There is no such thing as ‘stolen valor/valour’ in the UK
There is ‘walting’
((There are parts of the Armed Forces Act that cover using uniforms to impersonate the services, and fraud legislation for the undercurrent of what someone is up to - eg conning people))
You get the ‘out rage’ clubs and walt hunting hobbiests, but they may be looked on as more sad than some of the ‘walts’ they hunt down. (Eg local care in the community individual that likes to wear a beret being hunted down and ‘exposed’ by keyboard warriors
Any ‘normal’ service person or ex service person doesn’t care about people who dress up to play games (actually they care about the ones who pay extra on eBay for their kit)
They do care about people who are bigging themselves up as someone they aren’t, or are conning with fake ‘hero’ charities (or ‘real’ hero charities with excessive ‘admin expenses’)
As far as airsoft is concerned if you aren’t allowed to wear patches then why to you need RIFs? The entire justification to add an extra skirmisher defence by statutory instrument above the explicit defences in the core VCRA legislation is for the realistic immersion.
Dressing up has been recognised as a core element to airsoft. Take that away to a bare uniform without patch’s and you can just use a coloured IF
Don’t be a dickhead and pretend that you are something that you aren’t
Do dress up with good ‘fancy dress’ if that’s what you like to do
Don’t make yourself a personal security risk *
* our paintball team logo is based on a genuine US unit. One of our founder members is a former Royal Marine and our original clothing came from a company who does unit clothing. If you don’t look at the detail it looked like a unit t shirt etc.
I warned off a team mate on the way to a game. We stopped off at a garage, and he walked back out in ‘unit style’ t shirt, DPM trousers, boots, with short haircut, newspaper tucked under his arm, coffee in hand …… coming out of a garage at a garrison town.
Perfect fodder for an opportunist.
Even for someone who is going to pick someone to monitor and watch the individual and their car, follow them the next morning driving onto a military base - a ‘confirmed’ valid target with little awareness
A soldier ought to be briefed on current alert states, any local risks and being aware of their surroundings.
A bloke out for a sunday game has no idea what current risks are to service personnel and has little awareness
Also if I am in the cadets and I'm a corporal can I wear my rank slide of Airsoft.
Only if you’re prepared to buy my lunch when I trump your cadet corporal rank slide with my DCGS challenge coin
On a sensible note - I’d recommend that anyone who wears uniform for a real purpose doesn’t go out playing in their work uniform, unless you have plenty of sets. Just more washing to get yourself back to standard after playing in the woods
(Of course combat uniform is meant to get battered and dirty - but you try saying that when you walk into barracks or the cadet hut in a dirty crumpled uniform)
