Chock

It's almost certainly an army blanket, probably safety pinned at the neck to hold it in place. They are fairly typical Mujahideen gear, since it is cold up in those mountains. But traditional craft Afghan blankets are usually more colourful than that, so it's not a typical 'tourist purchase' Afghan blanket, more likely an old army surplus one, possibly something the Russians left behind in 81 when they cleared out, or maybe taken off a dead soldier from the Soviet-Afghan war. If you do a search for a 'Bulgarian Officer's blanket' you'll find those are the same colour as the one in your picture, in fact they are darker on one side than on the other (to suit different terrains), but it'd be a good lookalike, and very warm too, since they are wool (heavy because of that as well, i.e. quite a few lbs in weight). You may find this link useful too (there are several pages of pics of Mujahideen soldiers, but be warned before you click on the link, one or two of the pictures are of a fairly unpleasant nature, i.e hangings and such - they are war images after all, so if you are squeamish, be ready to close the window): http://flickrhivemind.net/flickr_hvmnd.cgi?method=GET&page=1&photo_number=50&tag_mode=all&search_type=Tags&originput=mujahideen&sorting=Interestingness&photo_type=250&noform=t&search_domain=Tags&sort=Interestingness&textinput=mujahideen

They can be a bit off putting to new players. You know the scene, new guy turns up at totally unfamiliar site wearing a hoody and jeans and gets handed an adequate but not very cool full face mask and a battered JG G36, then sees five people all dressed up like they are about to do a special forces halo jump out of a C130 into occupied enemy territory, and they are not socialising with other players, but only talking amongst themselves, testing their comms and gassing up their fancy sidearms. Having said that, if new guy sticks at it, he'll probably end up like those guys in a years' time, but I usually try to make a point of talking to guys who look like they are new to it, to at least make them feel welcome. Another down side to it is that such teams are often a shoe-in for victory when many other players are walk on for the day, impromptu scratch teams, formed on the spot, some of whom do not know the layout, which means they probably won't win, even though they may very well actually be better or smarter players. That is the nature of the beast of course for anyone new to any endeavour, but I've found myself teaming up with those kind of site-regular 'pro' teams on occasion, and then had guys shouting commands to me like they were some kind of veteran Sergeant Barnes and I was the FNG in some bad war movie. In such situations, I've gone with it for the benefit of the fight at the time, but whilst doing so was often thinking: 'what a fecking tool'. Especially when a lot of the time it seemed like they weren't actually issuing very sensible orders either and didn't have very sound tactics. I'm not averse to people 'getting into it', but I do sometimes think the odd player really does take it a bit too seriously, and in any case it's generally not the best way toward teamwork either. Had that once with a flying instructor, he was barking orders at me from the rear seat of the aircraft like some low budget version of James Robertson Justice, as though I was some new pilot officer on my second lesson in a Tiger Moth in 1938. There's me sat there in the P1 seat of the aeroplane thinking, 'hang on a minute pal, I'm paying for this sh*t and doing it for my own personal enjoyment, we're not preparing to stem the Nazi hordes, I'm getting a PPL, d'you wanna chill out a bit?' In fairness though, that experience did actually teach me a lesson that I've carried forward into my job (as a trainer), even if the lesson was, don't train people like that f*cking idiot was doing, because it's often not the best way to connect with people. So yeah, if you're into it, teams can be good, and most of them are, but some of them come across like a bunch of wannabe cock ends, especially the ones who won't take hits off new players, since they think it's somehow beneath them (and yes, I've seen that on more than one occasion).

No rush as far as I'm concerned. I appreciate your efforts in making a bit of a fun, novelty item, and whenever it arrives, I look forward to it upsetting oversensitive people.

That's the trouble with watching films or TV shows where you know about a subject, it tends to spoil things. Ignorance is indeed often bliss when it comes to enjoying drama with technical or historical elements in it. Did that with literally the opening shot of the new BBC TV adaptation of Wolf Hall, horse trots past with modern pattern horseshoes on it. Oops. Watched a film the other day where Nicholas Cage was supposedly piloting a Boeing 777, he gets cleared for take off and promptly rams both throttles forward all the way. Oops. If you let that kind of thing bother you too much, you'd probably never watch anything ever again.

Whilst I think it is probably true that for most new players at the average site, a pistol should be fairly low on the list of purchase priorities, there are some sites where it is pretty much a necessity, and one or two sites where a pistol is far more useful than a rifle, and that includes my local Trojan site at Weir Mill. Weir Mill has eight floors (seven of them in use generally), there are two stairwells, both with two flights of stairs between floors, with a 180 degree angle turn in between flights. If you include the entrances to each floor in the equation and the landings, that means there are about 84 right angle choke points on the site, all of which are places where you can only use a pistol (no frags of any kind on the stairs). The rest of the site on the floors is semi-auto only, but you can use grenades there. So you actually do better dual-wielding pistols and taking no rifle at all, than you do with just a rifle, and I am in fact considering doing that this Wednesday. I've also considered dual wielding MP5Ks on single point slings, with dual pistols too, which might be kind of fun since it'd be a light (ish) load out and would offer the best of both worlds. It's also pretty much a necessity to have a knife at that site too, since whilst you can use your hand to foo a knife kill, you do sometimes need to throw your knife on the stairs. I did once nail an entire team on those stairs with my knife; they were stacked up ready to go through a door lol. Weir Mill is pretty much an exception to the general rule I know, and presents some unusual challenges, and it is a site where radios can be quite a big factor too, but it is not the only site where a pistol is a very good thing to have.

Best to disconnect a battery You can leave mags full for quite a long time before the spring will be compressed permanently, but it will happen if you leave it long enough, so it's best to unload them if you can, however, with gas mags, it is best to leave at least a bit of gas in them at all times, since it helps to secure the seals. 1911 are big ass heavy pistols, so they are notorious among airsofters for not being the most efficient with gas. I've got some full metal 1911s which are hard pressed to get four shots off from a fully gassed mag in the cold weather. Anything which requires more effort from the gas will not help, such as a metal slide instead of a plastic one. If you really must have a 1911, then one of the best things you could do, is get a plastic one rather than a metal one, and even better, get a non-blowback one, yes it doesn't look quite as cool when you fire it and the slide doesn't move, but it will actually work more efficiently than a blowback one, and less moving parts is always a good thing with any machine. Leave you mags out of a weapon unless you intend to shoot it, and as with pistol mags, releasing the spring tension will put less wear on the spring, so it's not a bad idea, likewise if your rifle has the ability to de-tension the spring, that's not a bad thing to do either.

As you no doubt know, it's not uncommon in the forces for soldiers to get a blood group tat done as a practical safeguard to assist medics, although (if there is time) most medics back at a decent facility where they have varied supplies of blood, will check and crossmatch blood type themselves; for all they know, such a tat might actually be incorrectly identifying the blood group since, like a lot of army tats, many of them are done when out on the piss with your squad mates, which is never a great guarantee of good judgement lol, and in any case, that info is on your forces record. It absolutely has not ever been 'standard procedure in the British Forces' to tattoo a blood group on you, that's what dog tags and your record sheet are for. As far as I'm aware, it wasn't even standard procedure in the Waffen SS to get it done, it was just extremely common in that unit and so it was a good (but not guaranteed) way for the Allies to check if POWs were, or were not SS. After all, the SS started out insisting you had to be Aryan to join, but by 1945 they were letting 13 year-old lads of any nationality into it, so they hardly had time to guarantee all procedures were followed to the letter. Nevertheless, that SS practice is probably what the screenwriters were thinking of, but most fictional writers will never let facts get in the way of a good story idea, so it's is more likely that they simply just tweaked the truth a bit to get an intriguing plot device, since most viewers will not be bothered if that is true or not.

Somewhat ironic that you've got an Aussie airsoft gun, isn't it? The Owen gun is feck ugly, although it was about function over form, so it was by all accounts a good weapon and much better than the STEN, so it's also ironic that it's got STEN internals. In any case, I'm happy you've got an awesome replica of the gun you really wanted. It does look the dog's bollox.

Welcome aboard

You put the carry handle on that way when you are falling back

Quite a few ferns are evergreen, so they will be green even in winter

Who's the black painted RIF that's a sex machine to all the chicks...?

I should think if you make sure to get a torch with a decent reflector, so it has good range with a normal bulb, preferably one of those with a sleeve which gives it a focusing function which can narrow the beam, then swap the regular bulb for an IR bulb, then there's no discernible reason why that should not give you quite good long range IR illumination. Even the crappy IR binoculars which I have can see stuff a long way out, so tweaking a set up for range with some proper decent stuff is bound to do better.

Well obviously that one wasn't great if it fell to bits, although possibly the kid firing it was a ham fisted idiot, since it is completely ABS plastic. He could in fact be referring to the end of the barrel and mag tube coming off, which it does since it is only a sleeve fit, which is presumably so the thing can fit in a smaller box when new; I superglued mine on too, in order to ensure it was secure. However, that P799A is made by CYMA and I've got one of those, I bought mine twenty years ago, long before there was any VCR Act, so mine is RIF colours (black/green). To be fair, it is actually a pretty good springer shotgun, after all, mine still works perfectly well after two decades, shooting at about 280 fps. I've lent it to people at skirmishes and they've done alright with it (I tend to sling it in my car as a backup). The 'sight' which comes with it is a joke though, being just a hollow tube with no glass in it at all, so that went in the bin the day I bought the thing (sights on shotguns are silly anyway). It is supposed to be a Benelli M3 Super 90, but it only bears a broad resemblance to one rather than being an exact replica of it, but it does look like a real tactical shotgun anyway, even if not exactly like the real world Benelli. If I had a criticism of it at all, it would be that it loads through a little sliding cover on the top near the back of the barrel (think it takes about 150-200 BBs), and that means it is a pain in the arse to empty it, which means it is not ideal if you have to go back to the safe area, since it would still technically be loaded unless you turned it upside down and shook it a lot to get the ammo out, even though you would still have to cock it to have it fire. So it's not what I would call 'skirmish friendly' even though it is perfectly adequate for a CQB skirmish as far as range, accuracy and reliability are concerned. However that difficulty in not easily being able to unload it is the reason why I've also got a Mossberg 500 tactical shotgun, since that one does have a detachable mag, if it wasn't for that, I wouldn't have felt the need to buy an additional shotgun, because - assuming the internals are the same as my old one - it is actually not a bad airsoft shotgun.

Looks good, not too over the top. Bet it would work well in quite a few different bits of foliage.

You are required by law to give notice to the owner of goods left behind if you are intending to sell them, and that notice must be in writing. This is to protect you, in demonstrating that you have made all practical efforts to contact the person. It must be delivered to the person, either by post or left at his address (and although it is not technically a requirement at this stage, sending it by recorded delivery is not a bad idea, as is keeping a copy of the notice, and getting it witnessed by someone of good character). Such a notice must specify the property owner's name and address, must list the goods you intend to sell, and must notify the person of where their property is presently located. In UK law, there is no specific time period you must wait for them to respond to this before you can proceed with a sale, but the law does state that you must give the person 'reasonable time' to arrange to collect the goods. In most legal cases where this kind of thing has gone on, 'reasonable time' is typically regarded as three months. If after this period, the goods have not been collected, and if you have made all practical efforts to attempt to contact the person whose goods they are but have been unable to do so, then you can proceed with disposal, but, if you are in contact with the person whose goods they are, then you must give the date upon which you propose to sell the things, and this notice must be sent to them by registered post or recorded delivery, to ensure that they are informed of the decision to sell the goods. If, after you have made all reasonable and practicable efforts to contact the person, and they still have not responded to contact, you can go ahead, and it is worth noting that you can also charge for having stored the goods, which is basically your 'get out clause' for if you do sell the goods and then the person subsequently shows up, because if you get (for example) 200 quid for them, you can say the storage costs were 200 quid and you sold them to cover that cost, thus relieving you of the necessity to hand over 200 quid. The law will see this as reasonable for something like an M249 airsoft gun, because it is not exactly a small thing and you have been inconvenienced in storing the thing for a long time, the law will also see it as reasonable for the pyrotechnics, because you have been inconvenienced in storing something which can potentially be hazardous. If it was something you could have simply popped in a drawer, such as a set of cufflinks or a nice pen or whatever, then you'd not be able to make such a claim for storage obviously. So, the upshot of all that, is that you need to make a suitable effort to contact the guy and tell him to pick up his stuff. Try getting in touch via a social media search, his friends, relatives, old addresses etc. If you do that, then you will have been seen to have made a reasonable effort to contact the guy. But make sure there is some record of these efforts. Now onto the other stuff which is of concern to you. Selling something like that M249 is regarded in law as 'supplying a Realistic Imitation Firearm'. It isn't illegal to do that, but it is a legal requirement on your part, if the sale is to be considered legal, to ensure that it is being supplied to someone for one of the following purposes: A theatrical, film or TV production, or the rehearsal of one. Display in a museum. For use it in the act of serving the present Monarch. For the purpose of an historical reenactment. For the purpose of an airsoft skirmish at a site which has insurance for such activity. To confirm that, you need reasonable proof, such as a letter from the TV, film or theatre company, or one from the museum, airsoft site etc. Or you can ask for the purchaser's UKARA (United Kingdom Airsoft Retail Association) registration number, which you can check against the UKARA database to see if it is current. There are other forms of proof you could seek, but they must be fairly watertight in law if the sale of a realistic imitation firearm is to be considered legal. If you are at all in doubt about any of this, you can contact your local Citizen's Advice Bureau, and I would advise you to do so before going ahead with any effort to sell the stuff. You can contact them here: http://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/index/getadvice.htm

In the process of mounting some of my AKs on the wall, yeah, I know one of them is an SVD Dragunov so not technically an AK, but what the hell eh?:

Yup, having a tick box on a website for 'I confirm I am over eighteen' might be alright in terms of legal protection for them, but I doubt it prevents thirteen year-olds ordering stuff from them. As you say, there's a lot of crap on BB gun websites, but it's not all crap, and if you know what you are looking for then it certainly is possible to buy decent stuff off BB gun websites. For example, I recently got my 'pseudo PSL-54' JG A47 off 'BBguns365' for 99 quid including postage, which was about 40 quid cheaper than anywhere else I could have got it from, and I knew it was an okay gun, so was happy to have them supply it, after all, they just take it off a warehouse shelf and put it in some packing same as any more 'respected' online airsoft shop would do. I think the real problem with BB gun sites, is that when you read some of the user reviews posted on product pages, many of them are quite clearly from people who are nowhere near 18 years of age if the grammar is anything to go by. So it is rather obvious that selling to young people who are largely ignorant of differences in quality, and not legally allowed to buy either, is their stock in trade, and they clearly don't give a shit about that either. They also do tend to claim that everything they sell is awesome, and occasionally make bogus claims about their stuff too, so, caveat emptor, as ever. But I've never actually had bad service form any BB online shop, everything I've ever bought from any of them has arrived in a timely fashion and any problems I've had with stuff not being in stock has prompted them to call me and let me know of that very quickly. So I personally will use them if they have something cheaper than elsewhere, which they quite often do.

Proprietary = pain in the ass to get parts on occasion

I guess if you were in touch with some milsim people, they might be interested if you could knock up a wheelbarrow Mark 9 from your tank chassis, or failing that, even one of the older less capable ones from the seventies they used to use to disarm IRA bombs. It would be kind of interesting to fight your way to a bomb and then have to deploy a wheelbarrow to disarm the bomb against the clock. The original wheelbarrows had a water jet which could fire at a device to disrupt the electrics, a shotgun which could be fired remotely to destroy the integrity of a suspect device or shoot out a window on a car to allow interior access, plus the facility to attach a tow rope to a vehicle so that it could be towed away to be destroyed at a safe distance from things. So there's some scenario ideas right there. I should think it would be relatively easy to use an R/C tank chassis to knock up a reasonable facsimile of a wheelbarrow, since the wheelbarrow does look like a skeletal smallish tank anyway: A springer shotgun could certainly be fired by a simple servo arrangement and you'd only need one more for elevation, positioning the vehicle itself would manage the lateral aiming. You could even have a stab at making the water jet out of one of those super soaker water guns for a laugh. Of course you'd need a way to detect that the thing had successfully disarmed the 'bomb', but I should think any kind of pivoting plate attached to a sensor would be able to detect a BB hit, or it could even just be a paper target to represent a device. Any old cheapo camcorder which could transmit to a mobile phone would do for aiming and steering. You might also wanna try using servos to remote detonate timed BFGs, sort of like a claymore clacker or remote IED. String a few of those across a woodland site and it'd be an instant win if you got the timings right Or you could get an M249 and try making one of those remote sentry guns like they have in the movie Aliens.

Check out M88 PASGT 'fritz' helmets. They tend to fit a big head (like mine lol). Here's one on Amazon for next to feck all money, and if you look at the pics, you'll see one of them has the dimensions on it, which should give you an idea whether it will suit you: http://www.amazon.co.uk/M88-Tactical-Helmet-Black-SWAT/dp/B005RFOQC6/ref=pd_sim_sbs_sg_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=0KV0J30TC6ZA7ZJC5HQ4 Yeah, I know, everyone else has FAST helmets or MICH ones (except me, who does use an M88), but you can get camo covers for the M88 which make it look good, for two quid from here: http://www.tacticalgeartrade.co.uk/head-gear/helmet-cover.html They are decent quality, I have one of those multicam ones for mine. If you fancy going mental and attaching all kinds of crap to it to make it look more 'tacticool', then you can get all that cobblers for an M88 PASGT from here: http://www.tacticalgeartrade.co.uk/head-gear/helmet-accessories.html?p=1

If you're wondering what that ad campaign is about, Lucky Strike packs used to be green all over, but market research done in the early forties showed that the green pack colour wasn't popular with women, so they changed the pack to white with just a green Lucky Strike logo, which also saved on printing costs too. However, they thought that changing the logo colour from green might further improve popularity with women, but they needed a good reason to say why they were going to change the colour. Fortunately for American Tobacco, the company which makes Lucky Strike, the answer came in the form of WW2... Many US men had gone off to fight in WW2, and were often reliant on their wives and sweethearts sending them cigarettes. So the company had particularly good reason for wanting US women to favour the Lucky Strike brand. George Washington Hill, the president of American Tobacco, had been told in early 1942 that there was only about three month's supply of green ink left in the US, because the ink used metal in its base, which was by then a strategic material. This was only partially true, because the only really importantly strategic metal used in any ink on the Lucky Strike pack artwork, was in the gold coloured ring around the green logo, and it would have been easy to drop that without changing the logo's green colour. So, American Tobacco stopped making tobacco tins, making cardboard ones instead, dropped the gold trim from the Lucky Strike logo, and changed the main logo colour from green to red, then came up with the campaign 'Lucky Strike has gone to war!', promoting the reason for all the changes they made as being to help the war effort. They frequently announced in radio shows which they sponsored, that they were saving enough copper and tin to produce 400 light tanks annually, which was probably untrue, but nobody really cared very much about checking the veracity of any advertising during the war if it appeared patriotic. That is why you nearly always see US soldiers in WW2, Korea and Vietnam etc, with a pack of Luckies, because even today it is still thought of by many in the US as a 'patriotic' brand, which in fairness to them, it probably is.

These four pages of products should give you an idea: http://www.sofmilitary.co.uk/SearchResults.aspx?s=M56&cat=941

Could be either really. Inexpensive ones I can recommend, because I have them and use all three of them, are... This one: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0041300WK?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00 This one: http://www.tacticalgeartrade.co.uk/usmc-molle-combat-assault-plate-carrier-vest-multi-camo.html (although I wouldn't recommend that Tactical Gear Trade one to anyone who is fat, because although adjustable, it wouldn't fit anyone huge) And this one: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B007K7L2RQ?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00 The black tactical load bearing vest is good for lightweight CQB. The Amazon one is good for an M4 loadout with a pistol, and the Tactical Gear Trade one is good for a heavier loadout. Both the camo ones have molle strips on them, but they all come with a decent set of pouches already.

And the evidence would suggest that it apparently doesn't work too well either.