CEO&I , radios, big games and avoiding a WTF moment

Okay so i got your attention. THis is Counter Encrypting Operations & Intelligence or CEO&I. Whats this for i hear you ask, well if you use radios in airsoft you will no doubt realise what a bit of a mixed bag we have in this great Republic. Most of the time some muppet keeps pressing the button and shouting, some depend on voice recognition but in a game with people you never played with before you need your own language. So without further ado, i thought i would scour the web and cut together some easy to use steps. It takes a bit of practice and it will be close to hell initially but i was quite suprised how fast you can get with it. Its all about practice. This is based on the US version and NATO version to ensure uniformity, well so the theory goes. Anways i have cut some of the crap out, like names for squad leaders, platoon leaders simply because i am guessing for the most part when this is needed we will be looking for a number of squads. Feel free to modify it but the purpose of this is to give us a baseline for comms in game that a lot of people can get familiar with, particularly those into the milsim part.

The printout

Firstly you will need each team member to have a printout of the following. Well in reality it supossed to be one person so i am airsoftising this, hence everyone gets a copy. There are loads of ways for this. Some tape it to the inside of a helmet, some tape it to an arm, some put it in the chest part of your vest. Its up to you, just dont loose it. The printout has the following information

---printout----

Call sign

Company Commander : Dingo
Alpha squad leader : India
Bravo squad leader : Oscar
etc

Authentitication Table

C H A R L E S T O N
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0

Sitrep
Moving : Dog
Halted : Elephant
At OBJ : Board
Enemy spotted : Cat
Compromised : Ring
Have Casualties : bless
Mission Complete : roller

Passwords
Challenge : Pen
Password : gate
Running Password : laptop

Orders
Move : blast
Halt : Orb
Attack : belch
Withdraw : tree
Continue Mission : leaf
Rendezvous : vision

At/To : crazy
Until/Not later than : horse

Answers
Yes (granted) : door
No (denied) Window

Resources
Ammunition: picture
Batteries : frame
Reinforcements : pen
More Time : paper
medic : chair
I request : pidgin

Questions
Whats your location : moon
Whats your Sitrep : emperor

---end of printout----

The phonetic Alphabet

This is very important. As i am sure you are well aware from everything from the Sweeney (1970's police show-- sad if you dont know TBH) to any half assed B movie, this is used to give a 'military' feel. It is really important however, and if you used a radio in game over any distance greater then 100 metres, you would know why...it sounds like you are talking to the planet zod in the delta quadrant. The easiest way is to use a word rather then a half heard letter.

Alpha, bravo, charlie, delta....actually you can go here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_phonetic_alphabet

and it has it all for you.


So what the frack is all that about. well it works as follows. Every time in a large game you use your radio, some smart arse starts to listen from the other side and the really frack you up, starts blabbing. What you need to do is send and receive a series of totally unconnected words that are authenticated using the stuff above so even if you dont recognise the voice you can transmit and receive information and then you can ignore anything else.

Lets begin with an example:

you have 2 teams India and Oscar or in the real world team 1 and team 2. You decide to send team 1 (india) on the left flank and team 2 on the right flank while you as a commander decide ye will hold the centre. So the teams leave and 10 minutes have passed...you hear someone screaming from half way into the forest 'take yer hits ya bastid!'....now you know a team is engaged...but and its a big but...which one? well you need to ask a sitrep from the team. How do you do that without every spanner with a radio shouting. Well firstly the leader of the team should respond...if he or she is out, then the next in line down the team. A good idea is for each team member to be issued a number if you want to get really snazzy, but more on this later. So you need a sitrep or situation report...look at the printout and you will see there is a question 'whats your sitrep' with a word associated with it:

here is what you do

Commander : India, this is Dingo, over
squad : This is india, over
commander: India i send emperor, over
squad : Roger, dingo, i copy emperor, over:
squad, dingo, this is india, i send dog, over
commander: roger, india, i copy dog, over and out

now what in the name of jaysus has happened. Firstly the commander has said
squad 1 this is the commander, they replied, yes this is squad 1, the commander then asked squad 1, what your situation report (as in wtf is going on over there), squad 1 has replied okay, i heard you want a situation report and i dont know WTF you are talking about, keep your panties on, because we are moving. the commander responds to confirm that he or she has heard they are moving.

So now the commander knows squad 1 is moving, has not seen anything yet which can mean a number of things. If squad 2 dont answer...squad 2 is toast. He/she can then inquire of squad 2 and they may get back a sit rep that says ammunition is low, they had people who are hit etc etc. The info is not easily understood. You have no idea except if you have the printout what the frack is going on and the game will be over before you figure it out.

Now why would you assign numbers to each team member. well suppose the leader of the squad is hit and sitting back waiting for a medic. The next person in line takes over.

so the conversdation would be as follows :

Commander : Oscar, this is Dingo, over
squad : This is oscar 5, over
commander: oscar 5 i send emperor, over
squad : Roger, dingo, i copy emperor, over:
squad, dingo, this is oscar 5, i send cat, bless 8, over
commander: roger, india, i copy cat, bless 8, over
Squad: dingo, this is oscar 5, i send pidgin, chair, over
commander oscar, this is dingo i copy pidgin, chair, over

so sit down and read the printout and you should come up with something like this

squad 2 this is the commander, yes commander this is squad 2 but i am the 5th member. the commander has an oh sh1t moment (this is not good) and asks for a situation report, the 5th member says he heard the commanders wants a situation report and says hey commanders this is the 5th member, we have made contact (spotted the enemy) and have 8 casualties so we are in deep sh1t. the commander now crapping their pants confirm what they heard and then the 2nd squad fifth member requests a medic and the commander confirms.


Now what does all this BS mean. well on its own not a lot, but mix this with a map of a large site, grid it off into blocks and ask each squad to goto that grid and if squad 2 is engaged -- you know where they are and can deciide what to do next. you obviously would ask for confirmation of exactly which grid ref they are in.

this may sound very difficult and way over the top but it just needs you to learn the basics and you would be suprised how quickly you begin to really get great benefits out of a radio.

if anyone else is interested, i will post the rest. let me know what you think.