Posts Tagged ‘Anzio’

So both Raptors made their way across the dales to darkest war-torn Staffordshire for First and Only’s Merc Day at Anzio camp, Leek.

The plot was staged around the area of a African conflict zone and we had chosen to play as the local Africans. Rather than a standard “run and gun” day, this was intentionally pitched as requiring role playing, indeed there were 20+ role players from amongst the F+O regulars and marshalls playing character roles from UN medics to engineers rebuilding the collapsed state infrastructure. We tried to support the role play by dressing the part!


Photo courtesy of Jamie, WASPs, as I left the camera at home!

The other players were formed into 3 teams of mercenaries whose objective was to make money! Either in the form of cold hard cash or Gold bullion which started out life in a bank being protected on a rota between the 3 PMC teams.

The day kicked off as usual at F+O with chronoing of all weapons to be used, including sidearms. I always applaud this mainly on safety grounds, but also for fair play. It provides a much leveller playing field for all concerned. Even better was the improvements on the method from my last visit to Anzio with results being taken as an average of 3 shots and several chronos being used for any suspect guns to account for any spurious readings.

The briefs were comprehensive with a safety brief first, and then the scenario brief for the day. Getting 200 or so players to the right place and on time is like herding cats so well done for getting the game to start on time!

Bongo was the designated team leader for the Africans as we set up in our home building, and he set out his plan. Go forth and cause chaos! The whole team did this with exuberence, happily getting into the role play aspect I saw everything from players trying to sell christmas decorations to wandering security details, to drugs sellers and a drum band with spontaneously started following some mercs about. Our first real encounter was as a sightseeing VIP escorted by a PMC team came past our home. Obviously not happy with all their weapons outside our house a group of Africans soon gathered and shouting ensured! Fatman from the Wasps took this opportunity to get close enough to lunge through the protective cordon and stab the VIP… bad luck for his guards who I’m guessing didn’t get paid…

From then on the stage was set. We generally enjoyed ourselves harrassing hapless PMCs who were wary of shooting unarmed civilians and incurring the wrath of the UN inpsectors (a 20 min sin bin/investigation) and pretty much had to take it while we wound them up. We put up posters on their buildings, tried to wander in their security cordons and basically made a right pain of ourselves.

Things got more “serious” after some ingenious africans liberated large quantities of gold and money. The merc onslaught became merciless as they realised Bongos warriors had not only found him chairs from all over the site but gold and cash! Some frantic assaults on our base meant all the BBs saved earlier were rapidly expended.

The afternoon progressed getting ever more frantic with assaults on the merc bases and some great taxi driving by Jamie from F+O in his landrover ferrying Africans direct into the middle of firefights which was great fun, although you had a limited life expectency on bailing out in the midst of open ground and flying BBs.

Come the evening the raptors stopped for some proper food having run nearly all day on adrenalin, and realised just how knackered we were. It was testament to a fine days airsofting that neither of us realised just how hard we had run, pushed, hid, shouted and laughed in a great full days gaming.

High Points.
Giggling like school kids as we stood behind the Landrover preparing pyro to take out the engineers and their security details we’d been waving and smiling at seconds before

Low Point
Getting absolutley shredded in the knee which left me hobbling for quite a while (and then listening to the other teams comms as they congratulated each other on doing it) – but a tiny hiccup in an otherwise great day.

Overall, the level of commitment to the role play side of the day made the event. The preperation and work by the guys at F+O and especially those who agreed to role play characters made it easy for the teams to get into the scenario. Far more actually happened in a long days softing than I could hope to remember – One of the best days I’ve had for a long time.

Big thanks to the role players, the player marshalls, all the fellow players (nice to see the WASPs again!) – African and merc alike, and our illustrious team leader Bongo. You all made it a cracking day.

I’ll certainly try and make the next one.

+++UPDATE+++
Almost forgot… best line of the day to the desert/tan team…”watch your six… he’s got a banana!”

+++ Swampy Update+++

Couldnt agree more.  Was a great days shootin.  Made a complete change from milsim/ woodland/ speedball type games and was all the better for it.  With a pistol in your waist band and a fist full of pyro you had to use guile to find  your way to your objectives and adapt when you got there.  ‘Go hire the engineers’  ok so off we went.  Couldnt get near them werent allowed to talk to them so we pyro’d them instead plus about a half dozen PSD troops hehehe awesome.  Cant wait for the next themed day.

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Raptors have another away day planned. After the highly enjoyable trip to Anzio last year for the “Corps Wars” run by First and Only Airsoft, we’re off to take part in their “Mercs” game in April.
A Day of Private Military Companies, war-torn anarchic African tribesman (including us naturally), and some character players yet to be discovered. It all sounds good fun, and if the previous F+O games are anything to go by a cracking days airsoft.

Report to follow!

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So October has arrived and so did Corps wars at First and Only’s site Anzio Camp.

The Weather God
We set off on Friday afternoon, negotiating the intricacies of the A1 roadwork’s and Sheffield’s third world style road system. As we headed across the hills the heavens opened and what appeared to be the start of another biblical flood descended on our happy band. My weather predictions of clear cold skies appeared to be seriously out…

We arrived in darkness just as the rain ceased and the skies cleared. (Oh ye of little faith) and found the barn that was to be digs for the weekend. First and Only had provided a big area where the cars could be brought in with plenty of room for all to bed down, and best of all out of the very cold wind, and with some portaloos!

The rest of the comrades arrived and soon there was a healthy Raptors contingent present. (Clone, George, Swampy and myself, plus a few NSC regulars, Rookie, Plumley and Caaw). We met up with the guys from Wasps and looked forward to a few sociable drinks and the weekend ahead!

catalogue poses for the camera
FPS
First up on Saturday morning was the chrono’ing. Every gun gets chrono’d, which I personally think is a great idea. With a few caveats.

Almost without exception, every player I spoke to said their gun chrono’d significantly higher than they expected, usually in the region of 20-30 fps higher. Also after putting several BBs through the chrono it would take only a single reading of more than 350fps to get a gun sidelined, and I mean a single reading. One player I witnessed had a single round of 351fps, the rest all significantly lower, and the AEG was not allowed.

I had an AEG chrono’d Sunday morning, at first no problems readings were between 312 and 320fps. But for no reason I can determine there was a reading of 380fps on a shot! It was only after we proved the AEG with another chrono (and about 20 shots, all less than 320fps did the marshal accept that the first chrono was faulty and my AEG allowed.

It also nagged at me that with chrono’s giving such wildly varying results, and any AEG testing even slightly hot in the game getting the player kicked from site, that a player who honestly allowed their RIF to be tested before game start could find themselves on the wrong end of a duff reading and kicked later. Not a confidence building situation.

Whether it was the weather, or faulty chrono’s, or operator error I don’t know. But unless players can have complete faith in a sites chronos it can damage the atmosphere severely. Personally, mine will be checked again on a full bore chrono accepted by the local Police for weapons checks. Maybe they were right and mine have been consistently chrono’d low previously. I’ll let you know.

Don’t misunderstand; I applaud the F+O approach to safety. It should be a priority, and hot guns ruin gameplay. But I think you can be over zealous, and marshals should be allowed to apply some common sense in interpreting the reliability of the results.

Intel
So, onto the briefing, a carefully devised intel briefing and some great team leaders helped build the atmosphere for the role playing aspect of the weekend. Despite being warned to pace ourselves, from the off the team piled into some frantic building to building firefights.

The buildings at Anzio are ideal for airsoft. Reasonably spaced out and with doors and room largely intact. The undergrowth has been allowed to run riot in areas making dead ground passable with care and allowing you to get within range of a building to make assaults.

The semi only rule inside buildings and with 15 feet of a structure works well, (indeed I found myself sticking to semi only fire most of the time out of habit) as does the medic rule. Every player carries a bandage. The first time you are shot, you have 5 minutes for any other team mate to apply your field dressing and you’re back in, if not done in time you “bleed out” and must head to the respawn. Next time you must go to the respawn. It encourages team-mates to make that effort to revive you and makes for some exciting “rescue” runs! The time to respawn also makes it important not to throw lives away as there is real consequence to losing players in the middle of a firefight.

Kudos to you all!

I must comment on the sportsmanship on the Saturday here. It was probably the best I have ever seen. Every hit seemed to be called, players were almost gushing in their praise of the opposition and very sporting in not giving away enemy locations after they’d been hit, or over-magging. More than once I witnessed two opposing players walk away from a corner, shake hands and agree to take a hit to avoid dangerous close range shots. To every player I encountered on Saturday, well played, you were all fantastic airsofters.

Capitol Americas Rock! (for a while!)
As a team we rampaged across the site. Storming buildings and even stealing enemy flags (not for points or objectives but because we could!). In some of the best CQB fighting I have taken part in, I spent most of the afternoon with my ears ringing from grenades or wishing the wall or doorway was that providing cover was a bit wider. Frantic dashes and yelling for support figured highly!

As a result the CA captured a hatful of objectives and territory. But inevitably with 3 teams in opposition it was not to last. As the light faded and our base exposed in a field became vulnerable we seemed to become the target of wave after wave of attacks, to compound this I took a dive on top of my AK Beta and ended up with a stock in one hand and the rest of the AEG in the other, and by the close of play in the dark Saturday night we had been comprehensively mauled and our gains stolen.

The Come-uppance
Sunday dawned (and it was bloody freezing!) and the CA tem discovered as a result of the battering at the close of play the night before we had to fight our way to our own Command point to start with! The day started little better than the night before as it appeared all 3 team had agreed to give us a kicking, and they went to work on it with relish. We had a hard struggle to regain our CP and then faced concerted attacks from several sides with teams that appeared reluctant to attack each other. Probably a well deserved consequence of our early successes the day before!

But even midst the chaos and carnage of the seemingly endless attacks the team work held and we had some great battles. I had a great time storming the garage with Rookie, and the nervous tension was high as we cleared building after building again.

Unfortunately we had to clear out a couple of hours early to make the trip back home, but we left absolutely knackered and smiling!

De-brief
So, all in all, a great weekend. It went a long way to restoring my faith in airsoft “events” after the last Catterick outing. F+O have got themselves possibly one of the best airsoft sites in the country, as long as they continue to judge the team numbers and pace of the games as they have this weekend. It was not crowded and there was a chance to flank the opposition, but conversely a firefight was never far away if that was what you wanted.

The marshals took a light touch approach which seemed to work well and there was enough role play to make it interesting and fun with becoming hard core mil-sim and a chore.

Because of the distance, probably not a day trip site for me personally. But one I will definitely keep an eye on and I hope to be at the next episode of Corps Wars.

…and for next time. No deals. Not with anyone…

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Well I took the better half up on the offer of an early Christmas present in time for the Anzio trip so I ordered the SRC M4 SR933 VerIII.

Bit of a mouthful but basically a CQB length (not one of the Micro jobbies) m4 extendable stock.  Also got three lipo batts and a new charger.  After my last foray into lipo which left me angry with a broken gun and batt, i decided to tame it down so went for 7.4v 20c 1200 mah batts plus balancing charger.

All at a very good rate from the store that shall not be mentioned….

Will write up when it gets here.

Oh… resisted the urge to Magpul it up the cahooney after ribbing Spider all sunday for looking elite.  And tan.  And like a wookie. ….. / teddy bear……./shit stain.

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Leek and a days shooting with the boys. Off to First and Only Anzio site with the WASPS and some others in tow.. Cant wait.

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