Bunker 51 (SE London CQB)

[BrightCandle]

I played on 13th April.

I personally wasn't that impressed with the site. The floor is absolutely covered in brown paintball paint and glycol mixed with split BB's. You don't notice when you take a knee (your camo is waterproof enough) but once you walk out into the safe zone it looks really horrible. I took a prone position at one point knowing full and well what would happen and man it was really nasty. The place smells strongly of the paint rotting away.

The site itself is also quite small for CQB. Its a T shape area where they start one group at the top of the T and the other at the bottom. Naturally what happens is that the corners of the top of the T end up being a fight around the corners and while there is plenty of cover towards that choke point the choke point itself has basically none. With zero flanking options and a single fatal funnel it ends up being a really limited game. Its low on effort which is great for the unfit (like me) but its not really a good fight. Its really quite dark so its kind of hard to fight in there without a strong tactical light and most of the combat is <20m.

My AEG was over the FPS limit so I ended up renting a gun from them, which was really bad. All the renters get an AK47 or AK74 and they were in pretty bad shape. The first one I had wouldn't feed at all and was held together with multiple pieces of black gaffer tape. The second gun I had gaffer tape on the stock holding the battery in, the pieces of the gun were rattling and moving about (it was full metal) and while it fired it didn't do so consistently. It did at least let me play the game but I am making sure I don't ever have to rent from them again, at £30 for rental they don't compare favourably to most sites on the cost.

Its also worth mentioning I ended up with some bleeding welts through my camo clothing and many of them in the back. Some people there have apparently got quick change springs/nozzles and are ramping up the power after they have passed chrono, which limits all guns to 328 fps. Worse than that they are shooting people with their hands up as they walk away after calling hit, most of my hits are actually from that and not from initially getting shot. The marshals need to find those dangerous a*** h**** and ban them because I don't need to be finding I am bleeding after getting shot 12 times while walking away, especially when those guys doing this are apparently using hot guns.

The preparation area really isn't big enough. Quite a few people get there up to an hour early so they can kit up and get their stuff out of the way because there were like 10 chairs and 50 odd people at the game. 50 people also seems to be far too many considering the size of the site. I don't think you can reasonably have a chance of breaking through that fatal funnel on anything above 10 v 10 with inifite respawns. A limited life respawn might help but mostly its an issue of area design rather than numbers.

Unlike some of the London clubs they at least don't charge you £20+ for membership to get your UKARA form stamped, but at the same time the site just isn't exactly great. I met some really nice people who I had a lot of teaming up with, but they have some problem characters as well who don't call their hits and others using hot guns that they some how smuggled through the chrono tests (which actually wasn't very vigorous because they just called you to chrono, there was no confirmation that everyone had done it or that it had been done on that gun). I could never find a marshal near the action to actually do anything about the problems so I just soldered on.

 

[Suzuki Yamamoto]

Was this a night run by Wolf Armouries? As there are nights run by Airborne Airsoft that seem to be better.

I used to skirmish at Bunker 51 quite often but after a while it gets too repetitive and you learn how to win some of the games without firing many shots at all. The site is too small and they try to cram in to many players as they need the income.

 

[BrightCandle]

Was indeed a night run by Wolf armouries. The rental guns are a wolf armouries issue, although I doubt many people care much about that, as is the numbers but the layout of the site and the other site issues like paintball residue rotting away is going to still be there when airbourne airsoft comes in.

Airbourne Airsoft are calling it CQB training and looking at their videos it looks like its not a match but rather tactical training.

 

[Suzuki Yamamoto]

I believe they do games there too, but you are still right about the site though. Needs to be looked after better as it doubles as an indoor Paintball venue. That is down to the owners though and not Wolf or Airborne. Bunker 51 run their own Paintball games and Zombie games.

 

[BrightCandle]

The pro was telling me it was setup to be a powder ball venue initially. There was a shortage of powder balls and they had to move to paintball, but because its not outside the bio degrade nature of the paintballs is a big part of the problem in the site with the floor being covered in wet slime. I cant verify it one way or the other, but I heard the paintball guys before we went in and the cleanup and it was freshly hosed down before we went in.

 

[Suzuki Yamamoto]

Wolf Armouries had a site before Bunker 51 that was an indoor Paintball venue and they did the same thing of hosing the floors. People were slipping over all the time and it became extremely dangerous. Can't say i'm keen on going to Bunker 51 anymore.

 

[BrightCandle]

Tonights game was much different. There was only about 20 players in total and this helped the game move on a lot. There was still the classic fatal funnels that make up this site but both sides managed to push back and forth through it a few times as the numbers were lower. In addition the floor was dry as they had laser tag running before hand and thus not slippery and it was not caked in brown sludge. I didn't have a problem taking a knee or going prone today, it wasn't completely disgusting and the place didn't smell like rotting paintballs.

Games were a lot more fluid and the site was in a better state, it was a lot more enjoyable. Its also a lot easier to see in there with clear googles instead of mesh. Its still kind of dark. What it really needs is some air con!

 

[jasouthouse94]

Had my first skirmish here on Saturday, the place was littered with paint, paint balls, bbs and christ knows what but it didn't really effect the gameplay too much only got a knee covered in paint in the first game (didn't make that mistake again, note to self check where you're kneeling). But as for the fluidity of the games it much more suited to attack and defend as the map is highly unbalanced for anything like capture the flag or as we played grab the nuts (innuendo intended I think). The rental weapons all SRC AK models were all functioning and seemed pretty well maintained for a hire gun, although the only grime I had with mine was that the safety was non existent the safety was full auto which meant I really had to clear the chamber after the round. the staff all seemed friendly enough and all the regulars seemed up to talk a novice like myself into the way it worked slowly up until they're firing 40mm's at you. In general it was alot of fun and despite the intense heat it was a great laugh and will definitely come back to play again

 

[BunkeredSphinx]

I play at bunker 51 and agree with you about the guns, I think I got the same gun you had worked when it wanted to, as I have still to get UKARA registered I have to rent.

its not a bad site just a little small when they cram 30+ people in and it has a major hold up point for the team who start in the jail section.

I think I had the same team you had with some over powered, some who cant shoot straight or think someone who has called hit is a good target, I came home with 3 bleeders on my back got shot in kidney from 5ft away by member of my own team. I did look at marshal and shake head and walked back to spawn.

overall I loved it as it was my first skirmish and was more excited about playing then anything else.

I did see a few people in full plates not calling hits a lot.

 

[BrightCandle]

Noticed a few rule changes this weekend.

- They have added a bang rule for close up kills. I actually used it last night and I feel bad about it, while I had him dead to rights at like 3 feet. Feels wrong and dirty to say bang, what am I 5?!

- Thermobarics are back on the menu and boy did people use a lot of them. The smoke slowly accumulates and it becomes a bit hard to see, not sure I am fan myself.

Still overcrowded IMO.

 

[Suzuki Yamamoto]

Can't believe they've decided to use the bang rule now, that's what got some people going there in the first place.

Bunker 51 is really best suited for no more than 10 players per team. They still charging £25 too?

 

[BrightCandle]

Can't believe they've decided to use the bang rule now, that's what got some people going there in the first place.

Bunker 51 is really best suited for no more than 10 players per team. They still charging £25 too?

Click to shrink...

The site was originally designed and tested for 5v5. It had a load of electronic stuff in it for different game types and a whole manual for the games and how they should be played. Most of the electronic stuff no longer works, the site has been damaged by the paint ball as it was designed for powder ball and its even to the point where the aircon doesn't work anymore. Its also expensive (£25) and the biggest problem is that its completely packed (40 players) every time its on. You have to book more than a week in advance to go.

The best game I played there was one which they set up just 3 days before it ran, it was only about 20 people and the gameplay flowed a lot better. I can well see 5v5 being pretty fun in there with pistols and the electronic gizmos (which are still about they just don't work). Bare in mind this isn't all the fault of wolfarmouries, the sites state itself is all down to Bunker 51, but the large numbers I suspect are the only way its economic due to the price of laser tag being for like 15 minutes gameplay it doesn't translate too well to airsoft pricing for games of 4 hours.

 

[Suzuki Yamamoto]

Bunker 51 is also used by Airborne Airsoft in the weeks that WA aren't using it so the site is used each and every week for Paintball, Airsoft and Laser tag. I doubt they find the time to get in and clean up properly or make any necessary repairs.

I've played there when it's been smaller numbers too and it was a much better experience.