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Book Review: Paintball and Airsoft Battle Tactics

OptimusPrime

Reprinted from the Popular Airsoft Magazine May 2008 issue. Paintball and Airsoft Battle Tactics is Christopher Larsen's latest book that helps translate small-unit battle tactics to paintball and airsoft, derived mainly from his previous book, “Light Infantry Tactics: Small Teams”. The latter book is already  a must read book for many airsoft players worldwide. This book covers many areas needed by the serious milsim (military simulation) player, and not actually the casual airsofter who just goes out to play at least once a month and only plays for just one game day.  Overall, the main sections of this book are developing individual skills, team battle drills, and team tactics. For 128 pages, this book already covers more than enough topics for an airsoft team to follow in terms of participation in milsim events.

Larsen writes that the individual skills that need to be developed are warrior and leadership skills. These should be taken separately and also together as a leader without warrior skills cannot motivate his team into action even with a sound tactical battle plan. For most of team members, warrior skills are important as these contain the basic skills needed to survive and win in combat, whether this be airsoft or in real life.


The warrior skills cover camouflaging, hand signals, individual movement techniques, fighting positions, and tactical communications, while leadership skills cover troop leading procedures, pre-combat inspection, and after action reviews (AAR). My take on this is that the average airsofter develops the first four skills as he/she skirmishes along, with tactical communications being an after-thought. While the leadership skills in actual airsoft skirmish situations are on an impromptu basis. Only a tightly-integrated airsoft team with a clear chain of command can actually fully implement these required warrior and leadership skills. In reality, many airsoft teams are informal organisations, gathering to play during weekends or free days and no practice is done to enhance battle tactics and skills.


Now that I said it, and I will stress this again, this book is for the serious milsim player and not for the casual airsofter who just cares about doing the basic techniques at playing airsoft and not full blown field training exercises (FTX) where scenarios require all the skills and tactics the book covers. I totally agree with most of what is written as these are validated tactics honed over thousands of years of human conflict. But before one implements all the elements of this book, there are preconditions or requirements that need to be met:

  • A cohesive and disciplined team
  • A clear chain of command and team member responsibilities
  • A very regular game schedule
  • A commitment to practice all drills (practice a lot)
  • A set of Standard Operating Procedures (SOP)

Online forums for airsoft teams only serve as venues for discussion of battle tactics and drills, but they do not help develop the skills at all. Only doing it offline and practice these battle tactics can make an effective airsoft team.


Any airsofter who has had some military experience whether in an active or reserve capacity knows all too well that the having preconditions met are leads towards the making of a good team. However, with airsoft being mainly a recreational hobby for many players, this book searches for that niche of airsoft players who are heavily into milsim, a small but growing group within the overall airsoft community as airsoft grows in popularity around the world. A player who has a lone-wolf approach at playing airsoft will feel uncomfortable reading this, as this book clearly shows that conflict, whether real or simulated, is either won or lost by small units or the larger groups in the form of platoons, companies, battalions, divisions, and armies.

 Easily understood by any reader who is intimidated by those doctrines and jargon in military training documents, Larsen deals on the common-sense side of military battle tactics as applied to paintball and airsoft.  If you read through the book, you will have flashbacks of your skirmishes in which you have naturally developed some manoeuvres and troop formations without realising that they are sound small team battle tactics such as flanking, hasty ambushes, movement to contact, and group overwatch.  But there is more to small team battle tactics and drills besides those. The book stresses on the importance of security, tactical communications (this is not limited solely to radio communications, but also verbal communications within and in between units), and one thing that is always ignored --- reconnaissance.

Reconnaissance is ignored, but lest I am misunderstood here, many airsoft games are set scenarios already complete with objectives, rules, and unit formations, and thus players already know what to do without doing some reconnoitering. In a time-pressured environment to make the most games in a single day, players just go for it, swarm, flank, hasty attack, and go gung-ho until they accomplish the objective or fail at it within the time constraints. So this part of the book goes out of the window for short duration airsoft games.


If your airsoft team participates in some big airsoft milsim events that run for at least 2 days and has set rules that make the milsim event more realistic (low/midcaps, medic support for hit players/limited regen, big formations, chains of command, and wide areas of operations), most of what is written in the book comes into full use. But then, you should have exercised and practice the drills first in order for your team to be an effective unit in the general scheme of things. Berget Events can be one testing area, or the big milsim events that happen in the United States. So practice, practice, practice, have a drill sergeant  in your team to push you and the rest to familiarise with the drills until they've developed into ingrained habits during airsoft play.

With all things said here, it doesn't mean that I won't be recommending this book to the casual airsoft player. I still would recommend this book to all airsoft players since it contains almost everything you need to develop the skills to be an effective unit or airsoft team. You may not need most of what is written during the regular game days at your favourite skirmish site. But then as you go deeper into playing airsoft and start participating in milsim events, you won't regret buying this book.  You may never know also that you might need it in the real world.

Book Details: 

Author: Christopher E. Larsen
Photography by: Hae-jung Larsen
Schematics by: John T. Gordon
Format: Softbound
Pages: 128
Length: 8.25w x 10.625h
EAN: 9780760330630
ISBN: 0760330638
Publisher: Voyageur Press (February 2008)

For UK readers, Grantham Books distributes the book. You get £2.00 discount off the RRP, so it would be £10.99 to your readers, plus free post and packing. Simply call Grantham on 01476-541080, quote "ISBN 9780760330630”.  Pay by card, cheque, etc, and the book is dispatched. Normal delivery is five working days, free post and packing UK and Northern Ireland only.

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