Archive for the ‘ramblings’ Category

Quick thought for the day here. Watched this vid, seen via popular airsoft.

The actual poster of the vid asks what would you have done? Have a watch first…

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I guess we can expect to see more of this as HD cams become cheaper and more frequent. My immediate thought was like may I suspect “what a cheating b*****d!”

But backing up a bit a few things occur.

We have no context. We don’t know if the video star has had an afternoon of shooting players who refuse to call and was frustrated and decided to do similar. Despite the video we cannot actually see the BB’s hit him only his reactions which we draw the inference that he was hit. There is so much we don’t see.

I also thought about my own play. Like everyone I hope I’m a sporting player, I like to think I call my hits, I occasionally even shout a “good shot” to whoever got me. I try not to overkill, and I like to giver players the chance to surrender rather than take a painful close range shot, and I try not to shout at people I’m convinced aren’t calling hits…

Do I manage to live up to these ideals all the time? Of course not. Can any player honestly say they have called every hit? I don’t mean intentionally necessarily, but when ricochets are flying, your webbing gets hit, you’re wearing a bit soft shot absorbing ghillie, or you’re in the middle of a dash for cover did you call every hit? Really?

Now consider this. That one time you don’t notice it, or were convinced it was a ricochet it gets videoed and put on youtube by an irate player. Is that likely to make you more or less sportsmanlike to players you don’t know?

Not sure myself, by all means show a ref to back up a complaint. Fair play to the guy who made the video for not losing his temper, but this now smacks of vindictiveness, which is no more gentlemanly than deliberately not calling the hit in the first place.

Controversial I’m sure. I’m certain we’ll see more of it in the future, just not convinced it’ll enhance the sport.

We don’t really do much in the way of kit reviews as we only talk about kit we actually own and use, and obviously nobody sends us free stuff to comment on and review (although if you are manufacturer or retailer and are looking for a mention we have negotiable morals depending on the size of the freebies!…)

But saw this via Popular Airsoft. It is actually the first Airsoft Weapon in a long while that made me think “I want one now!”… Now all that remains is to find the price and eta!

Are you a student type in Newcastle?

Do you like, or think you may like Airsoft (lets be honest why wouldn’t you?)

Then keep an eye out as they’re trying to get a Airsoft Society off the ground. They already have the obligatory facebook group up and running, make contact, say hi, get blamming. Much better than all that studying crap…

See you on the battlefield.

Not really an after action report as we didn’t make it this year, but more of a congratulations.

To the Misfits, Legion Clan and anyone else who played for “The Others” this year well played fellas. Beautiful news to see the team dedicated to chaos and mayhem overwhelming the corporate nancy boys of Delta and Bravo. Hope you all came back with tall tales of daring-do!

See you there next year!

Bravo Zulu

We’ve been quiet of late I know. Our visit to Northern Alliance in July never got written up and Spider had a run out to NSC where they fielded an APC! Worst of all is we won’t be making Ground Zero weekender this year, for only the second time since we both started playing, and gutted not to be there.

Plenty of reasons, all involve real life getting in the way of airsoft, but hopefully a chance get to maybe a single day in somewhere soon and rack some games up in October and November.

So for now best of luck to all the lads heading south. To Razor and the Misfits, anyone from NSC, Northern Alliance, Legion Airsoft Clan and North East Airsoft UK, and anyone else we know going down, have a great weekender, (no getting naked and trying to jump on quad bikes, it’s uncouth) and make sure you absolutely murder Delta.

Get some fellas.
Raps.

…& in case you didn’t notice we recently topped 100K hits, you lot must be bored for something to read! thanks for coming back!

Interesting article on Popular Airsoft about the motorola tx 700 tactical comms system, a ruggedised mobile smartphone style handset that provides first resposnders with comms, both mobile network and PTT radio and position data and availability.

The article has plenty of comments on how the milsim players will love it, I guess satisfying both the “real steel” obsession and the geardo inside us all.

A large percentage of airsofters already use comms of varying degrees of sophistication (see Swampys post), and I think positional and tactical data may well be the next level of softing. I use positioning a lot in my life outside of airsoft, so it was with interest I came across this website. Battletac Milsim GPS tracking.

First impressions are quite good, running from a browser on most smartphones or PDAs it requires a gps if you wish to broadcast your position, although you can see other units with that. It does require a data connection. You are required to create a login, although it is free at this stage there are addons and dedicated hardware available for purchase, and unit security is provided via a user created password you can distribute amongst your allies.

So what do you get?

The map screen (above) is a screenshot example. You get a fully zoomable google map with your allied units overlaid. You can pan and examine areas, or go straight to your location. You can go into the menu and there is a whole host of settings for you to screw about with…

Two more functions which may prove useful are the message function which allows you to broadcast message over virtual radio channels, which automatically appears on any screen logged in to your channel.

and the unit status, which then removes dead units from the display, ensuring anyone making tactical decision is doing so from available allies.

There are of course a stack of other functions available, and the website shows it in use for a base commander with a very nice setup of course.

Will I use it? well, it is only of any use if several of you agree to use it and it does have that magic price tag of free! I can see it being of some use on big games such as the Ground Zero weekender where I always seem to lose buddies. It does eat battery power as it requires a data connection, screen on and gps to be running all the time, but this can be compensated for a little by slowing the update rate – in tests a HTC Desire (android OS) and a iPhone (not mine I hasten to add) lasted 3-4 hours without too much trouble. So team this up with an external power pack such as these and you should be set for a full day at least.

Word of caution; I have no idea what amount of data is used. If you have a restrictive tariff it may well be worth checking first! If anyone does give it a bash please let us know, it would be very interesting to hear some views on whether it enhanced your airsoft or just proved a pain and got turned off after 5 mins…