Click here for a large version in a new window: NSC, Durham isometric

Left: Me in my new safety mask. A bit too 'sci-fi' maybe, but I was pleased I wore one when I saw at close hand another player without a mask have his tooth shot out!

It was a game of two halves…

We were very lucky with the weather as we had experienced heavy rain in the week prior to the game, however I was prepared just in case the heavens opened and took my Russian Tiger camo wet weather suit with me.

In fact one of the things that is perhaps worth recording about this particular event is that this is the very first game since I started playing airsoft where I really felt I was completely prepared for the day out. My equipment was checked, batteries charged and bags packed the night before and just ready to pick up.

When I first started airsoft I always felt I was ill prepared for any game. I either didn’t feel I had the right equipment, or enough equipment, or maybe even forgot to bring certain equipment. The morning of game days were, inevitability, chaotic scenes in my household as I ran about tracking down items that weren’t where I thought they were (or at least, weren’t where I last left them).

Right: Because nobody took a camera the debute of my latest Russian loadout went unrecorded. So here's a little doodle of my new uniform!

This deficiency on my part, my lack of organization, meant that the start of the game day was fraught with stress, and it took me a while to actually calm down and enjoy the morning’s games.

So, in effect, half of organizing an enjoyable and successful game day is the preparation you do before the game day itself. It’s a logical lesson I’ve been aware of for a while, but has taken me until now to put into effect.

It was a half of two quarters!

Well, if preparation is half of what makes an enjoyable game day, then the game day itself was a game of two quarters. I hadn’t played in two months, so I felt really rusty and it took me all morning to get into my rhythm. So the morning – for me – was best forgotten, with some silly mistakes, but the afternoon's events completely made up for this.

The NSC guys were fantastic and, just as I found with my first visit, it was their enthusiasm and ingenuity that carried the day. For example, one of the afternoon games involved hunting for a ‘bomb’ and a detonation unit – but this wasn’t the usual pretend suitcase type prop that I have seen before, but rather a real electrical detonator which really detonated a small pyrotechnic ‘bomb’. Excellent!

It’s this sort of  effort – actually making a good looking prop and not some half hearted ‘Blue Peter’ effort - that impresses me.

I really enjoyed the ‘hunt’, and even when we all got a bit bogged down in a Mexican Stand-off (where each team had one half of the objective) there was a tension that elevated the affair from just a simple game to an immersive event.

The whole afternoon was among one of the best times I have had airsofting. The only slightly sour note being when one of the players had a tooth shot out, but then again I was completely impressed with sportsmanship (everyone immediately responding to the Marshal’s call to ‘STOP GAME’) and the immediacy and obvious concern of the Marshal’s. This one ‘blip’ completely affirmed my decision to wear a full-face mask - although I am not enirely happy with the one I chose.

Game on again, and the rest of the day was a hugely enjoyable and very hard fought woodland skirmish.

Nice one NSC.

New aquisitions for the day!

Well, I was very pleased to have been able to have a nice collection of brand new items on show for the event. Among these were; my 'Flecktar-D' camo suit, a virgin Kalash RK05 AK-74M airsoft rifle, (blue stripey) Telnyashka Para Vest, Viper fingerless gloves and D-Boys 1000 round 'super hi-cap' magazine.

Of these I was - while being please with all my aquisitions - especially chuffed with the Viper figerless military gloves. These solves a big problem I was having with the full-fingered Oakley tactical gloves I had been using until now - namely, that the glove fingers made it very hard to manipulate fiddley items. The Viper gloves also exactly resemble a pair of Russian Army issue gloves I have seen in several photos - which was an added bonus.

Finally, one unexpected addition to my collection was a Soviet era officer's belt (pictured above), which was brought along especially for me by one of the other NSC members - because they thought I would like it. How cool is that? (Big thank you Silent Bob - much appreciated, mate!)

I had to do the phone call of shame to the lads explaining I wouldn't be attending tomorrows airsoft skirmish. I guess for any airsofter this must be the worse scenario, nearly making it to a game - but not quite. What is really frustrating is the thought of the rest of the guys at the game tomorrow - and having to listen to the 'war stories' the following day. 

Additionally, you know that the game you miss will - of course - be 'the best game ever' when the tales are recounted!

To make matters worse, I was looking forward to showing off a few new items of kit - always a cool thing to be able to do. These included some very smart looking Russian Tiger camo rain proofs that I haven't had a chance to wear yet (it was forecast heavy rain for tomorrow), a new modular pouch belt, and best of all my newly 'weathered' Kalash AKS74U.

I had spent a lot of time reading about how to weather (applying fake wear and tear) to ones AK. And decided to have a go this week. Here;s a picture of the resultant AK...

On top of the weathered look, my AKS74U is also sporting a new Element rubber recoil pad and a set of Element polymer grips in brown. I'm hugely disappointed not to be able to show off my newly tricked out AK, as I'm really pleased with it.

Site introduction

NSC is a medium sized woodland site located half way between Pittington and South Hetton, near Durham, County Durham. At this time of year (summer season) the woodland is dense undergrowth - watch out for those nettles! - intermingled with good tree coverage, effectively blocking the sun and creating a nicely shaded canopy.

Between the woodland are a couple of more open areas – notably the ‘Village’ and the ‘Quarry’ – and there are well worn tracks through the undergrowth to patrol and move with some measure of stealth.

The ground is undulating and rough, so make sure you have good footwear. There are plenty of ditches, hillocks, fallen branches and other obstacles that could have you tripping.

Site facilities are somewhat primitive – but, hey, we're men, rufty-tufty men - so just remember to bring plenty of toilet paper and a shovel! (If you are really hard, bring some 'Izal' paper!)

Car parking is also a little scant, the main car park only holding about  half a dozen car on rough hardcore. Overflow car parking is available on the grass verge of the main road outside the site, so it’s best to arrive early if you want to park inside the compound.

The site from a player’s perspective

The woodland is gorgeous! The uneven ground I mentioned above is a real bonus, creating natural defensive positions throughout. At this time of year this means that a person could be only 10 feet away from you and you wouldn’t know until they open up!

NSC has added to this by digging a few fox holes and trench systems, creating objective points to assault and defensive positions at key bottlenecks. It’s obvious that those involved have made a great effort to make interesting and varied zones of play around the site.

Of particular note are ‘The Quarry’ and ‘Hamburger Hill’, two constructs that the team at NSC have put together to create defensive redoubts for ‘defend & assault’ games. The rich vegetation in and around these two areas created beautifully balanced zones that allowed the attackers to creep close – if they have the skill – and prevent the positions from becoming overly dominating kill zones. Very nice.

Surrounding a portion of the site and the Quarry is a low cliff, this can be circumnavigated meaning that if you are not careful you will easily find your team outflanked and fired on from above!

Site Organization

First of all, I have to mention that there was no mandatory chronographing at arrival. And random chronoing is done on reports by players that they suspect is using a hot AEG. The staff are very friendly, and great deal of emphasis on preventing cheating is placed on the fact that the site is regularly populated by a tight-knit group of friends, so there is a lot of self-monitoring and mutual moderation.

Left: 'Ivan the Terrible'! Me looking mean and moody, I actually enjoyed myself immensely - I was smiling on the inside!

The safety-briefing was good, and very humorous, with some nice role-playing of ‘bang’ rule and face-off situations. Great importance was placed on both appropriate eye-wear and footwear. Because this is a medium sized site, there was also a quick explanation of the ‘out of bound’ rules (which I – sadly – fell foul of).

Finally, mention must be made of the excellent on-site shop (provided by Andy’s Airsoft) and there were limited tea and coffee facilities, with some hot grub (burgers and hot dogs) available at lunch.

The games

Play was a series of short games - the objective being to dominate a particular area on the field – as opposed to complecated themed missions. They were designed to make use of the various zones and constructs around the site. So, as the day progressed, we moved from one zone to another.

Play formats were mainly based on defend/assault type games. Although we were treated to a rather novel objective based game designed around the control of a mission object (in this case a large plastic barrel). No, this didn’t exactly inspire me to begin with, but once the game actually started this turned out to be an excellent competition to see who could gain and keep possession of the prize!

Potential visitors should note, NSC does not use coloured team arm-bands as is the normal practise in order to identify team members. You must use your intelligence and own visual memory to recognise who is on your team!

This game took place in ‘The Village’ a ‘death house’ type maze made up of boarding. The barrel had to be held in here, and players were restricted to semi-auto fire inside the construction, so there was some terrific CQB type action inside the village itself.

The Quarry site is a wonderful defensive fort, built into the foot of the cliff I mentioned. The outside of the ‘fort’ has thick undergrowth coming right up to the walls, and there is no clear ‘kill zone’ around it so defenders have to be on their toes!

The day ended in a ‘Hamburger Hill’ game. This was based around a superb construct, and a credit to NSC’s enthusiasm and ingenuity. It is a trench and bunker system built into the brow of a shallow hill. A small number of defenders were nominated and the rest of the players had to assault the bunker, climbing the hill.

Again, NSC avoided to temptation to clear a kill zone (as a real military position like this would have), and gave the attackers some chance of reaching the top by running from tree to tree, and bush to bush. Excellent!

Conclusion

Enthusiasm and friendliness are the two words I would use to describe NSC. These guys put a lot of effort into trying to make an interesting and varied field in a limited amount of space. So much so that staff and players actually have ‘build days’, where constructs are improved or added to.

The playing body is likewise a friendly bunch, and there was no sense of elitism or cliques that I could see. As a ‘newbie’ to both airsoft and the site I was made very welcome, and the site commandant – Razor – made a point of coming up to me at the lunch break and chatting to me.

Above: Razor - the NSC manager - takes time to join in one of the afternoon games.

A measure of the general spirit of comradery of NSC was the fact that one of the members – Evilpredator – sought me out after I made enquiries about travel on their forum and offered me a lift to the site.

So, will I go back? You bet. Yes, it’s a smaller site, with smaller numbers than my introductory experience of airsoft at SYA (there were 30 of us on the day I went). But the compactness of NSC – as I expected – did in fact concentrate the action and the players into a more focused area – meaning that I got just as much action as I do when I attend the much larger South Yorkshire Airsoft site.

Despite the lack of themed operations (perhaps due to the size of the site), if you are an airsoft player that just wants to get into the action – and let’s face it the action is half the game – then NSC is for you!

--- Just don’t forget the toilet roll!  LOL

-----------------------------------------------------------
Thanks:-

> Photo credit: All photos are the property of NSC player 'George of the Jungle' and I am grateful for his kind permission to use them in my report. 

 > Big 'cheers' goes to NSC Evilpredator who gave me a lift to and from the site - you're a dimond mate!

> And of course, everyone at NSC!

> NSC Airsoft website

This is only the second site I have visited in my short airsoft career, so I thought it would be a good idea to do a little 'virtual recce' of the place before I went (on Sunday 8th June). First of all I had a look at the location on Google Earth...

Unfortunately, this doesn't actually tell me much more than this is a pretty heavily wooded site (a lot different to SYA). There appears to be no obvious urban structures, unless there are some buildings or constructs which are hidden by the trees. Their website says they have a 'variety of gaming areas from trenches and woodland to a quarry'.

Google Earth file (you must have Google Earth installed): NSC_Airsoft.kmz

I am actually very keen to try out a primarily woodland site, SYA has only thin woodland around the periphery and so it will be a very nice change to be amongst so many trees. Here's where the camo actually comes into it's own (will I finally regret those bright, Russian style, team AKA badges).

The location/directional map provided on their site is very clear and helpful, and it looks pretty easy to get to if you are a car owner (I am, of course, not - so am relying on someone else's generosity - my thanks goes out to EVIL PREDATOR of NSC on this count). Here is a link to the NSC website's location page: How to find NSC Airsoft

Multimap Link:  England  /  Durham  /  South Hetton / NCS Airsoft

Sadly, the NSC website does not include a diagram or schematic of the layout of the game area, along with notations of structures, props and constructs. Neither am I sure of the exact acreage of the game area, but I was lucky enough to find this clip on YouTube which shows a collection of stills which gives an impression of what the game area is like:- 

I particularly liked the look of the trenches and foxholes, likewise the quarry area looks interesting. 

Obviously, from what I can find out, we are not talking about a site which is the size of South Yorkshire Airsoft's 90 acres. But, that could be a good thing, as just occasionally SYA can seem a little too rambling, so playing on a more compact site could make for some intense play.

I am reminded, a little, of my experiences playing the computer game 'Battlefield 2'. I have played games on the larger maps with larger numbers of players, but because the play has been spread out you actually only encounter small groups of opposition. Contrarily, I have played on small maps with small numbers, but the action has been quite fierce because the players are brought together into more concentrated groups. It will be interesting to see if NSC actually mirrors this effect.

I would just like to end this 'virtual recce' by noting one very large plus point for NSC, and that is the friendliness and helpfulness of those invovled with the site. I have to thank EVIL PREDATOR in particular, without whom I would not be attending - as he has kindly offered me a lift to and from the site, going not a little out of his way in doing so. 

Link: NSC Airsoft webite 

Back-story:  Operation Dark Horizon is based around a small but important action that will take place in and around the capital city of Nepal, Kathmandu elements of the 2nd Battalion Royal Ghurkha Rifles are preparing to hold the capital knowing that the Chinese can not afford to bypass them leaving a Battalion of Ghurkhas to their rear on their advance into India, thus giving the British time to make ready their defences for the forthcoming Chinese onslaught into India.

Game Report

I can’t start this report without first of all mentioning the outstanding weather. I have missed a couple of games, but the marked difference between the last time I played at SYA – when it was still winter weather – and yesterday’s sizzling temperatures were amazing.

Expecting British spring weather I had brought just 3 litres of water in bottles with me, thinking it would be mildly sunny with a breeze. By noon I was wishing I had brought double that amount and my hydration back-pack.

Above: Just one of the very well turned out squads that attended 'Dark Horizons'. The British team, in their desert camos, were most appropriately dressed given the soaring temperatures.

Turn out
Taking into consideration the weather, it was amazing there was the large turn out that there was (about 120 people), as the pull of a Sunday barbecue at home with the family and friends must have been great. But the commitment of those who had signed up for this themed event was obvious, particularly when one saw the effort to meet the uniform restrictions on the day.

As well as the uniform restrictions, an ammunition restriction was also imposed. Each player was only allowed to carry 600 rounds on them, players having to hike back to the team Regen point to do any reloading. I did wonder whether this might put off some people who like their ‘hi caps’, but it didn’t seem to be a consideration.

Above: The Chinese team assembles for the morning's briefing. This was just a couple of the PLA squads who waited while the SYA staff gave the squad leaders their instructions and maps.

The game begins
The event was wonderfully organized, I thought. I liked the way the staff organized the squad leaders, and briefed them and then had them brief their squad. Each squad was assigned a specific objective location on the large SYA Proteus site, and great emphasis was placed on the fact that today was not a day for lone wolves to saunter off on their own ‘missions’.

As part of 4-4 squad of the Chinese team, we were assigned to take the Police station and then move on to the Embassy, on the far right flank of the Chinese advance. We had no idea about the size of the British force we would face, or where they would concentrate their attack. As it turned out, we met a flanking force of roughly a similar size, but which – crucially – had some excellent snipers. This initially blunted our advance, and we could see that our Chinese team-mates to the left were advancing faster than we were.

Between the increasing heat and the moral sapping sniper fire, squad 4-4’s progress was very slow, and the British managed to keep us out of the Embassy for half the morning (kudos to their snipers).

Above: One of our (too few!) snipers. Guys like this were like gold dust and everyone seemed to be calling for sniper back-up to counter the British snipers who were frustrating our progress.

Whether it was the fact that we could not determine the size of the force that was up against us, or peoples’ awareness of the restricted amount of ammo to hand, it seemed to make everyone a lot more tentative than usual. It was good teamwork in the end that allowed us to break the stalemate and advance to take our objective – the last of the British deciding that discretion was the better part of valour and legging it out the back of the Embassy building.

The end of the morning was greeted with cheers of success from the Chinese side, as we had – it seems – taken a commanding lead over the British and taken all of our objectives successfully.

Above: My squad-mate, Joe, and myself (right), desperately defend the Police Station against a large British attack. We took and re-took this building again and again. On this occasion we pushed the Brits out, only to have a 'grenade' tossed through a window to wipe us out - my ears were ringing all the way back to Regen! Photo credit: SYA staff cameraman

As the day – and the heat – wore on…
At the start of the afternoon session we soon found that things were not going to be quite as straight forward as the morning’s battle. For a start, the sun had really begun to beat down on us, and secondly the SYA staff had a few cunning little strategies up their sleeves to make things even more ‘interesting’

Squad 4-4 found itself transferred to the defence of the airport. And it didn’t take us too long to realize that we had been really thrust out on a limb, with our small force defending the hangers with British elements facing us on nearly three sides!

‘A suicide mission!’ Our squad leader rather pessimistically put it. This turned out to be somewhat prophetic, as our squad was almost immediately over-run and wiped out by the advancing British.

After Regen we attempted to regroup, but once again good marksmanship from the British side kept us from any organized counter attack on the airport.

The rest of the afternoon seemed so much hard work, with attack followed by counterattack on both sides. We seemed to take a building only to have a large force re-take it moments later, and generally the British seemed to had re-gained the initiative after the mornings mauling.

The rest of the day was a hard slog of building up numbers to assault, a frantic battle followed by a long, long walk to Regen before starting the whole process all over again. But as far as I could tell, the Brits were slowly pushing us further and further back on the right flank.

Conclusion
As you can probably tell from the way I have written this report, the whole event was very immersive and believable. My friends and I really got into it, and took the mission objectives very seriously – and we felt like we actually worked really hard all day!

Right: My latest acquisition - the CYMA all metal and wood AKM. As it turned out the weight of this lovely replca only added to the weary slogs back to Regen! But, on the up side, the additional range it had proved very useful as we struggled to cross the open areas between objectives.

The organization of the event and the standard of marshalling was excellent, which helped us concentrate on the game and not worry about things like cheating or cheat calling. Not that there seemed to be much of that – although I have to say that as the day and the heat drew on there were a couple of flare ups, with tempers – literally – boiling as the sun battered down on us.

I can’t blame these few guys who ‘lost it’ as the conditions were as extreme as I have witnessed so far in my short airsofting career. The heat really wore people out, and made some players – understandably – irritable by the end of the day.

All in all, it was a fantastic day, an excellent themed event and a very taxing game. But I think everyone came away feeling that they had really played hard. It was a great feeling.

Link to my complete Flickr photo gallery of the day: Ranger's 'Dark Horizons' album

Well, if today is anything to go by, Sunday will be a bit of a scorcher!

It will be nice to get back into sunny airsoft, although this does mean I will have to make some special preparations. Gone, for example, is my autumn/winter loadout and in comes my spring/summer kit. Chief among this is my new purchase of some Under Armour Hot Gear base layer clothing - it will be interesting to see what this stuff is like and whether it keeps me comfortable if the temperature starts to climb!

Additionally, this is my very first SYA theme event. Called 'Dark Horizons' it pits a force of British (wearing base tan - desert DPM or Yankcam) against a force of Chinese PLA (dressed in base green - DPM or woodland). The background story is:-

Operation Dark Horizon is based around a small but important action that will take place in and around the capital city of Nepal, Kathmandu. Elements of the 2nd Battalion Royal Ghurkha Rifles are preparing to hold the capital knowing that the Chinese can not afford to bypass them leaving a Battalion of Ghurkhas to their rear on their advance into India, thus giving the British time to make ready their defences for the forthcoming Chinese onslaught into India. [SYA]

I will be - of course - playing OPFOR (Chinese in this case). I would have liked to go the whole hog and turn up in something Chinese (US Woodland would have done, as the PLA did copy this camo at one point), with a nice Real Sword Type 97! But money being tight, it will have to be my Russian Tiger or DPM with an AK.

Being a big Battlefield 2 fan, it would be a terrific laugh to turn up as one of the PLA characters from that game. But time and cash flow are against this (sadly).  

There is an ammo restriction on this one (600 rounds only refillable at the unit HQ), so this seems the ideal opportunity to get my pistol into action! It will give me an emergency back-up of an additional 40 rounds.

Another preparatory issue is hydration. Do I take a hydration back pack? Or will a canteen suffice. Bearing in mind I can refill over the lunch break a 1 litre canteen seems appropriate, particularly at the pace I intend to take the game (I am still not 100% after my illness and do not intend to run around - no matter how much Shaun screams at me to do so.)

Finally, goggles. This may be a chance to swap out my clear lenses for my smoked ones. Additionally, do I wear my larger tactical Bolles or my nice ESS V12s with their easy change range of lenses? 

AEG of choice: CYMA AK74
Secondary: SIG P229
Rig: M23 Pioneer chest rig
Camo: Russian Tiger green base

After an absence of three months I am raring to go - and intend to really throw myself into this one. Match report to follow. 

Above: The sheer size of the SYA Proteus Camp site means that organizing interesting games for relatively small numbers has it's own peculiar challenges. But the SYA staff did us proud and kept the objectives and areas of play tight - making for action packed skirmishing! (Click pic to enlarge.)

Meet me behind the tank sheds!

This was my first game at SYA starting from the 'tank sheds' as a base of operations, but I found them very cozy (in an agricultural sort of way, as the local farmer stashes his hay bales there). And Team AKA soon set up shop, flag and all, in front of our own little hay castle.

A very welcome neighbour was the Airsoft Skirmish's travelling store in the adjoining shed, and the proximity of so many airsoft goodies proved to much for some members of the team (particularly Legs, who bought a lovely little TM Vz. 61 Skorpion machine pistol).

Warm up (...literally, it was bloody cold!)

I'm always a little cynical about the tactical merit of the morning games, as I feel that they can sometimes be a little contrived and simply a pre-amble to the more intense afternoon semi-milsim event(s). But I was very surprised by the excellent quality of the first few games on this day.

The SYA war chiefs - Shaun and co. -  had devised a series of wonderful 'point to point' games based on extraction and patrol, which not only kept us constantly on the move, but also concentrated the point of contact between the two forces into a small area.

Left: The 'Ragtags' snatch a Pyrrhic victory from the jaws of defeat! (Click pic to enlarge.)

The first game event in particular, where we had to get a downed 'Dutch missile' from point 'A' to point 'B' –  was a corker. Either team took it's turn to be the hunters or the hunted, as we either tried to evade detection and extract the 'package', or searched the compound for the team with the 'package'.

Of particular note was the 'Ragtags' team effort, for their superb self-destruction of the 'missile' to deny it's capture to the opposing team. Their thunderflash nearly took out the whole tail fin of the mock missile!

If you go down to the woods to play...

At this point I have to relate my own version of how Joe – my team mate – and I got 'lost in the woods'. In actual fact we didn't really get 'lost' as such, but just completely detached from the main game as it moved passed us and to the far side of the camp...

While the main battle went on way to our far 'right' and out of ear-shot, my 'opo' – Joe – and myself were actually embroiled in our own little private war with a section of  the Yellow Team, who outnumbered us 7-2. Apparently, the group of Yellows were just as oblivious as we were to the fact that the game had ended, some way away and some time ago.

Eventually a search party was sent out to look for us and tell us the game had ended 5 minutes hence, and we were rebuked by our team mates for holding up the start of the next game....There's gratitude for you!

Afternoon delights

If anyone thought that we had had enough frantic running about in the morning session, then they were in for a big surprise. The pm games were just as fast paced and intense, with the SYA staff constantly cajoling us to 'push, push, push'!

There was no let up in the tempo of the battling well into the late afternoon, and the 'house to house' combat was very aggressive indeed. Luckily, everyone was so good natured on this day that despite the ferociousness of the CQB inside the camps buildings, no one lost their rag, and as far as I could see there were no 'calling out' or heated disputes.

All in all, it's actually hard to recall the events of the rest of the day, as we lost all track of time, so caught up in the game were we. The time simply flew by and before we knew it the day's end was called.

Conclusion

I love low turn-out days I have decided. And although Shaun will have a completely different view (having to make his bread and butter), I prefer days like these to the 'over-crowded' ones, where you can't seem to move without bumping into a large patrol of enemy. But there again, I do find that you do tend to be forced into tighter team work on on the  'sell out' events. So it's all swings and roundabouts.

But ten out of ten for the organisation of the day – we all enjoyed it.

Highlights:-

Best moment: Forget all the 'kills' - the wonderful feeling I got when I medic'd a team mate.

Worst moment: A nasty instinctive bit of shooting I did on one yellow that hit him right in the family jewels at close range. I apologised profusely (sorry again if you are reading this).

Best turned out team: SART, in their Police tactical black uniform

Best individual uniform of the day:  Tied between the guy with the Ghost Recon loadout, and Eddie with his superb Russian Partisan.

Best weapon on site:  Afraid it was one on the Airsoft Skirmish stand - the Mauser Kar 98.

Best game of the day: 'Alamo' game (which we Reds won) - where we had to prevent the opposition getting to the 'Alamo'

--- With thanks to the South Yorkshire Airsoft staff, and my team mates on Team AKA. 

Above: Freezing fog makes planning an airsoft outing a difficult proposition. Not only do you have to worry about what to wear, and pack - but travelling becomes a issue. Driving home on icy roads, in thick fog on a dark night is not everyone's idea of fun!

Trying to cover all the bases - packing wise - is a bit of a  problem in airsoft, the main issue being the space in the car. Because I rely on lifts to and from my skirmish site of choice, packing has to be kept to just the essentials. So while it may seem a trivial point, whether or not to take that big winter coat and wet weather items does play on my mind.

 I look on with envy at the guys who arrive on site in a works van, and have all the space they need (although, what the Police would think about stopping a 'mobile armoury' is perhaps a different matter!).

So keen am I to wear my new Spring camo, that - in the end - I may just have to bear the cold and freeze! 

Still, Moonskank provided me with a nice photographic record of Team AKA's activities. Below is a photo which epitomises the team's philosophy of 'enthusiasm over authenticity'!  Thanks Moonskank.

The full album can be seen here: Moonskank's Flickr airsoft photo set