has it go off near him as he is trying to secure the room.

Also of use in this sense is CS. I don't know if that's available in RoN let alone in the missions that we did, but that is also an option to get suspects to submit. Stinger grenades too (also don't know if they are available in RoN). Point is, there are tools that should be used appropriately if available.

Other things that were done better were viewing a room before entry. I am still not sure how to demonstrate slicing the pie to everyone except by having you watch me do it, and watch it from my point of view as well so you know how to. But for the most part officers were making an effort to look into a room before entering it. Don't forget you have a "lean" command that can help you look into a room or around a corridor or shoot from behind cover with minimal exposure. Also don't forget that you can wand around a corner or into a room, not just under a closed door (or at least I think you can in RoN. You could in SWAT 3 and SWAT4 and you certainly can in real life).

There was also a time when we moved in en masse as a unit and I noticed that naturally some of us had paired off. One pair was in the lead, the other was in the rear (I was in the middle as the 5th man). That was pretty good, and it also brings me to another point that SWAT typically uses 2 man squads. Seeing how we paired up naturally shows that we can deploy as 2 squads and lead. This is a must and helps us be tactically efficient and redundant. A lead can thus assign a task to each squad and then afterwards they can execute as a unit. For instance, red squad will pick the lock while blue squad covers. When the door is opened, blue squad can deploy flashbangs then red squad enters left, then blue squad enters right, then the squads clear and secure the room and become a unit again. Lather, rinse, repeat.

This also requires us to know who's who, and leads me to my other RoN gripe. I turned on "Player Names" so that I can tell who's who and the font brightness is so low that it blends with the background and can't be read. The font is small too, and I was able to read it, but I agree that it should be larger. In SWAT3 and SWAT 4 they used to take the player name and make it a patch on the back of their tacvest which makes more sense and is larger and more legible. They would even color code it to red squad or blue squad so you knew not only who they were but what squad they were on. I hope RoN can do that sometime too.

So overall, it was a much better experience and operation these times around. Everyone did great, also with communication which is also key. There is room for improvement and of course the only way to improve do that is to drill drill drill with these tactics in mind. But I had a great time with everyone, and it seemed like everyone else did too.

GREAT JOB LAST NIGHT GUYS!

v6,
boNes

[PanzerMeyer]

Wow, what an in-depth and awesome post bones. I agree with all your points.

[Bones]

Thanks. If I get on tomorrow we can work on it. Someone else can lead too.

v6,
boNes