I remember my first game of paintball. It was just me and my buddy Carl, out in the woods near some railroad tracks in Hanahan, South Carolina. We both sported brand new Splatmasters, the latest and fastest shooting pistol then available. We faced off for the better part of three hours during which time we fired maybe fifty rounds. We each got one another at least once and had a blast. From this humble beginning my paintball career (some would say craze) started.
Perhaps you to remember those days of oil based paintballs, Splatmasters, and shop goggles. If so you may remember firing one hundred rounds for the first time and thinking "Wow, I shot a lot of paint". Paintball has always been fun, but from the first day I went to a field to play I found myself disappointed. The fields were so small that games always erupted in a huge fire fight seconds after the whistle blew. There was no stealth, no room to flank, and no organization anyway. "The other guys are there, let's go get them" formed the basis of the tactics used. I understood field owners needed to sell paint to live, but it was not as much fun.
In college I had the chance to command a platoon sized group of organized paintballers. As five man teams we always lost because we were broke, but when we played scenario based 24 hour games we excelled! Why? Because massive firepower cannot overcome organized attacks by players who know what they are doing. Alas, I finally graduated and entered the real world. I hooked up with a local semi-pro team for a few years, but found myself disillusioned by the tournament scene. Before long I found myself making excuses to miss practice, and finally I left. I sold my gear for a song, got married, and moved on.
A year later I discovered Civil War Reenacting. Here was a chance to do something cool and organized. It was more expensive then paintball, but was a blast. I served from the rank of private to Colonel, and even managed to "shell" Charleston, South Carolina as a Commodore in command of two gunboats. It was fun and I loved it...but my wife didn't. It took too much time away from home. I sold my reenacting gear, with my wife's promise to play Paintball with me, and bought some Tippman's. We had a blast, but secretely I still knew that there was something more that was missing from the game.
I was at a Wayne Dollack big game in Florida having a blast when the thought occurred, what if we were organized before we showed up? I found the stalking I had missed, but still saw the disorder created when five man teams set off to accomplish a Organization level objective. I thought back to my reenacting days and the 135th Anniversary Reenactment of the Battle Of Antietam. I remember the 17,000 or more men who came together to make that happen. They studied the tactics, the orders, and the formations. And then they put it all together. Then I had an epiphany. What would happen if Paintballers were organized the way reenactors were? But there was one major problem. Reenactors have the resource books available so that when they show up, they already know how they communicate. A reenactor from California could easily command one from south Florida because they were on the same sheet of music. Paintball had no such system of tactics and communication. Military tactics didn't quite fit. So each small team developed their own. How do we remedy that?
Write the book. I went back to the tactics we had used in college. They were formed around letters of the alphabet that the maneuver resembled to allow players to learn the tactics at a glance. For example, a FOXTROT formation can be viewed as an "F" laying on its back. The lines coming up representing the flank on which the attack is based. These were simple tactics, not designed to win tournaments, but to allow coordination on the field. We had combined this with simple American Sign Language to come up with a way to communicate silently, and verbally. Yelling "flank them on the left" is considerably more noticeable to the enemy than is "FOXTROT LIMA". In addition the commands could be given easily with two quick ASL signs. These were the tactics that led us to victory in scenario games in college and form the backbone of those used in FM 1-1 Paintball Light Infantry Organization Operations.
So from October 1998 to January 2000 I wrote it. With input from my wife, other players, and internet buddies. In addition to set tactics, we needed immediate action drills so each member of a squad would know what to do and where to go when something happened. We needed to standardize communications gear with inexpensive radios, and miraculously the Motorola Talkabouts appearred. Some laughed when I insisted on including an immediate action drill for coming under artillery fire, then Tippmann Ordnance came out with their mortar.
Only one thing was missing. How were we going to govern this unit? The easiest suggestion was basically a dictatorship, but this always lead to problems in the reenacting community and usually resulted in a split of the unit. We studied the by laws of some of the best reenacting organizations out there and finally decided on one vital point: the organizational command and the field command should be seperate and should rotate democratically through all those teams in the unit. Thus the position of Executive Coordinator was created instead of Colonel or commander. The position would rotate every six months from team to team and the person serving could not command a field event while acting as Executive Coordinator (EC). This keeps conflict of interest problems to a minimum. Each team would receive a vote on the Organization Captains Council. They would govern the unit. Furthermore, we would allow each team to select by any method they chose their BCC representative.
Paintballers are very individualistic, and we recognized that. The Paintball Light Infantry (PLI) does not intrude itself in how a team is run. We only impose those ideals that are common among players already. That is, no cheating, honor above all, and safe handling of paintball guns.
Finally we set about bringing the unit into existence. In January of 2000 we began recruiting persons to serve as Acting Detachment Commanders across the United States and Canada. Their primary job would be to recruit members and spread the word that a new unit with a new philosophy was around. So far it appears to be getting a good start. There will be problems, and we will have beefs, but hopefully we can work together to bring about a sea change in the way paintball is played. We believe that one day, events will be sponsored not by fields and stores, but by Mega-Team on Mega-Team matches, where true strategy comes into play, not crude mass attacks.
As reenacting started out small, it has grown into a huge hobby, but there are already more paintballers in the United States than there are reenactors! We need to grow beyond the 5 man team. Reenacting has at its core small units all over the country that "fall in" together to form Organizations, Divisions, and Armies. It is for this reason that the PLI was formed. Your unit is the small core one that can study here and learn to command Organizations. Even small teams will figure into the command rotation and will get the opportunity to command National Level Events. This keeps us away from a dictatorship type unit where the many serve as cannon fodder for the commander's team, and allows everyone the chance to lead.
Reenacting has a great system, and one that has taken years to evolve, but Paintball has the advantage of being able to use the experience gained by reenactors to further our own hobby.
Imagine one day, 10,000 Paintballers formed into divisions and Organizations going at it on the field in true military fashion, with mortars, grenades, squad automatic weapons, grenadier squads, paintball assault weapons, mines, tanks, armoured personnel carriers, and a standard system of tactics, communication, and organization. It is up to us to bring it about. The PLI is not a Milsim team, but we do recognize that significant lessons can be learned from the military. We are at the core a family of like-minded teams looking to play ball.
If you are interested, contact the Paintball Light Infantry at http://PLI.tripod.com or www.PaintballLightInfantry.com. Join us in taking the next step in paintball evolution.
 Paintball Scenario Mega Team of the New Millenium! |
