The handling of civilians by Blue Forces in the past

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NightSarge
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The handling of civilians by Blue Forces in the past

Post by NightSarge » 19 Dec 2015, 14:59

Hello

I have been to four Berget Games, 6/7 , 9/10. During the first two i went with Conarads Mercs and Milos Tigers respectivly and had plenty of contact and resulting LARP with civis. The last two games i played as a civilian myself. During these times i heard, watched and expierenced quite a large number of actions and behaviour by Blue Forces against civilians. Actions that resulted in the event that the civilians took up arms against those units that were „by the rules“ protectors and keepers of the civilians.

During 2002-2010 i was serving with the German Army. In this time spend some time in Bosnia 02/04-05/04, Kabul 10/05-03/06, and MeS 10/06-03/07. During the first two ops i was a mobile soldier. We were on patrol outside the base on a daily basis, so i think i have quite some experience on counts of interaction, reading them for their needs and basicly make them feel comfortable. Because in the end these people may help you by giving you Infos you never had gotten otherwise or lead you away from mines. And it is a good basic for some LARP for myself.

So, beeing Blue Force by myself, i thougt that this way of thinking must be one of those considert useful for Berget.

But when i came to Berget i always got some other experience from the Blue Units.

One prime example of this was B10. We few civilians survivors of Janco camped directly ,in full view, next to the NAF camp. The poldavian units were looking for us and would kill us on the spot if they found us. NAF´s prime paranoia was not to get Pysops in their base. This meant no entrance to the base without a passport.

In both Kabul and MeS you have civilians the base all the day. Builders, Vendors, Workers etc. The most of those are kept in a very simple way in a specific part of the camp. This simple way is a fence, wire barrier, etc. So you can talk to the civilians,, maybe call a medic, keep them on their job without the problem that they wander all around the base.

Blue Forces are also very much on the edge. There is a difference between awareness and alertness. And Blue Forces always seem to be not only on the edge but also very jumpy around civilians.
For example, i already had a pass for the NAF base because i was one of Robmans relatives and informants. My mate also wanted one. For this you had to be bodysearched. I had no problems with this, but my mate. So, instead of basicly saying, „No search, no pass, please leave the base under escort“, they physicly assaulted him, put him in the dirt, cuff him and put him into custody...

That´s great for winning hearts and minds, really. NAF, Fail, sit down.

On the other side Red Forces, while also not free from doing bad stuff, esp at B9, where very much more relaxt and helpful to the civilians. You could do good business with them without beeing viewed from behind as beeing a potential killer that ist going to go at me at any point by blue. They were also never as jumpy or on the edge as Blue.

Otherwise i have know other way of explaining what i did. I made my way to a poldavian patrol and asked them if i could come with them to their base to speak to their commander.

A slight reminder to the storyline: The same poldavian were looking to kill the survivors, including me.

They accepted and asked me in a friendly and polite way if i was armed. I replied that i had a pistol in my pocket which they took and emptied in the same way. During the walk i was never touched by a weapon, cuffed or blindfolded and walked freely into the poldavian base. I met with the PsyOps commander, Freno, and basicly talked to him about getting a PsyOps engineer with an explosive charge into the FAD in the NAF base by a way not patrolled by NAF and by this blow it up unseen. Just to get some slight breath from NAF.

In the end the whole thing worked out exept for the end. When we walked through the COMPLETELY unguarded NAF main entrance we were well inside the base before anyone noticed us and i had to take to great lenghts to find one of the officers to show them my passport on which i had written that this guy was PsyOps. So NAF arrested me, took me from the guy because appearently my papers werent right. Then they searched the guy found this charge and arrested him. Wihle i was away in the tent i tould the story to some of the NAF officers and also told him about all those people who were Psyops but were posing as civilians. Sorry, i cant remember your names, its some time ago now, maybe one of them was the irish guy. I left the base with a great thanks and thought that this was a thing that would have changed the thinking of NAF.

I thought. Wrong.

When i got into the base next time i was apprehended by some NAF guys and was told that i was to be shot on the spot. When i asked for the reason someone said that i had pissed off the NAF commander personally, and that was the reason to shoot me... After delivering intel and a prisoner.

NAF, FAIL, sit down.

At this point the irish guy interrupted them and took over from them. Thats the only reason i left the base alive.

Another year, same situation: During B9 we were on route with four civilians to the area near the roadblock at the old Ammodepot dug in the mountain. Two policemen, incl me, one merchant driver and one young boy for whom´s stuff we were searching. As we arrived the roadblock was manned by Blue Forces. The commander wouldn´t let us go past. He said if we passed and something happend to us he would be diciplined. He would make very sure that we didn´t. And this would be deadly force...

Nice, really.

We turned about, moved around the next corner, cut through the woods and returned to the road behind the roadblock. After about two hours later we returned from our trip and found the roadblock under a new NAF unit. Which waved us through without any problems....

What´s going on NAF?

So i think it is no wonder at all that civilians are taking up arms against their protectors. And these situations are just those that i remember instantly, without great thinking.

I still cannot see the reason behind this and the the inner thinkings of Blue Forces. You have some splendid Officers, McNeill, Robman, Judgment, Wormbyte, the irish guy and the sniper which the broken leg, we met during the Dark Emergency II in Germany. The german grenadiers with their Unimog I at B9, Again sorry that i don´t remember your names. But most of the rest of Blue , about 90%, is not up to the job. If Blue would show the same tendencies and attitudes under real circumstances you would be very lucky if their was some gravity left to get you back to earth after your kick in the butt. But unless those 90% don´t make a massive change of mind this will continue, i´m afraid.

And to the NAF commander who wanted to shoot me just because i pissed him of. That´s a fine charakter for a leadership role. If this would be real he should be packing for a long holiday in the Netherlands. The Hague is a fine city with some great hotels. Maybe you get the room next to Karadzic.

And i know that this maybe something outdated, but i thought that later is better then never.

NightSarge
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Re: The handling of civilians by Blue Forces in the past

Post by M.Koho » 19 Dec 2015, 20:03

I agree, many times relations with civilians have been handled poorly. I have been in blue-side since Berget 11. Every time HQ has prepared a good plan how to interact with civilians and LARP but most of the players don't follow these instructions. I am starting to think that most of the players in GCT didn't want to use that much effort in LARPing with civilians, only to have fun for themselves. I feel really sad about this as I would really like to interact with the civilians but often prior experiences with in-game armed forces keep them too reserved.

And I know there were also many people in GCT who handled civilians very well! I hope next year civilians are handled professionally everytime.
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Re: The handling of civilians by Blue Forces in the past

Post by Jerry_ASP » 21 Dec 2015, 10:14

Apparently, this happens on almost all airsoft events that include civilians and LARPing. I myslef see two main reasons for this behavior: 1) Players are not (mentally) prepared for interaction with civvies, or have limited LARP experience and don't know what is the proper behavior, don't know what to do with them. 2) Players are nervous that they will make a mistake and jeopardize their own troops by for example, letting a spy through. Or posssibly 3), Players don't care about LARP and just want to f_ck someone up.
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Arradin
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Re: The handling of civilians by Blue Forces in the past

Post by Arradin » 31 Dec 2015, 12:34

I will give a more detailed explenation and Point of view , but at this time i just want to give one KEY Point:

- In every scenario up until B13, Civilians have not been Civilian - Mostly undercover hostiles. This leads to players knowing this, and treating everyone as hostile ( Bad? ) in general.

During B13 more than 90% of the 25 Civilians were real civilians, and i saw a huge improvement on how Civilians were handled by blue and red forces.
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Re: The handling of civilians by Blue Forces in the past

Post by vinni » 17 Jan 2016, 19:52

Reds tend to be more comfortable because they know their ROE can be near-zero in a case where civvies start acting up, and civvies tend to realise that the Reds are best not messed with or they will f*ck you up (or the reds think that the civvies think that, perhaps).

Whilst the blues are more concerned with upholding ROEs that aren't as likely to change, and are usually more paranoid towards undercover reds.

Well, that's my view of things, anyways. Might be wrong.
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Re: The handling of civilians by Blue Forces in the past

Post by grasulas » 13 Feb 2016, 22:31

:roll:
Arradin wrote:I will give a more detailed explenation and Point of view , but at this time i just want to give one KEY Point:

- In every scenario up until B13, Civilians have not been Civilian - Mostly undercover hostiles. This leads to players knowing this, and treating everyone as hostile ( Bad? ) in general.

During B13 more than 90% of the 25 Civilians were real civilians, and i saw a huge improvement on how Civilians were handled by blue and red forces.

Sir you are right! I have played as PSYOPS in B8 and HVIU in B11 when you`r enemy can change in civilian clothes, all the civilians will be treated as potential enemies, no matter how good or what ROE say uniform players will treat bad the civilians.

And not only because players lack the experience to interact with civilians , usually the reds make sure blue force see civilians as highly potential threat. I was psyops and many times we engage NAF forces in hit and run operation wearing civilian outfits, some times right in front of there base or at there check points.
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Re: The handling of civilians by Blue Forces in the past

Post by MjProblem » 11 Jun 2016, 12:56

Good descriptions from several points here. I can only agree with most of them - one contributing factor to some blue being hostile to civilians was that they did not know ROE nor if ROE had changed and in some cases it was really unclear whom were civvies, hunters, bandits, undercover spies/spyops. Things were changing faster than the official information channels could keep up with which lead to people in teams acting on their own. Most of the time red side was already ensconced with the civilians and had less trouble of getting a situational awareness of civilian status at the moment.

There was many cases of blue side also providing medical support when reds or bandits shot civilians but it all drowned in rest of the negative blue behaviours. I think better information upfront and ensuring that all commanders know the ROE and share it each mission could make a difference. And NOT to have 90% bad guys posing as civilians would be a contributing factor too. The game time is perhaps too short to create too complex plots
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Re: The handling of civilians by Blue Forces in the past

Post by Arradin » 11 Jun 2016, 13:53

MjProblem wrote:Good descriptions from several points here. I can only agree with most of them - one contributing factor to some blue being hostile to civilians was that they did not know ROE nor if ROE had changed and in some cases it was really unclear whom were civvies, hunters, bandits, undercover spies/spyops. Things were changing faster than the official information channels could keep up with which lead to people in teams acting on their own. Most of the time red side was already ensconced with the civilians and had less trouble of getting a situational awareness of civilian status at the moment.

There was many cases of blue side also providing medical support when reds or bandits shot civilians but it all drowned in rest of the negative blue behaviours. I think better information upfront and ensuring that all commanders know the ROE and share it each mission could make a difference. And NOT to have 90% bad guys posing as civilians would be a contributing factor too. The game time is perhaps too short to create too complex plots
You are right ofcourse, and that is one of the reasons why we decide to try Yellow armband this year , people will know that a green/white armband means no direct PHYSICAL threat ( They wont turn around and shoot you, but who knows what info they gather ;) ) , while yellow means that its a Civilian that might be hostile.

So please, continue with the feedback. Berget do listen, and try to make changes accordingly!
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Re: The handling of civilians by Blue Forces in the past

Post by Robin-Hood » 18 Jun 2016, 20:05

As Arradin and Grasulas said, as long as berget continues the silly practice of armed "civilians" they will always be shoot first ask questions later. As much as I love LARP, that's simply the reality.
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Re: The handling of civilians by Blue Forces in the past

Post by Rythm » 23 Jul 2016, 22:22

Possibly it has to do with Red being run for the last couple of years by 6mm, whos core members are all old LARPers, in fact most of us met at a Mad Max-type LARP back in 1995 in Sweden. I guess this leads us to take LARPing more serious than others.
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Re: The handling of civilians by Blue Forces in the past

Post by Jens » 31 Oct 2016, 15:57

Also, a lot of players seem to be more interested in the action aspect, rather than the milsim aspect. As a cop at Berget14, I got the impression that most people don't necessarily understand terms such as ROE, SO (Superior officer) or CoC (Chain of Command). Heck, most of them don't even put their guns on safe out of combat!

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Re: The handling of civilians by Blue Forces in the past

Post by DRZoidberg » 11 Jan 2020, 12:40

I think B17 White lizard, was the big game changer, for treating of civilians. We had a looooong period of "peace" whit blue and read. And even had blue and read in city at same time. This all changed when some bored blues, talking Russian, decided to hunt civilians in the city. We were only a few civis in town at that moment, and 2 of us survived to tell the tell. After that, blue was back to all problems again. I think it is an attitude problem. But B17 took quantum steps in LARP interaction. Yes we had local gang, and other "strange" civilians. But all in all, this was something to build on. To bad B18 has no LARP.

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