Red Mist 2 - Gunman 12 hour game (now with video & pics)

[Marlowe]

Right, I'm finally awake after a long drive home overnight, and feeling reasonably awake so I thought I'd get my thoughts up. No pictures yet (as Fullauto won't be home until today and will need to get the 35mm film developed), but hopefully we can add something when we get those up.

 

A quick pre-emptive apology - I'm writing this from the perspective of Red 1 CO. If I got anything wrong please don't take it personally and feel free to correct - I only know what I saw and was told by others.

 

All colour pictures and videos contained were taken by Felix Jaeger of First & Only. All black and white pictures were taken by Fullauto. and posted with his kind permission.

 

Arrival

 

I arrived on site with Ubar after picking up Fullauto and Frub at Kidderminster station. The station, it turned out was 10 minutes away from the site - 1 country lane and we found ourselves at the pub next to the Asylum entrance.

 

A quick byword for anyone visiting F&O Asylum - the pub is within easy walking distance with plenty of parking and the food was quite reasonably priced for a southern pub with surprisingly good quality food for a 2 for 1 pub (in Yorkshire most 2 for 1 pubs have food made from cardboard). Much recommended if you're going down for a weekender / 12 hour game.

We met Josh, Nigel and Rowly (the main Gunman team) at the pub - as always they were very friendly and enthusiastic - the bar staff seemed quite happy to fill Josh's flask with a pint I noticed!

 

The site was easily locatable (after a few quick directions form Josh), and the security guard happy to sign us in and direct to the safe zone area.

 

Site Thoughts

 

The site is a bit of an oddball one, being a semi-abandoned NHS facility (Search and Rescue still seem based there), but unlike at some sites I've noticed in the past where non airsofting participants interfered in the skirmishing, there was little problems with this - the only incident I noticed was a temporary visit by one of the site's security staff team (who was thankfully in goggles), and who walked momentarily through a small firefight going on.

 

 

There's a nice mix of woodland and buildings, with a string of woodland encircling much of the site (which we used quite frequently as a means to get around the site). There's plenty of good choke points with lots of flexibility for games. The only down side many commented on was that fighting often stagnated around the two 'Government Buildings', due to the fact that there was only one entrance to each of the buildings open, on the NATO team's side, with windows overlooking the Communist side. This didn't make it unfair - just very difficult for either team to move beyond the buildings.

 

Some were also disappointed that the bungalows were closed at the NATO end of the site (this only really was an issue at the end of the afternoon when we swept around the rear of the NATO team through the treeline and were trying to move up on them). Personally though the buildings helped form a handy compound effect (which if anything made it easier to defend the compound until our engineers were in place, after we routed the NATO team present).

 

The Teams (Communist Perspective)

 

We seemed to end up with about 15-20 a side during the game. I understand from talking to Josh that apparrently NATO were three men down, so the F&O site team joined their team to make up the numbers for part of the afternoon.

 

 

Both teams seemed friendly and sporting - I didn't hear any of the usual 'take your hits' or complaining which you usually have at regular skirmishes. In fairness though, I wouldn't have expected them at a Gunman Cold War event - Josh's events typically are characteristised by enthusiastic players who are there for the experience, not ego gratification. Everyoned seemed to play well and work together well.

 

 

It's a bit of a shame that NATO were apparrently a bit dejected by the mid afternoon - it's not really possible for me to say any more on this as I didn't really hear any gripes, etc. Unfortunately four of the NATO team decided to pack and go mid afternoon, which was frankly bizarre for us - we were pushing up on the left flank, only to see a civvy land rover with NATO chaps who initially seemed to not be in game - only for them to draw rifles as we got close. It was all done in good sportsmanship, but they'd obviously had enough by then and were just putting up a token effort so as to not let their side down - props to them for not just letting us through. I was also a bit disappointed to hear that someone on NATO had apparrently taken objectives back to their base while dead, but I presume this was probably just a misunderstanding of the rules.

 

From the Communist Perspective, team organisation was simple and effective. We had three squads; Red Command (the Gunman team in Strichtarn, Red 1 (the Arnies squad) and Red 2 (Gunman regulars - Team Spleen (?)). COs were established for Red 1 & 2 (I was 'nominated' CO for R1), and retro comms equipment issued to both COs with clear (and importantly for me, simple!) comms procedure which worked throughout the event. On the Communist side, the three squads worked well together and generally the squads themselves worked well together.

 

The Game (Communist Perspective)

 

The usual friendly but spirited briefing by Josh (you do like striking a pose from up on high, don't you! ), with a short but detailed contextualisation of the story and its historical background kicked off the day, with the prerequisite safety briefing.

 

After the sides split up and moved to their respective CPs, squads were devised on the Communist side (as mentioned above), COs designated and the objectives identified. Red 1 were tasked with moving through the tree line and building (and I do mean building!) two CPs to help us establish a foothold in the town. Red 2 were to carry out a recon mission in the town, identifying information presented on sheets at key positions in town (think Treasure Hunt with guns!).

 

 

As Red 1 were carrying equipment (camo net, tent sheeting and empty sandbags) Red 2 offered to provide escort to the first CP, at which point they planned to pull into the town and commence recon. This worked fairly well, with both squads moving well through the treeline (we apparrently wandered out of bounds for a moment on our way to the first site until advised by marshals that this wasn't part of the site!). After requesting confirmation that we had reached the first CP location from Josh, everyone got stuck in, providing cover while some of us engaged in constructing the CP with sandbags, shovels and netting. I had felt a bit ambivalent about this part, but it ran surprisingly well, with everyone operating well together.

 

 

The second CP was a bit of a ball-ache (in a good way), as Red 2 came under a lot of fire as they tried to push left, meaning we had to work a lot more cautiously. Thankfully we got CP 2 (little more than a firebase) established just as NATO located us and forced us out. Other than that our morning was fairly quiet, with Red 2 taking most of the enemy heat.

 

 

To shake things up in the afternoon Red 1 were tasked with defending the motorpool (the rolling HQ vehicle was very handy, with the water and gas being two things I needed a lot), which involved a staggered line of defence across most of the site. This part of the day saw the pace of things pick up a lot from our perspective, with plenty of fighting going back and forth as we were pushed back and then pushed forward again. Other tasks, such as locating and retrieving our lost artillery cannon (which was a bit fraught, as pulling the blasted thing while under fire with a camo net entangled was a bit terrifying!) and taking the government buildings gave a nice mix of variety and firefights.

 

 

The use of tea breaks throughout were effective and much appreciated by those of us a bit more declined into the vale of years - one thing I would say is that it was never clear if everyone was actually stopping for breaks or if we needed people on stag still. As it is I think everyone just decided to stop as there certainly seemed to be no firefights. This wasn't an issue due to the relatively low numbers and large nature of the site, but at a game with more people or a smaller site this might need addressing.

 

The final game was probably the best. The artillery (firing shotgun blanks) at the enemy as their rocket sites fired pyroes was an impressive backdrop. Communist forces were tasked with locating and destroying two SCUD sites and a radio tower. As Red 2 and Red Command engaged up front, Red 1 pushed all the way along the treeline, coming around the rear of Nato only to realise we'd found the compound and NATO in the process of fighting Red 2! With the distraction we were able to move into the compound pretty rapidly, and radio in to request for engineers to be on route while we defended the compound.

 

 

This part went pretty well - NATO seemed put a good effort into trying to retake the objective. Unfortunately we still managed to get our engineer to the key positions, wire up the pyroes and detonate each one in turn.

 

The final task was to retreat to our motorpool and secure it. This was easier than we thought - unfortunately though we expected an ambush from NATO on our way back it didn't materialise, and the motorpool was free of enemy contact. I'm unsure what happened here - I can only presume that there was confusion in the point where NATO expected the Communists to retreat to. and were defending a seperate point. Whatever the reason, it meant at least that we were able to finish in time for a pint and a burger at the pub!

 

I've tried to be as honest as possible about this event, and what I hope comes out of this is that the event was a greatly enjoyable and a very memorable experience from the perspective of the Communist troups. I've been highly impressed by Gunman's Filmsim events (so much so that I've attended every Cold War event so far, and intend to continue doing so, despite the lengthy drive down to Suffolk / Kidderminster), and I've yet to sim experience events of this calibre elsewhere. There's few people so committed to getting the experience right that they would plough cash into buying considerable kit for people to use, and this is reflected in the experience I've had at each of their games.

 

As a result I heartily recommend trying at least one of these events if you're either a mil/film sim fan or just curious about getting into something a bit more intense than a regular skirmish, and want to give a big thanks out to Josh (Target), the Gunman Crew, Felix Jaeger for stepping in to bail Gunman out after the MOD let them down at short notice and his marshals for giving us an excellent experience.

 

Cheers.

[Iceman5x5]

Hi Marlowe,

 

As the Team Leader for the day with Lazy Co (US Forces on the Nato side) I would like to say thank you to your team for a great days Filmsim airsoft. I hope we managed to give you a tough fight in the woods and also defending the main complex during the evening, unfortunatley we did have a small problem where for most of the last few hours we only seemed to have 9 combatants on the Nato side, including the last attack on the Missle systems, so we did try to hold as best we could but the Soviet forces forced us out to our last CP which was just a bit to far for respawning and returning into the fight as quickly as possible, but we gave it a go as best we could with the smaller number of Nato forces we had at the time.

 

From the Nato side we did have a fantastic time, no issues from our side with any of the normal hit problems we some times see in other games, and I agree with these type of events the players who attend do take all the effort to make the day as good for thier own team as well as the opposing team with honest hit taking, great effort with the kit and also great sportsmanship, so good Job to all for making this an enjoyable day.

 

Thank you again to Josh and the Team for a great event and also thank you to Felix and his team for site which is one of the best we've played in and also thank you for the assitance during the day when we seemed to be a few people short.

 

To all those who read the review and comments please do take a look at these events they are much more fun then the normal skirmish days and they will boost your airsofting skills to a new level. To sum up these will most likley be the best events you can go to not only with the Cold War era but also WW2/Vietnam/Enforcer so get yourself signed up to one you will not regret it.

 

See you in the field.

 

Iceman5x5

Edited August 23, 2009 by Iceman5x5

[Gunman Airsoft]

http://s965.photobucket.com/albums/ae132/f...mview=slideshow

 

Hi All, cheers for the write up guys. Here is a link to the pics and short vids. I can honestly say I enjoy these cold war games as much as the ww2 battles and cant wait to get a few more booked in.

 

 

[Marlowe]

Cheers Josh. Felix Jaeger has kindly agreed to allow me to add images and videos that he took to the review, so I've embedded these now - click to play the videos (forum software sadly doesn't allow them to be embedded!).

 

Most of the pics / vids are from the Communist side - sorry about that - but that how we saw things!

[Moofner]

Had a blast, and have fallen in love with that RPK.... I do believe the RPK and the M60 will be my next purchases. Was very impressed with both guns!

 

The trek through the site and finding the padded room was epic as well!

[Marlowe]

I never found the room - I agree the support weapons ruled the day though - the ammo limits worked exceptionally well.

 

Suffice to say I'll be finished building the RPK for the next game!