Thats one of the reasons why I've always been a little iffy about using paintball as a training aid.
Back before I got CFRed, I knew I was going to have to get in shape for BOT/BOAT, and I knew that part of that was going to include running around in the bushes in FFO. So I got this crazy idea that maybe a day of paintball (which I had never done before) might be a way of evaluating my current fitness level. The way I figured, if I could play paintball in FFO with no fitness problems, then I was probably good to go for section attacks and recce. Plus it would highlight any problems with my gear, so I could sort them out before I showed up. And hey - it might be fun to play Rambo for a day.
So I went to a local paintball place and signed up. I wore fully packed webbing (including weights to simulate loaded mags) civvie t-shirt, combat pants, combat boots. I brought the helmet, but it interfered with the paintball goggles/facemask so I tied it to my buttpack.
First thing I learn is that playing lone wolf Rambo gets you killed *really* quickly. The site (which was huge, probably a grid square of light woods) had a wadi cutting it in half, with one "camp" on each side of it. At one point, I snuck along the border of the site, slipped into the wadi, leopard-crawled along the base of it, and when I stuck my head up over the lip to get my bearings - got shot in the throat. I didn't even see it coming - head pops up, WHACK!
Things like that happened over and over. Super Ninja Sniper sneaks his way into awesome position, makes contact with the enemy all by his lonesome, and then dies gloriously in a much shorter timeframe than he expected.
And then as it happens, one of the guys on my team turned out to be an RCR corporal on leave. We hooked up as a fire team, started doing fire and movement together, and from that point on, we were pretty much invincible. Both of us were shocked at just how well covering supressive fire moving in bounds worked (as were our victims!)
It wound up being a real eye opener, and was totally worth it - just not for the reasons I first expected.
You're right that there are tactics that work in paintball that would NOT work in a live fire situation... but there are plenty more tactics that work with blanks and "I shot you first!" that don't work when actual projectiles start flying around. As far as I'm concerned, paintball makes good training. And we'll be doing some Simunition training this spring, and I'm *really* looking forward to that.
DG