NickM

First sounds like you had a good time overall. Second marshals in high viz kinda spoil it for me but so do marshals in camo, if you aren't a player you should be wearing something to mark you out as not in the game. I have suggested to sites and on here before UN observer blue hat and top. Could just be a simple pale blue tshirt over whatever camo they choose to wear. One of the guys that takes photos down the pit wears a huge media patch front and back on blue body armour. Works a treat and looks the part. Third ICS are actually a make with a good reputation. Chances are the rental you had hasn't had anyone look at it, clean, maintain it since it was bought. In that case just imagine how many people have bashed it, how many rounds it has fired and is still going strong (ish) when the rest of us owners lavish time, money and love on ours to get them working as best we possibly can.

IIRC Red1 have a rule stating you can't fire from one floor to the one above or below. You can fire on the stairs and at the stairs between the floors but not from one to another. I kind of liked the idea. They hung scaffold net from the top floor to the bottom so you couldn't anyway. The rule about rounds falling short is Crap and I can't see how it would work. The marshals must be running around the site all the time checking on direction of travel. The sandpit has a bit in briefing that sounds similar but isn't (and it isn't a rule as such). If you are behind a crap piece of cover that stops a bb but wouldn't stop a real bullet in the real world then you really ought to call it. They mean things like leaves or a bramble branch or something. It's your call to make and it tends to make people either be honest or find better fire positions.

Yeah I know but it's an explosive none the less.

Now that sounds impressive although I'm not sure what the law would say about a bomb dropping drone in private hands.

Might be a little excessive but if you are that desperate for a shower how's about a solar shower on the roof of your car. Just have to keep a pair of shower boardies.

There is a video of game play at UCAP Sandpit however I can't find it on the guys YouTube that made it. There is a link to it that works on the UCAP Facebook page. He used it as a filming tool not to gather Intel so no point shooting at it. Check out the AirDog system. Very impressive but stupidly expensive.

You just stink like the other 1800 players.

Yeah teams from all over the place turn up, last year there was a group of Hungarian guys on Delta they were a great laugh. 1817 now, that may be a bit much, but you could if you wanted not see a soul all weekend.

I have a bottle of nail varnish remover for two reasons, I hate that sticky stuff you get when you peel a label off stuff. Second as a school teacher I use it for removing marker from my desks and giving to students (boys and girls) that insist on breaking the schools dress code by having nail varnish on. The kids always give me funny looks when they see it in my desk, like I'm Nicola at the weekend or something. These would be the same ones that seem to think I live under my desk and are shocked when they see me out and about.

Oh and as an additional point, just because someone else says its ok doesn't necessarily make it so. Rather than put your eyesight in the hands of the marshals take responsibility for yourself and test a set of the goggles you are using. Just make sure they are binned afterwards as they will have been severely weakened by the testing. Its one of the things marshals at one site do if people turn up in their Oakley sunglasses claiming they are good enough. The head marshal has a fearsome sniper, they offer the guy that if he wants to wear them for the day he has to put them on the floor and it will be shot by the sniper with .40g point blank, if they survive he can use them. Noone yet has agreed to put their £100 or more glasses to the test.

Hi Josh, it was me that brought up the article in Airsoft Action the last time we had discussions about Glasses vs Goggles. I would post a link but for some reason this forum wont let me any more. Will have to get onto Dev about it at some point. But its in "Whats the best way to stop your goggles from fogging? Post no23 although Ians one from before that is also quite useful. Not sure if anyone has links to the article or a scan of it that could put it up. Ultimately it's your choice what you feel most comfortable with. I have chosen mesh lower and either mesh goggles or ESS V12 goggles, both provide a full seal. For 2 games way back at the beginning I used some safety glasses but within that time I got hit around my eye area a few times and once had a bb penetrate between the lenses and my face. It came to rest inside the glasses rolling around as I tilted my head. Like many sports this is an assumed risk activity. If it makes you feel better my white water kayaking kit all comes with huge yellow labels that tell the user "kayaking is dangerous and can lead to drowning and death". You don't have to tell me as I know of people who have died in that sport, but I wouldn't get the rush I do if it was entirely safe.

I'm there again this year, the team have somewhere around 10 or 12 of us going. Looking forward to the chaos.

When you say there aren't many chances to play Lydd other than Milsim events is that because it's not well publicised that two companies either have or have had monthly access to Lydd's Serial 40, Elite Action Games (EAG) and Elite Battle Zone. EAG its 1 Sunday a month since December and the deal I believe is for a year. By the way I'm all for more events etc, I just find it hard to wrap my head around the business models that have caused 5 fairly large events to take place all in roughly the same area of the country on the same weekend. And that had they been more spread out there are many people, myself included who would play more of them. eg. I was booked on the BattleTac weekender at Copehill when it was supposed to be back in May time. I'm going to GZ that weekend because its a team tradition and the largest turn out for us every year. I'd love to play Lydd but the dates for EAG have always been out or booked up well in advance. I've only just done a weekender at the Sandpit and would love to do another and I would like to give a Stirling game a go but its way too soon for another one.

I realise that, but 5 weekender events, all within a circle just over 70miles radius from central London. (Except NAE which is 100ish). Not only that Lydd is the furthest south east of them all so potentially many players will drive past other events to get to Lydd.

There is now another one to add to my list, Stirling airsoft weekender 23rd and 24th at the sandpit! That's 5!

If you don't want sub standard check out UCAP Sandpit, its next door to Bluewater, in a huge quarry. The games are always a little different, you play long range outdoor stuff with options of woodland, grassland, sand/gravel quarry areas, industrial areas and a pipe yard. Then there are some great CQB areas, large warehouse units or up close and personal in the kill house, a rabbit warren of rooms, half of them are dark. Then there is the game style, 1 medic while you are out means 2 lives. They generally play 2x 2.5 hr games with an hour for lunch in the middle. The guys there are a great laugh and the marshals are the best I've come across and it's hard to top the EAG Worthing guys. Then you add in the props and vehicles, 1 working snatch armoured land rover, a WMIK bristling with a .50Cal and an M249 site supplied ammo for these, a DAF truck that will hold 30 guys. A couple of quads, Dora the Explorer with ISAF markings, an offroad dune buggy and an ex royal marine AKTIV SNOWTRACK. A pair of mortars, mock IED's with pyro charges, and a set of demo charges for destroying objectives (all with site supplied pyro). Other advantages, no two tone, you can feel totally immersed in the action. In the year and a bit I've been playing there I've never seen turn out less than 80 ( other than the limited numbers Milsim/BattleSim games) and regularly well over 100. The biggest problem after playing there is ....... finding somewhere else that even comes close as a regular site to play. Oh and while UKARA is a bit of a dirty word there you can get registered, but Andy's more than happy to have you on his membership list and to talk to retailers direct.

Dude people have done a Fez on here in DDPM! Think it even had Molle. Check out the DIY thread I think it was in

Unit badges for me are a huge no no as are rank slides. But I guess it depends on the person and situation. We do have a guy in our team we call the colonel he's in his late 50's and he was given the "rank" as a bit of a joke by a group of kids he used to take to airsoft games. His loadout is British DPM with an M4A1 and a drum mag, he carries an American water bottle on his belt that is filled with bbs. He wears a beret in games, its sort of a dark tan colour ( a darker colour than the SAS one) and has a cap badge, but for the Saudi military police which I believe was a gift from them when he was over there working. He's probably the least tactical player I've ever met but we have a fantastic time at games with him about.

In most cases I would say if you haven't earned it then don't wear it. It's a hard one with berets without the badges. Without the badge it would strike me that you are showing respect for a unit without pretending you are in it. But realistically you may get a hard time, perhaps this is a question for the players at your regular sites and if people question it you simply pull out another lid then approach the player at another point in time to explain why you had chosen to wear that particular colour. Mainly because if you respond at the time the person may not listen to your point of view, if you give them a chance to chill after talking to you then you may find them more receptive.

jcheeseright my thoughts exactly just put more succinctly than I felt I could, so I went with what I know science and some basic maths.

While bright candle has eluded to a good point about bio bb's shattering at a more common rate than non bio from various peoples anecdotal evidence it is worth pointing this out again while we are back at the "fragments in the eye" chestnut. The energy carried by a bb is down to its mass and velocity. Velocity will not increase on impact it will decrease, its a law of physics due to energy being lost as heat, sound and in this case dispersed amongst the fragments). What this means it that there is minimal chance of a bb fragment making it through mesh into your eye and causing damage due to its impact with your eye, however there is a chance of damaging your eye by rubbing your eye with a fragment inside it. Which is why I carry a sterile eye wash as part of my mini first aid pack and use mesh goggles. This is because I have tried numerous polycarbonate glasses and goggles and had fogging issues every time regardless of how I treat them. Which leads to this argument in my head, see well for a limited time and reduce an already minimal risk of fragments but risk crashing into or falling into things, OR deal with the slight loss of light and face the already mentioned minimal risk of fragments. I think sites banning BioBB's is short sighted, probably because its easier to ban something if you don't understand it fully or as soon as you hear a horror story. We really need to start moving to more sustainable ammo, leaving thousands of little plastic balls everywhere is not environmentally sound. Your eye pro is your choice and I leave that up to you however I choose mesh for the reasons I have outlined above. If you decide you don't want to know the maths behind my decision then stop here. If you want the numbers I have shown my maths so read on. So I shall use. momentum (kg m/s) = mass (kg) x velocity (m/s) followed by force (N) = change in momentum kg m/s) / time (s) Assuming the largest possible fragment of a bb that could penetrate the largest hole in a pair of mesh goggles with all of the velocity it had at the point of leaving the barrel (350fps or 106.68 m/s). It would be a cylinder 6mm long the diameter of a bb and (if we take the largest holed mesh something like) 1mm radius (2mm diameter) V= pi x radius squared x height = 3.14.... x (1x1) x 6 = 18.85 mm3 Volume of a 6mm bb = 113.1 mm3 Therefore assuming the person is using a .25 g bb as many of us are, its mass in kg would be 0.00025kg Therefore the bb fragment would be , 0.00025kg x 18.85/113.1 = 0.0000416666 kg (ie 0.0416g that's less than 1/5th the mass of the bb) So assuming the bb fragment that has been calculated above makes it through the mesh at the full speed the bb left the barrel of an airsoft gun. Momentum (kg m/s) = 0.0000416666 x 106.68 = 0.0044449929 kg m/s for the next part we have to assume the change in momentum is from the number above to 0 in 0 seconds ( an instant which it isn't because it will slow over a fraction of a second which I can't calculate without a seriously good high speed camera) Force (N) = 0.0044449929 x 0 = 0.0044449929 N I've only managed to find one reference (its a nature paper and for some reason I can't copy and paste the link) to the force required to penetrate an eye which relates to needles penetrating the back layer of an eye which raises some further points which I will go over later. The lowest "maximum force" in the journal paper was 0.19N which is far higher than the number above. Needles have a much smaller surface area compared to the fragment in question so require much less force to penetrate anything this is shown in the same paper where the same type of needle as above required double the force if it pierces the rubber top of a vial. If I was to do this properly we ought to compare pressures but I really don't think many will have made it this far. In conclusion, penetration injuries are unlikely with mesh eyepro unless they failed catastrophically (including shots ricocheting around the lenses) which is exactly the same way you would be injured from using polycarbonate lenses. Well done for all those who made it this far through my meandering thought processes!

I have only said call your hits when I know they have been hit but are not calling it, either because they flinch and rub an area then continue shooting or I actually watch the shots bounce off their kit. I haven't said it unless I'm absolutely positive they had been hit. I then switched for a period to "I will continue to shoot you until you call it" sometimes followed with, "I'll start aiming the shots at an area you find more sensitive." The only other thing I have shouted along the same lines was to a player who held his gun round a doorway and sprayed the room I was in "You are not allowed to blind fire, it was covered in the briefing, you have hit me but you are not looking down the sights of your gun. I will not take the hit until you take an aimed shot!" Luckily a marshal was close by and he came to see what was up, I was told I was in the right and the marshal remained to see the conclusion of the stand off. I've been on the receiving end of the "Call your hits" shout, until I explained to the kid he had fired with his muzzle pointed at the ground as he raised it in my direction, they laced the pavement between us.

So is this on top of the Ground Zero NAE Weekender, BritTac Weekender at Copehill Down (immediately after their multimillion pound renovation) and the Gunman Innovations Weekender all on the same weekend already? Not only are all 4 in the South East several are already very well established.........

Physical violence towards anyone is wrong, and shouldn't happen, in the heat of the moment people do stupid things. I know I get worked up sometimes in games, it never comes to anything physical other than sometime leaving a finger on a trigger for a fraction longer than necessary sometimes or more likely me becoming more shouty. This name and shame reaction and the "only one month ban, that's not enough" is also really wrong. The site made a decision that I think is a fair one, they have both been banned for a month, its pretty much the same as teachers sending a kid out to stand outside to take a breather or a time out. For a first offence (albeit a serious one) that's probably about right, 1 month or 3 months or whatever is adequate. You will probably find it takes a while for both players to return to this site, mainly because they probably feel like prize dicks, but hopefully they will have learned. The "but what if it had been a kid or a girl" argument is bogus. You shouldn't hit anyone period, why is hitting a man your own size or bigger or age somehow better than hitting a kid or woman? All equally wrong. The "but they might do it again maybe at another site you should have told everyone who they were" is also bogus, a book I don't believe in quoted a mythical figure (in my eyes) who said "he who is without sin cast the first stone". How many of us have come close to or have actually ended up punching someone or had a fight over something really petty, when we did that stupid act did we feel stupid after? Did we regret it? Would we expect to be banned from something we enjoy doing because a moments stupidity. You probably used it as a learning opportunity, you sat down afterwards and replayed the whole thing over and over wishing you had done things differently. The " site should have informed the police" .... really??? The police would ask the two parties if they wanted to take things further anyway, why not let them decide how they want it handled.

I took a mini Maglite box, the little plastic ones, glued 2 pieces of kitchen sponge, one in the lid one in the base so they were slightly thicker than the box. Then I melted (using a hot nail) some small x shapes in one of the sides big enough to hold my 9mm blanks, it was fairly easy to get into and I used if for a few games. After a while and I started looking for something a bit less DIY. Eventually I found speed strips that fit the 9mm, but for a shotgun primer you might find it hard to find them if they exist at all.