Mission Focus

Looking forward to Starburst 2020 and into the 2021 season, Third Coast Airsoft and Third Coast Tactical, are looking to coach and mentor players with the concept of mission focus. The concept of what you are doing on the field which is playing a part in your side's bigger picture. Pushing towards an OBJ, and seizing it, is major piece of it, but so is understanding that if you hold a piece of terrain on one side of the field, it could really assist your side's efforts to seize that OBJ much easier and with less effort.

Cause and effect How many times as this happened to you? You are up against a tough position, enemy players are nearly entrenched and your artillery support just can't kill enough of them fast enough to let your people break cover and assault? Then all of a sudden, you hear command push troops meant to reinforce you towards another OBJ? You're pissed, nearly disheartened. Your shooters are attempting to snipe the enemy in hopes of using attrition to wear down the bad guys. Then as the attack goes in on the other objective, using forces you wanted for your effort, enemy elements pull off in front of you, and the attrition works, your guys are able to step off.

Seeing the bigger picture and realizing how you and your people fit in is crucial. Ask your leadership what the overall mission is, you should get much more than "Win." At a TCA event, every maneuver should be purpose driven. A lot of times players get misdirected, or allow themselves to be misdirected, by the otherside. "We want to get to X? And we can't" is a common phrase heard by the Observer Controllers/Advisors. The sandbox is big and what fun would it be to travel in a straight line? Seek out gaps in the surfaces, and it helps being mission focused. You want to get to X? Then just like real world operations, have a primary and multiple secondary routes, be willing to break contact if you can't smash through what is in front of you. You lose the initiative immediately if contact was initiated by the otherside and you cannot conduct an immediate action drill to push through it.

While on the move, whoever has been made the Team Leader calls the shots, if it isn't you, follow the leader. His/her calls need to be executed. Too many times OC/As see teams go into "committee decision making" surrendering any gained initiative to the enemy. They now are given time to react and will quickly move to cover any gaps discovered.

Quickly adjusting your set and moving allows for the exploitation of a gap in the enemy's plan. If you keep banging your forces against something other than your intended OBJ, guess what, you are playing the enemy's game, not yours.