One thing that’s always bothered me is having to leave my PVS-14 at base camp when I play mil sims. During the day it isn’t so bad but in the evening or dusk I’d like to have it with me in case I’m out for a prolong period of time however having it on my head sucks since it adds a bit of weight. Well worry no more as I picked up an Eagle canteen pouch and a PVS-14 pouch insert and I think this is the solution to my problem.

The insert is padded so I don’t have to worry too much about banging around, I mean I don’t want to fall on it but if I run into the wall I should be ok. Now when it starts to get dark at games, I can carry the PVS-14 with me and be ready if I’m on the field for longer than expected. 😀

Edit: After playing around with my new setup, I do like it but I’ll need help from a teammate to pull out the PVS-14 because my vest is too high for me to reach.

Since I couldn’t go to Derek’s game on Sunday, Maggie said she wouldn’t give me a hard time if I played Ultimate Airsoft again Saturday night so lol I jumped at the opportunity. Also joining me would be Jason, Stephen and Mario (who also had to play on Sunday, tough guy!), yay we’d have a full fire team this time around! UA wasn’t as busy as last week and there were maybe 14 people, the four GHOSTS, 3 MSF guys, 3 SWAT style players and a few walk ons. Since the opposition consisted of actual teams, this time around the quick skirmishes was more challenging though we were still successful the majority of the time.

Took a bunch of videos and here are some of them… I did have a problem with two Filipino guys calling hits (not part of PR lol) and in one of the videos, you can clearly hear me shoot him while Jason asks him if he’s out, when he says he’s not I tell him in not so nice words I just shot him, when he sees me he accepts and leaves. This all happens at less than 10′ so it’s a bit lame but whatever, later in the night I just started firing for effect and it worked quite well as the PTW’s trigger is fast and I can pump it quick. 🙂

If you only watch one video the last one is the most entertaining. 😉 I do walk through a dark area but I come out and lol it was a lot of fun firing around the corner.

A bit before we left, the owners of the venue was nice enough to give us a low light games and Jason and I took full advantage of that with our NV. For some reason in one of the games when we were attacking, the other team decided to defend their area… While it was dark to the naked eye, it was bright as day to me and I had no problems picking all four of them off with double taps and I have to say I love my PEQ-15 too (in training low power eye safe mode…)! no one said airsoft had to be fair right. 😉

All in all a good game, probably would have had more fun at Derek’s game but this is the best I could do and I had fun.

So Jason, Cameron and I decided to check out Ultimate Airsoft and I have to say the field has a ton of potential. When we arrived, we noticed about 40-50 players so I was worried that it’d be a night of grinding frontal assaults but the groups were split into two, the walk ons on one side and what I’ll call the Sgt. Splatters group on the other and each group rotated on the field. Good thing for me as I did notice a few people I didn’t like but lol they were in the other group so no big deal for me.

The skirmishes we played were quick and dirty and most games either had a 2 minute or 5 minute window so it encouraged fast play. The field itself is rather large though we only used around 2/3 of it and it’s what I envisioned a large TTAC3 to be. Some corners were very tight but between structures there was a decent amount of room to maneuver.

In the video there are four short games, lol the opposition was pretty light as we were playing against newbs who didn’t really know what to do and attack… Much of the night, Jason and I were able to completely come around them to either shoot or mercy them from behind. 😉 The night got progressively more difficult as the team we were on got smaller and smaller, at one point there were 4 of us and we had to attack a 7 defenders, lol anyone who plays airsoft knows you need 3-4x the number of attackers when playing attack and defend so we lost that one but overall the night was still great.

During the breaks I showed the owners the PVS-14, Jason and I brought our NV with us as we didn’t know what to expect and was hoping there would be some low light games (but there wasn’t till the last zombie game of the day). After the night was done I showed them how useful a PEQ box can be, lol they were definitely impressed and have not seen hardware like that before. 🙂

I love how receptive the owners were too of suggestions on how to improve the facility. There are two choke points that can cut off 2/3 of the field if you’re starting from the front, they acknowledged it and are already working on a bypass to improve flow (the field is still a work in progress). Everything else I felt was very reasonable, the field fee of $33 was a bit high but whatever it’s a dedicated airsoft only field right. They haven’t instituted the field only BB rule yet but even when they do, the prices again are very reasonable (1000 BBs for $10). I heard a few others bitch and complain about that and I told them outright that Ultimate Airsoft is not a charity case, they’re in it to make some money and that there’s nothing wrong with that.

That’s one thing that has always driven me crazy, we can spend thousands to equip ourselves but complain about field fee and BB prices, get real. If you want to play, you better be ready to pay.

Had to put someone in their place

I also spoke to a few of the other players during the break (typical shooting the shit stuff) but there was this downer from the 6mm fighter team who kept insisting NV was a waste of money and that he’d never spend money like that. Initially I tried to be nice by telling him that I’m a bit older, my career is established and when they’re my age they’ll be able to afford things like that but he was not having any of it and it became a bit of a pissing match. The dude even had the nerve to tell me if I saved the money on my airsoft gear, I could have bought a better car (funny since his car was no better than mine). Haha compared to the average airsofter (at least in the Southern Ontario area) my life is a beacon of success and have no problems doing a “one up” match if he wants to play that stupid game.

After about 5 minutes of this nonsense it got as far as comparing who has a nicer home, I decided to go “nuclear” to end this and told him I just purchased a $700k house and that I’m in the market for a new Porsche 911. One of his friends could see things were getting heated and jumped in telling him if he had the money that he’d buy NV and stuff too… Again I absolutely hate show offs and I’ve always tried to live a modest lifestyle but this dude definitely rubbed me the wrong way. Yeah I also get envious of what others have but not to the point where I have to ruin other people’s fun…

Anyway enough of that BS, Jason, Cameron and I had a fun time and we’ll definitely be going back. It’s a shame the place has been infested by the Sgt. Splatters crew but whatever if I have to shoot their camping asses next time, then that’s just what I’ll do. 😉 Hopefully next time I can bring a few more GHOSTS with me, we’d definitely own the facility as CQB is “our thing”.

So most of the guys on the team have gone with EOG counterweights to balance their helmets when running NODs but I wanted to go a different route. Something about putting dead weight on my helmet didn’t sit well and I figure there must be a way to put something useful up there. 🙂

Sorry perhaps it’s not the best angle to illustrate, what I did but was glue some velcro hooks onto the back of an Esstac M4 Shorty shingle, place it over the helmet velcro loops and reinforce the whole thing with some paracord. Once the mag pouch is firmly in place, I put a MAG VN PTW 90 rd magazine into the shingle.

It seems to work pretty well, at least at home but I won’t really know till I try it out on the field. It might not be as pretty as the EOG counterweights but at least it’s useful! 😉

So over the weekend I attended Operation Rhino 2012 and it was well an interesting game. We were playing at a new facility, basically an industrial warehouse and again there were three teams. Myself I was on the US side and in charge of Alpha platoon which consisted of the GHOSTS (about 8 of us), Xcaliber and the DMZ crew from Niagara Ontario.

I had a heck of a time controlling the DMZ crew as they “wanted to get some” and kept doing their own thing at least at first. There were some tense words exchanged with them, I understand that we’re playing a game but a mil sim is a bit of a different animal and I think they showed up expecting a skirmish. In the 7 or 8 years I’ve been playing, I’ve done my fair share of shit jobs from mind numbing guard duty to moving/building barricades but if it was asked of me, I do it because it’s part of the game. It may be boring but someone has to do it and if you complete your tasks without complaining, you’re a dependable asset. Undependable assets don’t get jack because you can’t depend on them to follow through with orders… Yes it may suck but I mean that’s what one signs up for when playing a mil sim… Totally ridiculous at first but a bit better later after a blow up between me and them.

The game itself was ok, I didn’t enjoy it as much as last year’s game but then again I was literally fighting with my own platoon for control so that took a lot of pleasure out of things (and no helo lol). The missions were well thought out and the other two sides definitely gave us a good run for our money.

Jason got to play with his PVS-14 for the first time, we didn’t get as much dark action as I would have liked, the Russian team set up spotlights which to be fair was an excellent way to negate the use of NV but we didn’t have any way of disabling them till much later in the game and even then had to physically touch or unplug the lights… Oh well whatever, ain’t going to complain about it now and it was a good idea!

I’m a bit disappointed by the response on Airsoft Canada and it’s obvious the people who are complaining simply are mindless trigger pullers who could not grasp the concept of a mil sim. No matter, we’ll retool and refocus our efforts to bring an even better game next year. I have a large mil sim idea that I’d like to see through next year if possible. 🙂

Here are some pictures from the game, sorry about the large size as I’m too lazy to edit them down.

The RC car that Eddy made was absolutely awesome and the mini gun was a lot of fun to play with, darn now I want one… 😉 I really like the in game photo of Mario and Jason, that’s pretty darn cool and the one of Eric is good as well. I am in a three of the pictures but you wouldn’t be able to recognize me with all the gear on. 😉 Yeah Fabio didn’t bother to change into his camo after camping, lol playing airsoft with your PJs on is awesome!

Not the perfect game but I had fun and would do it again… Hopefully with more than 45 minutes worth of sleep haha.

With the new house purchase and all the associated costs with that, money is tight for me so if I can’t spend my money I enjoy making other spend theirs. 😉 Jason is my latest victim, he has been saving money to get a PVS-14 and initially his plan was to save money now and get it for next year. Well an opportunity came up as Chris had an extra one to sell so hehe I meddled in other people’s affairs and got Chris to sell it to Jason.

It keeps the technology “in the family” so to say and now Jason doesn’t have to next year, he can use his own NV at Rhino 2 in a couple of weeks. Hmm I think that makes nine generation 3 units on the team now, heh yeah we like our technology!