Using Airsoft For Tactical & Strategic Training

Aaron Spuler is a firearms enthusiast and recreational shooter. Follow more or his work at The Weapon Blog

Just like athletes, military and law enforcement need to practice tactics, strategy, and shooting outside of the job. But because ammunition is expensive and you can’t exactly practice shooting bad guys outside of the mission or raid with real ammunition, a lot of police departments, SWAT teams, and military units use different extracurricular training methods to keep their tactical training and teamwork sharp. And in 2019, a lot of them are using airsoft.

If you haven’t heard of airsoft, think of paintball but with replica, 1:1 scale full metal weapons shooting plastic BBs instead of live rounds. The US Armed Forces and NATO use airsoft guns for training for missions. SWAT and law enforcement teams use airsoft to practice clearing buildings and to help reinforce the distinguishing between civilians and targets (armed criminals). And all of the above use airsoft guns to practice and rehearse a raid or mission beforehand.

If you’re a soldier, LEO, or just a fan of tactical training, you should consider trying airsoft to practice tactics, strategy, and even shooting outside the job.

Airsoft guns are incredibly realistic, and the rounds are much cheaper

The goal of airsoft gun manufacturers is to make their guns look and feel as realistic as possible. Many of them feature fully metal receivers and barrels. Every external part of an airsoft gun is made to be identical and to scale as their real-life firearm counterparts. The iron sights, magazine release, trigger, grip, muzzle, and sometimes even brand stamping is the same on the airsoft guns as their weapon cousins. There’s even an entire line of airsoft guns made by Kriss, the makers of the famous Vector PDW. Many firearm manufacturers actually license the airsoft replicas built on their gun platforms. There are even airsoft pistols, rifles, and SMGs that operate on green gas or propane that have recoil. Airsoft guns have adjustable stocks as well as rails for mounted scopes, flashlights, lasers – any accessory or attachment you can mount on your firearm you can mount on an airsoft gun.

If you regularly use a variety of weapons, you can purchase the airsoft equivalents and practice with them outside of the job. Any firearm you operate regularly most likely has several airsoft replicas: M4s, AKs, Vectors, MP5s, UMPs, Glocks, and virtually every firearm in circulation has airsoft gun equivalents. Shooting skills with firearms carry over to airsoft guns, and vice versa, and people who are soldiers and law enforcement for a living tend to make fantastic airsoft players, and vice versa as well.

Plus, airsoft ammunition is cheap. Pistol rounds can cost anywhere from 15 cents to a dollar per round, while you can buy a bucket of 5000 airsoft BBs for $10. That’s a fifth of a cent per round. If you want to shoot and practice economically, and your choices are dry firing, simunitions, or using airsoft guns, airsoft shooting is extremely economical and will actually allow you to practice your shooting skills with recoil and bullet (BB) drop.

Close Quarters & Force-on-Force Training

When it comes to law enforcement and SWAT teams, the majority of situations law enforcement officers will find their skills put to use in are in close quarters situations. Shooting stationary targets, using sighted shots, while the shooter is stationary can only train marksmanship to a certain extent: law enforcement personnel know they need to train in high-pressure situations with real and moving targets, where the enemy is likely to be indoors, around the corner, or through a doorway. Further, LEOs find themselves needing to practice a raid or a high-profile arrest so that the muscle memory is down as much as possible for the real deal.

But how do you replicate these situations in real life in a cost-efficient manner? Dry firing or stock weapons are options, but they don’t put muscle memory or aiming at moving targets under stress into play. Simunitions in a controlled force-on-force environment are a possibility, but simunition FoF training is expensive, requires advanced planning, can be an insurance nightmare, and simunition ammo can leave lasting injuries for the real deal.

What better way to practice and prepare for such situations than with airsoft? You can purchase replica weapons of the real weapons you’ll be using in your raid, arrest, or scenario. Gas-powered guns can be used to add some recoil into the situation. And adrenaline, stress, and high heart rates are all introduced in a CQB airsoft battle. Shooting and aiming at moving targets under high stress and heart rate is simulated and replicated, and the instructor can go the extra mile and keep the disabled “criminals” in play with the requirement for disarmament and arrest while the other criminals are still a threat. Plus, if you make a mistake, airsoft BBs still sting, so you still have a visceral reminder of what not to do.

Battle & Military Simulation

The US Army began using airsoft as a pre-deployment training technique in 2009 for a reason: airsoft offers an opportunity to simulate future missions, combat, and battles realistically and more economically than simunitions. At two tenths of a cent per round and guns that can shoot up to 400 or even 500 feet per second, accurately, at close and mid-range, it is hard to beat airsoft as an economic yet realistic training sim for soldiers.

MilSim battles are taken seriously in airsoft. Airsoft fields put a lot of passion into their scenarios, with a believable storyline and briefing, and objectives ranging from “kill the terrorist” to “escort the VIP” to “rescue the high-value target,” sometimes even using real helicopters and Humvees with mounted airsoft machine guns. There are airsoft claymores, landmines, grenades, miniguns, marksman rifles, RPGs, grenade launchers, shotguns, the list goes on – almost any weapon of war can be put into play in an airsoft MilSim battle. Any scenario or mission that you want to replicate and train for using airsoft has the airsoft weapons to accommodate it.

Airsoft has been used with military units in practicing escort missions, protection missions, kill-or-capture missions, and just about every mission possible. It provides a non-lethal opportunity to make mistakes and learn from them while obtaining the muscle memory and direction needed for the real thing.