The history of Airsoft...

NOTE: In early January 2001, I was informed that this potted history was inaccurate. I'm still waiting for a corrected version to arrive, with confirmation notes and/or references, but in the mean time, here's what I have been able to piece together...

The Airsoft Skirmish Game has it's roots in the higher-power skirmish game of paintball. There is some contention in the Airsofting community, as to when the first true 'Airsoft' model was marketed, but what is known, is that an American air gun manufacturer, Daisy, marketed what they called a 'softair' gun in the late 1970s and early 1980s, which fired a miniature 6mm calibre hollow plastic shuttlecock-like projectile, and incredibly low speeds, from a toy gun. The intention, it would appear, was to develop a new market for its products. They succeeded, and a new generation of rifle shooters was born.

This series of 'softair' guns are generally thought, on balance, to be the ancestors of what we now know as Airsoft models.

Shortly after Daisy marketted their softair guns, Tokyo Marui, then marketing self-assembly plastic replica gun kits, modified some of their designs to fire the same form of projectile. Within five or so years, they had all but halted production of the 1:1 replica kits, and gone into full-time production of virtually 1:1 self-assembly low powered 'ASGK' AirSoft kits, firing a new 6mm spherical plastic projectile. Within another five or so years, in the early 1990s, spring powered Airsoft models became 'old news', as the first generation of Automatic Electric Airsoft Guns, or AEGs, were marketed, not as self-assembly kits, but ready to use out-of-the-box models, of remarkable realism and accuracy to the real-world counterparts that they represented.

The rest is history, as well over ten main-stream manufacturers in Japan, Taiwan, and other parts of the far east, have sprung up to supply a brand new hobby sport, that uses these models in mock-combat games, called Airsoft Skirmish Games.

So, now we know the history of the models, how about the game?

The original hobby sport combat game is, of course, paintball, and this has been so well documented over the years, that it would be redundant to go into its origins here. However, paintball is illegal in Japan, which has probably the strictest firearms laws on the planet. This means that no-one may own any form of firearm privately, without a great deal of red tape to comply with, making it, for all intents and purposes, a non-starter. The same applies to painball markers, which, as I understand it, are classified as firearms in Japan.

However, the Japanese, due to their culture of group-led activities, do enjoy combat games. How they accomplished this prior to Airsoft models being manufactured is beyond me (do you know? PLEASE tell me!), but the introduction of these models gave them the edge they needed to develop the hobby sport, which they get involved in, in truly massive numbers; it's not unusual for there to be well over 100 players at any given playing venue, on any given playing day, and well over 500 players at a competition/convention event!

The rules to the game originated in Japan. Similar to the Paintball Skirmish game, there are one or two major differences. Firstly, the Airsoft models have a much lesser range than paintball 'markers'; second, there are no paint gel projectiles used in the Airsoft Skirmish game, thus an 'honour' system predominates. The fact that paint is not used to mark your opponent could have been a major problem. However, since personal honour is a way of life and culture in Japan, and disgrace follows a cheat in that country, they found that to get the rules to work, all they needed to do was rely on their innate codes of personal honour. Thus, if you were hit by an airsoft projectile in a game, you were required to declare this, and remove yourself from the game. It worked, too, as cheating tends to spoil the fun of the game for every one else involved. The basic rules were, therefore:

• You cannot use physical force, as the object of the game is to shoot the opposition, and have fun - it is, after all, only a game.
• If you're hit, you're out of the game.

These are the rules that form the basis of the Airsoft Skirmish Game, and, for all practical purposes, have not changed one bit.

The game then grew, moving to Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan, and the Philippines. It was then only a matter of time before other countries saw, and adopted the game. It appeared in America and Canada at about the same time, and Europe during the mid 1990s, but it is only in the last three to five years, that the hobby sport has started to thrive in the UK.

Now, in mid 2000 AD, there are well over twenty playing sites in the mainland UK alone, and more planned. However, the feature that appeals to the hobbyists most of all, is also the most controvertial feature: the realistic nature of the models used in the game. It was therefore paramount to professional site operators that some checks and balances were imposed, in the form of self-regulation. This has resulted in an unwritten code of conduct, that, broadly speaking, mirrors air weapon rules. These unwritten rules appear to be codified into the following:

• No one under the age of seventeen should be permitted to purchase an Airsoft model.
• Airsoft models hould NOT be shown in public places, and
• the Safety rules that apply to real air weapons and firearms should, in the most part, apply to Airsoft models.

So far, then, this seems to be a good start, and would appear to work in the majority of cases. It remains to be seen if the APAC campaign will result in a more formal code of cnduct for the UK Airsoft scene, but one lives in hope.

This, in mid 2000 AD, is where the hobby is at. A minor, but legal (if somewhat controvertial to some), hobby sport, enjoyed by hundreds of people around the country. In any event, both the technology, and the hobby, appear to be here to stay - and long may that continue!

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