Not Taking Hits - A Different Approach

[davep]

Since guys have been playing army, taking hits has always been a problem. When I was a kid in the early 60's we had the same problem, and 50 years later the problem still remains. It's simply the nature of the beast and the ego of us guys, not to die to easily.

At the heart of the problem is [1] Being taken out of the game AND HAVING TO WAIT 15 MINUTES, next [2] is having to give up what might be a great position, or you are holding the Enemy back.

This could be easily solved if [1] the Kill Time was 3 minutes, and consisted of the person taking a Hollywood Hit, rolling on the ground and dieing. Then waiting a minute or two, and then go back to fighting. While this would solve one problem it would create others.

The main problem with people taking hits, is having to wait 15 minutes, which no one does to the last minute. In basketball when you play half-court, after each basket(hit) the opposing team has to "clear the ball" and then the ball is back in play. What we should do, is eliminate "kill times" all together and use the basketball model of play. When you are hit, you go back to the aid station, with or without a medic, check-in(clear yourself) and report in. And then find several of your unit mates, and go back out again.

This approach would eliminate the pockets of guys sitting for 10 minutes (no on sits for the 15) talking. There would be no reason for guys sitting on the battlefield, unless they were alive and eating lunch. Everyone would be moving.

Would this eliminate the problem totally? NO, of course not, but it would certainly reduced it greatly. If anything it would eliminate the "dead man sitting parties"

[barcelonablom]

I really like the idea of what Dave has here. And has Brett pointed out, it gets the medics involved much more. Isn't this along the same line of what Anthony is trying to implement? I think the two combined together could make for something more realistic and with small turn around times on hits. A Casualty Collection Point is a very useful thing, and how combat medicine should work. Maybe we could issue our guys premade casualty tags that only have various wounds on them (say like six random ones for a battle) and they can be kept on their person so when they finally do go down the medic can pluck the tag out and see whether they are dead, lightly wounded (treatable on the field), wounded (need to be brought back to a CCP for clearing) or heavily wounded (taken to the field hospital/aid station).

When the Army uses its MILES system, everyone has a casualty card. When they are hit and beeping, the medic takes a look at the card and it has a bunch of wounds on it, somehow they determine which one is in effect and then the medic treats (or not) it appropriately.

I honestly dunno why the Germans don't have more Sanitaters. German military units had medics attached at the company level and they worked a bit like ours. IIRC they would rather use their battalion aid stations more. Each nation had a different way of handling wounded.

[kanowarrior]

Hit taking has always been a problem in all the 30 years I have been reenacting. It was once summed up quite nicely that it isn't always the problem of the non-hit takers but also the shooters that expect to much out of it. In reenactment situations everyone thinks they are a sharpshooter. In fact in real life it was somewhat rare a kill shot happened and more often than not soldiers would miss their target even at point blank range with amazing frequency. It was determined thru many studies that only a fraction of soldiers in combat even fired their weapons!

I often see almost at every battle people who expect others to take hits from back shots or because they could see a head or because they fired first. Yes in real life these could easily be hits, but also in real life with your adrenaline pumping and the heat of the action, more than likely you will miss.

So I try not to take people who don't take hits that seriously. On the other hand the ones that get really obvious are the ones who really bother me. Standing up in the face of .50 caliber machine fire to throw a grenade or fire back are really funny ones. You would be surprised how often at every battle that happens.

The biggest problem is people don't bother to read or know the rules. Most reenactors generalize the rules and live and die by that. Unfortunately that means they don't take hits from legitimate kills. Alot of reenactors apply rifle ranges and rules of cover to all weapons including heavy machine guns and auto cannons. I've seen reenactors get pissed because they were killed by a volley of weapons that in the rules will kill but a single weapon would not. Unless these rules are reinforced most reenactors will not make the effort to understand them.