I wrote this right after I got back from ROing the RWS challenge. I left it sit for awhile, I wanted to make sure I wasn't being over critical or had emotion built into it. I think it is still a fair review and if anything I pulled some punches.
Real World Sniper Challenge After Action Report
Real World Sniper Challenge is a competition that takes place near San Antonio, Texas. I have heard many good things about it, and I really wanted to compete in it. It generally sells out very fast, but if you are an RO, you get first chance the next year to sign up. So, my competition partner and I headed to Texas.
Day 1
Things started out great, good conversations with ROs, the Match Director and competitors. Things seemed organized and controlled.
Day 2
Stage 1
5 targets, find them, then shoot them near to far while your partner shoots a pistol target (mini IPSC) in between your 2 rifle hits per target. When all 5 rifle targets are hit switch roles. Only A zone pistol hits count.
Out of the gate the stage seemed a little chaotic. The first few teams had varied rules as the lead RO and the Match Director worked out the specifics of the stage. The A zone rule was dropped, because the first few teams didn’t get scored using the A zone rule.
The fourth or fifth team was the first team to run a static ruleset for the stage. So a quarter of the teams were scored on rules. We, the new ROs, had no access to any written rules outside of the stage description. We learned mainly from the competitors and conversations.
Just to be fair, chaotic starts happen even at very well organized competitions, no matter how well you plan, sometimes things happen. Staff matches can alleviate a lot of these problems, but it is not a cure-all.
Eventually the Stage got into a groove and cranked out good runs.
A camera team came to the stage and we’re talking during a stage brief, we got blamed for it by the team to the match director. New guy problems.
The Stage ran 3 hours over its planned run time.
Returned to HQ, said it’s rough out there and got bitched at like I was talking about me. I was sitting under a tree with unlimited water, so no.
This will be relevant later.
Stage 2
This was a take on know your limits. Different targets had different values. So you could go for hard high value target or easy low value targets or others in between.
Way too long to prep the shooters causing the stage to be incomplete by sundown.
Impacts on my freshly painted target were obvious. However, my target had a weird behavior, some shots I could hear an impact but the target didn’t move, there was no spall or splash. I didn’t call a hit because they could have shot the wrong target, my field of view was very tight. But when the team said shoot it again the hit was obvious. I also wait a heartbeat before I call a hit, just to make sure (you can’t unring that bell). This all made a couple ROs pissed at me.
Apparently, the green targets around the white full size ipsc target were no shoots. Having access to those rules would have been great. But we got yelled at more, so yeah!
Day 3
The Stage Brief: “the teams will come up a hill and will get contact at 10 o’clock”
The Argument
I said there is no coordination, that is a meaningless stage brief.
He said, We want a bigger role, teams complained about us, and he was tired of our attitude, get in your truck and leave. Words were said… and we continued.
As of this writing we have still never seen a single line of rules for this match to this day. So running a stage would have been immediately turned down. On a personal note, we would have been very happy just driving around delivering water to the stages, basically water-boys for 2 days.
Stage 3
While we were setting up the targets for this stage I inquired about something, I don’t remember what, and the phrase “there’s no coordination here” was said to me. Irony.
This stage was an ambush stage and was well placed and fun (for some). While we were setting up the match director tossed out “make it timed, to add more stress”. And there was the problem. As we quickly learned from the competitors, which is not ideal, time is used to break scoring ties and this stage had 2 pistol and 8 rifle targets. So with everybody clearing the stage, the score was all about the time. That turned this stage from a throw away fun stage into a stage where one team was yelling at the ROs for clarification and an otherwise “not fun” stage. First question every team asked was do we have water, the last 2 stages didn’t have any. Refer to “The Argument“.
This was our last stage; it didn’t complete until 4:30. We left at 2:30 because we bought airline tickets based on the schedule sent to us. There was a 30-40 minute gap between each team showing to our stage.
Summary
In general, this was not a fun environment for the ROs. Yelled at by the Match Director, yelled at by the competitors, untested stages, and the first day no food from 6 AM until sundown. (We were prepared and had some food and a lot of water).
Where were the med kits? I kept asking ROs if they had a med kit, most looked at me like I had a 3rd eye.
To be fair, the match director was definitely given a hard hill to climb. The facility seems to have overpromised and under delivered. The temperature was 110+ both days. And the lack of a “staff match” to let the ROs fully understand the stage and to proof out the logistics of timing were also causing issues that were pointed out earlier. Most of their problems have been solved by the competition “industry”, I am standing on their shoulders, I am not professing genius.
So, would I recommend this match? A cautious yes.
If you don’t attach your reason for living and self worth to the outcome, you will have a blast. The stages as intended were top tier in their design. I only saw 3 stages, but I heard about the others, they all seemed very fun. We ROed the event so we could compete next year. Unfortunately, that will probably not happen. After the friction during the match and this write up, I am probably their least favorite person.
