Why five minutes?

[G-ManBart]

I did a quick search and didn't find anything (weak search-foo, I'm sure) which surprised me. Why are we stuck on the five minute time period for walkthroughs? I know there are often chances to check out stages the day prior etc, but that doesn't always work out. On typical field courses five minutes is often enough, but just barely so and it really depends on the size of the squad. On memory stages, it's usually not even close to enough. If you're shooting near the end, you can walk through while to paste targets and get a better plan, time to rehearse it, but if you're up early in the order you're hosed.

Why not make it ten minutes? Sure, it would make the match marginally longer, but even in a one day format you're not usually shooting more than nine or ten stages in a day. Sometimes you won't need all ten minutes and can start early, so it's probably only going to add 30 minutes or so to a match. Thoughts?

[AWLAZS]

I bet some one just started giving five and it has stuck. I agree sometimes it needs to be a bit longer.

[Seth]

Bart,

I take it you found the stages to be... surprising... as well?

Seth

[Scout454]

Use the Summer Blast (or any match that uses a half day format) as an example. Each squad has a certain number of minutes to completely clear a stage or the match has backups. 10 stages, 4 1/2 hours, 27 minutes a stage. If you give a squad 1 additional minute per stage, you've lost 10 minutes. If you allow 7 or 8 minutes on a complex stage, within 1 hour you will have 3 squads backed up on that stage.

ETA:

On a full day or multi-day format you can be a bit more flexable but not much. On a multi-day format the MD's generally feel that the shooters have enough time to look at stages before hand that they should need no more than a 5 minute refresher before they shoot.

Edited June 9, 2008 by Scout454

[ChuckS]

Why not make it ten minutes? Sure, it would make the match marginally longer, but even in a one day format you're not usually shooting more than nine or ten stages in a day. Sometimes you won't need all ten minutes and can start early, so it's probably only going to add 30 minutes or so to a match. Thoughts?

boy, there have been quite a few stages where 0:10 would not be enough but I am getting better at it. That said, if you opened it up to 0:10 on a stage it would have to be all the stages since there would probably be protests on who decides how much time is "enough". A D-shooter may not have the same POV as an A shooter. Starting a stage early would be a possibility but only if ALL the squad members agree. I don't think you can count on that. I guess it depends on how many stages are shot per day and the time of year. I know for a fact that Area 2 would not work well with an extra 0:50 tacked on without dropping a stage from the schedule. (November has pretty short days)

<Soap_Box>

What would help a little is that the squad walkthrough should be done by the shooting order where the lead-off shooter leads the conga line and gets to set the pace. Let the first couple shooters get a good look. The following folks can check things out as they tape. And, when you get done walking a stage, please go around the outside and don't block the people coming up behind you!

</Soap_Box>

edit: linky to earlier discussion

Edited June 9, 2008 by ChuckS

[Flexmoney]

I did a quick search and didn't find anything (weak search-foo, I'm sure) which surprised me. Why are we stuck on the five minute time period for walkthroughs? I know there are often chances to check out stages the day prior etc, but that doesn't always work out. On typical field courses five minutes is often enough, but just barely so and it really depends on the size of the squad. On memory stages, it's usually not even close to enough. If you're shooting near the end, you can walk through while to paste targets and get a better plan, time to rehearse it, but if you're up early in the order you're hosed.

Why not make it ten minutes? Sure, it would make the match marginally longer, but even in a one day format you're not usually shooting more than nine or ten stages in a day. Sometimes you won't need all ten minutes and can start early, so it's probably only going to add 30 minutes or so to a match. Thoughts?

Define marginally longer?

5 minutes x 10 stages = nearly an extra hour. (that is an extra 2.5 hrs for your RO's over a multi day match)

In my CRO experience, shooters will use up all the time available to them...unless it is an extra simple stage.

How about we get rid of the memory stages.

[AikiDale]

How about we get rid of the memory stages.

The last match director I asked about that said he meant to throw out the memory stages.

But he forgot.

[Kingman]

memory stages are just generally a trick. You can plan a lot better stage just upright shooting.

[el pres]

I think that 5 min. is enough "if" everybody gets the same amount of time.

Being one to have some trouble with memory stages I have focused on different

ways to memorize quickly.

I think its part of the "game" and its fine the way it is. Its just another skill that needs to be developed...

[Neomet]

A slight drift on the thread here but as a lefty working against the "conga line" I would vote that the 5 min be divided as 2 min for right handed shooters and 3 for lefties. We get the extra minute because we already have the handicap of shooting all those RH friendly stages.

Just kidding, but I do wish there was a way to work those walkthroughs on stages where we lefties are going the opposite way. It was a pretty awkward on a couple stages this weekend. Everyone in my squad was great but it really just doesn't work well at all with people heading in opposite directions. When I was far enough down the order I would run through it after a couple other shooters rather than tape/brass/set steel. Not a great solution, but I think it interfered with other shooters the least.

[el pres]

A slight drift on the thread here but as a lefty working against the "conga line" I would vote that the 5 min be divided as 2 min for right handed shooters and 3 for lefties. We get the extra minute because we already have the handicap of shooting all those RH friendly stages.

Just kidding, but I do wish there was a way to work those walkthroughs on stages where we lefties are going the opposite way. It was a pretty awkward on a couple stages this weekend. Everyone in my squad was great but it really just doesn't work well at all with people heading in opposite directions. When I was far enough down the order I would run through it after a couple other shooters rather than tape/brass/set steel. Not a great solution, but I think it interfered with other shooters the least.

Just to drift a little more, we had 3-gun match director who was a lefty ???

Ever shoot a rifle weak side ? Not ecxactly something you practice, you would have loved it,

it could go both ways...

[G-ManBart]

I did a quick search and didn't find anything (weak search-foo, I'm sure) which surprised me. Why are we stuck on the five minute time period for walkthroughs? I know there are often chances to check out stages the day prior etc, but that doesn't always work out. On typical field courses five minutes is often enough, but just barely so and it really depends on the size of the squad. On memory stages, it's usually not even close to enough. If you're shooting near the end, you can walk through while to paste targets and get a better plan, time to rehearse it, but if you're up early in the order you're hosed.

Why not make it ten minutes? Sure, it would make the match marginally longer, but even in a one day format you're not usually shooting more than nine or ten stages in a day. Sometimes you won't need all ten minutes and can start early, so it's probably only going to add 30 minutes or so to a match. Thoughts?

Define marginally longer?

5 minutes x 10 stages = nearly an extra hour. (that is an extra 2.5 hrs for your RO's over a multi day match)

In my CRO experience, shooters will use up all the time available to them...unless it is an extra simple stage.

How about we get rid of the memory stages.

First off, I'd be 100% in favor of ditching memory stages completely. I know it's part of the game, but I don't have to like them. I've actually had some great results on total memory stages because I had the right plan and enough time to burn it in. Other times I've walked up, knowing I didn't have enough time to burn it in and well....crashed and burned. I think it's just wrong to trash someone's match because they really didn't get much of a chance to walk through a stage.

Marginally longer was probably too generic a term. I don't see why the match director couldn't add extra time on hard/long/complicated stages and subtract some on shorter, easier stages. At the VA/MD sectional, we had two classifiers. Does anyone really need five minutes to burn in "7"? Uh....surrender start, three paper and one steel....okay, we ready to shoot?

If we did that, it might not make the matches much longer. I'd be okay with an extra 30-45 minutes if it made things a little more fair for everyone. R,

[Nik Habicht]

My theory --- five miinutes works, ten is too cumbersome. With the exception of the first shooter, every other member of a squad gets a chance to do a final walkthrough while the stage is being reset for them. Shouldn't the first shooter also have that opportunity?

[G-ManBart]

My theory --- five miinutes works, ten is too cumbersome. With the exception of the first shooter, every other member of a squad gets a chance to do a final walkthrough while the stage is being reset for them. Shouldn't the first shooter also have that opportunity?

Almost every big match I've been to in the last year has had at least one or two stages where 5min wasn't close to being enough to really figure out how you're going to shoot it. Some take that long just to figure out which targets you can see from what position, and which ones you can see from more than one position etc. When that happens, you aren't really doing a walkthrough when the stage is being reset for you, you're still figuring it out, which is quite different. R,

[Nik Habicht]

My theory --- five miinutes works, ten is too cumbersome. With the exception of the first shooter, every other member of a squad gets a chance to do a final walkthrough while the stage is being reset for them. Shouldn't the first shooter also have that opportunity?

Almost every big match I've been to in the last year has had at least one or two stages where 5min wasn't close to being enough to really figure out how you're going to shoot it. Some take that long just to figure out which targets you can see from what position, and which ones you can see from more than one position etc. When that happens, you aren't really doing a walkthrough when the stage is being reset for you, you're still figuring it out, which is quite different. R,

Isn't that part of the challenge in this game? I've shot plenty of stages where I couldn't figure out the best plan in five minutes; and plenty of others where I saw the plan almost instantly, while others in my crew were still struggling.....

....I think we all bring different skills to the stage breakdown table. So instead of focusing on "Five minutes isn't enough," let me ask how much time is enough? How much is too long? Keep in mind it needs to work for club and major matches, for everything from a half-day format to a multiday format.....

[HoMiE]

Isn't that part of the challenge in this game? I've shot plenty of stages where I couldn't figure out the best plan in five minutes; and plenty of others where I saw the plan almost instantly, while others in my crew were still struggling.....

Exactly. Sometimes you just have to stop looking at every possible way to shoot a stage, pick a plan and go for it.

[Religious Shooter]

Come early (a day) and check out the stages beforehand. The five minutes at game day will become ample.

[Skywalker]

This is (roughly) the chain of thoughts a MD follows.

You plan your match in terms of stages (available on the range) and days you want to run your match.

Let's assume a 10 stages match, run for one single day.

Then you decide if you want to run a half-day of full-day match: we will run a full day match format.

This means that you will have 10 squads for the whole day.

Now full day usually means 8:00-17:00, with a half hour (12:30-13:00) lunch break.

A 8 hours 30 mins timeframe to complete 10 stages means 51 minutes for each squad on each stage.

At this point you have to allocate time for squadding, briefing and walkthrough, individual stage runs, scoring and resetting, to determine squads size.

Let's assume 3 mins for squadding and equipment checks, 2 minutes for briefing and 5 minutes for stage walkthrough: this leaves about 40 minutes for individual runs, scoring and resetting.

Assuming 3 minutes for the above, you can confidently run 12/13 competitors squads (13x3=39 mins) in your match and still have some spare time for unforeseen events that might slow you down.

If you want to increase the walkthrough time, you either have to reduce the time for individual runs and resetting (total squad time on stage stays the same), reduce number of competitors per squad (but less overall income), or enlarge the timeframe for the whole match (more time on stage per squad: 5 additional minutes walkthrough per squad will roughly mean one additional hour): this latter option might not prove feasible due to daylight conditions.

Edited June 10, 2008 by Skywalker

[Johann the Horrible]

I feel that 5 minutes is not enough for me. I am going up to the Nationals one day early to watch the Pre-Match and get some clues like that. Maybe it is just because I am a beginner as the "old dogs" does not seem to have much of a problem. To me it is a huge problem as I find it difficult to work out a workable plan, especially if other shooters are bumping into me during the walk-trough.

10 Minutes on the longer stages sound a lot better to me. At the moment I see it as just another hurdle to overcome.

[9x21]

I think 5 minutes is fine, but RO's need to let only the on deck shooter on the range soon as range is clear. That also includes the RO's staying out of the way, so the next shooter can finalize his plan.

[G-ManBart]

I think 5 minutes is fine, but RO's need to let only the on deck shooter on the range soon as range is clear. That also includes the RO's staying out of the way, so the next shooter can finalize his plan.

If you're finalizing your plan when you're on deck, you're already toast...that's the point I'm trying to make.

[Resjudicata]

I think 5 minutes is fine, but RO's need to let only the on deck shooter on the range soon as range is clear. That also includes the RO's staying out of the way, so the next shooter can finalize his plan.

I agree with this as well. The first 5 minute walk through gives you a chance to look and see where all the targets are. You make sure you know where they are and where they have to be shot from and get an idea of what your plan is. Then when you are the on-deck shooter you can make sure you have your positions right and really implant the final plan in your head.

Chris

[LPatterson]

This probably sounds like sour grapes but until you have worked a couple of Nationals as an RO you won't appreciate the amount of time taken by some shooters after the (Load &) Make Ready command. These are the same shooters who have used the full 5 minutes making mock runs several ways then spend 3 minutes air gunning the stage from the start position. An example, facing up range @ MR has to do a practice draw then simulates each of the shots on the stage sometimes twice before loading the gun and assuming the start position. This is usually the squad that causes the following squad to back up. Then add in some range equipment failure and you really have a backup.

I am not saying the shooters shouldn't be allowed the prep time at the start position but I have been known to ask AYR as they are still moving their hands between the start position and the gun.

[G-ManBart]

I think 5 minutes is fine, but RO's need to let only the on deck shooter on the range soon as range is clear. That also includes the RO's staying out of the way, so the next shooter can finalize his plan.

I agree with this as well. The first 5 minute walk through gives you a chance to look and see where all the targets are. You make sure you know where they are and where they have to be shot from and get an idea of what your plan is. Then when you are the on-deck shooter you can make sure you have your positions right and really implant the final plan in your head.

Chris

Go ask a GM and ask if they're really implanting the final plan when they're on-deck. I'd venture that none will say that is what they're doing. They've got it burned in well before they're on-deck.

I've seen stages where it took almost five minutes to figure out which targets can be seen from more than one position....like having to put a ball cap on a target and then go check from more than one port/position to see how many places it's visible from. Then do the same thing for another target, etc. The last Area-2 had two stages I can think of off the top of my head like that. If you're burning up your five minutes doing that, you're not going to come up with a plan in time.

Yes, sometimes it's possible to come a day early, but not always and it seems a bit unfair to penalize people who don't have that advantage. I want to win or lose based upon how I shoot and not whether I had more time to game a stage than the next guy. R,

[Nik Habicht]

I've seen stages where it took almost five minutes to figure out which targets can be seen from more than one position....like having to put a ball cap on a target and then go check from more than one port/position to see how many places it's visible from. Then do the same thing for another target, etc. The last Area-2 had two stages I can think of off the top of my head like that. If you're burning up your five minutes doing that, you're not going to come up with a plan in time.

How the heck is putting a ball cap on a target during the walkthrough legal?