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rsw@jfet.org
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texts from last weekend
Last weekend I participated in the Tiger Valley 4 Man Tactical Team Match in Waco along with a bunch of SA Goons comprising three teams. It was, in a word, awesome. Here's my writeup about the stages from the thread.
A bunch of us were talking after the competition and decided that we would do post-mortem analysis of our preparation, strategy, and gear. That post is forthcoming, but first I'm going to paste the text of the stage description sheet, and comment on how they modified it because of the inclement weather.
Weather
Before I do that, I want to point out that the posts in the thread from ASSers thus far do not come close to properly illustrating the depths of misery we suffered on Saturday. Several points during that day were, no shit, among the most acutely unpleasant things I've withstood in my life. I'm pretty sure I have minor nerve damage in my fingertips, since they're still numb now two days later.
When we got in the car to head back to the hotel, it had warmed up from the coldest point in the morning, and my car's thermometer was reading 37F. In the morning it was hanging right around freezing with steady 40kt winds and driving rain. I'm pretty sure when the TX team ran the shotgun stage the rain was freezing on the way down. Beyond all of this, while most of us had some kind of rain gear, no one had anticipated sub-freezing temperatures, so we were completely under-dressed. Combine this with the fact that we were pretty much instantly soaked through and the knee-high water we had to plunge through several times while running and while helping reset the shotgun stage and you begin to get the idea.
Diver Dick was suffering from pretty serious hypothermia by the time we got back to the hotel (I hear Arcmage was, too), Ne Cede Malis probably couldn't feel his feet until some time after dinner, and Totally TWISTED was running the competition with a respectable chest cold. What I'm saying is, Team USA was a bunch of fucking troopers. Thanks for the effort, gents.
Saturday night, most of us hit Wal-Mart and picked up some more gear: wind breakers, shirts, pants, footwear, et cetera. Combined with the fact that it was dry and a good ten degrees warmer (but still pretty damn windy), Sunday went much better.
Stage Descriptions
from the handout. The ordering was different for different teams because they had us running some in parallel; I'm just copying the one on the sheet.
Stage #1 - Crazy Indians
Teams will start on the 200 yard line with unloaded long guns and pistols. On the timer, teams will load and engage target of their choice (1) BOBBER 5 points each hit (1) STOP AND GO 10 points each hit (1) WALKER 15 points each hit (1) RUNNER 20 points each hit, with 15 rounds each target [ed: I believe the word "target" here is a misprint; they meant "with 15 rounds each (shooter)"]. Targets will expose for 90 seconds, starting on the timer. Only 15 rounds will be counted on each of the 4 targets.
Pretty much as described, except for my note above. The most abusive thing about this stage is that the walk to it was a bit over half a mile straight into the wind and rain.
I put pretty much all my shots into (well, at, anyway) the walker, since I was confident I could hit it consistently. The runner would actually come to a stop for short periods of time when reversing direction, at which point you could take an easy 20 points; I did this once or twice.
Stage #2 - Shotgun Jungle Run
On the timer teams will start in the start/stop box located by the tower with unloaded shotguns and 16 rounds of shotgun ammunition. On the timer, shooters will move to the pepper popper station and load (4) rounds each (max) and engage 4 pepper poppers from fault line. Once engaged, shooters will show clear to RO's and move down trail stopping at each fault line station and engaging skeet at each of (3) fault lines, showing clear before moving out of position. Once all 4 arrays of targets are hit, time stops on the last shot. Five minutes max time.
"Skeet" in this case just means clays on steel stands. As I mentioned before, the run from line to line involved several dips in knee deep water and some treacherously sharp underbrush. I found that pulling two shells out of my bandoleer while running was a reasonable strategy for speeding up reloads.
The shotgun that failed Dan in the video Foghorn posted above was actually my IAC Hawk with Scattergun Tech follower and extension, and I ran precisely the same gun with no issue on this stage. As Craptacular said, the issue was with the fourth round not getting seated in the mag tube properly. After the RSO handed me the gun, I was able to clear it with a little poking and prodding, and had no further issues.
Sorry my shotgun failed you, Dan...
Stage #3 - Helicopter Assault
All teams begin stage in the start box. Each shooter will have their rifle and one magazine staged at one of the three barricades and one in the tower. Pistols will be holstered. On the timer one shooter will enter the helicopter and engage the pistol target until hit. After hitting the steel pistol target, the shooter will holster down range and exit the same side. Once that shooter has exited the next shooter moves into the helicopter until all four have engaged the pistol target. Upon exiting the helo, the shooters, either individually or as a team, will move through the obstacles (tunnel/window/wall) to their rifle station, where they will engage a steel target with six rounds each. Once the steel is hit, they will clear, safety and ground their weapons, moving to the tower, entering through the scuttle hole. Once all team members are in the tower, one of the shooters will act as a spotter and retrieve the target notebook and call out the steel box target for the tower shooter to engage. When the shooter hits the designated steel target, the spotter will use binoculars to identify the designated colored paper target in each box then call the paper target in the opened box for the shooter to engage with one round and one round only. Once all three boxes are opened and three shots fired time will stop. Five minutes max time.
Aye, there's the rub: five minutes max time. The helo/pistol part was pretty easy, and the tunnel and window obstacles not really hard, but we were having optics/sighting issues, so the steels at 100ish yards tripped us up. I'm proud of Team USA for coming up with a strategy for getting everyone over the (8-foot) wall and then executing it pretty much perfectly (we didn't get Totally TWISTED over because time ran out, but Ne Cede Malis and I were up and pulling him over when they called time).
This was the first stage where it became apparent to me that part of our strategy should include a time limit per section, i.e., "if you can't get your 6 rifle hits in 30 seconds, take the penalty and move on." I believe if we'd done this properly we would have been able to finish the stage. As it turns out, only two or three of the twelve teams did so.
Stage #4 - Tower Scramble
Four shooters will be on the first floor of the tower. On the timer one or all shooters will engage the land mine with fire for a total of 10 seconds or until the mine explodes. Other targets cannot be engaged for 10 seconds or until mine detonates. Once mine or ten seconds have elapsed, shooters will engage other targets at their discretion. Each target must have two hits to neutralize.
The "land mine" was some tannerite.
This was a pretty nifty stage, and we had a sound strategy, but I made a mental error after reloading and left a couple targets for which I was responsible untouched (and a third with only one hole in it). Lesson here: be careful and methodical, and think think think.
Oh, wait, did I mention the 40kt winds? We were facing straight into them from 15 feet off the ground in the tower during this stage. Keeping the rifle steady was hard work.
Stage #5 - Village Assault
Team will start in start box. On timer two shootrs will move to engage steel targets with rifle fire. Simultaneously, two shooters will move to recover stolen stores, first both going upstairs and engaging pistol targets, then moving back downstairs where they will recover stores and return both shooters and stores to start box.
This one didn't run quite as described (pistol shooters shot from downstairs, not upstairs). The rifle shooters had to run about 100yds before engaging their targets, about 20 steel knockdown targets 100 yards out. Totally TWISTED and I did the run, and my first instinct was to run as fast as I could. Problem was, this meant when I got there I was breathing hard for a few seconds before I could start to shoot accurately. Next time, fast jog on the way out and sprint on the way back.
This stage also highlighted a minor structural problem with the competition: the RSOs weren't 100% in sync on the rules for each stage. The RSO at the start box told the pistol shooters that each person had to shoot each pistol target, whereas the RSO inside the house told them one hit apiece. In the end, it didn't matter---the rifle part took much longer anyhow---but it would have been nicer to be clear on this.
Stage #6 - Zombieland
On timer shooters will move from the start box to shooting positions and engage all targets with head shots for a total of one round in each head. Once all head shots are made on paper, shooters will unload and show clear and move into north 1 bay and engage all steel with pistols with one hit in each head from shooting box. All Zombies must be hit before any team member can move into next bay. All steel targets must be shot with pistol and all paper must be hit with rifle. Rifles must be cleared before moving. Pistols must be holstered. Once all Zombies are hit, shooters must move back to start box.
This was a pretty fun stage, and mercifully the last that we ran on Saturday (PA and TX teams ran odd/even pairs in backwards order on Saturday, so they finished on #5). Two bays with pistol targets and two with rifle, with two rounds on each rifle target and one round in the head on each pistol.
Absolut_Zero and Diver Dick can doubtless talk more about this, but the berm setup for these bays was a bit... inadequate. The range was set up so that people walking to the other stage could end up walking behind the berms where this stage was running, and what I'm guessing were ricochets from the pistol steels were going over the berm and whizzing over the heads of passers-by. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
Stage #7 - Rattle Battle
All shooters will have 3 magazines loaded with 15 rounds each. The shooters will have 40 seconds to move from the 500 yard line to the 400 yard line where one shooter will shoot standing, one kneeling, one prone and one sitting. Shooters will have 1 minute to fire 15 rounds in their position. At the end of one minute, shooters will again have 40 seconds to move to the next firing position and repeat drill shooting on the 400, 300 and 200 yard lines.
They changed this one up a bit because of the high winds on the course (and presumably to get through it faster). They ran three teams simultaneously shooting at their own targets; all shooters were prone; advances to each yardline were untimed; and 90 seconds were given instead of 60.
This was the first stage we ran Sunday, and all three ASS teams ran simultaneously. I think one of the OTF guys got some footage of us doing it. Unfortunately, we were the last group to run it and for us the wind strengthened considerably compared to the first teams to shoot.
Stage #8 - Hostage Rescue
Shooters will start in start box at the entrance to the North bays. On timer, shooters will move and engage all targets from shooting boxes. From the shooting positions in each bay, paper will be engaged with rifle and steel with pistol. Rifles must be cleared before moving. Pistols must be holstered. Once shooters arrive at North bay three, team will split in half, two moving to shoot house bay and two engaging targets in bay three. As shooters move to the shoot house, one will breach the door and one will move into house and engage targets. Once he calls that the building is clear, other team members will help remove downed person to stop box located outside building.
They changed this stage completely, and it was really not much like the above. Instead, the teams carried a 300lb dummy throughout the stage, starting with him in the start box and moving forward to each bay, setting him down and engaging targets in that bay. First two bays were pistol steels, second two bays were rifle paper. The trick on the rifle paper targets was that you had to get a head shot, and you could only have one shot on paper. Two shots on paper or a shot not in the head didn't count. After that, carry dummy back to the beginning of the stage.
The hardest part here was coordinating carrying the dummy. Totally TWISTED and I took turns calling out a cadence, which worked well except that by the end I was just too fucking winded to keep yelling. The dummy's weight also shifted left to right, and there were no good handholds. The lesson I learned here was, if you can bring along something generally useful and really light like some nylon webbing and a carabiner, do so. It's worth carrying around for cases like this where you can substantially improve your ability to carry the fucking dummy.
Also of note: as far as I could tell, Team USA really enjoyed the physically taxing stages. Both this one and the helo stage, despite being ass kickers, were a fun challenge. Of course, it might have been that this was the last stage we ran, and were were just thankful it was over...
Stage #9 - Building Assault
Shooters will be located approximately 100 yards from the first building in the start/stop box. On timer all team members will engage one steel target each for a total of four targets in gray building with rifles. Once all targets are hit shooters will unload and show clear with long guns and move to assault two story building, with two moving to the second floor and two moving into the first floor. Shooters will load only when in position. Shooters going up stairs will engage rifle targets, shooters down stairs will engage steel targets with pistol. When all targets are hit all members will unload and show clear then move back to the start/stop box.
Actually, we were done when clear, they didn't make us run back to the start box.
We were nervous about this stage because Diver Dick's rifle was unscoped and the irons weren't particularly well sighted, and both Totally TWISTED's and Ne Cede Malis's rifles' zeros were questionable. Additionally, they told us that shooters were not allowed to assist each other with the first four rifle targets: each shooter must engage his own. We decided that whoever shot the best on the first part would do the rifle on the second, and the other two would do pistol. It ended up being me and Ne Cede Malis on rifle after the 200 yard dash from the start box to the assault house, and there were about 20 steel knockdown targets placed 100 yards beyond the second house. A couple of them took multiple hits to down because the wind was blowing straight into their back.
This was a favorite stage for us, and we completely owed the first part of it: I killed my steel on the first hit (booyah) and none of us took more than three. The RSO was actually really impressed by us here.
I'm going to split out my general thoughts and other individual experiences that are non-stage-related into another post.
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mixin fixin
"To me, making a tape is like writing a letter—there's a lot of erasing and rethinking and starting again. A good compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do. You've got to kick off with a corker, to hold the attention (I started with "Got to Get You Off My Mind", but then realized that she might not get any further than track one, side one if I delivered what she wanted straightaway, so I buried it in the middle of side two), and then you've got to up it a notch, or cool it a notch, and you can't have white music and black music together, unless the white music sounds like black music, and you can't have two tracks by the same artist side by side, unless you've done the whole thing in pairs and...oh, there are loads of rules." - High Fidelity (wr. Nick Hornby)
Here's the problem: no one really uses tapes any more. Hell, no one really wants to use CD-Rs either: you just have to rip them again, or copy MP3s from them to your iPod or whatever. No, today's mixtape medium of choice is a USB stick. The problem with this is that there's just too much freaking room on a USB stick. Giving someone a dozen songs on a USB stick is... flaccid. Be generous, for Chrisake.
For myself, when I run into a problem like this, I just ask: what should any reasonable engineer do? Go up a level in the hierarchy. It's time for a new kind of mixtape: the album mixtape, a mixtape of albums rather than of songs. Now, I'll be the first to admit, the album as an art form seems to be dying: pop artists just aren't good or prolific enough to make an entire album of songs, let alone a cohesive, gestalt kind of thing. At the end of the day, yes, we end up eliminating some good one-hit wonder types from consideration, but hey, if you want that you wouldn't be making an album mixtape anyway.
So I set out to make my first album mixtape. My criteria: around ten albums in length; each album has to be one that I consider a really good album on its own (you don't put crappy songs on mixtapes, so...); has to have some kind of glue to it, be it smooth transitions from album to album or some kind of overarching theme (in the end, I went with the former). Fair game here would be Ari's suggestion from earlier today, viz., an album mixtape of concept albums.
Anyhow, this was my raw list:
- Polo Club - Greenskeepers
- Silent Alarm - Bloc Party
- We Are Not Alone - Breaking Benjamin
- At War With the Mystics - The Flaming Lips
- The Soft Bulletin - The Flaming Lips
- Come to Daddy - Aphex Twin
- Oracular Spectacular - MGMT
- Carnavas - Silversun Pickups
- The Bends - Radiohead
- Superunknown - Soundgarden
- Songs for the Deaf - Queens of the Stone Age
- Surfer Rosa - The Pixies
- Mer de Noms - A Perfect Circle
- eMotive - A Perfect Circle
- Listening Tree - Tim Exile
- There is Nothing Left to Lose - Foo Fighters
- Forever Changes - Love
- Turn on the Bright Lights - Interpol
- Lateralus - Tool
- The Mollusk - Ween
- Close to the Edge - Yes
- Loveless - My Bloody Valentine
Now, I needed to start striking stuff. First, Carnavas, while decent, isn't by itself an awesome album. Gone. Between AWWTM and Soft Bulletin, there's really no comparison; the former didn't make it. TiNLtL is a fucking great album, but it's kind of been overdone; between that and the QotSA album, I'll take the latter for novelty and musical range. Given the surviving albums, MGMT and Radiohead are starting to stick out as a bit incompatible, so they're out. Breaking Benjamin's a good band, and WANA is their best album easily, but it's also not quite right for this collection. This leaves us with a bit more than a dozen, and then it's just a matter of sorting them. It's at this stage that I ended up eliminating the last to go, viz., Lateralus, Close to the Edge, and Superunknown. All are fucking awesome, they just weren't fitting anywhere in the mix in my mind's ear.
So, the final list—in order! which is important for a mix tape, even of albums:
- Polo Club - Greenskeepers
This album starts really strong, and it's quirky and awesome throughout. C'mon, a loungey pop rendition of Slayer's "Raining Blood"?
- Come to Daddy - Aphex Twin
Polo Club's bonus track is a kind of creepy song with lyrics including "it puts the lotion on its skin / or it gets the hose again." It segues nicely into "IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII WANT YOUR SOULLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL".
- Songs for the Deaf - Queens of the Stone Age
While CtD starts all crazy, it ends on some pretty chill strains with "IZ-US", which always felt to me like a bus ride through a bombed out city. After that, a car starting and a faux AM radio asshole deej introducing the next song seems like a good flow.
- Forever Changes - Love
This album starts with a folksy guitar riff, which transitions nicely from SftD's "Mosquito Song". This album is fucking great.
- The Soft Bulletin - The Flaming Lips
After the acid-washed depression of Forever Changes, which is kind of an end-of-the-60s retrospective on what was ultimately Timothy Leary's failure to expand our minds with copious amounts of acid, the Lips' album about depression and madness, starting with the deceptively upbeat "Race for the Prize", slides right into place. The Lips' constant stream of psychedelic rock homage is a fitting coda for Forever Changes.
- Silent Alarm - Bloc Party
Scratchy, guitar-driven rock is precisely what you need to get yourself back out of the dumps of "Waiting for a Superman [Remix]". Yeah, it's already too heavy to lift—and now it's like drinking poison and eating glass. Don't worry, though, this album sweeps you right up and takes you through "Positive Tension" and "This Modern Love" to "Compliments", which closes it out nicely and does a pretty good job of putting us in a darkish, synthy mood—just in time for
- Listening Tree - Tim Exile
This dude is relatively unknown; I saw him open for Imogen Heap. He has some good IDM/D&B/&c riffs on here, and the mood starts and stays relatively dark throughout. I'd be hard pressed to claim that this is actually one of my favorite standalone albums, but the combination of novelty (c'mon, everyone knows you get points for stumping your listener) and mood propriety saves it.
- Loveless - My Bloody Valentine
You might argue that I should've just skipped straight to this and dropped Tim Exile from the mix entirely. If that's your feeling, call Listening Tree the prologue to this gritty, atmospheric masterpiece. These guys were ridiculously exacting in the sound they were after—and it's just what we want here.
- Surfer Rosa - The Pixies
Black Francis is like a kid who just kind of bangs shit together, but the result is an awesome sound. This album is probably most popular for "Where Is My Mind," but the whole thing is just freaking great. I'd go with the extended edition with an extra 9 songs on it; they're worth the listen.
- eMotive - A Perfect Circle
What? An album of covers? Well, not quite: "Passive" was actually jointly written by Maynard and Reznor, and it shows in how awesome it is. Beyond that, there is a hauntingly awesome cover of "When The Levee Breaks" on here that by itself makes this album worth having. But at the end of the day, I like it for the "mixtape in a mixtape" aspect of it, all touched and poked by Maynard et al. And it's a damn solid album.
- The Mollusk - Ween
This is the best album to have been made in the last 30 years. I doubt any of you agree with that statement, but that just means you're wrong. More to the point, this is my mixtape, so fuck you. We start off with a nice little intro that could transition from anywhere—"Dancing in the Show Tonight"—and immediately jump into the nautical concept of the album. "The Blarney Stone" deserves a place at your St. Patty's Day celebration, and "Ocean Man" is both fun and kid-safe. Really, the reason this album belongs last is because "She Wanted To Leave" is—and has—an amazing ending.
"So go fetch a bottle of rum, dear friend,
and fill up my glass to the brim,
for I'm not the man I used to be,
now I'm one of them."
Welp, that's my album mixtape. Obviously I went for the continuity aspect over the single-concept one, but I'd submit that both are reasonable, as are many other approaches.
Now it's your turn: make me an album mixtape.
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