So on Saturday I went to Nick’s Operation Operator game held at the Picton facility. The intended purpose of the game was introduce new players to command structures and help them with getting into the mil sim spirit. I was on the SOPCOM team and in command of 1st platoon, I knew the game would be difficult due to the rain already but when I gathered my guys I found out that a whole section of 7 players was missing! So all in all I think I had about 20 guys in my small platoon which made things difficult because I just didn’t have enough bodies to do what I wanted.

The game went well and I had a good time. Coordinating the defense of the kitchen was really difficult, new players don’t understand the concept of defending haha and often when I walk the line I’d find huge holes in my defensive line. Personally I found it very frustrating but hell this is all volunteer and we’re not doing it for real life purposes right.

During the day the op-for gave us a good run for our money and beat us to the punch much of the time during the daylight hours. That turned off a large portion of our team that basically quit but SOPCOM had its revenge at night… Even though the other team had more NV capable units than we did, our IR discipline was much better and we got the jump on them a lot. Haha a lot of the op for players didn’t like that we had a mission to turn off the generator powering the lights but I mean hell what’s the point of playing a highly scripted game.

All in all I had a good time, by the time it was 5-6AM, I think there was a max of around 6 players on SOPCOM still playing but whatever I enjoyed myself. 🙂

Some pictures of me and my boys in game and just before at the BB Bastards booth. Last picture was of Derek, Brayden, Graham and I at a small diner for our after game meal. 🙂

So a bunch of the guys and I picked up some USMC issue field packs for airsoft use. I can’t speak for the others but my Pantac 3 day pack was simply too small to carry all my gear for the large mil sims and I was already looking for something bigger when a few of them proposed this so I jumped at the opportunity. 🙂

I think 5 or 6 of us ordered and it came up to $120 per person, it came with a complete field pack (including aluminum skeleton and load bearing belt) as well as a smaller assault pack. It’s used and mine was a bit dusty but whatever, if it’s good enough for real marines it’ll work just fine for my uses.

Looking forward to using this on the field, perhaps I’ll bring it to the 18 hour game at Picton on Sept 7th. 🙂

I love playing airsoft but freaking hate the guns because they’re so temperamental and I don’t understand why “high end” companies like Systema can’t design a motor that works. The 490A, 7511 & 7512 motors all suck and die rather quickly yet regular AEG motors have no problems. Anyway I mentioned recently my M4A1 died on me, initially suspecting the electronics because it’s the 2007 design I put it on the shelf and just left it there. Anyway on a whim I decided to install a FCC 2.5 motor into the gun and yay it’s alive!!! Unfortunately it wasn’t my motor so I can’t keep it but I do have a FCC 3.0 motor on order.

Figure I’ll move the 3.0 motor into my MK18 Mod 1 since I use that gun most and move the FCC 2.5 motor currently installed into the M4. And just for fun I took a pic of the AR family…

I want to get into real guns later so I’ll probably cut my collection down further but for now I like what I have. 🙂

Haha I was lazy over long weekend (and I took a couple of extra days off too) so here’s my Art of War update. I got to the field around 7:30AM and saw Victory actual running some shooting drills with a few of the guys he wasn’t familiar with, Ray is good there and a great leader. Anyway Q was playing with his new toy, a 6 rotor helicopter which he mounted a camera on and it was very cool! Too bad he didn’t have a way to transmit the video signal or else we really could have used it as a UAV.

At 11AM, JOTF was allowed to move into the field and many thanks for Derek for hauling people’s gear out to the field in his truck. I know I certainly packed heavy and so did most of the other players so this was definitely a relief. Once at base camp, we dropped our stuff set up our sleeping area then Brayden and I proceeded to set up the CP & interrogation building while the other guys on Victory 2 pulled guard duty. We didn’t expect much contact but you never know right, Victory 1, 3, Warthog & Gravedigger units went to the field to complete missions. For much of the first day we were on guard duty, it was kind of boring but needed to be done and I guess Jeremy was “resting” us for the night missions. We did do one sortie to rescue Warthog when that unit got stuck and lost some shooters.

At around 8PM, Chris informed us that he had to drive Keiko home, she wasn’t feeling well and had a fever so Brayden took overall command of Vic 2 while I was 2IC and in charge of our section. In the dark we did a few missions, secured the landing zone, set up an ambush and captured a lot of enemy players which was a lot of fun. Since we knew op-for had gen 3 NV as well as a section we decided not to employ our IR illuminators or lasers, hehe sneaky and it worked pretty well. One of the captured op-for guys was mentioning how he expected it to be a laser light show when we started shooting but it didn’t happen so they couldn’t pinpoint our locations.

There was a fully automatic fire incident around 2 or 3AM, one of the op-for guys got shot in the face and wasn’t too happy about it so there was a change in the ROEs where full auto fire was not allowed till 6AM. While I understand the safety issue, I feel that personal safety is always up to the player. I don’t want my teeth shot out so I wear something that will cover my mouth, but in any case I am glad the player wasn’t seriously injured as that is not what airsoft is about. It was a lot of fun shooting against the GOA guys, they’re always up for a battle and are good players. Haha I enjoyed chatting with them after we captured them. 🙂

At around 4:30AM, we were ordered to rest by Jeremy as he wanted everyone to have a bit of rest before pushing us out on day ops in a few hours. Of course before I turned in (even though I wasn’t that tired), I made sure all my guys were set first. My multicam top was drenched in sweat so I took it off and put it on the backing of my camping chair hoping it’d dry off. In my sleeping bag my pants were wet too so I took those off as well and laid them out.

I didn’t sleep very well, we were on a hill and whenever I turned to my side it always felt that I was going to roll down the hill lol. That and even though I had Surefire EP3 ear plugs on, the stupid birds were pretty loud and all in all I got about 45 – 60 minutes of sleep. I was up and about by 6AM, Jeremy informed me he wanted everyone up by 8 so we could begin day ops, I made breakfast and let my guys sleep a bit more while I pulled sentry duty.

The next day Victory 2 was a lot more active which was fun. We completed a whole bunch of missions which seems now like a blur because we were constantly on the move. Our last mission of the day was to gift wrap the comm tower to op-for and defend it if possible, unfortunately they never showed up! Jeremy was given three separate missions in the last couple of hours and had to split the forces up so while we were successful in defending the tower because no one showed up, we were unsuccessful in our main mission (which we found out it was the most important afterwards).

The pace of AOW was a bit slow but I understand the game hosts have a difficult time balancing that. Too fast and people burn out, too slow and people complain about inactivity… While I found it easy, I know a few of the other JOTF members were really tired by the end so I think it was a good compromise.

I agreed to go for dinner with the guys but on the drive to the restaurant I started to miss Brandon more and more and decided to bail. I got home within 30 minutes of his bed time and it felt so good to give him a hug and kiss, definitely worth it.

A few of the guys weren’t happy with how the game was run but I mean whatever that’s how it goes… I understand hosting can be a difficult job so unless the host does something blatantly stupid it doesn’t bother me and I had a good time so that’s all that matters. Oh those Off Mosquito clips work pretty well. Not so much when you’re on the move but when you’re stationary after about 5 minutes the bugs really do leave you alone for the most part. Time to stock up, next time I’ll have one on either side of me for double protection haha.

On Saturday I attended Derek’s Lord of War game at the Rockwood field. Most of the guys were playing on team Spartan and Jeremy was CO of that side, I instead decided to take things easy and was tasked with helping out with game control duties. How quickly things change, with about 45 minutes before game briefing Derek asked me if I could lead team Fury as their CO had to bail last minute. I wasn’t happy about it but I signed up to assist where ever he needed me so I agreed. I was pretty worried at the beginning for a couple of reasons, first I didn’t bring my full kit and only had a minimalist set up with me and more importantly, I hate fighting against my own guys.

Team Fury was a mishmash group of players that I’m not familiar with as when I game I usually play with the guys on the Spartan side, anyway during briefing I was praying that I had solid squad leaders and it turned out I did! During the game I had absolutely no need to micromanage the teams and to make things better, a few of the squad leads stepped up (many thanks to DBspotter!) to help me with the field directions as it’s a place I’m not familiar with. Every mission I’d get the advice of the squad leads then form a plan of action and what I absolutely loved was that no one questioned my orders. They executed everything I asked and the players on team Fury truly accepted the concept of a mil sim which was awesome.

Throughout the 12 hours, Derek gave us various missions to which we were successful on most of them. Communication was decent, though I hope in the future that the players either use field markers or perhaps the map’s grid references when calling out targets, “contact at my 12” does me no good when I have 50 people to manage.

On one of the missions in the late afternoon, the guys were pushing very hard and while we were close to our objective I had to make the difficult decision to fall back to the CP and rearm. Darkness was quickly approaching (some of the guys still had their tinted lenses on) and I was very low on ammo, I could probably have secured whatever we were intended to find but with the condition of my guys there was no way I could defend it. Hehe at least along the way we were able to capture the Spartan mobile respawn, that was freaking awesome.

In the early evening GC gave us a mission to retrieve a huge wooden box of hotdogs and burgers which was greatly appreciated by everyone! LOL to make sure it wasn’t a mess, I let two squads eat at a time while the other four took turns guarding. That way I always have some defenders and not everyone was chowing down and it was good that I maintained a defensive perimeter as the guys paid me a visit. 😉 I didn’t know how many attackers there would be so I mobilized my whole force but it turned out it was just the GHOSTS so against those numbers Fury was able to capture all of them. Haha Keiko took a “trophy picture” of me with my captives which I’ll post a bit later when it’s available. 🙂

Come night, team Fury had a technological disadvantage. Other than myself I had two NV units on my side while I guesstimate that the other team had 30-40% of their players equipped with NV (based on the guys I know who have it lol) as well as thermals. Oh well, our last mission was to defend markers 8 & 9 and we used the wooded environment to the best of our ability to negate NV. LOL you can’t hide from thermals so there was nothing I could do about that however.

At endex, Derek informed me that team Fury was up over team Spartan by 150 points! It’s a tentative victory as he still needs to add up the kill cards though I hear the stacks were about the same so we’ll see.

It was an absolute pleasure to command team Fury and everyone doing as they’re told really made my day much easier. I was surprised how well we played together and I told the team at marker 8 that it was them that made us successful, I only played a small part and it’s true. I had a great time despite my initial apprehension and would lead any of those guys again if I get the opportunity!

On a side note, I’m also glad that the game was only 12 hours. I knew I was getting dehydrated and while I drank as much as I could, I didn’t have any electrolytes or food with me. LOL again I wasn’t planning on playing but with the op only 12 hours I knew I could handle it. Of course I would never let any of my guys do the same and I had to inform GC a few times of players needing to take a break.

Hehe I still got it! 😉

So after experiementing with the 6 pin Lemo MSA Sordin headset, I sold it because I found it a bit bulky and went instead went with the Nacre QuietPro. While I have to admit I love the Nacre, I worry about the wires getting damaged due to its high gauge, yes I know it’s mil spec and strong but still I wanted something different so I picked up another MSA Sordin Supreme Pro IV, again. This is the 75310 with the standard military plug which makes connecting it with my Nexus U94 PTT easier.

Still bulky relatively speaking but they’ll be used for games where I don’t have to wear a helmet or where I want something that’s relatively low profile. I was also able to fit the Sordins under my Ops-Core helmet this time around, previously I couldn’t do it a comfortable manner but it’s not too bad now. The helmet/headset combo still require a bit of fine tuning but I think I’m able to do it without the ARC rail adapters. 🙂

Sigh I hate taking pictures with my gear on at home but didn’t have a choice.

As promised, here’s some of the video I took over the weekend.

In one of the videos, one player was accusing me (and everyone else that day) of not calling shots so I offered to take it up with game control but he declined. LOL one of the few times I’ve been accused of that, I mean non calls happen but for gods sake fire for effect! Will share with the guys at work later, they said they all had fun which is great. 🙂

So on Saturday the boys and I attended Force Recon’s Nightfall 2 18 hour mil sim at the Picton facility and it was great! Yes I play there often because it’s awesome, every time I go to a game at that place I have a good time. 😉 We signed up on the green team as we want to rock our Woodland more in 2013 and was under the command of Mckee & Arkell. Chris was in charge of 4th platoon and I was section lead (most sections had 8-11 players) to poppa while Jeremy was section lead for oscar. What I particularly enjoyed was that our sections were made up of GHOSTS members only, typically we’re split up by command as we’re experienced mil simmers but this time around we got to run together which was nice.

Force Recon introduced mortars and a new system this time around which added a new dynamic to the game. Basically both tan and green have a mortar about 200′ away from their CP which allowed the team leaders to call in mortar strikes and kill everyone in a certain area. A great idea as storming an entrenched position can be very difficult and each team only had a certain number of mortars so those rounds had to be spent wisely.

Anyway our job was simply to grab the tan mortar and to keep it, if it was lost we were to retake it. That meant that most of our game play was focused outdoors which at first seemed odd because the appeal of Picton is its indoor action but I understood the mortar was a very valuable objective and since I wasn’t in any real command position, I wasn’t about to question my orders. The training we did last week really paid off and we were definitely a well coordinated unit.

At game start, we secured our mortar, poppa provided security while oscar helped set up Q’s mini gun in a solid defensive position which was then reinforced with whatever we could find on the field. After that was set, another platoon secured the southern part of the complex which allowed us to move and attack the tan mortar. We went around the Northern side of the village (as the direct route would leave us open to fire on two sides) capturing both the East & West villages along the way. Poppa & oscar got bogged down around 75′ away from the tan mortar because there was very little cover between the tree line and the objective, that and the tan team was dug in very well. After fighting a battle of attrition, we had to retreat back to the CP as our sections was running low on ammo and bandages.

The next time we hit the tan mortar we were accompanied by 1st platoon (I think) which gave us 6 full sections, that was enough man power to easily overpower the tan defenders and I think we took control of the tan mortar about 3-4 hours into the game. We left 1st platoon to secure the area and we fell back as we were tasked with another job. A bit later, green team lost the tan mortar and was asked to retake it however Mckee ordered Chris to send a section (he picked oscar) to assist the Southern group as they were getting low on numbers and needed help. Chris and poppa would join up with the remaining elements of 1st platoon and assault the mortar position again and again it was a hard grind. We lost a lot of people and needed to be reinforced (oscar was available and part of another platoon) before we could storm that position. We were finally able to regain control of the tan mortar and this time we were able to keep it. We defended for a period of time and since we were a bit bored we decided to try and capture an objective 75′ away from the tan CP. LOL Temir & Jeremy volunteered to run to flip the flag but it didn’t turn out very well (we supported the best we could) but it was sire fun to watch!

We were then relieved by another platoon and went back to CP to rearm and to eat, it was also starting to get dark so some of the guys had to get their NVGs. We decided to regroup at the green mortar and to eat there however our meal was cut short because Chris got orders to move us to attack another position. By now it was dark and found ourselves back at the tan mortar, this time around with the cover of darkness and the “fun toys” we were able to capture the flag in front of the tan CP and we also made entrance into the two story building. Our orders were to secure the second floor and flip all the flags so it meant green owned the building. We ran into heavy fighting on the first floor but was able to make it to the second floor pretty much intact and secured the whole top floor. Oscar secured the Eastern wing while it was my job to secure the Western so I got Eddy & Matt to guard the door leading to a stairwell & someone from another platoon & Stephen to guard the doorway just behind the the first two. Jeremy had more bodies than I did so he secured the 2nd floor lobby as well.

The tan team obviously wanted the two story building back and with one of the entrances around 75′ away from their CP, I knew we had a fight on our hands. Luckily in the middle of the fighting, another green section was able to get up to the second floor and I took them over so they could act as the 2nd floor QRF wherever we needed reinforcements. I heard some casualties on my side and we had lost the 2nd floor lobby so I sent a couple of QRF guys to me secure the entrance of our wing while I sent the rest to reinforce Stephen’s position.

While tan pushed really hard, we were able to fend them off for a good amount of time and eventually they did break through on our wing. For a while it was just me defending my area, I told Stephen it was only a matter of time before I fell and to watch his back. I didn’t want them to waste precious resources to try to assist me as it wouldn’t be worth it too. After taking out another 5 tan members the remaining tan guys rushed my room and I was shot pretty quickly. It was nice that they remarked how hard it was to breach as we put up a great fight… They withdrew without attacking the rest of my defenders, I guess they were too low in numbers to continue. Anyway I was able to be patched up so I could resume the fight and we continued to hold the second floor till we were told by command to withdraw and have a forced rest which was at around 2AM.

What I didn’t know at the time was that the green side had secured enough points to win the game so Mckee wanted to rotate platoons to rest so we’d be fresh later on. I wasn’t tired at and knew I could do 18 hours of gaming with my eyes closed so I asked for permission to continue and was accompanied by Jeremy & Henry. We attached ourselves to the few scattered sections still in the fight, I don’t know which platoon it was but we heard that the one that was still guarding the tan mortar was under attack and taking heavy casualties. We raced over, along the way we saw some tan stragglers and took them out pretty easily (PVS-14 + PEQ box = bliss).

Mckee was getting a bit of the action and there were some tan fighters North of the garage area who were giving us a really hard time so Henry and I were ordered to take them out. LOL sending two people to attack what I found out later was 6 people isn’t the best idea and luckily for us none of them were equipped with night vision. Unfortunately Henry was shot in the melee but I was able to take the rest of the guys out and secured a very forward position probably 50′ away from the tan camp. There I waited for tan members to walk by, lol I wouldn’t shoot at the first thing I see because I wanted to see the entire group before I opened fire and it was hilarious, um for me anyway.

The moon was hidden so it was dark and I had a huge advantage obviously, just wish I had a bit of support… I did encounter this “funny” moment, I saw a bunch of tan players fighting the green side so I shot them in the back. This one fellow didn’t like it and thought it was blue on blue, he kept yelling in my direction that they’re friendlies and afterwards would keep on fighting. After shooting him 3 times, I finally yelled back “I’M GREEN!” to which he replied “OH!” Sigh even if it were friendly fire, a hit is a hit but whatever I was having a great time so I didn’t complain. Hehe along the way I was also able to kill the tan commander Arnold, too bad I wasn’t aware of the poker chips they were carrying as it would have been sweet to get his. Anyway tan finally figured out where I was and sent about 10 guys to kill me and they succeeded. 10 guys with white lights assaulting a small area definitely means death for me.

After I returned to the game, I rejoined my green teammates and continued to defend the mortar. I was again in a forward position directing fire, I couldn’t hit the enemy however I could see them pretty clearly. We finally lost the tan mortar when game control informed us that our position was attacked with the tan artillery, a few of us were left puzzled because we still controlled their assets and the area was out of range for mortars officially. Whatever it wasn’t too big a deal, we were kicking ass and if game control wanted to give the tan team their mortar back so be it.

By this time it was around 4:30AM and I was starting to get tired but knowing that the game finishes at 7AM, I powered through it. We swept some of the buildings and ran into very few opposition and continued to check on the flags to make sure they were all green (even the ones close to the tan CP). By around 5AM light was coming out, I was ready to go but Jeremy had left some stuff at the green mortar so he had to go pick it up. I went to the staging area and sat on my foldable lawn chair waiting… During my wait, I closed my eyes and Jeremy mistook me for sleeping and went off without me lol. I was told by Stephen about 20 minutes went by between the time I closed my eyes and Jeremy going on a mission so I immediately grabbed my gun and ran to the field, I can’t leave a teammate by himself! Eventually Oleg and Henry rejoined us and we continued fighting till the end. At one point it was just Jeremy, Oleg, Graham, myself guarding the 2nd floor of the 3rd story building with 4 green guys guarding the 3rd floor. Tan which was well rested threw everything they had at us and sent at least a platoon if not more people to flush us out. It was only a matter of time before we died and we lost the building at 6:45AM. By the time I reached the green CP, it was 6:55AM and I knew the game was about to be called so I didn’t bother loading up though I think the battle to retake the 3 story building would have been fun.

In the end the green side won by a very healthy 42,500 points to 31,000 points and I was so proud of the team’s and my performance on the field. It was also an honor that whenever Mckee needed to “unfuck” something, he would send us to clear it up.

Hehe Keiko tags along and is our team combat photographer so there are a ton of awesome pictures and videos of us in action. Here’s a small sample, mainly the ones I like or am in (because I’m vain and like to look at myself haha).

In the one picture of Jeremy on the floor, he captured Testtube’s poker chip which was pretty awesome. 🙂 Here’s a video that Chris put together too…

Aww yeah if you can’t tell the game was absolutely awesome and I had a great time and by the end of it, I wish I were still playing. Also why does everyone act so surprised that I can play the whole game without needing downtime?!? Every other mil sim I’m able to last and I know how to push myself mentally to never give up, haha it’s not that hard. 🙂

I took today off to recover because I knew my back would be sore and boy was it… LOL it’s what I get for running around with 30 lbs of gear and a 10 lbs gun for 18 hours right, well it was definitely worth it and I can’t wait for Nightfall 3!!! This is what airsoft is all about.

On the weekend I bought a used Contour Roam camera to replace my old ContourHD (it was shot at UA a few months ago and stopped working properly) and it arrived today!

Yay just in time for this weekend’s Nightfall 2 mil sim, I hope I can get some good footage on the field. 🙂 Only thing that sucks is the integrated battery, while it should last 2-3 hours I would have preferred a camera where I could swap out the batteries. When Maggie finds work, I might spring for a Contour 2 and give this one to a teammate but I’ll worry about that later.