Tactical Pith Helmet

People applauded when they witnessed a dwarf abseiling down a prison wall. I saw it as a little condescending.

Given the way things are going, with second hand G&G M4s at £130+, we could all be asking ourselves a similar question soon... Personally I treat all rifs to a bit of deference given their relative delicacy. This attitude lasts until I get carried away enjoying the game and inevitably my most used guns are missing various bits and sport a fair few examples of gaffer tape and cable ties. If the damage annoyed me, I would not use them, however much they cost.

There's a monkey who works in our local chip shop. Apparently he's a frymate.

Told a joke on Zoom and noone laughed. It wasn't remotely funny.

I used to see a girl called Barb Dwyer. We never really got that close.

Damn hard to concentrate on writing a text message when these cyclists keep bouncing off the windscreen...

G&G Combat Machine M4 is ultra reliable. New inner barrel, hop unit and rubber. Add a mosfet and you've got about as reliable as you can get. CYMA M14 with similar mods is another option. You will get bugger all back if you choose to sell either through.

Broken quiz machine for sale. No questions asked...

Sounds like a fun day. The pyromania at the end was a surprise finish to say the least! Have you become the Pete Townsend of the airsoft world? Will this be a regular post-game ritual? We await next weeks instalment.

You need a cleaning kit for the straw/hose bit. I can recommend the army surplus bag, but I would go for a cheap bladder/inner rather than try and clean it. I picked one up for about a fiver.

Played a group of lads from the local quarry at football today. We beat them on aggregate.

'There's @GAMBLEwith a melee weapon in his hand. ' I believe he was born with one there tbh...

Operation Dustoff, Namsoft 22.04.23 This is an event staged by the rather legendary Denn at Gunman’s Alpha site in Eversley. If you’ve not been this is a hilly rhododendron filled woodland site with several chalk streams that cross it. The top of the site is a ‘wild west’ style village made up of cabins that serve as a party area, sleeping quarters and prop buildings for all kinds of airsoft games. Behind the village you’ll find a fire base consisting of trenches and dugouts, covered machine gun posts and large bunkers. This is Fort William, and is the hard regen and home of the 173rd Airborne, plus other US troops. Hard work from the 173rd’s members had resulted in a new building that sleeps two and acts as a storage area for the units gear. This small complex was the site of much fighting over the weekend, changing hands several times. This was our third weekend under canvas, the first that we had a rain free day though. I thought that arriving on site dry and on time for once heralded a smooth running weekend. We then discovered that we had left two tarps, the lad’s sleeping bag, and the kettle behind. Bollocks! Anyhow, Mark the onsite go to man for anything you need a hand with rustled up a large Kelly kettle and a whole bivvy system. After a chat and a catch up we said our thanks and went to mouch around the village where Neil had set up shop with a range of airsoft rifs, militaria bits, and consumables. We bought Mk Vs and a new old stock AK pouch. Snowy helped us sign on and then sold us an M16 bandolier. We went back to the campfire before we spent any more cash. Saturday dawned bright and bloody freezing. We shivered into our black pyjamas, Mrs TPH keeping her leggings and jumper on underneath. Safety brief was short and concise, following the Gunman format. Game brief was detailed and so informative that the only question was from me asking to confirm which channel to call the marshals on in case of accident. We soon deployed to our hard regen at the base of the site, putting down bags of food and spare batteries etc in an old Nissan hut. We had to leave in squads of at least three due to the large number of players in attendance. As this was the first game that the Vietnamese forces had number parity with the US/Aussies, we were pleased to find that Rory and Ian were also looking to form a squad. Both these blokes had also been at STALKERS a couple of weeks previously, and so we formed a recon group of four. Our first task was to drop off a respawn box somewhere useful, without getting spotted. We were soon hiding in a clump of bushes as the whole Aussie squad passed by. Upon hearing firing, we hid the box and joined in what turned out to be an ambush on the squad that had just passed us. A counter push saw us melting away into the woods, only to circle back and harry them again from different angles. Since we were equipped with a decent compliment of radios, callsign Red Star our commander was soon deploying us against the opposition all over site. When not engaged, we searched for the other side and radioed in location reports, sometimes hiding our rifs and approaching as civilians. Points were awarded for working for and spying on the US. This worked well, especially the player who acted as porter for the US only to grab a rifle as soon as they were attacked and managing to shoot most of the squad on the back. By late afternoon we had harassed the US back into Fort William which we stalked up to and took pot shots at the sentries. This was great fun, and my sub 350fps K98 was very satisfying to get kills with. I spent ages trying to shoot the lad and various mates. For only the second time at one of these events, someone got shouty, tempers got a bit hot and we pulled back from the firebase hearing more shouts. I think that a US player had thrown an incendiary pyro that failed to ignite, and thought that VC players were ignoring it. I radioed the marshal team to ask them to calm things down only to find that the organiser was already having a chat with the chap as I called him. Misunderstandings can happen anywhere and will, and people get tired, confused etc. Sorting things out quickly and amicably is the key and an apology and explanation is all that was needed to get the game 100% fun again. The next stage was to build up to a full stage assault on William. This was a bit of a first. William is hard to attack successfully, but for the first time ever we had equal numbers. Given that we usually win these games overall fighting three to one, this turned into a complete grind down for the US team. Huge numbers of pyro and smoke were thrown; it was very atmospheric with the coloured smoke, shouts and constant sound of firing. We so overwhelmed the US that they gave up the base and we took it with relative ease. A quick marshal talk followed, as someone had bought some MKIVs that turned out to be faulty, being extremely loud. The offending grenades were put away and gameplay continued. The US attempts to regain the base were committed and tenacious, but in the end we gave it up at the end of the day. We had raised our flag and beaten off every attack, including a mate who manged to gain entry into the new 173rd bunker via a fire slit. That had been a close call. With the US back in possession, we continued to pick off patrols and ambush US teams trying to carry out tasks. At one point I crawled up to the firebase and slithered in through a window that had been left open. I managed to hit an entire squad who were sitting down for a fag and tea break in what they thought was safety. I then took out two more chaps before being hit myself. For this I used my trusty CYMA AK though. I say trusty as the mag catch has worn to the point that you have to hold the mag firmly into the magwell for it to feed. I’ll get busy with an old credit card and some super glue and build up the mag’s lips at some point. End of day one, both sides had done well, but the huge VC numbers and being well coordinated for once meant that we were possibly ahead. The Aussie team had done very well in the morning, so the game was still very close whatever the winner. Saturday night was a relaxed affair. We were that knackered that we stayed at our own campfire and cooked steaks with spud salad, washed down with Irish coffee and decent scotch. I honestly could not have taken another step and gone and socialised. Sunday morning saw a start at 7:30… well the Aussie team and a few VC did. We got up about an hour later and joined in the fun, contesting the wall section of the site. This was great fun and we had some really good firefights, I had a premonition that this would be an intense affair, and packed the RPK for the day. This performed faultlessly as always, despite its increasingly battered appearance. Mrs TPH’s new CYMA AK 74 SU worked a treat too. She really got into the thick of things, running towards any sound of fighting and getting frustrated if she was not stalking and shooting a US squad. Once again the rain started on and off, and players began to dribble off site. We staged one last attack on William, unlimited respawns for the VC, one life for the US. We had a whale of a time throwing ourselves at the place. At close of play we realised that we were the last VC squad left in the field, against a much depleted US side. We were victorious (I think) but tired and in need of a shower and a bite to eat. Our son was still fucking about in the field so I nicked his pasty. Teach him to forget to take his lunch with him. Handshakes and goodbyes were said. A lot of smiling and looking forward to seeing friends again at the next game took place. We packed the van and pointed it homeward. We’re all seriously done in and airsofted out, but it was a marvellous weekend. Good company, good gameplay and sportsmanship, well thought out storyline and very good social. I love these events and we’ll do one or two a month from March to November. I did order a bloody thick double sleeping bag as soon as I got home though. I’ll also remember to print out my filmsim kit list and tick the essentials off too. I’ll also get a Kelly kettle and cook set kit having borrowed one. The twig burning kettle was far better in cold weather than our iso-butane camping stove. All in all a great weekend, the guns ran very well. The old AK is getting mag fussy, but that’s fixable. The RPK is laser accurate and chugs at a decent rate of fire, i.e. slowly. I can’t believe how well I shoot it from the hip with a loose sling. Mrs TPH was well impressed with her AK SU and the Kar98 is impressively accurate as a standard rif. All of the Russian platforms are CYMA and provide real reliability. It’s great satisfaction to hit someone with a bolt action with no MED too. Next is two Nam games are in June on successive weekends. We’ll do a 90’s Middle-East game before then in May. We’ll shoot at blokes in tri-colour desert and choc-chip camo instead of greens. We drove four hours to get to this game. Some Aussie players came from Scotland. They’re well worth the effort. Du ban GI!

Gunman does these at Tuddenham. Great fun and very intense gameplay. Very low attendance though.

Some airsoft games have incredibly silly names. Still incredibly silly fun though. So types a man dressed as a Viet Cong guerrilla from about 1968 sitting round a campfire with similarly dressed loons.

It's incredible how many French words are now used in the English language. There's 'Hors D'oeuvres' for starters.

You don't know how much that needles my inner accuracy nerd... However I doubt it matters a fuck for airsoft!

I've just had a prostate examination. Got the thumbs up from the doctor.

Love the Meninblack. That scope sits silly high. Get a medium set of mounts (I'd guess). The more rainbow your trajectory, the closer you want bore to scope.

Much as I love my wife, I never know where I am with her. Lovely woman, terrible map reader.

My '11.1V ready' G&G ETU Mosfet equipped RIF shat itself the very first game. If you want an M4 swallow Combat Machine prices or buy CYMA. Classic Army do a nice M16 rif too. Double Eagle apparently do a few also...

Me. "I want to divorce my wife." Lawyer. "On what grounds?" Me. "She's out all night, every night, going from bar to bar." Lawyer. "Is she an alcoholic or do you think she might be cheating?" Me. "No, she's looking for me."

As a child I had to walk the plank. We couldn't afford a dog.

Few years ago a friend turned up at the pub with a 'new' lid. He'd found a kids plastic army helmet at the tip, sprayed it matt black and decided to wear it on his XS 840 Halco tuned bike as it, 'looked cool.' Back on topic... those dodgy helmets look in a similar league to those bloody ski helmets that someone put on here a while back.