Russe11

Sadly the point of the VCRA is to only allow realistic coloured guns to be sold to people who legitimately need their guns to look realistic. For target shooting the colour is purely aesthetic. UKARA isn't the only defence, re-enactors get a defence as well but that requires membership of a re-enactment group and not every retailer will be familiar enough with this. A lot of WW2 airsofters use AFRA membership rather than UKARA, as we rarely go to the same site 3 times in a year and our games also qualify as re-enactment.

Compare with the real Steel:

Compare with the real Steel:

Compare with the real Steel:

Compare with the real Steel:

Compare with the real Steel:

http://www.britishmilitarysurplus.co.uk
 
Everything on this site seems cheaper than anywhere else, presumably because this is where army surplus stores get their stuff from? Don't follow the links too far or you'll end up tendering to buy a destroyer, something like that can be hard to explain to your family

2nd AIF (2nd world war Aussie). Australian Imperial Force is an organisation created separately from the normal army (militia). The Australian Army was not allowed to operate outside Australian Territory by the constitution. The AIF was not the army so it was not bound by this rule but had to be entirely formed of volunteers.

1st 2 pics are early war. A mix of WW1 Australian gear and British gear. This is based upon pictures of Aussies during the early Libya campaigns

Late war (jungle). By now the Aussies are working with Americans so you see American influences such as the lace up gaiters and I am using US HBT trousers, which the Aussies are known to have managed to obtain.

From Spartan Airsoft's rules:
Any player under the age of 16 MUST wear a full face mask. Minimum age is 12 but must be accompanied by parent or guardian if under 16.
From Black ops cribbs and Portishead Rules:
Any player under the age of 18 MUST wear a full face mask. Minimum age is 12 but must be accompanied by parent or guardian if under 18.
 
The problem is that the site owners want under 16's supervised.
Do you have an Uncle? Uncles are great for things like this that your Mum disapproves of
I should know, I have Nieces and a Nephew and would happily help them do anything their Mum disapproves of

I have no problem with people depicting combat units of any nation from WW2. The SS dress uniform however is not a combat uniform and is designed as a political statement. There are many great looking WW2 German uniforms that you could have chosen that would show respect for the millions of Germans who died and were also victims of Naziism and the war that was forced upon them by their government. DAK, gebirgsjager, fallschirmjager and even the SS combat uniform would be fine in my book.

BB hits are unlikely to damage your back. BB's are small and have very little mass behind them. When they hit skin they can cause damage to the skin but rarely cause any bruising as they do not have enough energy to damage deep enough. Baggy clothing is better for absorbing bb hits than padding as it allows you to feel the movement of the cloth as it is hit but will absorb the impact. Padding can be responsible for people not realising that they have been hit.
Sniping may not be the best option if your mobility is impaired as it will involve a lot of crawling around. If you cannot run about then maybe just play more defensively.

My lee Enfield is by Iron Airsoft. They made 1 batch a couple of years ago. They were prone to problems and my one no longer works. Still great for reenactment though.
 
The shoot and scoot Lee enfields are currently the best bet. However there is information that Red Wolf Airsoft may be making a no4 based on a VSR10 sometime soon.

Also check out whatpriceglory.com and http://stores.ebay.co.uk/spearheadmilitaria/
Bear in mind that British battledress is made from the itchiest scratchiest wool imaginable. Denim battledress is an option and is also cheaper.
Epicmilitaria.com is also worth a look
 
I did a guide a while back: http://www.airsoft-forums.co.uk/index.php/topic/22158-ww2-airsoft-for-dummies/
 
Spearhead is where I got my Australian Service dress (awesome soft merino wool and massive pockets). whatpriceglory is where I got my Jungle greens and Khaki drill.

What is WW2 Airsoft?:
 
WW2 airsoft comes in 2 varieties. There are airsofters who turn up for normal airsoft skirmishes in WW2 gear. We shall ignore this for the purposes of this guide.
-Basic WW2 games. These are the best games to start with. Gear needed will be down to personal choice but basically avoid modern camo and if you don't have a ww2 era gun or wood stocked rifle you should wrap it in hessian. The more effort you put into your gear the more you will get out of the event, but no-one will expect you to spend a fortune if you cannot afford to.
-Niche WW2 games. The equipment requirements for these are bit more specific. There may be a specific era that gear should be based on. As an example, I have a game coming up set in 1940 with only rifles allowed. This means that uniforms must be correct for this time as far as is possible.
All WW2 games will require you to act as part of a squad. Running around as a lone wolf is frowned upon. In fact many games have a rule that if you are the last member of your squad alive, you cannot advance.
Usually the game will have some sort of story-line built into it so you have to achieve certain objectives.
The Uniforms, teamwork and story-line add together to produce games very different and more immersive than a normal airsoft game.
 
What gear should I get?
 
Choose a side. American, British or German will be usable for most games. Russian will get you 1 or maybe 2 games a year, Japanese have never been done in a game yet.
Get a hat. The helmet shapes for each side are very different so headwear is important in identifying teams, if you cannot afford the rest of the uniform, a helmet is a good start. Plastic replicas will do the job just fine.
Start with basic infantry uniform. Your bog standard infantry are the guys who do all the work and are at every battle but don't get the glory. The fact that they are at every battle means that once you have this look sorted, you are ready for most games. You can then adapt your gear to be a commando/airborne/SAS etc.
Guns!!!: Any WW2 era gun is fine for any side. You may feel you want the right one for your uniform though. Start with a SMG. The ASG Sten is very good, the ASG MP40 is quite good and there are several different Thompsons. There are also some SRC MP40's and MP41's which have a poor reputation.
Webbing: Each side has their own webbing and it can be a bit confusing working out what bits you need and how to attach them to each other. British webbing is probably the most confusing but is by far the best webbing of the period.
Boots, gaiters, anklets and puttees. Boots for most are low ankle combat boots with either anklets, gaiters or puttees. This means that you can get away with more modern cheaper boots if you can hide the tops with the anklets, gaiters or puttees.
 
How do you find the gear?
Ebay is good, Whatpriceglory.com is good for uniforms, Soldier of fortune http://www.sofmilitary.co.uk/ is good for most stuff but tends to be expensive, http://www.epicmilitaria.com/ have a lot of stuff and if they have it, are probably cheaper that SOF.
Other army surplus shops, web sites or re-enactment events may also be worth a look.
 
Time to find a game!
The place to find a WW2 airsoft game or get more detailed info about anything WW2 airsoft related is ww2airsoft.org.uk
Before you go there, some words of advice: The forums there are not as friendly seeming as they are here. Try not to take offence when on the ww2 airsoft forums, people are trying to help by telling you how to be more correct in your gear etc. Unfortunately often this comes across as unfriendly, nit picking etc. Until the internet allows tone of voice in forums, just assume people are trying to be helpful.
 
British Gear
Starting with basic infantry, you will need a helmet, battledress, pattern37 webbing, anklets, boots.
The helmet you will need is a brodie mk2 helmet. There are cheap plastic versions which will do the job just fine.
These cost about £10 on ebay
Steel versions consist of a steel shell with a liner bolted to the top of the helmet and a chinstrap. The liners come in different sizes and are sized by your head circumference in inches. You can cover the helmet with hessian or net and add hessian scrim. Ideally it should be brown but it was not unknown for them to get repainted with whatever paint was available (ie. whatever colour vehicles were being painted).
Battledress comes in several varieties. I use denim battledress mainly due to a wool allergy. Denim battledress was used everywhere as overalls so you didn't get your wool uniform dirty. It was also used in warmer weather so is very well suited to battles in Italy, greece, crete etc. The important thing though is it is better for staying cool and is usually cheaper although you will rarely find any original stuff. Soldier of fortune sell it in a green colour and What price glory sell it in brown.
Then there is P37 wool battledress, this is the most popular choice. It is usually some shade of brown but as it was made all over the commonwealth to different specs it varies from pale brown to dark brown and even green. P37 battledress has pleated pockets and concealed buttons. P40 Battledress is similar but pockets are not pleated and buttons are exposed so that it can be made faster and cheaper (basically after Dunkirk, the priority was to re-equip as fast as possible). Reproduction wool battledress is quite expensive and it is often cheaper to buy an original jacket. Unfortunately original trousers are very rare. You can get away with post war P49 battledress but it varies in having an open collar with lapels.
Pattern 37 webbing is complicated so heres a diagram:

 
 
 
 
The bits you need most are a belt, a pair of cross braces and a pair of ammo pouches. Try to get Mk3 pouches with popper fastening. Pouches with the quick release will do the job but are really post war versions. MK1 and MK2 pouches are slightly smaller and will not fit the Sten or MP40 mags. The best way to buy webbing is to watch ebay for a full set, expect to pay £40-50. Webbing should have brass buckles not steel ideally.
If the colour of your webbing bits doesn't match, don't worry. You should ideally use Blanco, think of it as paint for webbing. Get modern liquid blanco and brush it on your webbing. Soldier of fortune sell it in different shades, mid ww2 is probably best. Brush it onto the webbing making sure to get it into the texture of the webbing. Only use it on the sides of the webbing that show. Original blanco would rub off so it was not used on the bits of webbing that are against uniforms. Anklets should also be blanco'd but gun slings and gas mask bags should not.
When you want to add to your webbing, get a water bottle. These are enamelled steel covered in felt. If you are lucky the inside will be in perfect condition, otherwise you may need to insert a plastic bag and secure it with an elastic band. The stopper is a wine cork on a screw. There are skeleton water bottle carriers (as in the diagram) or envelope versions. You will need to get the carrier damp, put the water bottle in it and then pack cardboard between the bottle and carrier to stretch it while it dries. This makes it a less tight fit so you can actually remove the bottle and put it back in more easily.
Packs. There are 2 sizes of pack (large and small). Large packs were used to carry everything in when on the move. Small packs are what you would carry supplies and equipment in during battle. For either pack you will need a pair of L straps, these attach to the top of the pack and go over your shoulders and hook onto the ammo pouches, the narrow webbing then goes under your arms and to the bottom of the pack. On the small pack the L straps then attach to buckles on the bottom of the pack. On the large pack, there are loops instead of buckles, the L strap goes through the loop and then you attach blanket straps to the L strap. The blanket straps basically extend the L strap so it can go over the front of the pack crossing over and attaching to buckles at the top of the pack. This allows additional items to be strapped to the outside of the pack (a blanket perhaps).
If you have both packs, you can use an additional cross brace as a shoulder strap for the small pack and wear it as a shoulder bag (I often do this when travelling to games for extra carrying capacity.
 
Anklets or gaiters
They look so simple don't they? Just wait until you have a pair and try to work out which way they go. Basically they go over the top of your boots adding ankle support and preventing anything getting into the top of your boots. The buckles should be on the outside of your legs with the straps facing backwards. So the top one in the pic is the left one and the dip in the middle would be on the inside of your leg facing downwards. They come in different sizes 3 and 4 are most common and it depends how big your legs are.
 
Boots should ideally be ammo boots
They look similar to modern ammo boots but DO NOT buy modern ammo boots. Modern ammo boots have been redesigned so they do not flex. You can get repro ammo boots, but they are expensive. Next best is DMS boots these are effectively correct but with a rubber sole. Remember though that you are wearing anklets so the top of the boots is hidden, you can therefore get away with higher leg boots such as S95 boots. Avoid boots with padding around the ankles as this will make it hard to wear anklets. If you want to go all out on boot correctness, leather laces are preferred.
 
Additional accessories you may be tempted by:
Gas mask bags come in 2 main types; Early war versions are the big bag mounted on your front, These are excellent as dump pouches and if you keep speedloaders and bb's in them you always have everything to hand to refill mags when things are quiet. Lightweight gas mask bags can be used as a shoulder bag for you lunch, or they can attach to the belt.
Entrenching tool or E-tool comes in 2 parts, the helve has a bayonet fitting so you can attach the spike bayonet from a No.4 Lee Enfield to probe for mines or cook sausages. The head fits inside the carrier and the helve goes on the outside and the carrier attaches to the tails of your cross braces. It adds a lot of weight, get one for show but don't wear it during the game.
Bayonet frog for holding a bayonet
Pistol Holsters, don't bother. Only officers had pistols so if you need a pistol keep it in a pocket, gas mask bag etc.
 
 
Okay so thats pretty much everything an infantryman could possibly want or need. Now you want to be something more elite? Airborne loadouts are quite common. All you need in addition to the above is a denison smock and an airborne helmet. The smock will cost about £100+ but you can save a bit of money by getting a belgian denison smock, which is similar. The helmet will cost about £80 but the same shell was used in tankers helmets until the 80's. If you buy a tankers helmet is is possible to modify it at a later date, with a new liner, chinstrap etc but it will cost just as much in total. Once you have the Denison you can do commandos by switching to a wooly hat, green beret or normal helmet. Similarly SAS is just a different beret.
 
If anyone wants to do an American or German guide, just post it in this thread and PM me so I can add it here

Be aware that if you decide to get WW2 kit then it starts getting expensive. Check out ww2airsoft.org.uk though as it does open up some very fun games.
Both my main guns are actually the AGM Sten. One is stock and the other has been used as a base for a custom made Owen gun for use with Australian gear.
Magazines for the Sten come in 2 sizes. AGM makes 50 round magazines and King Arms makes 110 round magazines (they actually hold 130ish). The King Arms mags can be hard to get hold of and use less metal, they can sometimes have issues fitting into Stens (the same mags work on MP40's. If you have issues with King Arms mags, there are various fixes that you can do though.
As the magazines are not high caps you will either need lots of them or will need to learn to control your bursts to save ammo.
 
WW2 Australian Jungle Greens, P37 webbing and my custom Owen gun (background may have been photoshopped a little bit):
.

There are 3 brands of thompson worth even looking at: TM and King Arms.make the best ones by a long way. Cyma do a basic one which should be okayish.
 
If you read the legal section, the rule about being 18 applies to the buyer in selling a RIF (non 2-tone)or IF (2-tone). It doesn't apply to converting an IF to a RIF. As long as you can prove that you have a valid reason (ie that you are an airsofter) then you can remove the paint.
 
L85's are cool but almost all versions have reliability issues so I would suggest that they are a good 2nd main weapon and not really good as a 1st buy. You want something reliable that will not break down as a fall back before you get something more exotic.
 
If you want something different to the usual M4 and you already have a pistol for any single shot only games, ASG (also sold as AGM) make a very good Sten. It has several drawbacks in that it has no semi auto or safety and you cannot get high cap magazines but it is relatively cheap, it's very reliable and accurate and its made of steel so will not break if you drop it. You will want a few spare magazines for it as they are not high cap.
If the person buying it has UKARA: http://www.taiwangun.com/en/electric-3/agm-058?from=listing&campaign-id=19
Otherwise: http://www.onlybbguns.co.uk/058-agm-mkii-british-ww2-sten-aeg-rifle-full-metal.html#.VuyS7fmLSUk
 
Incidentally I do not suggest buying stuff from onlybbguns.co.uk unless you know what you are looking for, like all sites with bbguns in the name they do sell some rubbish. They do however sell a few good items and I have never had problems with them.

I'd like an airsoft Bren

and to have one of these to mount it in:

I'd like an airsoft Bren

and to have one of these to mount it in:

Well done, sounds like you have perfected the sport already.
 
Just 1 more skill to learn before you are a pro. How to tell the story of how you stumbled around the woods completely lost, fell over, ran out of ammo and got shot, to you mates in such a way that it makes you sound like Rambo

Well done, sounds like you have perfected the sport already.
 
Just 1 more skill to learn before you are a pro. How to tell the story of how you stumbled around the woods completely lost, fell over, ran out of ammo and got shot, to you mates in such a way that it makes you sound like Rambo

Everyone expects barrel length to increase accuracy. Simple answer is it doesn't.
 
Complex answer: There is a minimum length needed for a bb to stabilise in the barrel. Anything below this and accuracy will be impaired. That minimum length is really short. In fact this is only a factor to consider with smaller pistols.
There is a maximum accurate length of barrel which is just slightly shorter than the length needed for the barrel to have the same volume as the cylinder. After this point the bb ceases to have high pressure behind it and no air is passing between the bb and the wall of the barrel. This means the bb is free to bounce around within the barrel.
Anywhere between the minimum and maximum described above, the bb should be relatively stable within the barrel. Between these 2 lengths, a longer barrel will just have a higher fps on exiting the barrel.
 
For better range and accuracy there are 2 things to improve. BB's are the easiest thing to change. Most people use 0.25's or 0.28's in AEG's as the extra weight will improve range and reduce the effect of wind and leaves. The hopup is the other. A good consistent hop unit that is well adjusted will make a fair amount of difference. Opinions vary on different mods.

In Bristol, there are 2 main options: Black ops alternates between Cribbs Causeway and Portishead. Spartan runs every other week up near the airport.
I would say that Spartan is probably the best site but Black ops offers 2 different sites. Both are really good and you will have no problems going on your own.

My P07 Bayonet is both flexible and has no sharp bits.
The common sense rule is don't stab or slash at people, a tap on the shoulder is a kill. Even a blunt rubber knife can hurt if you get silly.
 
 

 
I am one of the few people who has ever tried a bayonet charge in airsoft. It was partially successful in that I achieved my goal of distracting the whole enemy team. The problem was that it also distracted my whole team, so no-one took advantage of it. To quote one guy on my team 'you scared the sh*t out of me, I thought you were actually going to kill someone'.
It would seem therefore that if you are going to do a bayonet charge in airsoft with an 18" long bayonet painted to look real, the thing to do is to make sure your team knows it's rubber and are prepared for it.

My P07 Bayonet is both flexible and has no sharp bits.
The common sense rule is don't stab or slash at people, a tap on the shoulder is a kill. Even a blunt rubber knife can hurt if you get silly.
 
 

 
I am one of the few people who has ever tried a bayonet charge in airsoft. It was partially successful in that I achieved my goal of distracting the whole enemy team. The problem was that it also distracted my whole team, so no-one took advantage of it. To quote one guy on my team 'you scared the sh*t out of me, I thought you were actually going to kill someone'.
It would seem therefore that if you are going to do a bayonet charge in airsoft with an 18" long bayonet painted to look real, the thing to do is to make sure your team knows it's rubber and are prepared for it.

I have never been to a game yet where anyone has looked down on someone because of what they are wearing. Everyone has their own priorities, whether it's a cool getup, fancy expensive guns or trying to develop the best tactics. The great thing about this sport is that no-one tends to judge you on anything other than whether you play fair. Dressing up is fun and gives you more to chat about in between games. When it comes to Milsim (or in my case WW2 games), it becomes part of the immersion and helps identify the teams. On normal open days, it's just a way for people to express themselves.