RANGERBALL

In this case, though, the stragglers caught up with us at the ‘start-line’, where they were briefed and worked into the game. The blue team (Israeli recon team) had 12, and most of them had never seen the terrain. The red team (Hezbollah guerrillas) had 6, including me.

Several things helped make this much more successful than the LZ-Xray scenario in May:

First, me being on the red team worked much better. At LZ-Xray (Kanarraville) the red team broke down quickly because they didn't have guidance. (see that AAR)

I also had things better prepared this time, including a more detailed backstory (see the info links above), props set up in the area--i.e. “rockets” made from PVC pipe--and water, C02 and paint pre-positioned.

And on this one, everyone more or less knew what to expect and was keen to try Rangerball. They also listened during the pre-game briefing, which helped.

Oh, and my son who is now in the 75^th Ranger Regiment was on the red side so we had an actual Army Ranger playing with us!

	Hunting Hezbollah After Action Report: Location--Taliban Canyon (vicinity Santa Clara, UT) Date/Time--19 Aug 06, 0730 to 1130 This was easily the best scenario we've done so far! Pretty much non-stop action from 0730 until about 1130. Maneuvering in challenging terrrain, tactical communications, intense firefights, and pushing our physical limits. We even had a guy puke. Now that's Rangerball! We had 18 or 19 players, which was just about the size group I was looking for. I thought we’d only have about 12 for a bit, but a second group showed up a few minutes after we left the rally point—which was, by the way, exactly at 0700, just as I’d said, We don’t wait for stragglers.			Event Info: Hunting Hezbollah After Action Report Blue pre-mission briefing Yellow pre-mission briefing Rules of engagement Packing list Contacts


	In this case, though, the stragglers caught up with us at the ‘start-line’, where they were briefed and worked into the game. The blue team (Israeli recon team) had 12, and most of them had never seen the terrain. The red team (Hezbollah guerrillas) had 6, including me. Several things helped make this much more successful than the LZ-Xray scenario in May: First, me being on the red team worked much better. At LZ-Xray (Kanarraville) the red team broke down quickly because they didn't have guidance. (see that AAR) I also had things better prepared this time, including a more detailed backstory (see the info links above), props set up in the area--i.e. “rockets” made from PVC pipe--and water, C02 and paint pre-positioned. And on this one, everyone more or less knew what to expect and was keen to try Rangerball. They also listened during the pre-game briefing, which helped. Oh, and my son who is now in the 75^th Ranger Regiment was on the red side so we had an actual Army Ranger playing with us!

	We still had a couple people who weren’t quite prepared (one guy even forgot to bring a mask), so that needs to be stressed. When you show up for Rangerball, show up ready! Get all your stuff in one sock the day before. Don't be a schlubb! There were four objectives for blue to reach within a set time. The first two were rockets, hidden in the canyon floor (objective times 0815 and 0900). The third was the enemy base camp (objective time 1000). And the last was another rocket, higher up another canyon (1100). First objective. As blue started off, they kind of foundered in the lower canyon, and consequently got held up pretty good. At one chokepoint where it’s really narrow, they had to climb directly into fire, and lost quite a few. I wasn’t there, but heard that was actually quite an exciting challenge. Their advance screen of three guys up above got quickly engaged and eliminated by an aggressive red counterattack (me and my two sons). This all added up to too much time, and blue didn’t reach the first rocket in time. Note: I was using a small ‘canned air-horn’ like they use at sporting events, to signal regenerations and objective times. That worked pretty well. Learned that playing in the Valkyrie Offensive scenario game up north in June. Second objective. I gave the blue team a little pep-talk about getting more offensive minded, and I think they caught on. In the next phase, they pushed a lot more aggressively, and that’s where I got hit the most. The canyon is still narrow there, with lots of rocks and brush for cover, but they were laying so much suppressive fire that we found it very hard to disengage. We also had two red players out for equip problems, and another two were nowhere around when the fight got thick. Basically, for quite a stretch it was just two (then three) of us holding off about 10 blue players. The rules let red regenerate quickly, but we caught a lot of paint in the process. Ouch! My Ranger son actually went wide and circled around behind them at one point, and came up on them from behind, taking several out. As we came closer to the second rocket, placed in a shallow ravine in a flat, relatively open part of the canyon floor, we had whittled them down to 5 or 6. I remember taking out two (everything was a blur at that point) but they still had possession of the rocket when 0900 came, so that objective was theirs. Originally the plan called for a 15-min break at that point, but everyone was already pretty fatigued, so we took 30. One lesson I’m learning is how tiring this type of paintball can be, and that longer refit & recovery breaks should be planned for. Right here was where I had designed in an opportunity for a yellow team of latecomers to auto-insert into the fight, but no one showed up. If they had, it would have been a bit dicey for the blue team, since yellow would have showed up on the high ground on blue’s right flank, just as they started pushing up the valley towards their third objective. Third objective. In this leg, blue pushed us hard again. There was lots more room for them to maneuver, and I could tell they were working more as a team. Jason, who was acting as their team leader, has confirmed that. They were consciously using two and three man fire teams to pin red down and get angles on us. At one point, we did stop them altogether, as they waited for the next regeneration time. I blew the horn a little early to get things moving again--so I have them a little assistance. They pushed forward, and when they saw the small batch of tamaracks ahead (Hezbollah base camp), they spread out and started leapfrogging towards us. It still took them a few minutes, and for a while they had to deal with two of us moving along one flank. But, my air ran out at that point, so our maneuver fizzled. Their objective was to clear out the tamaracks, and we had a short, sharp melee-type engagement in the brush, where it was pretty confusing. I had to change guns behind a tree, and while I was loading the hopper, was spotted by a blue player. He didn’t quite know what to do and could have shot me any second, but I just kept loading, then bam!—I fired a couple rounds his way and the fight was on. In and out of the tamaracks, paint flying, then whack—and I was out. It was just before 1000, all the red players were exhausted, and blue had possession of the objective. 2^nd win for blue. A few blue players had to leave, so we adjusted the teams a bit. I think then it was 8 blue vs. 5 red. The last Hezbollah rocket lay several hundred meters up another canyon to the south. By then, our supplies of paint, C02, and energy were getting pretty low and the temperature was probably around 90. A quick survey was taken, though, and everyone left wanted to finish up the scenario. Fourth objective. Frankly, I was too drained to do much on this one, and just slogged my way up the canyon to get into position for a stand at the last rocket. But I heard there was some excitement down below. The terrain there favored the defense more. Lots of large rocks, and blue was tired and moving uphill. It was here that Walt, one of the blue players, made a mad charge to take a couple of red players out—but suffered the consequences. The exertion got the best of him, and he had to puke. Fighting to the end, charging the enemy, and puking your guts out! Hooah!! I think we'll adopt the slogan from the Ranger Handbook "Not for the weak or fainthearted". At the very end, most everyone was out of paint, but four blue players "manned-up" and pushed all the way up to where I was waiting, and we had the final shootout. After one of them snuck up behind me and “surrendered” me (thanks for not nailing me Mikhail!), I regenerated after a minute and popped back up on the ridge to fire them up again. One last flurry of paint, and I was done. Whew! I was glad it was over. Lessons Learned: Radios. Ugh! I still haven’t figured that out. On the red team, we had troubles getting our radios to work, and gave up on them early. Lesson is to make time to get them all set up ahead of time, and probably brief some kind of commo plan. I need to spend lots of time on this. Ryan and his guys on blue had it wired, so it can be done. Disadvantages of compressed air. Its great for tourney-ball, or regular recball. But if you run out in a long Rangerball game, you probably won't be near a refill station. And if your gun won’t do C02 (like the SP-8 I now have) then you're up a creek. (Note: I found out later that my PMI tank had a slow leak, so I sent it back. They said they'll fix it for free. We'll see.) Deadzones. I had marked out four deadzones, as the blue regeneration points. But some players felt they were too far apart and were reluctant to walk all the way back to them. We reverted to a ‘floating deadzone’ behind the action. There are some problems with that (how far back should they stay, and what happens when a red player circles behind the main action?) I have to do some more thinking/experimenting with this. Red regeneration. A couple of arguments arose because red players were regenerating too quickly. Everyone needs to clearly understand the rules on this, and Red players need to realize that they are basically acting as facilitators for the scenario.