RebelScum

Neither. I made it for the event. It's a Fast helmet from eBay with polypropylene stuck around the edge and finished with car trim. The code discs are from eBay as well. It's based on the Imperial helmets from the Andor series.

Yup. I'll be there to be shot at by the sneaky VC all day. The Firebase has had a lot of work done to it since the last 'Nam game, so I'm looking forward to testing out the upgraded fortifications. @Skullchewer - I'm really glad you enjoyed the game on Saturday. I was there as well on the blue team and had a cracking game. Top marks to the lads on the green team that held the mortar pits all morning. They made our lives so difficult, it was ridiculous - even more so as there were only a few of them hanging on to the timer. We seemed to get our act together by the afternoon and managed to turn it around, but regardless of the result everyone seemed to have lots of fun, which is what makes these events memorable. It's worth saying as well that if you like the filmsim genre Gunman hosts all sorts of games at filmsim.co.uk, including Nam and Cold War, although I have to say the highlight for me this year was the "Outer Rim" game a few weeks ago on May 4th (it's really Star Wars but don't tell Disney 🤫). The effort everyone made by everyone was extraordinary. Courtesy of Chris Thomas Photography these are a couple of pictures from the event, including a Tusken Raider, a hirable Battle Droid and finally me as an Imperial Trooper. I can't quite bring myself to post pictures of the New Republic Forces as it's all rebel propaganda 😄:

So they do exist... 17th June 2023. If I'm order #354 and we have members still waiting from January 2023, this could be quite a few people...

Anyone know how to post up a poll, as I'm genuinely interested to see how many fivers we are talking about here and how long people have been waiting. Given all the advice on the forum about how to dispute payments when retailers don't send out something that's been paid for I'm really amazed at the patience that's been displayed here by forum members and that no-one has yet disputed this. I know, it's only a patch, but that's not really the point. Is it really that tricky or time-consuming to deal with this? If there are no patches or otherwise some other reason why some members don't see them for a year, then let everyone know and stop taking the money...

@proffrink - any chance of an update please? If it had been an airsoft retailer that had taken money and not sent out goods everyone would be playing merry hell on the forum. I thought June 2023 was bad but some members have been waiting a lot longer. I have to ask where the money has gone if the patches haven't been sent out?

Any update on the great delivery mystery? I don't seem to have much luck with patches as I'm still waiting on a Gold UKAPU patch as well, although that's getting on for 3 years and still not sorted... To be honest a 6-month turnaround is not great and I wonder if we're all being too patient???

Do we have any update on the patches? I ordered mine back in June (23), but not a peep since. I understand the logic of batch dispatching, but literally how many orders do we need to get to before it's worth the effort? I do like the web patch, but I'd prefer the real thing.

As one of the GIs in the Cajun Chicken game over the weekend I concur that we had as much fun "dealing with the locals" as they seemed to have hunting us down. I played both days and I really enjoyed Sunday even though numbers were down, as everyone was committed to the gameplay and we had some cracking firefights and hilarious encounters. The theme really stands out and top marks to the Louisiana State Troopers and FBI for looking the part and who all added an extra dimension not normally seen in other games. I also have to give credit to the Cajun fighter who ambushed our patrol on Saturday, when we were brining in two prisoners, managing to take down three of the GIs with a hunting rifle before being mown down by one of the squad leaders. And I confess we did have fun waiting for @Tactical Pith Helmet to return to rescue Mrs TPH, resulting in him being wounded and then turned over to the law for questioning. The number of Cajuns who pleaded they were only out "duck-hunting" with assault rifles also made me chuckle. The final battle was so intense, it was a miracle we made it back to base with evidence of the locals' crimes, and goes to show that even with a few players you can have great fun. Definitely a game to recommend.

Given there appears to definitely be an issue with buying Geoffs BBs at the moment (sold out in a lot a weights for months now), two questions. Any idea why that might be? And secondly what would be a good substitute for 0.3g or 0.32g bbs, given this brand is all I've used for a number of years? Similar quality and price range? Thanks.

100% this. Movement and sound will give you away regardless of whether you look like a bush or not. I've experienced this a couple of times, standing-up in light cover 5 feet away from the opposing team dressed in blue urban camo, and they just walked straight past me. Often players are so fixated with the objective or a target, or are crashing around woodland and talking loudly, they fail to notice danger right under their noses. The best players are the ones who know when to keep still.

I joined, as one the perks was a patch to add to the collection. Unfortunately said patch never materialized, despite promises to the contrary. And then I found my subs auto-paid through PayPal and I still didn't get the patch. I gave up my membership at this point. As for what they actually do. Not sure to be honest as the FB page was never updated.

My own E&L AKS74 is a pretty solid gun, although you need to look after the externals as they are metal and may rust if you don't . I use a bit of Abbey Gun Oil 35 after a game, and it's survived Cold War games in some pretty awful weather for a few years now. The furniture is all real wood and the selector is crisp, even after use. My gun internals are still stock, and shoot 0.28 and 0.3 bbs perfectly adequately. I bought an E&L AK74M afterwards for a more 90s look, as I really liked the gun. E&L mags are OK, but I find they don't feed to the end to the last bb, which is slightly annoying, and part of the design of the mag. The gun is also weighty, given all the metal. I sometimes run a GP25 with the gun and it's very heavy and unbalanced as a result. I have CYMA guns as well (although not AK74s) and they are also perfectly fine stock guns. I think in the end it'll come down to cost and availability as I think all three versions are pretty good. Anyway here is a pic of my E&L.

This is the Gunman Nam' Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/543235879119216 And Cold War: https://www.facebook.com/groups/119724884770726

Always happy to help out. I've met some great players in the Eversley Filmsim games who are a very friendly bunch. The Nam and Cold War games have such a great atmosphere, with the effort put in by all sides making them extra special. Saying that though I played there this Saturday with some of the regulars for normal Filmsim (Hunger Games) and had one of the best days I've had in months. A great turnout, sensible marshalling (hit taking was really, really good) and some epic game play, my favourite being the group of three Red Team players that hid for 30+ minutes with an ammo tin whilst being hunted down by the Yellow Team. It was escape and evasion as an art and their patience in working their way back to base through a swamp and heavy terrain was admirable. As a Red Team player on the day, I also need to award top marks to a slightly lost Blue player who stumbled into a firefight between Red and Yellow and wiped out our position, before fortunately the Yellow Team took him out. The Yellow players who moved up afterwards seemed to be struggling to understand how two different teams all ended up dead in the same spot.

That would be the .30 Cal we had. An amazing piece of kit put together by an incredibly talented engineer on our side. Great for spraying the trees when we couldn't who was shooting at us. There were a lot of dropouts unfortunately, but I have to say I had a great day, even with low numbers. It helped that everyone got into the theme, which I think is half the battle for filmsim.

I wish we had 30 US. There were 12 of us on the Saturday! This is us just before the meat-grinder of the last game which was an absolute bloody nightmare. At one point the entire squad was being held back by one lone VC who played a blinder of a game. Whilst I was bleeding out waiting for a medic the marshals explained we'd had it so easy in the third game so they were going to make us work for this one. And I tell you we really did as we were funneled into the valley and had to fight our way up the track getting shot at from all sides. Kudos to everyone who played though. I really liked the missions, everyone got into the spirit of the Nam and the small numbers meant we worked as a squad all day. The kit everyone had was amazing as well. A lot of effort was made by both sides and it made a huge difference.

As one of the Yanks who was lounging around listening to Rolling Stones hits when you attacked I salute your efforts. I could not believe you'd got that close without anyone spotting you, and the woeful cry of "Medic" woke 1st Platoon from it's post-lunch slumber as we tried to work out what the hell was going on. Believe me we all got a telling off afterwards about inattentive sentries, which clearly didn't go in, as after we'd evited the NVA/VC from the Firebase later in the day, I made the mistake of standing in the open outside my bunker, only to hear a "ping" as a sniper shot bounced off my helmet, and watched our medic run straight past me... From the US point of view it was quite unnerving with all the hit and run tactics, but I did laugh at the number of times the VC attacked our position just at the point relief troops were being rotated in. If only you'd turned up a few minutes earlier we'd have been in serious trouble. As it was 1st Platoon was down to 3 men defending our radio mast at one point, having lost our officer and the radio guy, which made for an intense period waiting for our relief to turn up. Anyway I completely agree with all the sentiments. The gameplay was great and I'd thoroughly recommend these events just for the atmosphere and amazing effort put into the kits.

Ironically I've got one which I was just messing around with as you posted this. I paid £245 for mine as I imported it from Gunfire, so it was a lot cheaper, but it wasn't working properly on arrival. The tech who had a look at it said that the downgrade to the power that was made by Gunfire was the issue, as they'd failed to put it back together properly. Even I could see this was an issue as one of the screws at the rear wasn't put in correctly. Anyway @Luke NegAir who teched it for me (Negative Airsoft) put in a Perun ETU++ (which gives a lovely three round burst function) and disabled the electronic blowback for me, as there was a metal plate that was bent and was likely to fail at some point. I could put the function back, but I followed Luke's advice, which was it was the blowback was more trouble than it was worth. If you have some basic knowledge, a quick search on the internet will give you enough information to disable the blowback yourself. How does the gun now work? Not bad actually. It was performing as well as my Kings Arms M4 and I got decent hits in the game I played. It also really suits the Brit loadout I've been building, plus it looks different - not another M4 in the game. The balance is OK as well. I've never run a bullpup before and it was OK to shoot. I appreciate these things are personal, but I quite liked it with the sling set-up. I use the G&G M4 mid-caps, just because the length seems to look more realistic, but it took my CYMA mid-caps absolutely fine as well. Now the bad. Do not buy the G&G SUSAT. Oh my God, what a piece of over-priced rubbish. I could go on and on about the dreadful build quality, with the wiring that's a real mess, the base plate being 3D printed plastic that crumbles when you try to change the batteries, and the fact that the optical sight is misaligned to the left, no matter what you do to adjust it. The optical sight defies physics and it seems I'm not the only one that has had this issue. The iron sights are OK, but the rest of it is awful if you actually want to use it as a scope. I need to get around to getting rid of mine, but with a huge health warning that says it only good for a wall-hanger, and you should only use the iron sights if you want to hit something in a game. It's that bad and G&G should be ashamed of themselves. Part of me feels I'd be doing the Airsoft community a huge favour by burying it at my local site. Ironically the Chinese SUSAT clone I bought off Amazon for £20 less than the G&G one is really good. It actually magnifies properly and works as a scope, so that's a far better buy. I'm not sure if any of that helps. They sometimes come up in sales, so you might be best waiting to get a bit of a discount.

Thanks @Druid799. That's the best explanation I've seen for the clips.

On the British Army's General Purpose Waistcoat, what are the clips on the shoulder meant to attach to, as well as the two clips that on the rear of the vest at the bottom? I presume it's a day-sack or something like that? I've seen the British Bergen medical side pouches have four clips so this is a possibility, but I've never seen one attached to a waistcoat. I'm a bit of a recent convert to some of the 90s/00s British kit, and DPM works so well in woodland games, so it's definitely a practical piece of kit; it's just the clips that I can't quite get my head around.

£60 on a £300 order, plus something like a £12 UPS handling fee. So you effectively end up paying the VAT rate. I agree for some items it's not worth it, but I definitely saved as the RIF alone was retailing in the UK for well over £400 (if it was even in stock) and I paid under £250 using discount codes. I then padded the order out with some ridiculously bits of cheap kit. You can never have enough Polish Woodland camo in my opinion. And as you say, there is also the chance you may not pay anything and receive the parcel in 6 days, depending on the the UPS import lottery...

So my final update in the Gunfire versus Taiwangun race to the UK started just before Christmas, as somewhat surprisingly UPS finally got around the releasing my Gunfire parcel from it's special shelf in their Stanford Le Hope warehouse and my parcel arrived today, although to be fair the Border Force tape did show it had been subject to an examination. Conclusions? Well Gunfire is the winner as TG still aren't shipping to the UK despite their email to me about test purchases. Surprising as I would have thought the UK market to be worth chasing, although I get the distinct impression TG got their fingers burnt by UPS. Just to keep TG on their toes I do like to fill my TG basket up with goodies whilst browsing their website, if only to let them know what I might spend if only they sorted out their delivery service. Gunfire performance. I can't fault it up to the point they hand over to UPS and then you enter somewhat of a lottery. Total transit time was 43 days, of which 40 was the parcel languishing in a warehouse in Essex, waiting for UPS to decide if they were going to collect import duty, after which it entered a waiting area for a Customs examination. They don't seem to have any SLA with Border Force which is bizarre given most couriered mail with other companies is cleared in hours by Border Force (DHL being my best experience). Gunfire also made a lot of effort with plastering my UKARA number over the parcel, so no chance of a misunderstanding in this regard. If you want to chase the parcel's status UPS Customer Services aren't much use, but Brokerage seem to be better organised and were quite helpful. Fees and taxation were what was expected, so despite the wait I have saved money. If you are prepared to wait, and you really do need to be prepared to play the long game here, Gunfire will deliver... eventually.

If UPS have delivered in 6 days that's incredibly random and lucky. I'd be interested as well if they managed to do this. UPS brokerage emailed me on Friday to say that my parcel was awaiting inspection, but they said they'd put it in priority racking. It's made my parcel feel a lot better as it sits in the warehouse.

Okay, we have an update, which won't surprise regular followers of this thread. So in the tortoise versus tortoise race between Gunfire and Taiwangun to import a RIF into the UK, team Taiwangun seem to have fallen at the first hurdle, and to quote an email they sent me last night, "...for the moment we are still not able to sent the package. We are working with DHL but is not so simple" [sic]. So in short we haven't even got to a place where getting TG to import into the UK is a realistic prospect. Team Gunfire, however, did manage to send their parcel that I ordered on the 19th December on the 21st December, after which we enter the wonderful world of UPS again. To be fair to UPS things have improved slightly, insofar as they managed to get the parcel to the UK on the 23rd December, but unfortunately there was no Christmas miracle. On the 28th December I received an email telling me that UPS were delivering the parcel (with apparently no RIF declaration required), but the cynic in me said that this was unlikely to happen, and it didn't. An import scan took place on the 4th January, and on the 5th January UPS rang me to tell me that unless I filled in a RIF form by 1400 that day they'd be sending the package back to Poland. I pointed out that this was the first time they'd spoken to me and I'd received no emails or phone calls to ask me to fill in a form. The agent then emailed me a form to fill in, which amused me somewhat as it contained a packing list that included cake, cheese, cookies, soup, fudge, a handwarmer and some waffles, rather than a RIF and some kit. Anyway I sent UPS an old form I had which I amended with the new order, they billed me the import charges which worked out at about £60 for a £300 order (20%-ish?), plus a £10 processing fee. The parcel is currently sat awaiting Customs clearance, but is getting scanned every other day. Knowing UPS they'll update the tracking after the parcel is on my doorstep, so it's anyone's guess when it'll be released and delivered; I'll reserve judgement on how well they've done after the parcel turns up. Lessons learned? TG is still a no-go. Clearly using DHL is not working out as they thought. Gunfire is a possibility so long as you don't need anything too quickly and you meet their minimum order threshold. UPS are a lottery as usual, but at least their UK brokerage team called me (eventually), and they themselves said they think things are better now, compared to 12-months ago. I'll update again when the Gunfire parcel arrives, so you can judge the delivery times yourself and whether it's worth the inevitable hassle.

Nope. TG stopped emailing me, so I'm guessing because they had knocked off work for Christmas. I'll try again in the New Year, given UK shipping still hasn't been sorted. I had to laugh though, as TG just sent me an email to remind me I had a full basket, not that I can do anything about it. Gunfire have processed the order, but I haven't received any notification it's been sent. I'm guessing the delay here was that the RIF needed downgrading and I missed the pre-Christmas cut-off. On the plus side, eBay sellers have been great this year, with really prompt postage, and so instead I've had to explain away a great 'Nam M1 helmet I picked up last week, in addition to yet another British Para helmet to add to the collection.