Close Air Support in milsim events

I am interested in ideas related to the use of close air support in airsoft events.

I build scenarios and run small events and have used CAS in a few of them. I saw CAS mentioned in Op: Jungle Fever and was curious how you guys work it in game terms. I am always looking for fresh ideas.

Here is what I have tried:

Each team has a designated combat air controller. He is issued a whistle and a compass. In order to call in a fire mission he needs to be in the vicinity of a ref. He uses his compass to determine a bearing and he estimates a distance in yards to the target. When ready he blows his whistle (which temporarily freezes all players within ear shot). The ref gets to him as quickly as possible and gets the bearing and distance (good bow hunters have developed the ability to estimate yardage very accurately inside 40 yards). He uses his own compass and paces off the yardage as best he can (it isn't hard to get good at one yard paces). He determines the location of the air strike, paces off the kill radius and informs any players affected. To restart the game he drops a thunder B to signify the strike and game play immediately resumes.

Stopping the game is less than ideal, but I have not figured out a good way around that. If you let people move during the CAC/ref conference, they will clear out the 5 guys hiding in one bunker that he was planning on hitting.

We have used smoke as well as frag rounds for CAS. We also tried allowing targets to be marked by popping smoke on the desired target. This frequently resulted in the smoke being picked up and thrown by the group targeted.

If the CAC gets killed, he sits down at that spot. If a teammate can get to him, he can take the whistle and compass and try his hand at it. Because he is not a CAC, the ref will introduce a RANDOM error into his fire mission. This error could drop the ordnance on a friendly position. It is also possible the random error would be 10 yards short, while the coordinates given were 10 yards long, thus the error could accidentally bring the round in on target. The point is, the error should be random. The sinister ref should not arbitrarily decide that the round lands on the roof of the friendly HQ.

Thoughts?

We have never done a stop-game style CAS before in our games. We have found that giving people a chance to escape the blast is more fun and exciting.


In the past we have used a loudspeaker system to play sequences of A-10 warthogs and Artillery guns and explosions to signify an airstrike.

The designated Ref would also act as the airplane and come close to the target before signalling the speaker operator to play the track. If the people in the target location were wise enough to see the "plane" coming and get out of there, then they could survive. Most of the time, they were caught off guard though and when there is a ref standing there and you hear a loud A10 strafe, you pretty much know you're done for.

We have used landmarks in the past for people to call in airstrikes upon. Usually the person calling it in (a squad leader or higher) has to be within visual range of the target.


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Zero,

That sounds cool. A mobile loudspeaker system? Boom Box?