Hand signals for airsoft players

Much like most modern military forces, your airsoft group can benefit from hand signals to communicate relevant information quickly. Hand signals are a code you and your team all understand and work well. They are silent, so you can communicate with team mates without revealing your position. If you have similar hand signals to other players in your area, you can easily integrate with other players you meet at events and immediately be able to communicate effectively.

So what hand signals are common? Let's go over a few of the ones we use;

“Silent” or going silent - The team leader holds up a single finger in front of their lips to indicate silence, and that hand signals will be used until the situation dictates a change.

“Stop” - The non trigger hand is raised in a fist, usually even with the side of the head. This lets the people following you know to stop moving forward. At that point, each person should also raise their fist in the stop hand signal to pass it down the line, then take up a defensive position, spaced out far enough apart to prevent someone from the other team from catching all of you in a cluster and eliminating you all at once.

“Move out” - Open handed, sometimes with one or two fingers up, motioning from over your shoulder forward in the direction to move. Sometimes the squad leader will point at someone and indicate that they should move in a given direction by pointing to that person, then making the move out hand signal.

“Eyes On” - This is an important one! You point to your eyes, then to where you see an enemy to indicate you can see them. Some times you will point to your eyes, to where they are and then hold up the number of fingers you see (example: you see two enemy team mates up ahead. You do the “eyes on” signal, point to where you see them, then hold up two fingers to let your team mates know you can see two people).

“Hear (from direction)” - Also known as “Ears on”. This is similar to eyes on above, you tap your ear to indicate you heard something, then point in that direction to let your team mates know where to keep an eye on.

“Get Down” - Everyone crouches or drops prone. Useful in situations where you are moving up on a fortified position. The hand gesture is open handed, palm down motioning downward.

“Rally on me” - This hand signal means for the squad to gather together on the person making the gesture. The gesture is one finger up, marking a swirl over head, then pulling the hand down into a fist.

“Rally point” - As above, but the group rallies at a given point. The gesture is a swirl overhead, then pointing to a point.

“Scrolling the road” - The hand signal is to tap the shoulder open palmed then rub the shoulder up and down. Scrolling the road is a movement we did not cover in the previous article on movement. This is a tactic when the unit comes up to cross a road. The point man crosses the road, and takes up a position facing down the road in one direction. The next person across takes up a position facing the opposite direction and so on alternating the directions that the crossing personnel take up until the whole group is across, then the unit again moves out.

Once there is contact and your postilion is revealed, hand signals are out the window. At that point you switch to verbal communication, which will be our next article! Hope these hand signals help your team move quietly and communicate better! Now move out!