Best way to start MilSiming

[Reb3l]

Hi guys so after Christmas I want to start airsofting. And eventually after a while of skirmishing I want to go to MilSIm events and I wondered a few things like what to take, do certain events and certain teams require certain Gear. do you need more battery's etc.. Are there limits on ammo and grenades and age limits.

 

opinions appreciated.

[jcheeseright]

Every Milsim provider is different, some places like Airborne Airsoft just require you to meet the dress code... others like Stirling / Tier1 / Combat Airsoft Group etc may require you to live out of a rucksack in the countryside for up to 72 hours.

 

Pick a game you want to go to, read the rules, make sure you fit all the criteria (age and health are the 2 main ones) and then make sure you can meet the dress code/kit requirements, that's all there is to it. If you can't meet the requirements, don't go, it won't be any fun!

[deebo]

I have started okto's milsim events. Go camping for a few days, and play two 8 hours stints of airsoft day after day. There are uniform requirements for different teams (dont need to be expensive at all, all gear is basically preference) and a limit to how many rounds you can have in midcap mags on your person. Pretty sure any age can go so long as they have an adult with them. Mate or parent.

 

Gotta say, they are great. Very friendly people on the whole. Alot of milsims are like skirmishing but with a focus on more realism and tactics, and avoiding running around with bright green guns and highcaps like its call of duty lol things like tier one are very much for the wiah i was a soldeir type/actual ex soldeirs. They are very exclusive and i imagine, full of bellends.

[jcheeseright]

exclusive and full of bellends... hmm.

 

anyone can pay the fee and turn up, seems like okto has at least one bellend themselves!

[AirsoftTed]

Elitism works both ways. Usually people who have never been to a proper mil sim that dismiss it as only for Gear-do,walts.

 

"I got into airsoft for the realism but I'm going to spend my time looking down my nose at people pursuing a greater level of realism than me"

[ImTriggerHappy]

Actually a lot of people get into airsoft for fun not realism because its in no way realistic.

As I have said before milsim is a great idea and the way forward for airsoft. Unfortunately though some players do need to recognise its a game to be played for fun and not real life.

Milsim will attract the biggest walts and nobs in airsoft but thats not its fault thats just human nature.

Maybe the more sensible event organisers need to start banning the try hards and the players need to educate the over zealous few among them.

Until that changes a bit though a lot of airsofters are still going to look at milsims a bit funny because its the minority who give it a bad name who stand out the most.

[ImTriggerHappy]

exclusive and full of bellends... hmm.

 

anyone can pay the fee and turn up, seems like okto has at least one bellend themselves!

He made a bit of a generalisation not something aimed at a particular person. You flat out insulted him maybe you need to look in a mirror?

[Baz JJ]

Dont run before you can walk. Go to a few skirmishes, get your UKARA if youre over 18 and then decide where you want to go from there. Bear in mind that milsims generally speaking, dont allow two tone airsoft guns.

[SgtTalbert]

Also Tier1 haven't helped themselves and the 'image' of Milsim by saying 80% of the players who turned up weren't good enough. Tier 1 is now invite only

[Esoterick]

Actually a lot of people get into airsoft for fun not realism because its in no way realistic.

As I have said before milsim is a great idea and the way forward for airsoft. Unfortunately though some players do need to recognise its a game to be played for fun and not real life.

 

I like the events where it's kit based so you aren't playing spot the armband as it's a horribly flawed way of denoting which team someone is on. There's also quite a lot of skirmish sites where it feels like the objectives for the day have been made up on the spot.

 

I'm not sure if I can be arsed to ever play through the weekend, although i'd be up for stuff where it's a full session saturday, then camping with another session on sunday.

[Reb3l]

Thanks guys

[deebo]

exclusive and full of bellends... hmm.

 

anyone can pay the fee and turn up, seems like okto has at least one bellend themselves!

Like trig said it was a generalisation. And as sgttalbert said teir one have not helped themselves by making theres invite only. In their own words on the fb page they said most arent good enough for them and that they only want the best of the best....in airsoft....the game is mainly for fun, not training in case the chinese invade.

 

Dont insult people. Its a forum, not a schoolyard.

 

Back to topic! Milsims are great if you want to have more realism and objectives, and even the lesser ones are quite a charecter/fitness test. Just another flavour for airsoft. I enjoyed the simulation stuff, but i will definately keep skirmishing as well.

[shortman]

exclusive and full of bellends... hmm.

 

anyone can pay the fee and turn up, seems like okto has at least one bellend themselves!

Guess your one of tiers "special" 20% then?

 

Looking at your sig as well not overly shocked by your response.

[jcheeseright]

Also Tier1 haven't helped themselves and the 'image' of Milsim by saying 80% of the players who turned up weren't good enough. Tier 1 is now invite only

 

To be fair, I agree with them, they weren't running airsoft events, they were running Milsim events using airsoft as the tool to make the guns 'work'. What tier1 wanted to achieve was a 36-48 hour snapshot of what real military operations are like; very little sleep, short notice tasking, coming off a patrol straight onto stag or straight into another patrol - having that patrol end as uneventfully as the last without a single shot fired because the ROE you're working under doesn't allow you to shoot the guy you know is reporting your position to his mates.

 

80% of the people they had turn up wanted an airsoft game and couldn't deal with it, they bitched about lack of sleep, chinned off jobs entirely because they were having a BBQ, OPfor players who turned up in plate carriers carrying tricked out M4's who just wanted to make contact with the blue force players ALL THE TIME.

 

All that resulted in was that the people who'd turned up for the full-on-milsim experience that they'd been sold didn't get it, they got an airsoft skirmish with some expensive pyro and cool kit.

 

 

 

Milsim will attract the biggest walts and nobs in airsoft but thats not its fault thats just human nature.

Maybe the more sensible event organisers need to start banning the try hards and the players need to educate the over zealous few among them.

Until that changes a bit though a lot of airsofters are still going to look at milsims a bit funny because its the minority who give it a bad name who stand out the most.

 

Been to a lot of serious milsims then? Walts don't survive, most of the main organisers are ex forces themselves, a lot of the attendees are serving or ex forces, someone turns up claiming to be something they're not and they get found out ASAP and kindly asked to sort their lives out. Try hards (as in people who actually try hard) are exactly what milsim games need, people willing to get up at 0130 after 30 minutes sleep because there's a raid happening and they need a unit to secure a nearby building so the breaching/raiding team can have a clear exit route.... that's what milsim is, trying hard, because that's what MIL is, working hard.

 

As for nobs, I encounter far more aggro, cheating and general cockishness at your average sunday skirmish than I ever have at a milsim weekeder. Granted, there are bell ends that attend the more serious milsims, but they're extremely easy to avoid just through the nature of the game; blue and red forces do not speak to each other and if you want to avoid a person on the same side as you, just request at the start of the event that you be put in a different unit to him and chances are you won't have to share so much as a single word for the entire weekend.

 

99% of the time your 'milsim wanker' (we all know them) who turns up to a sunday skirmish is the kind of person that tier1 went invite-only to avoid, the fat man who sits at the back shouting 'push up', but who has attended a themed skirmish at ambush adventures and thinks he's a cut above everyone else there because of it. Don't let that chode colour your perception of what milsim is, because he isn't it.

[jcheeseright]

Guess your one of tiers "special" 20% then?

 

Looking at your sig as well not overly shocked by your response.

 

Actually no, that rule happened while I was deployed on actual military operations in somalia and I didn't get the email.

[shortman]

Ill give it to you have a good point in the main comment above. But you assume to quickly because some of us are insulted by tier ones elitisum that we are not mil enough for it? Thats the attitude that besmudges milsim. Ratherthan a come and have a go and push yourself attitudeits more of a you cant do it because you arnt hard enough attitude thus giving a bellend impression to the masses.

[jcheeseright]

Ill give it to you have a good point in the main comment above. But you assume to quickly because some of us are insulted by tier ones elitisum that we are not mil enough for it? Thats the attitude that besmudges milsim. Ratherthan a come and have a go and push yourself attitudeits more of a you cant do it because you arnt hard enough attitude thus giving a bellend impression to the masses.

That's not what I said or what I implied, you may be hard as coffin nails... I have no idea. What I said was that the vast majority of people turning up to tier1 games weren't able to keep up with their intended market.

[shortman]

I didnt mean you directly i ment companys who run strict milsim. Im saying its a lack of come and try attitude that alienates the masses. Ultimately though if the have enough custom i doubt they care.

 

Also sorry to the op as qe have driffted wildley off topic.

[jcheeseright]

I'm sure they have some kind of mechanism in place to get new custom... I have no idea what it is though, recommendations from current players perhaps?

[Esoterick]

In answer to the OPs question I would do something like an Airborne Airsoft milsim day, see if you like it then consider some of events that last a whole weekend.

[ImTriggerHappy]

Weird thing is I have been playing private games with a bunch of ex forces guys and most of them wont even go to to a normal skirmish and to a man they all hate milsims. When I asked about ex soldiers playing milsims I got one those dont be stupid looks.

Which does make me wonder how many were actual combat soldiers and how many were just admin staff.

[jcheeseright]

Because in an army which has just been down-sized to 90,000 people everyone knows everyone. As an example, one of the regular players at Stirling was SAS, several others are serving and ex Royal Marines. Combat Airsoft Group is run by an ex member of 4/73 special operations battery royal artillery, 100% not admin staff. Tier1 is run by an ex Royal Marine, you don't get 'admin staff' Royals, they're all commandos.

 

You're trying to argue against my first hand experience from a position of 'one of my mates said....'.

Edited for clarity.

Edited December 23, 2015 by jcheeseright

[Okto Eight Milsim]

Thanks for the mention.

 

The loadouts are designed to make it visually clear which side is which and make logical sense i.e. NATO wear MTP with western weapons, the local government troops wear Flecktarn or DPM and so on. However, they are loose enough that players don't have to spend a fortune on a specific Gucci look.

 

Age-wise, we really structure the games towards adults and set a minimum age of 16. Parent players can bring mature children of 13 and above but we warn parents that the games are pretty adult in nature and there are not necessarily suitable content-wise.

I wouldn't take my children as the guys don't hold back. A couple of players have brought their fifteen year old sons and it's been fine.

 

We invented the Okto idea because not everybody wanted to live in the battle all weekend and all night. Somebody described what we do as like being in a war movie where the script hasn't been written yet. For 8 hours, its like living in a real battle (hence the milsim in the titile) but at the end, you can eat your MRE's with a spork under a basha or go back to a soft hotel room. We don't judge and its about a little bit of escapism and having some fun with a group of guys who want a weekend away from work. families and the general pressures of life.

 

In all other respects, we follow full milsim rules in terms of medic rules, ammo limits, no high caps, no two tones, etc.

 

 

I have started okto's milsim events. Go camping for a few days, and play two 8 hours stints of airsoft day after day. There are uniform requirements for different teams (dont need to be expensive at all, all gear is basically preference) and a limit to how many rounds you can have in midcap mags on your person. Pretty sure any age can go so long as they have an adult with them. Mate or parent.

Gotta say, they are great. Very friendly people on the whole. Alot of milsims are like skirmishing but with a focus on more realism and tactics, and avoiding running around with bright green guns and highcaps like its call of duty lol things like tier one are very much for the wiah i was a soldeir type/actual ex soldeirs. They are very exclusive and i imagine, full of bellends.

[ImTriggerHappy]

Because in an army which has just been down-sized to 90,000 people everyone knows everyone. As an example, one of the regular players at Stirling was SAS, several others are serving and ex Royal Marines. Combat Airsoft Group is run by an ex member of 4/73 special operations battery royal artillery, 100% not admin staff. Tier1 is run by an ex Royal Marine, you don't get 'admin staff' Royals, they're all commandos.

 

You're trying to argue against my first hand experience from a position of 'one of my mates said....'.

 

Edited for clarity.

No I am not trying to argue anything I was just pointing that all the ex forces I know from before airsoft and those I have met playing all seem to have no interest in milsim.

The general consensus I get when talking to them is why do I want pretend to do what I used to do for a living, got very much the same answer from an exforces guy who is also a forum member.

I am sure some the of people who play milsim are ex combat soldiers as you say but I would lay money on that being a minority.

The whole milsim scenario you described in an earlier post to my mind sounds boring and about as much fun as getting your ass crack waxed. I think thats the problem what you described will sound so fantasist to most people that its on the same level as wearing furry feet and running round a field in Sussex with a wooden sword screaming for the shire.

While I appreciate you enjoy it and when I saw a post you put up a while ago about using a boat to assault somewhere I thought that sounded like great fun you must surely see how it can come across to other people.

I still feel that some sort of milsim/structured game is the way forward but the whole tier1 thing is elitist and a bit much.

[jcheeseright]

Horses for courses, the only elitism I have ever encountered in airsoft is of the reverse kind; people saying things like "night vision, more money than sense, hahahaha" who then go on to get into their £40K BMWs to drive home. So much so that at my first ever weekend milsim game I was taken on by one of the better known UK teams and played with them all weekend as an equal, my kit wasn't as good as theirs, I didn't have a £2,000 PTW, I didn't have gen3 night vision, I only just had a working radio setup... didn't matter. Nor would it matter if someone else was to turn up, it's all about attitude, if you're willing to get stuck in and play milsim rather than airsoft skirmish then there's no issue.

The only people I ever hear talking about elitism in the UK milsim scene are those who have never tried to get involved.