Comments on the BCRA TAC rifle match

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c3pppo

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First off, let me say that it was another great match, and congratulations to Ed and his team for bringing it off again.

As you may recall, Ed asked the competitors to fill out a questionnaire about the match, to give guidance on future events. This post is in that spirit, since I, like others probably had trouble formulating an intelligent response while scribbling on a paper on a car hood. :)

One thing that occurs to me is that the first day is plagued initially by the requirement to get the kids in the butts trained up to understand their jobs. This leads to long delays in scoring and resetting for the next course of fire.

My proposal would be to bring the kids in on the sight-in day. This would not only give the butts personnel an opportunity to acquant the kids with the job, but would also allow the competitors to treat the sight-in the same way as an F-class match, with each shot marked.

I think this would ease the initial confusion on the first official shooting day and also make the sight-in procedure go much more smoothly.

The only issue would be that the kids would need to be paid for the extra day, but I would certainly be happy to pay more for this service, and I suspect that if this allows us to shoot more matches overall because of better training it will be a winner with the rest of the competitors.

Another thing that comes to mind is the issue of penalties. I am unclear as to the thinking behind the need for penalties, such as 10% off for missed shots or in some cases 25% off.

To my thinking, this is supposed to be a competition that simulates as well as possible the activities of sniper teams. That being the case, it seems to me that the penalty system is totally counter productive to that intent.

As I see it, and as I gleaned from looking at some of the ways the competitors shot some of the matches (notably 3+18) the whole purpose of these matches was to avoid penalties. This meant that, instead of going for the hardest, high value shot, the competitors were actually gaming the system to take lower value shots which had a better chance of avoiding onerous penalties. My feeling is that this is contrary to point of the whole exercise. Shooting to minimize risk to your score as opposed to shooting for the highest value hit seems to me to be totally a violation of the principle of the thing. Plus, I don't see any good reason for the penalty system in the first place. Perhaps someone can enlighten me.

So, these are my current thoughts. I hope others will chime in and we can give Ed and the good folks some useful data.
 
I agree that an extra day of practice marking targets for the kids would lead to a smoother overall experience and I'd also be prepared to pay more for that service.

I am of two minds re penalties - it sucks to get them but it does make the competitors think more about their shots and maybe the idea of penalties is an attempt to replicate the real world environment where a missed shot would certainly have some negative consequences.

Shooting off a simulated roof and wrong side behind a barricade struck me as excellent stages and in my view should certainly be kept. Shooting offhand I am not so sure about - it was certainly hard but I'm not sure how often a police or military sharpshooter would take that position, again I simply don't know.

A hostage scenario involving colored balloons struck me as a good one for next year but I did hear Ed say something about no 'reactive targets' so I am not sure if balloons are in that category.

As I have said elsewhere, this was an excellent event and I am already looking forward to next year. I certainly learned a lot - including but not limited to : (a) shooting tiny groups off the bench all year is of limited use and (b) applying loctite to the scope rings would have been a bloody good idea !
 
Some of my thoughts:

- Reduce the round count to no more than ten per stage to simplify scoring and speed up the relays.
- Have clearly defined scoring lines on the targets to speed up scoring.
- Maybe some hit or miss targets to simplify scoring.
- Have totes with all the targets for each bay ready ahead of time and placed in the bays.
- Don't call the scores back until after all relays have shot and moved back (have a couple of guys scoring while the matches are running.

I was not involved in the organization of the old shoots but they did run on time and they where fun. Perhaps some of the old organizers might have some suggestions? I don't mean this as a negative comment on the current organizers, just a thought on where they can get some ideas on streamlining the shoot.

I really like the movers and position shooting (standing, roof, weak side, etc...).
Some of the old matches that we used to shoot where the under the car, through the window, off the chair, and out of the trench with a gasmask. Some of these might not be practical but some are. Some of the police shooters talked about shooting off of a tripod, table, or what ever happened to be handy (perhaps we could shoot off of the roof on it's side like a wall. There is a hole in the roof for the old window shoot, might have been shot off of a chair, I'm not sure.

After dealing with the traffic from Calgary out to the shoot and back I'd like to see the match back in June or even May and not on a long weekend. The extra day was not worth the traffic. I'd also be inclined to try and get it back to a two day shoot + the sight in day. Four days is a lot to take off for a shoot when you have a full day of travel on either end of it.

I hope there is something useful in this ;)
 
I like anything that takes me outside my comfort zone.I also like matches that force you to work closely as a team with your spotter.Its a skill in communication that doesn't get practiced enough.
I also don't mind the odd match that makes you make choices and take risks.Or at least weigh the risks.The nut check is a perfect example.Weigh the risks and either go for it or play it safe.
With that said I didn't think it was nessisary to have percentage penalties in so many matches.The loss of points is penalty enough.Perhaps add a bonus for a full number of shots on target?
I enjoyed 4 days of shooting but think it might not be feasible to get max participation on that weekend.Two days and a sight in is perfect.
 
Modile uploads would be great, so all of us who couldn't make it could get near to the minute commentary and photo updates. Still waiting for pics of the event, I guess cell phone reception is pretty bad out at Volkes.
 
I liked the 3day shoot however it does make it harder for those competitors who are traveling ,say from Alberta ,plus the July long weekend did make the roads hell.2days plus sightin works well and I think more people would shoot the match if it was 2days and not competing with Fclass competitions.
 
I liked the 3 days It gave us more time to shoot these difficult/technical stages.
If the scoring was left to stats, And just have your groups shown with shot markers after each stage, as with Service Rifle, 1-1.5hrs per stage could be saved. A Committee could deal with target issues at the end of the Day after Target Pullers have left.
Also, Maybe the TP's could stay 30-60 minutes longer per day.
stage idea: front frame with 2X4 foamy's + one more foamy or target on a stick for 3 target frames with a Terrorist AND a hostage on each. Then have a terrorist Mover cross in front. 10 mover exposers of 6-8 seconds, BUT between those exposers you have to shoot the 3 terrorists on the foamy's with out hitting hostages! for a total of 13 rounds. Mag change BUT less than 15 rds, However It could be 16 to 19 Rds too!:D
 
3 + 1 would be great for me, the more rounds the better. Heck the Imperial Shoot at Bisley in England is TWO WEEKS long! I don't see anyone there complaining about that.
 
Yes but when you are in Bisley you are overseas for only one reason.
Not trying to squeeze some shooting into a long weekend when families are wanting to do things and there are already several other high profile matches running that use basically the same equipment.
 
Other things I would consider would be earlier pickup times and later end times for the kids.
Tell them there won't be any breaks and to eat and drink accordingly.I know it sounds harsh but we do it for service rifle all the time.
We need one or two folks ONLY responsible for scoring.Shoot the targets, targets taken off and scoring guy does his thing and challenges are handled after the shooting is done.
For me there is no need to know my score or even an indication.That's what my spotter is for!He can tell me what's happening if I can't see the holes for myself.
Cutting out all the waiting will allow probably twice the amount of matches to be shot per day.
 
As regards the idea of longer times for the kids, do we then run afoul of BC labour laws? Would we have to pay the kids overtime after 8 hours?

As far as breaks, I think if there were just one more kid than required to man the butts, then those that needed a bathroom break or such could be spelled off by the extra person.

I assume we would still have a 1/2 hour lunch break for all. I did notice that some of the lunch breaks did seem extra long (Saturday?); whether there was a specific reason or because no-one was paying attention I don't know.

Also, I would be careful about making the day too long. Personally, I am not unhappy to quit after about 8 hours on the field. Spending 10 or 12 hours on the field in the blazing sun or driving rain would tend to get old real fast. Like being at work! ;) I think that rather than lengthen the day we should try to improve the efficiency of the butts operation to enable us to shoot more courses of fire.
 
Longshot has some good points ... no-one needs to know their score till the end of the day... some stages should not have minus points..EX: the dot drill- 10 shots, 10 points a hit max time 60 seconds, no minus points for a miss...more stages where both team members shoot their targets at the same time (at least the close in stuff). .... 10 round stages will work fine..
 
kungfushurfu said:
Longshot has some good points ... no-one needs to know their score till the end of the day... some stages should not have minus points..EX: the dot drill- 10 shots, 10 points a hit max time 60 seconds, no minus points for a miss...more stages where both team members shoot their targets at the same time (at least the close in stuff). .... 10 round stages will work fine..
Click to expand...

The dots of doom are fine with me.It's a good challenge and I think should remain with a zero if you miss.Again weigh the odds and go for it or don't.
The problem I have with both shooters shooting at the same time is that you have no one spotting for you.Might not be a big deal to some but in the military we rely on the spotter to help with wind calls and to call your fall of shot to make corrections from.Having both guys firing at once eliminates that.
Eliminate the indicating and have the score written right on the target so that at the end of the day the shooter can see what he's been assesed and challenge if need be.That would free up tons of time for more matches.
 
I just thought, it would only use about 2-5 minutes to shot mark & it would give teams who may have issues with rifles a chance to correct them. But I would agree with this way of marking. It would give us probably 4+ hours a day to shoot more!
I do like the idea of more than 10 rd's on some stages just to have a mag change, like the stage idea I put up would require 13 ..... or maybe 16 rd's!
 
My $.02 worth........

-Keep the match as a two day event with the Friday Sight in. It is hard enough for a lot of people to get the Friday off work to attend the sight in...........

-Keep the match off of long weekends.

-There should be penalties for the hostage targets. On the other targets dropping points is penalty enough.

-The stages should approximate something that you would have to deal with in real life.

-One partner shoots at a time. The other is supposed to be spotting......

-Don't post any scores until the end of the day. Makes things a little more interesting.... ;). Do away with score challenges. You don't get to challenge in real life..... :)

-Keep the round count at no more then 10 rounds per shooter per stage. On some of the longer stages maybe reduce the stage to 5 rounds each.

-Having target pullers on the sight in day would be nice. I would be willing to pay extra for that.
 
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