Airsoft Site: The Duel
Entry posted by Guest ·
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In a grand attempt to break from the insular course of action that has lead our skirmish group thus far to visit only the esteemed Ground Zero near Ringwood, Hampshire, we have bravely opted to patronise 2 entirely new sites, both of which actually being closer to all of us, in fact, than GZ is......
We are breaking the mould! - But in a sideways kinda direction instead of just foolishly galumphing forwards like some poorly prepared fools 
Despite our actual conservation of effort (i.e. laziness) in this matter it does feel like we have achieved something good, and mostly because of the frankly excellent day we had yesterday at Combat South Woodland.
I must say I am supremely impressed with CSW, its one and only fault being that the structured day of set-piece missions does lead to a certain loss of momentum at times when compared to the free-for-all `Full Day War` that Ground Zero offers. That is its one and only fault, and considering how critical I usually am that says quite a lot.
Now that fault isn’t actually, technically, all alone out there but the other faults are nothing unique and simply to do with the nature of airsoft: and even when one considers the nature of airsoft one immediately finds more good things to say about Combat South Woodland.
Yeah I’m gushing a bit here, I know, but the best part of yesterday was the honourable nature of all concerned – never before have I seen so many people I fired upon actually take their hits, and I’ve never heard so many cries of “well taken mate” by the winning party in an encounter. I even fired on a chap on the Red team at one point and the back & forth comments between us went a bit like this:
Evilhippy fires on chap facing the other way at about 70-foot range –
Chap “F**k me!!” *scurries behind tree* “Jesus Christ mate!!”
Evil hippy “he he he did I scare ya?!” - * fires over cover *
Chap “Christ yes! Scared the life outta me!” - *fires through cover *
Evil hippy “Did I hit ya mate?” - *Fires around cover*
Chap “No but you came bloody close! And you owe me some underwear!!” - *fires over cover*
Evil hippy “he he he he yeah I couldn’t resist it when you were faced the other way– HIT!!”
- as some clever bugger had been paying attention to where my rather over-enthusiastic and less-than-careful shouts had been coming from so they broke lines and dashed forwards to slot me in the back 
I thought to myself that I had really quite enjoyed that shouted dialogue with the enemy from either side of a barricade (in the best traditions of the comedy Western, still both sporadically firing on each other) and also I was aware throughout that I was firing black BBs through my TM MP5K, and therefore had no reliable way of telling where my shots were going, particularly as the aiming on the MP5K is erratic at best, especially when achieved via the stock ironsights
The obvious camaraderie was a real joy to be part of, and the honesty and, perhaps just as importantly, the appreciation of honesty in others really threw the latest batch of obviously underhanded little brats at Ground Zero into sharp relief – no wonder the regulars at GZ have been less and less inclined to honour their opponent’s sportsmanship lately; when only one in 3 people you hit actually accepts it and takes their dead-time, it becomes a bit of a chore to even bother tagging people at times.
But it (Ground Zero) still has its great points and, to my mind, brings a lot of the urban feel to the woodland game as the evergreen Rhododendrons that proliferate the site make for some very Close Quarters Skirmishing even in the heart of Winter, and that in itself is one of the biggest differences between CSW and GZ.
Open pine forest was not, I had hitherto believed, a good skirmishing environment as the sparse trees and thin nature thereof made for difficult cover and tediously slow movement…… but I was wrong on both counts, happily enough. Although I did find, repeatedly, that I was the first and only person to move forwards out of the part of our team in any given area, it was possible to do so sensibly because of, basically, poor beleaguered tree roots. The pine trees around Wickham (in Hampshire; the place where CSW actually is) had the foresight and good nature (ha ha) to grow wider at the base as can only be expected but then also to allow themselves to be substantially eroded so as to provide just enough cover for an aisofter if flung along the ground behind it.
So all we had to do was a flying try-dive, with a machine gun instead of a rugby ball, and with the express desire to NOT twat the object in our hands on the ground but in fact rather the opposite, and then we could safely move forwards under fire in sparse woodland. What a bunch of Charlie’s we must have looked, but at least we did actually get forwards I must comment here upon most other people’s reluctance to move much forward and do tediously sensible things such as `staying in formation` and `not breaking the line` 
but I had fun doing it my way and I managed, through dint of much flanking and the almost supreme honesty of others, to tag over 20 people before I stopped counting and I didn’t even sit in for the last game.
That in itself is a bone of contention now as once again I and my group fall victim to the battery demons – I still simply don’t have time to charge them all and, since I refuse to use that bloody irritating and frankly counter-productive TPS `smart` (Ha!) charger, I am stuck with the one bog-standard 240V charger that doesn’t even have a Mah output rating on it anywhere and I therefore can’t actually calculate how long a each fully discharged battery will need: so I have to guess it all based on rough number of hours/capacity of battery and the physical warmth of the battery when held in the hand after several hours of charging.
Not exactly scientific, is it?
So we had a grand total of 7 AEGs out yesterday for the 4 of us that came along (including another newcomer that has now openly stated her addiction to the airsoft bug: welcome, please, Nikki into the fold, may she never leave, and she herself hoard huge amounts of guns from hereon in, mwahahahaha! Etc.) and out of this 7 only one was still standing at the end of the day, although I did belatedly realise that I had spare batteries for 3 of them if I only looked carefully enough 
Although we did finally find that the problem with the mis-feeding P90 is not something to do with the magazines at all but rather it’s the actual gun itself. Bugger. Yeah that’s what I thought, too. But at least we now know and I can get on and get it fixed (perish the thought that should put any kind of effort in myself and learn how to do it, oh, nooooo… )
I almost managed to get my beloved P99 NBB christened at CSW as well, but I’m afraid that the ranges of, especially the open features at CSW, woodland skirmishing seem to be a bit much for a humble handgun, even if it is full of green gas 
The final revelation at CSW is the rather tasty BBQ luncheon, although perhaps the burgers could have been done with a touch more care the food was great and in plentiful supply, another plus-point for this impressive site.
You do pay for it though - £20 a day walk-on fee as opposed to GZ’s £16, but you make that 16 up to 20 quite easily with a king-size burger at GZ, although it could then be argued that the GZ burgers are much bigger and you get more with ‘em for the money etc etc blah blah yes, it’s the same, but different
Overall I must say that I personally prefer GZ still, because of the relaxed attitude, but the sites themselves (the village at CSW is superb!! And perfect for a western-themed skirmish ….) are equally as good, and you only have to weigh up the relaxed All Day War environment of GZ against the rather better sportsmanship (of late, compared to GZ) evident at CSW to arrive at your own decision.
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