Idea: split squads into halves to increase reset speeds

[dchang0]

We've all seen some long stages where two or more squads get backed up. This idea isn't about fixing that. That can be addressed by better stage design, self-resetting targets, or by balancing long stages against short stages within a match.

This is about getting squads to reset their own stages faster without having a small army of soldiers or ROs on hand. This is about running a match day fast enough so that no shooters are forced into a "Did Not Finish" situation because the daylight's all gone.

Here's a little background first:

I've noticed that there seems to be a magic number for the size of a squad. If it's too small, the walkthroughs and shooting go quickly but the resets take too long even though everybody's resetting. If it's too large a squad, the walkthroughs and shooting take forever, and what's worse, the resetting goes slowly too because half the squad ends up goofing off while only a quarter to a half resets. It seems to me that the magic number for a squad is about six to seven shooters.

Now, most matches have much larger squads than six or seven. So let's do this: break each squad into half and have one half reset for the other--then switch out the halves.

In a large match, squads are broken down like this:

1a + 1b = two teams of six each = 12 shooters total

2a + 2b

3a + 3b

4a + 4b

5a + 5b

6a + 6b

7a + 7b

8a + 8b

9a + 9b

10a + 10b <-- 120 shooters at this point for 10 stages

and so on...*

The way the half-squads go through the match is like this:

1) Squad 1a starts first on this stage. They get their walkthrough while squad 1b waits.

2) Squad 1b resets and runs squad 1a, who is shooting. No one from 1b may shoot or walkthrough or "air gun" the stage. All they do is reset and prep their gear/ammo.

3) Squad 1b's turn comes up, and they get their own walkthrough while squad 1a waits.

4) Squad 1a resets and runs squad 1b.

5) Next stage, 1b goes first, and flip again on the stage after that, and so on.

There are several reasons this approach will work better than single large squads:

a) This method applies peer pressure twice:

I) The resetting squad heckles the shooting squad for taking too long on their walkthrough**.

II) The shooting squad heckles the resetting squad for taking too long to reset.

This way, one guy doesn't have to be the a-hole who has to yell "tape and score!" or "reset!" at all the slackers***.

b ) Have you noticed that some people rarely if ever participate in resetting? They're always chatting with their friends or futzing with their gear or "playing through" and shirking their resetting duties. And then there seem to be the guys who are always resetting (or ROing or running the scoresheet if at a small match) because they are more civic-minded (less selfish, in other words). This method evens out the workload by preventing anyone from slacking. If they try to goof off, they'll be more obvious to their half-squad-mates and to the shooting half-squad. Shame is a powerful motivator.

c) But even without shirkers, the smaller half-squads are more efficient. On some stages, it doesn't take more than three people to reset. Any more than that and they're walking all over each other, etc. On other stages, it takes around six to seven to reset quickly and efficiently (three go up the left side of the bay--near, middle, and far, and three go up the right side of the bay--near, middle, and far). More than seven ends up walking all over each other. The result of either of these situations is that some people end up standing idle because they'd only get in the way. The problem with this is that it conditions the people to keep standing idle, even when they are needed the next time. Dividing squads up into half-squads prevents anyone from falling idle and keeps the momentum up.

d) Minimal administrative changes. The scoresheets are the same. People can still squad with their buddies (most large squads are made up of two or three groups of friends). All that changes is the squad sign-up sheets and instructions on how to act in half-squads.

e) Easier on the Official Stage ROs--when ALL the shooters start slacking off, it's usually the poor one or two ROs that are stuck resetting the stage. You Match Directors know how hard it is to get people to volunteer to RO--preserve your precious team of volunteers by spreading the workload onto the shooters!

So, what do you guys think? This is NOT the only way to improve the speed and flow of a match, but together with other efficiency improvements, it would make for much shorter shooting days.

Most important, are there any Match Directors willing to try this out and report back on how well it works or not, along with improvements? My local matches are unlikely to try it, except perhaps Doug at West End Gun Club--he's forward-thinking and might go for it.

----

Notes:

* Let's say we have a last squad with a bunch of walk-on stragglers, only five shooters total for squad 13a and 13b. We'd either steal shooters off of five other squads (one from each) to fill out 13a and 13b to 10 shooters total, OR we'd simply divide 13a and 13b up into 2 + 3 shooters and let them go at their pace. Alternately, we could ADD them to other squads, but this may break up a group of friends. Matches with a fixed number of shooter slots and/or long waiting lists (SMM3G comes to mind) won't have to deal with this problem.

** Yes, walkthroughs could be limited by time, but some stages take longer to walk-through to develop good strategies and others go quickly. And a fixed time limit requires enforcement, which not all ROs are willing to do (see below--some ROs are nicer and overlook rules). The half-squad method keeps the peer pressure on the shooting half-squad all the time. It also keeps the waiting half-squad out from underfoot as the shooting half-squad does their walkthrough. This is especially useful for complex "memory stages" where shooters repeatedly walk-through, stumbling and bumping into each other. Each additional shooter increases the delay exponentially, instead of merely linearly.

** When the LAPD broke up Occupy Los Angeles, they used crowd dynamics theory to minimize crowd violence. By breaking up the protestors into very small groups, people couldn't diffuse violent intent across multiple individuals. They were forced to decide to cause trouble as individuals, and people usually don't stick their necks out one by one. In the same way, if one person has to decide to be the squad a-hole and yell at everybody, he's not likely to do it by himself--and this includes the OFFICIAL Stage ROs, who are nice guys and gals just like the rest of us. But if the heckling/peer pressure is spread out across a group of people, they are more likely to do it. We all know this in school: it's a lot easier to be mean in a pack than one by one.

Edited March 7, 2012 by dchang0

[DyNo!]

Great idea - although I forsee hurt feelings.

[ChuckS]

I detect a Norco shooter...

[dchang0]

Great idea - although I forsee hurt feelings.

Could you elaborate? I'm open to suggestions/improvements on this idea. We ultimately want the shooters to enjoy the match experience, including the overall feel of the match down to the nitty-gritty details.

Of course, if you're referring to the hurt feelings that might occur from one half-squad heckling another that's taking too long, in that case, the guys getting their feelings hurt DESERVE it, because they're harming the other half-squad and the other people shooting or running the match.

Edited March 8, 2012 by dchang0

[DyNo!]

Great idea - although I forsee hurt feelings.

Could you elaborate? I'm open to suggestions/improvements on this idea. We ultimately want the shooters to enjoy the match experience, including the overall feel of the match down to the nitty-gritty details.

I agree with your plan - it's just that feelings will be hurt like you said:

"In the same way, if one person has to decide to be the squad a-hole and yell at everybody, he's not likely to do it by himself--and this includes the OFFICIAL Stage ROs, who are nice guys and gals just like the rest of us. But if the heckling/peer pressure is spread out across a group of people, they are more likely to do it. We all know this in school: it's a lot easier to be mean in a pack than one by one."

I couldn't tell you how well it would work but I can say that you're right!

[dchang0]

Yeah, I don't like hurting people's feelings, but some people are just going to do some really selfish things that have to be curbed, and sometimes curbing that behavior means making them feel bad.

For instance, at the recent Bakersfield 5Dogs Winter Classic, me and my two buddies didn't get to fire our first shot of the day until about 1.5 HOURS after the match had started because apparently, people were "playing through." They'd come in one at a time, insert their score sheet near the top of the stack, shoot, then move on without helping to reset. The result was that our scoresheets kept getting pushed down the list.

(At first, I was really mad about it, but there was a bigger-picture benefit that I wasn't seeing. By these shooters finishing early and getting out of the way of the entire match, the rest of our stages after the first terrible wait went much quicker. But many of these guys still didn't stick around to help reset, so things got bad for the slower-moving squads who were unable to finish due to dusk. There were fewer and fewer resetters as the day dragged on.)

At other times, it was my own squad that was holding up the match by taking too long with obsessive walkthroughs, taking too long with our gear, and too much socializing. We got chewed out by the MD. Some of us got butt-hurt about it, but I'd say we deserved every bit of it.

We're facing an interesting situation where this is a sport that's played individually but organized in teams (versus purely individual sports like marathon running or team sports like football). The result is that we have to balance the desires of individuals (more walk-through time, less resetting) against the desires of all the participants as a whole (less walk-through time, more resetting).

One really crappy thing about all of this is that if a match runs really slow, then it creates the justification in people's minds to start behaving really selfishly, like "playing through" or refusing to reset. Match directors are faced with a real challenge to keep everybody "civic minded" so that they voluntarily help the match go better for everyone OR watch the match devolve into an every-man-for-himself free-for-all. One way to fight this (and the way most taken) is by creating more and more rules (ending up with rulebooks as large as phonebooks), but another way is to use the natural tendencies of people to drive things. Oakland took the crackdown approach towards Occupy Wall Street, and Los Angeles took the crowd dynamics way, and we see which did better.

Edited March 8, 2012 by dchang0

[busyhawk]

This will take more time in just the walkies/talkie. On average the briefing will take about one minute (large Multigun Match) and the allotted time for the walk through is ~5 minute...do this 2 times instead of 1 and you are now 6 minutes behind...

Now what is keeping the walkies/talkie from being to the whole squad the first time?

I don't/can't see how this will be faster...maybe I am from MO. and you would have to show me. Just like the Iron Man...if you are not on deck, in the hole or in the deep hole you need to help.

Don't get me wrong...I like the idea and like what was said before about stage design can really help the process.

Respectively,

Busyhawk

[West Texas Granny]

I see shooters being broken down where the fastest shooters are segregated out into their own squads with the rest in their own squads. This causes the squads to move through at different rates causing the backup the OP speaks of. Easiest solution is to evenly spread those fast shooters through the other squads. Should result in a smoother transition through the stages.

[ArmdCtzn]

I like this idea. I agree that fourteen people is really more than you need resetting, so the naturally lazy or more talkative guys just wind up never resetting. By the end of a match I am really, really exhausted and it isn't from the little shooting that I do. I help reset after every shooter, except the shooter just ahead of me. It would really make my day much better if I could take a break once in a while. The last squad I shot with could've been divided almost exactly in half, one half reset after every shooter, the other half stood and talked all day.

I don't think you'd need to divide the shooters for the walk-throughs, do that as a group with a time limit.

[toothandnail]

Sounds like a plan . Every match I RO I have a time limit on the walk through , if you show up late , do your walk through while resetting. Some get mad , but they show up on time next time.