How many on a squad?

[shooting for M]

OK guys, at our monthly local USPSA match we have between 20 and 35 shooters every month. Where does everyone draw the line as far as how many per squad. I have seen as few as 7 keep things moving and squads with 12 or so just get lazy. Yeseterday we had 27 shooters on 2 squads, seemed like 3 would have moved a bit better.

What's the minimum and whats the max?

I would think 7 minimum: RO, scorekeeper, shooter, on deck shooter and three to tape and set steel. When we have 22 or more run 3 squads? Where should we draw the line?

Edited December 12, 2010 by shooting for M

[sperman]

Shooter

On Deck

RO

score keeper

Previous shooter (filling mags, catching breath, etc.)

you can do it with 7, but everyone has to keep busy. It seems like in our area, 9 is more of a reasonable limit. Any less than that and the match slows down because there just aren't enough people to reset and paste.

[Corey]

8 per squad is a decent number to me

[Jim Norman]

In the 'Old Days"

1 Just Shot

2 Shooter

3 On Deck

4 In the Hole

5 RO

6 CRO

7 Paster & Steel 1

8 Paster & Steel 2

9 Brass

Nine is IDEAL with embedded RO/CRO Nowadays is seems no one picks brass.

If everyone would keep to this sort of job description, then everyone would get time to rest, prepare and shoot their best. Sadly it seems far too many sit out and let others work. This is a VOLUNTEER sport. You want quality matches, then you got to work.

[chefcs5]

I like 8- 10 ..same basic reasons as every one is posting.. enough people to keep ypu moving and not too many to hold up other groups

[mgood]

Ditto most everyone else.

I like 8-9.

1. shooter

2. RO (I'm assuming the RO is also shooting with the squad, so someone else will have to take over RO duties when it's his turn.)

3. score keeper (The clip board usually gets passed among 2 or 3 people depending on who's shooting.)

4. previous shooter is reloading

5. on deck shooter is at the start position getting his head in the game

That leaves 3-4 people to past/set/pick up.

Over a dozen and it just takes too long. Less than 7 and it's hard to get everything done.

So 7-12, is good with ideal being 8, 9, or maybe even 10.

[Steve J]

10 is good. 7 is too few. 15 is way too many.

[mscott]

8-10 seems to be good. One range I shoot at is set up before the shooters arrive and when a group decides there is enough for a squad you are free to go. I've shot with 4 on a squad and over a dozen. 4 obviously sucks, but 12 is more tolerable if the weather is good.

[calishootr]

back in the day i recall seeing a 'script' of what times should be from start of a stage to next shooter being called up and it was somthing like 5 minutes???(me thinks 3 is more doable) but at 5 min. per shooter times 12 shooters your on a stage/bay for an hr...6 stage match??? 6 hrs??? not including set-up and tear-down...we run 2 stages per bay on the home range and tryto get er done in an hr, tho today we had somthing like 47 shooters it took longer, only by another hr or so...

[Nik Habicht]

I used to base the squadding on multiples of eight -- every time I achieved one of those, I added a squad, meaning fewer than 16 shooters, one squad; fewer than 24, two; fewer than 32, three; fewer than 40, four squads.

But we run with embedded ROs, so between RO, scorekeeper, shooter, on deck shooter, previous shooter getting his act together, that leaves 3-4 people to reset the stage. Now 3-4 is probably too many on most classifiers, but it can be a challenge to reset quickly on a field course. There's no room for anyone to goof off...

Nine's easier; above ten you really start to bog down....

[joseywales]

At one of our local matches we have 4 stages across 3 bays, so it's really only possible for 2 squads - we've been having 17-19 per squad.

I think it works because it's only 4 stages / 100 rounds.

At other local matches (6 stages), 10-12 seems to work best.

[MoNsTeR]

8 is the bare minimum unless you have standing ROs (unlikely for local match). In my experience 12 is optimal. Less than that and everyone is very rushed, with very little time to clean & refill mags or chat with a buddy for a minute. More than that and there end up being a lot of people on the squad who don't need to work at any given moment, so the work ethic of the whole squad can break down.

That said, we routinely have squads of 20 at Eastern Colorado matches, and we manage somehow. It's brutal in the summer when there's nothing to do but stand around and sweat.

[TMC]

25-30 for a local match? nice. Our club regularly gets 70+ and over 90+ in the summer. With only 5 bays we end up with squads of 18-20 which makes for a long day. I'd love to have squads of 8, you could be done shooting by noon!

On a very rainy day before Christmas we had a squad of 4 and were done by 10:30, woohoo! Sure you work right up until you shoot but everybody was is in the same boat.

[Jim Norman]

OK guys, at our monthly local USPSA match we have between 20 and 35 shooters every month. Where does everyone draw the line as far as how many per squad. I have seen as few as 7 keep things moving and squads with 12 or so just get lazy. Yeseterday we had 27 shooters on 2 squads, seemed like 3 would have moved a bit better.

What's the minimum and whats the max?

I would think 7 minimum: RO, scorekeeper, shooter, on deck shooter and three to tape and set steel. When we have 22 or more run 3 squads? Where should we draw the line?

While I already posted one answer here earlier, I am thinking, 20-35 for a match. 20=2 squads as breaking to 3 would probably make the squads really tight: 7, 7 & 6. at 35, I would go with 4 squads. 9, 9, 9 & 8. get 21 and you probably should go to 3 squads. So: 0-10, 1 squad, 11-20, 2 squads, 21-31, 3 squads, 32-36 4 squads, 37-45, 5 squads, 46-54, 6 squads.

Of course you need to have the facility to support more stages to do this, otherwise you just start making bigger squads. Only have 4 bays, then 4 squads is your number an d60 people is going to be 15 on a squad. Not ideal, but better than sitting home watching football.

At both ends of the spectrum the management of the squads becomes a problem. Too small a squad and ho one has any downtime and you wind up with no one shooting while mags are loaded and cleaned, and shooters not being ready as they were doing RO duty or similar. Too large a squad and the boredom factor can set in. People start to wander off. Or you wind up with full contact target taping, 8 targets and 12 people trying to tape!

How your shooters manage themselves will largely determine how your match runs unless you have dedicated ROS and a 'Schedule', i.e. squad 2 stage 2 at 2 and if you are not hear you don't shoot. Not too likely at other than maybe an Area match or Nationals.

[IL-SIG]

8-10 is probably ideal, but that all depends on how much everyone helps with pasting, resetting steel and picking up brass.

[Bouttime]

It would all come down to how many stages you have. If you have 4 stages then you would have to have 4 groups. If everyone works

then it goes smooth!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You have the RO, Score Keeper, one shooter reloading, one shooter getting ready to shoot (reviewing the stage). Everyone else should be

working, pasting, setting steal, picking up brass etc. I think 10 to 12 is a good squad.

[Jman]

Hopefully enough to call on 4 "brassers". You figure one or two of them will make the effort.

Jim

[Poppa Bear]

9 to 11 make a nice squad. If we have less than 8 in the squad a suggestion brought up that we have not tried yet, but are now going to do is EVERYONE works until the stage is done. RO, Board, Shooter, On Deck, 3 paste/ steel. When EVERYONE is done shooting then EVERYONE loads up their mags for the next stage and does their walk through. To make things go quicker when there are at least 10 on the squad we will designate the last five shooters as RO, board, and paste/ steel. When a shooter has finished reloading their mags they will take over one of the positions.

If last shooter from prior stage is drawn #1 then he will get bumped down to 3rd, otherwise the order will stand.

[Charles Bond]

For larger matches the ideal number is the same as the number of stages so if you roll the shooting order at each stage, everyone gets to go first at a single stage.

For smaller matches divide them up equally between the stages. Having an extra one or two on one stage vs another is fine but loading up a squad at the expense of others in not in the long term best interest of the match.

[spanky]

we run 5 stages so we just divide our shooters by 5 as evenly as possible. we usually average 50-60 shooters so 10-12.

[colt22man]

We just wrapped up our local uspsa match last sunday. We had 6 stages, 153 rounds and 69 shooters. We ran 6 squads, avg 11-12 per squad(we had to). 1 ro, 2 backup r.o.'s(willing competitors with lots of experience), 2 scorekeepers (hand the scoresheets to someone who just shot), the rest paste and set steel. We had a blast, match ran 4 hrs. Lots of great feedback. I like to run 1 R.O. for every stage to keep the squads flowing. My R.O.'s shoot for $5 unless they show up for target placement morning of the match, then they shoot free. Maybe I'm spoiled, I usually get alot of stage help the day before the match and the morning of the match. Our club does offer biscuit & sausage bkfst. sandwich's & coffee to shooters who show up early match day for setup. Saturday stage setup crew shoots the match free. I want our shooters to participate in match setup and squad help so I reward willing volunteers. Seems to work.

[M ammo]

In the 'Old Days"

1 Just Shot

2 Shooter

3 On Deck

4 In the Hole

5 RO

6 CRO

7 Paster & Steel 1

8 Paster & Steel 2

9 Brass

Nine is IDEAL with embedded RO/CRO Nowadays is seems no one picks brass.

If everyone would keep to this sort of job description, then everyone would get time to rest, prepare and shoot their best. Sadly it seems far too many sit out and let others work. This is a VOLUNTEER sport. You want quality matches, then you got to work.

+1

and in the old days,,, you got YOUR brass back,, put in your hand as I remember,, but ,,, I am old,,,

[JakeMartens]

8 is the minimum, 9 is better, I try to cap squads at 12 for the Indiana Section

With 12 you can figure 45minutes a stage(or bay, sometimes we will put 2 speed shoots together), Read WSB, 5 Minute walk thru, 3 minutes per shooter to shoot and reset stage.

It works pretty good, just have to make sure that you don't have a quick stage move into a longer one, that is where the back ups come from

[seancswife]

In the 'Old Days"

1 Just Shot

2 Shooter

3 On Deck

4 In the Hole

5 RO

6 CRO

7 Paster & Steel 1

8 Paster & Steel 2

9 Brass

Nine is IDEAL with embedded RO/CRO Nowadays is seems no one picks brass.

If everyone would keep to this sort of job description, then everyone would get time to rest, prepare and shoot their best. Sadly it seems far too many sit out and let others work. This is a VOLUNTEER sport. You want quality matches, then you got to work.

...Our club does offer biscuit & sausage bkfst. sandwich's & coffee to shooters who show up early match day for setup. Saturday stage setup crew shoots the match free. I want our shooters to participate in match setup and squad help so I reward willing volunteers. Seems to work.

I am so glad to read this. We are putting together our 1st major match at our club and according to the above thread, sounds like we have the "right" number for our squads. Although until I got to Colt22man, I had forgotten about the bribery part and usually that's my favorite part! If any of you folks are local to New England would love to see you at our club's 1st IDPA major match. I am very excited being a new shooter and helping our club get started! http://www.nwcsa.org/2011/04/idpa2011/

Look forward to seeing you all at a match some day!

[fiddler]

Seems like it would depend on how many ROs you have and then how many stages.