SeaTact Posted September 22, 2011 Share Posted September 22, 2011 Still mulling over the WA state IDPA championships this past month. Squads were limited to no more than 7-8 people I believe. I was in a squad of 5 people. Great folks to shoot with and we definitely helped each other out. We also thought it would be nice knowing we could get through the stage relatively quickly and a smaller squad would be advantageous. I thought wrong. Rotating through a stage was too quick and everyone was so busy, there was no time (at least for me) to mentally prepare. You were either shooting, pasting, or getting your magazines topped off. "On deck" time was barely enough and there really was no time to leisurely watch the shooters in the squad. This setup didn't work for me the way as I hoped. The end result-- I couldn't remember a stage design and totally forgot 1 target which led to a FTN penalty and a PE wrapped together. I also forgot some tac sequence rules on another stage. Guess there really is an "optimum" number of shooters in a squad whether it's IDPA or USPSA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graham Smith Posted September 22, 2011 Share Posted September 22, 2011 Guess there really is an "optimum" number of shooters in a squad whether it's IDPA or USPSA. I dislike small quads more than large ones for the very reasons you mention. Optimum depends on the size of the stage, but. On a 32 round field course, a squad of 10 is great because you have one RO, one scorekeeper, one shooter, one on deck, one reloading, and five to reset the stage. If you have 12, then you can have a couple people relaxing and getting a drink or bite to eat as well. Many more than that and you tend to get longer conversations going which can actually slow things down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shred Posted September 22, 2011 Share Posted September 22, 2011 The people that just want to burn a bunch of powder and go home love small squads. To be serious, you need more time to think, plan and rest/recover. That can be a tough sell at the local level when it's hot, but if you want to do well at majors, it's definitely worth it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bbbean Posted September 22, 2011 Share Posted September 22, 2011 Rotating through a stage was too quick and everyone was so busy, there was no time (at least for me) to mentally prepare. You were either shooting, pasting, or getting your magazines topped off. "On deck" time was barely enough and there really was no time to leisurely watch the shooters in the squad. This setup didn't work for me the way as I hoped. The end result-- I couldn't remember a stage design and totally forgot 1 target which led to a FTN penalty and a PE wrapped together. I also forgot some tac sequence rules on another stage. I completely understand. I've run into this shooting single stack at a match set up with lim/open shooters in mind. It takes longer to plan a stage with 3 or 4 reloads than it does to plan a stage with 1 reload, and if the squad is small enough that everyone is pasting/resetting/reloading after every single shooter, it doesn't leave a lot of time to walk the stage a couple of different ways and get the stage in your head as much as you'd like to. Too big can be an issue too - hard to take good advantage of the 5 minute window with too many shooters walking the same small space, and big somehow always seem to end up having too many people yakking and not enough people working. But if a squad is big enough that 75% of the squad can work between shooters and efficiently reset the stage, then everyone gets to take enough of a break to plan their strategy, rest, or just get their head together. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sperman Posted September 22, 2011 Share Posted September 22, 2011 I prefer small squads. It keeps things moving without all of the down time. I stay busy at the local matches, so I'm used to figuring out my game plan and rehearsing the stage in between running shooters or pasting. Ga State USPSA had small squads and everyone I talked to loved it. They also did their best to have enough staff so that the shooters didn't have to do much pasting or resetting steel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steel1212 Posted September 22, 2011 Share Posted September 22, 2011 I prefer small squads. It keeps things moving without all of the down time. I stay busy at the local matches, so I'm used to figuring out my game plan and rehearsing the stage in between running shooters or pasting. Ga State USPSA had small squads and everyone I talked to loved it. They also did their best to have enough staff so that the shooters didn't have to do much pasting or resetting steel. Then its not the same as just a 5 man squad that has to do all the work. I don't like anything smaller than a 8 man squad. You have a RO, Score keeper, guy that just shot loading mags, shooter, and on deck shooter. That is 5 people that are busy doing something. With a 8 man squad that leaves you with 3 people to do all the rest of the work. If you have 5 man squads, now at a major your not ROing or scoring, your not going to have much time to do anything unless the staff sets everything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Norman Posted September 22, 2011 Share Posted September 22, 2011 With dedicated ROs 8 is a good size squad. With traveling ROs 10-12 works better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ktm300 Posted October 15, 2011 Share Posted October 15, 2011 I prefer small squads. It keeps things moving without all of the down time. I stay busy at the local matches, so I'm used to figuring out my game plan and rehearsing the stage in between running shooters or pasting. Ga State USPSA had small squads and everyone I talked to loved it. They also did their best to have enough staff so that the shooters didn't have to do much pasting or resetting steel. The GA match was very well done. 5 or 6 shooters and 4 to 6 workers. I think 10-12 is a very good number for a squad and even better if only 5 are shooting (;-)). Much more than 10 or 12 shooters, and it just takes too long to shoot the match. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bmwm3p Posted October 15, 2011 Share Posted October 15, 2011 I prefer 8-10 people per squad as you get some rest time and a good chance to watch the others shoot. We have a group of about 10 shooters that always squad together and we have it down to a science. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poppa Bear Posted October 16, 2011 Share Posted October 16, 2011 I hate small squads for matches. The optimum if using small squads is to have RO, Board, Shooter, On Deck, In The Hole, everyone else is a paster. You do not reload magazines until the stage is completed, or only do it while the next shooter is making their run. Once they finish their run you go right back to pasting. Once the final shooter is done then everyone who did not finish reloading takes care of that before moving to the next stage. You also keep everyone in the same shooting order, but move by one spot. First shooter moves to last, second moves to first, third to second, etc. as you move between stages. This keeps the guess work out of who is doing what so it helps keep things running smoothly. On more than a few occasions I have seen both the RO and the shooter work on pasting targets after the scoring is complete. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redbird1976 Posted October 16, 2011 Share Posted October 16, 2011 The people that just want to burn a bunch of powder and go home love small squads. To be serious, you need more time to think, plan and rest/recover. That can be a tough sell at the local level when it's hot, but if you want to do well at majors, it's definitely worth it. I totatlly agree. At the last local match I shot, I stepped to the line on 3 of the 5 stages with little or no mental prep. The result was rookie mistakes that cost me the match. It seemed like I didn't have any time to turn around and get my head together before I shot. After the third stage I was just ready to finish up and go home. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hitman Posted October 18, 2011 Share Posted October 18, 2011 From what I have observed, local seems to work best with 7 or 8 and bigger matches 10 to 12. However stage dependency should be accounted for in squad sizeing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pizzim Posted October 18, 2011 Share Posted October 18, 2011 We have had local matches with 15 people on each squad ... We made it work on our squad, the other 2 squads got a little behind. For a major match 12-14 seems to work and keep things moving, mainly because you have dedicated RO's that are going to keep people on pace, if you keep the same mindset for a local match it can be done. On a side note small squad sizes are nice if your in a hurry or have plans for later in the day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vluc Posted October 18, 2011 Share Posted October 18, 2011 On those occasions with a small squad, usually when we shoot a second gun, we all agree to load after we are all done, that way you have people in the mix all the time. No law says a shooter has to reload immediately after he/she is done shooting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OperationHitFactor Posted October 19, 2011 Share Posted October 19, 2011 The fun of this sport is the conversation. I don't like small squads, because then if two people are lazy you get stuck doing all the work. Disclaimer, it's ok for the super seniors to take it easy. If I'm 70+ still on the range I'm going to be a cranky old man if I gotta reset steel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pizzim Posted October 19, 2011 Share Posted October 19, 2011 The fun of this sport is the conversation. I don't like small squads, because then if two people are lazy you get stuck doing all the work. Disclaimer, it's ok for the super seniors to take it easy. If I'm 70+ still on the range I'm going to be a cranky old man if I gotta reset steel. buy a cane take the rubber foot off the one end and put it on the other .... hes not cranky at all Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monicataliani Posted October 22, 2011 Share Posted October 22, 2011 I have to say that personally I like bigger squads better. I had one squad that was really big once and it turned out to be one of the most effective squads ever! My biggest pet peeve while shooting is being rushed. With all those people, each target had 2 people to paste it,so it went really quickly, but with all those people it gave you enough time to decompress before your turn or your next stage. I have had a couple fairly small squads and it seemed like everything was so rushed the whole time. That is not the best feeling when you are trying to maintain a calm collected disposition. Besides, one of my favorite parts of competitions is hanging out with friends, so the more the merrier! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
West Texas Granny Posted December 3, 2011 Share Posted December 3, 2011 I don't do any reloading on match day. I load around 40 - 50 moon clips the day before, get my belt ready, clean the guns and pack the range bag. That way all I have to do is grab the bag and go. As far as squad size goes 6-8 is comfortable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Red magnum Posted December 3, 2011 Share Posted December 3, 2011 I don't do any reloading on match day. I load around 40 - 50 moon clips the day before, get my belt ready, clean the guns and pack the range bag. That way all I have to do is grab the bag and go. As far as squad size goes 6-8 is comfortable. I'm in the same boat as you, I've got all my moon clips ready and chamber checked before the match starts. But only having one season of revolver under my belt having more shooters in the squad gives me some more time to plan out my course of fire. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IronEqualizer Posted December 3, 2011 Share Posted December 3, 2011 Still mulling over the WA state IDPA championships this past month. Squads were limited to no more than 7-8 people I believe. I was in a squad of 5 people. Great folks to shoot with and we definitely helped each other out. We also thought it would be nice knowing we could get through the stage relatively quickly and a smaller squad would be advantageous. I thought wrong. Rotating through a stage was too quick and everyone was so busy, there was no time (at least for me) to mentally prepare. You were either shooting, pasting, or getting your magazines topped off. "On deck" time was barely enough and there really was no time to leisurely watch the shooters in the squad. This setup didn't work for me the way as I hoped. The end result-- I couldn't remember a stage design and totally forgot 1 target which led to a FTN penalty and a PE wrapped together. I also forgot some tac sequence rules on another stage. Guess there really is an "optimum" number of shooters in a squad whether it's IDPA or USPSA. You paid money to shoot the match, gas to get there, hotel room, ammo, food, vacation time....take your time and do not shoot until you are ready. Just tell the SO that you have been pasting, resetting, whatever, that you need a minute or two to get your head straight. If this means you have to fall in with the squad behind you then so be it. Looking back did the SOs actually rush you through, or did you just not take the time you needed for fear of being seen as a slacker? It is not in my nature to sit back while others are working, but sometimes I just need a break or need some time to sit and get my head in the game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JaeOne3345 Posted December 5, 2011 Share Posted December 5, 2011 (edited) I used to despise large squads but now I love them. My scores and results have gone up so much since I started squadding with bigger squads. Greater knowledge pool, more time to prepare, etc. I am at the range longer than before, but hey, that's not a bad thing. Edited December 5, 2011 by JaeOne3345 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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