GeorgePlaysAirsoft

Great weekend run by Gunman at Eversley Alpha.  The unusual feature of this event was that the VC and PAVN forces would have to stand and fight as a conventional unit.  Two man fire teams were possible, but both units would fight as groups.  Since both outfits tent to be harder to heard than cats, this promised an interesting weekend!
 
Friday night was the usual banter around a roaring fire, plenty of beers and the now traditional brandy and cigars.  Obviously one wishes to prepare oneself before a weekend of vigorous activity; and a few coronas and balloons of Courvoisier help tremendously.  These were enjoyed after a large helping of exquisite curry cooked by one of the players.  Just because we’re in tents doesn’t mean that we slum it.
 
Saturday morning saw a few regulars and several newcomers take to the field.  Being VC, our task was to kill and capture when possible GIs.  The PAVN faction had a whole set of objectives that our hit and run chaos was to aid.  We would tie the GIs up, whilst the PAVN did their thing.  This was really enjoyable as we formed a three man fire team and played havoc with tripwires and ambushes, occasionally posing as civilians in order to delay or divert the enemy.  Being equipped with explosives and an LSW, we had a fair bit of wallop when we did attack. 
 
A good feature of the site is the regular fly pasts by vintage aircraft.  The noise allowed for seriously rapid deployment in deep cover as the noise covered the sound of the movement.  In the area around the brewery section of the site, I played a blinder.  Being separated from my team as one player had become separated, and the other lost their rifle playing civilian, I attacked alone.  Seriously I was on the ball, and managed kill after kill with no hits to myself.  I was located at one point, but both grenades that were thrown failed to explode.  I must have trodden in some lucky shit I think.  For the first time I wished that I had kept count of the kill/death ratio.  Another team member claimed 18/3. 
 
My personal highlight was locating the enemy in a trench and earwigging their plans, radioing these to command and getting comfortable until they moved out twenty minutes later.  When I got eyes on, I realised that the players were two regulars and my son.  I laughed out loud as I took each one out.  The family that sprays together etc…
 
At close of play, we had given the GIs a good pasting as a team, with the PAVN having carried out all of their objectives.  The US players had recovered quickly after each attack and also done well, so good work all round.  For the first time ever at one of these games, someone mentioned hit taking, which I think shocked us all, but I think with hindsight that someone was playing less than switched on rather than taking the piss.  The heat was not too bad, but humidity was really high, and I can understand a bit of sloppy play at days end.  Everyone was seriously wilting. 
 
The night time was very relaxed after the day’s events.  The new bars were still full of singing idiots until late and we talked over the day’s game over steaks and scotch. 
 
Sunday was more objective based.  A series of escape routes had to be closed by the US and defended by the Vietnamese.  This went less well than Saturday.  Two Viet fireteams came across almost the whole US force, and not realising their error, stood and fought.  The outcome was inevitable and we lost all three citations and only hid our equipment box by luck.  We all went back to respawn well chastened.  Bollox!
 
Splitting our team into two we felt on more familiar ground.  As a team of four we re-entered the field and followed in the US’s path.  Doing this we retrieved our equipment and hid it ready for another opportunity.  We also managed to win a quick firefight with a recce squad that we bumped.  This cheered us up considerably. 
 
Close of play was frustrating.  We prepared a damn good all units ambush only for the US to rumble our plans and some fool to open fire all too soon.  We got a thorough drubbing and deserved it for the lack of fire discipline. 
 
One thing or so of note: The new players were not as switched on as the old hands.  I noticed that when we patrolled, the experienced players held their rifs at the ready whilst the newbies used the carry handles right into the objectives.  New players not only talked, but did so loudly, actually bickering about plans rather than confirming quietly via radio.  Loose buckles rattled, equipment thunked and twigs cracked like gunshots.  None knew any hand signals either.   It soon became an educational weekend too. 
 
Hits of the weekend:  I honestly played better than ever before Saturday.  The social was fantastic.  My wife played too, and is developing into a seriously good player.  She now wants a lightweight machine pistol.  What would anyone recommend?  We will try her with the lads Skorpion, but I expect that she’ll want her own 60’s rapid fire sidearm soon.  She also fancies a lightweight sniper rifle.  You can imagine how gutted I am at the thought of yet another gun.
 
Favourite bit:  chap shaking hands at the end of game stating that we were the sneakiest bastards that he’d ever played against.  This was especially generous as I aimed for his rucksack as he ran away… and all five/six shots hit him on the arse.  I did apologise. 
 
The heroes who got us a couple of gallons of water from Tesco deserve a mention too.  
 
Moans: where were we all?  The best games on the whole calendar IMHO and we were seriously depleted.  I would say that only a third of the expected players were there.  This did not affect the gameplay as such, which was great, but I did miss a few faces.  Seriously, playing this type of event once a month leaves our old bi-weekly skirmishing routine lacking. 
 
Anyhow, another great Gunman event, as expected.  I’ll do the next at the end of the month, and one in October.  I might just skirmish over the winter unless a Soviet themed game comes up, or possibly partisan based.  Whatever, it will be a blast.
 

I did about 5 years of doing weekend events every 3-4 weeks along with regular skirmishing. Lots and lots of weekend events - have quite a few cool stories from it but they are massively outnumbered by the "yeah, it was an ok event, nothing super special", thankfully they also outnumber the poor hit taking and the "I just want to quit and sell it all" moments. My last weekend event was around October 2021 (kids!)
 
For context 
 
get dropped off by a rhib in the dead of night to perform a tasking (stirling airsoft, the sandpit around 2015/2016), perform dawn raids on target buildings listening to chatter on the comms between the "apache pilot" and ground based aircraft controllers followed by pyro and lighting effects (tier one, stanta - around 2013), stayed awake for far too long on stag in woodlands with my mates ripping the piss out of each other (Stirling airsoft, the trees, the valley, the sandpit, caerwent, multiple times!), watched the sun come up over afghan style villages (Stirling Airsoft, stanta, around 2014), broken contact from far superior forces using appropriate tactics (Stirling Airsoft, Spain, around 2016/2017), set and executed a variety of ambushes (Stirling Airsoft, Sandpit, trees, caerwent, numerous times), crept through buildings trying to be super sneaky (Stirling airsoft, catterick loads of times, urban assault night games) taken out callsigns 3 times my squads size through little more than applying some grey matter (Stirling Airsoft, the trees around 2017).
 
There are a bunch of other highlights but
 
The more memorable ones really stick out because they aren't run of the mill, it's involved hours and hours of travelling (including to Spain) to sites and probably 100+ weekend events plus skirmishes. Getting to Catterick is an 8 hour round trip for me and I have probably done it 20-30 times and even then, you could do Catterick 5 times and not get any experiences that are stand out (like above) or aren't much different to a standard skirmish. Sadly some of these sites aren't even operating anymore. Ive done countless skirmish days that I now can't even recollect. I dread to think how much I have spent on this hobby.....

Kicking Mustang did WHAT!?

Kicking Mustang did WHAT!?

Agreed. I only provided links to the ebay seller as I have prior purchases from him (assume he sources from similar places) but is UK based so turn around is usually pretty rapid.

Wtf ...this still doing lol . I totally  forgot as currently in Croatia not giving a flying  fuck about Anzio camp ...

I love night games, seen them work just as well as most day games to be honest. Cheaters do think it's easier to be a bastard though. 
 
I remember doing a 4 hour round journey to do a 3.5-4 hour night game at urban assault every 4 weeks for about 18 months. The good old days!
 
Regarding that LED flashbang thing......it looks awful, been discontinued and it's the first time I have seen it which I think shows how popular it was and how well it took off. Reckon it wouldn't last many throws at all. I'd strongly recommend a standard bfg or disposable pyro if you're allowed (some sites allow them during the day, but not the evening). 
 
Torch wise, I'd recommend one of the surefire clones, you're looking at around £40-£50 all in, it mounts nicely to rifs, looks good, provide a decent amount of light, have the momentary on function etc. Think it'd serve better than a more short term version. Torches are great for CQB in the day too, dark corners etc. Bright is great, but sometimes not having the brightest torch is useful, super bright and your torch can be seen from miles away or even a few rooms away, bright enough but not the full power of the sun and it's a bit more discreet. 
 
 

Last weekend's 9h night tournament was a blast!
 
We were missing one member (so we were 5 instead of 6), nonetheless we went balls deep and did almost everything!
 
The tournament itself was very interesting since in order to locate/complete some objectives we had to find information inside other objectives (namely Objective 4, its coordinates were found inside Objective 3, E1's coordinates were found in either E4 or E2 and the rest was distributed throughout the AO).
Storyboard was that we had to help a sniper called "Silent Arrow" in eliminating a drug lord, by recovering information around the AO so we could tell him which person to kill.
 

(map for reference with all the objectives marked)
 
At the start (11:00 PM) our guns were taken away and transported to an unknown location (AEG on the map), we were then given a small cartographic exercise in order to find the coordinates, hiked from the HQ to AEG, collected our gear and proceeded to C2, then E4 and E2, since they were limited to a very short time frame (30 mins each, 01:00-01:30 E4, 01:30-02:00 E2), here we had to wait for a car to leave small boxes along the road (marked in green), those boxes contained very useful information regarding other objectives, mainly coordinates and items we needed.
If one team was not able to recover those two packages within the given time limit, they would have had to hike back to the HQ and ask for them, with a point penalty of 500 points per package (which means being last, since 1000 points equal two combat type objectives).
 
This is where we had our only engagement with a patrol which lasted a whopping 15 seconds, we got spotted because another team, who was sitting in the tree line next to us, ran away creating a lot of noise so the patrol got alerted. When we opened fire they melted, but still, 100 points lost -.- (another 200 if you lose the engagement)
 
With those two packages retrieved, we headed back to the HQ so we could input the coordinates in our GPS devices and plot a sensible route. The main goal was to reach C1 as fast as possible because it was the objective with the strictest time frame (03:00-03:30), unfortunately we fucked up navigation and barely missed it, so we decided to do Obj.2, here we had to injure (by shooting him in semi auto in non vital parts, essentially arms and legs) a dude, extract him and blow up a building. Barely completed it, we messed the extraction part because we didn't have enough time.
 
After that, we skipped WP4 and went to WP3, WP2, WP15, stumbled upon Obj.4 (had to insert a chip inside a laptop without being seen by the defenders), WP5, attacked Obj.3 where we had to blow up a laboratory, then moved counter clockwise through WP11, WP6, Objective 1 where we had to exfiltrate a case of radioactive material and take a picture of a scientist, after telling him apart from the rest (they all had images of chess pieces on them, it was relatively easy because he had a king), skipped WP7 because we didn't realize we were that close, went WP14, E7 and E1.
 
At E1 we found the sniper, who was an archer IRL and he had setup a shooting range with four dummies at a good 35 metres, we gave him the correct name and he fucking pierced the dummy with an arrow from that distance. Kudos, that was a fucking good shot! (We were later informed that he was competing in the national archery championship, so yeah).
 
On our way back to the HQ we went to C3 and then finished at 07:35 AM.
 
Back at HQ we did a small debrief with the organizers and noticed that they had given us 5000 points in total, we thought we were like last, or second to last, since we had skipped a few waypoints, skipped C1, almost fucked up Obj.2 and we were the last team to finish..
 
Fast forward 20 minutes, results were out.. Last team (of 6) did 3250 points, then 3 more teams with less than 3500, hype started to build up and then, drum rolls, the 2nd team got 3850 points!!!!
 
Well colour me impressed! Never thought we could have had such a large gap from the 2nd! 
 
Unfortunately I forgot to turn on track recording on my GPS, but my mate's said we hiked around 23 kilometres, in 8 and a half hours, not too bad!
 
Kit wise, a last minute change I made was to bring the Mayflower instead of the TMR, and it was a really good choice, the thing is 100x more comfortable and lighter despite the overall larger signature and capacity.
What let me down was the backpack, 3 hours in and it started digging into my shoulders despite having only two litres of water, one bag of BBs and one NVG monocular in its protective soft pouch, along with spare batteries and a tiny bit of food so I'm gonna have to look around for a replacement.
And a stronger insect repellent, my arms are filled with bites it looks like i have a plague of some sort!
 
 
Group picture before starting (mhm, tinted lens in pitch black conditions, fucking 1000000iq play )

I have one, I think they are pretty good if you are wearing a balaclava of course. The metal is quite flexible so you can smush it to fit your face....ymmv of course.  The downside is that for me at least it interfered with the chin strap on my helmet which was basically unacceptable. I ended up cutting it down into a kinda orange peel shape so it just protects my teeth.

I have one, I think they are pretty good if you are wearing a balaclava of course. The metal is quite flexible so you can smush it to fit your face....ymmv of course.  The downside is that for me at least it interfered with the chin strap on my helmet which was basically unacceptable. I ended up cutting it down into a kinda orange peel shape so it just protects my teeth.

This set off a bit of a walk down memory lane for me. I was playing at spec ops before it became spec ops - at the time mr spec ops ran the games at Ground Zero and spec ops was an invite only all day long proto-battlesim type thing. No hicaps seemed like such a big deal then and I spent loads of money on TM standard mags cause it was either them or the Star "realcaps". Mad to think midcaps weren't invented yet.  Fond memories of ruining my jetboil by using it to make pepperami instant noodles. I also helped build some of the first structures there. I also lost my USP on its first game which sucked but a guy cheered me up by doing a peter griffin impression. This must of been in 2006-7 or so. Funny to know they still do hotdogs and chilli con carne as that was the menu all those years ago. I went again I think 2014 or so hoping to meet aforementioned mr spec ops but he wasn't there rip. There were rumours that there were abandoned houses out in the woods, there was also a supposed sighting of the "beast of bloxworth" and also during a night game, a ufo. We never did come across any of these houses but I note that the site down the road does have one. So maybe there was a beast of bloxworth after all...

This set off a bit of a walk down memory lane for me. I was playing at spec ops before it became spec ops - at the time mr spec ops ran the games at Ground Zero and spec ops was an invite only all day long proto-battlesim type thing. No hicaps seemed like such a big deal then and I spent loads of money on TM standard mags cause it was either them or the Star "realcaps". Mad to think midcaps weren't invented yet.  Fond memories of ruining my jetboil by using it to make pepperami instant noodles. I also helped build some of the first structures there. I also lost my USP on its first game which sucked but a guy cheered me up by doing a peter griffin impression. This must of been in 2006-7 or so. Funny to know they still do hotdogs and chilli con carne as that was the menu all those years ago. I went again I think 2014 or so hoping to meet aforementioned mr spec ops but he wasn't there rip. There were rumours that there were abandoned houses out in the woods, there was also a supposed sighting of the "beast of bloxworth" and also during a night game, a ufo. We never did come across any of these houses but I note that the site down the road does have one. So maybe there was a beast of bloxworth after all...

This set off a bit of a walk down memory lane for me. I was playing at spec ops before it became spec ops - at the time mr spec ops ran the games at Ground Zero and spec ops was an invite only all day long proto-battlesim type thing. No hicaps seemed like such a big deal then and I spent loads of money on TM standard mags cause it was either them or the Star "realcaps". Mad to think midcaps weren't invented yet.  Fond memories of ruining my jetboil by using it to make pepperami instant noodles. I also helped build some of the first structures there. I also lost my USP on its first game which sucked but a guy cheered me up by doing a peter griffin impression. This must of been in 2006-7 or so. Funny to know they still do hotdogs and chilli con carne as that was the menu all those years ago. I went again I think 2014 or so hoping to meet aforementioned mr spec ops but he wasn't there rip. There were rumours that there were abandoned houses out in the woods, there was also a supposed sighting of the "beast of bloxworth" and also during a night game, a ufo. We never did come across any of these houses but I note that the site down the road does have one. So maybe there was a beast of bloxworth after all...

I had the same thing as Alvin and it was totally fine (short version I pretty much answered no or n/a to every question which didn't specify parts)
 
There is a question whereby if you put "yes" to RIF parts, they want you to "confirm the use of the RIF as above" - I did mark the question as "yes" but did not confirm the use of the RIF "as above" cause.. it's not a RIF.
 
I may be paranoid but I'd encourage anyone who has this form for parts to not include anything vaguely "ukara-ry" or "defency", just in case they start demanding ukara or whatever for just parts. I still have a copy so if you want to take a look let me know and I can ping it over.
 
 
 

I had the same thing as Alvin and it was totally fine (short version I pretty much answered no or n/a to every question which didn't specify parts)
 
There is a question whereby if you put "yes" to RIF parts, they want you to "confirm the use of the RIF as above" - I did mark the question as "yes" but did not confirm the use of the RIF "as above" cause.. it's not a RIF.
 
I may be paranoid but I'd encourage anyone who has this form for parts to not include anything vaguely "ukara-ry" or "defency", just in case they start demanding ukara or whatever for just parts. I still have a copy so if you want to take a look let me know and I can ping it over.
 
 
 

Brought a part (mock silencer) from Evike late last year, didn't have UKARA then and got hit by the exact same form by UPS. I think the word Airsoft in the shipping content triggers the flag for this process. 

For me (completely glossing over the shambles of their communications), I fill in what I could to support my claim (i.e No velocity, its a part, not a RIF, playing with an organization, no UKARA as not importing RIF etc.) They released it fairly quickly after I sent the form back to the right person. Not that I would guarantee its the same for you, given import orders are risky and next person could be completely different, but hope that helps.
 
 
 
 

Because being a member of an airsoft forum is not airsoft. 

I was there as well on that day, ShadopOpz at Richborough.  It was the most surreal thing ever.  Stripper parts at the end 🙂
 

They are a novelty gun for sure but quite fun, so fun that at one point in time i had 2.
Downsides:
- Only one of the 3 barrel has hop applied vertically.  After mine broke I sent it for repairs and whilst it was in, had the hop modded so all 3 barrels have vertical hop and a heavier spring in there to take it to whatever 250fps with .2g is to 1j. After that, I used .28s
- As above, I can't honestly claim them to be reliable guns. Mine has broken twice, each instance a gearbox jam. The first occasion was caused by bb's getting jammed, the second occasion I don't know...as I haven't gotten it fixed yet!
- I didn't have a great experience with the drum mag, it would fail to feed too often and sapped the fun o meter. I used it maybe twice and then switched to carrying (lots) of standard mags, which hold 90 or so bbs which, quick maths, gives you 30 shots which is far from ideal. gbbr people can say what they want but i haven't heard anyone using "realcaps" in a "normal" aeg in well over a decade
- I should note that at the time i was using blaster bb's or whatever, I don;t use them anymore for other reasons but this contributed to me becoming a bit of a geoffs fundamentalist
- the rear sling mount is a real weak point. look for a "full stock sling adapter" if you want to sling
 
 

They are a novelty gun for sure but quite fun, so fun that at one point in time i had 2.
Downsides:
- Only one of the 3 barrel has hop applied vertically.  After mine broke I sent it for repairs and whilst it was in, had the hop modded so all 3 barrels have vertical hop and a heavier spring in there to take it to whatever 250fps with .2g is to 1j. After that, I used .28s
- As above, I can't honestly claim them to be reliable guns. Mine has broken twice, each instance a gearbox jam. The first occasion was caused by bb's getting jammed, the second occasion I don't know...as I haven't gotten it fixed yet!
- I didn't have a great experience with the drum mag, it would fail to feed too often and sapped the fun o meter. I used it maybe twice and then switched to carrying (lots) of standard mags, which hold 90 or so bbs which, quick maths, gives you 30 shots which is far from ideal. gbbr people can say what they want but i haven't heard anyone using "realcaps" in a "normal" aeg in well over a decade
- I should note that at the time i was using blaster bb's or whatever, I don;t use them anymore for other reasons but this contributed to me becoming a bit of a geoffs fundamentalist
- the rear sling mount is a real weak point. look for a "full stock sling adapter" if you want to sling
 
 

Blasters have been banned from a few sites because inregular shapes and a habit of shattering if you used them exclusively I think they're what caused your issues rather than the gun it's self. 

They are a novelty gun for sure but quite fun, so fun that at one point in time i had 2.
Downsides:
- Only one of the 3 barrel has hop applied vertically.  After mine broke I sent it for repairs and whilst it was in, had the hop modded so all 3 barrels have vertical hop and a heavier spring in there to take it to whatever 250fps with .2g is to 1j. After that, I used .28s
- As above, I can't honestly claim them to be reliable guns. Mine has broken twice, each instance a gearbox jam. The first occasion was caused by bb's getting jammed, the second occasion I don't know...as I haven't gotten it fixed yet!
- I didn't have a great experience with the drum mag, it would fail to feed too often and sapped the fun o meter. I used it maybe twice and then switched to carrying (lots) of standard mags, which hold 90 or so bbs which, quick maths, gives you 30 shots which is far from ideal. gbbr people can say what they want but i haven't heard anyone using "realcaps" in a "normal" aeg in well over a decade
- I should note that at the time i was using blaster bb's or whatever, I don;t use them anymore for other reasons but this contributed to me becoming a bit of a geoffs fundamentalist
- the rear sling mount is a real weak point. look for a "full stock sling adapter" if you want to sling
 
 

Couple of better pictures,
Now if someone would just release an steel valve knocker with the 'spring' bit as part of the single piece we would all feel safer using the damn things ! 
 

Adding finsihing touches to my tigerstripe loadout.  It's not intended to be period correct in anyway, Shap or form, but just (imo) what looks cool, and what works for me in game. 
 

 
 

Couldn't find anything about them before I ordered. Anyway, for the sake of search engines and all that:
 
I did order from them, my order was shipped quickly and it took 7 working days to get from Poland to the UK. Not bad, really. I'd use them again. I can't comment on how they'd handle something going wrong but in any case everything went right.