URBAN ASSAULT (UA) – MILSIM 3/10/09
Players Present: Ads, Ayres, Benj, Charlie, Ives, Mutton, Rich, Pat and STB Will

Total Players 80

Walk On £25 – No Hire

Basic UA Milsim Rules: Midcap Magazines only, Support Gunners limited ammo, AEG limits 350fps, Semi Auto and Bolt Action Rifles 500fps. No smokes grenades.

To Begin

At the start of the year myself, Ads, Ives and a mate (Shaun) played a typical Saturday skirmish at UA. The main reason was to try and involve Shaun in Airsoft, something he came to me looking to get into. Knowing Shaun and his affliction with Friday and Saturday night drinking I knew the site we visited had to be close. UA at Ramsey, the old Upwood RAF base was only 30 minutes drive from us giving Shaun enough sleep to get him through the day. Managing to persuade Ads and Ives to tag along wasn’t the effort I imagined and we rocked up to find a Saturday in early January rather mild and sunny with little wind, something in the middle of the fenland countryside you don’t come to expect from UA.

If I’m honest skirmish days at UA are a great place to take new and inexperienced players to, plenty of hires available and a small area with plenty of features to keep the new player occupied. For the experienced player however, UA skirmish days always disappoint, and never being one to shy away from the truth have always made my views know about them. Fortunately for the experienced Airsofter however UA runs a series of Milsim games over the autumn and winter months, Milsim games which do it has to be said…impress.

US Milsim Oct 3rd

Waking up at 7am I found myself pissed off right from the start, the weather outside was blowing a gale which plays havoc at open Airsoft sites and my stomach was doing somersaults, 4 salmon fillets the previous night had proven to be a grave error. Mutton as usual turned up early (does that boy ever sleep) and after receiving the mandatory text from Rich “Gonna be 5 minutes late” and waiting for the rest we rocked up at UA around 9.15am to find the car park full of chaps all wielding a lot of good quality gear, this was a world away from the UA Saturday skirmishes we had previously played.

After paying and getting kitted up we were assigned to blue team during the safety and rule briefing and made our way to our base to receive our orders and team brief. This base was going to be our permanent respawn point and a stash for any in game props we recover. During our team brief we were given a mission brief and 2 medics were allocated (I was one of them). The days play was going to be a single rolling game which was to make use of the entire site giving basically a free rein to all players. In previous UA skirmishes a gripe I have always had is with the respawn rules, it has always been one hit dead, which we always felt never gave a team the option to be aggressive, creating stalemates. Today’s medic rules gave you the option of bleeding out after 5 minutes or if you could find one, waiting for a medic to bandage you up for a second life. Two lives in the field gave you options, and to correct mistakes, after all, this is Airsoft.

The Mission

I’m not going to go into detail about the missions, after all UA may well want to use these briefs again and would seem pointless telling you every step I took throughout the day, that and I just can t be bothered. Needless to say the missions were carried out and with the time limits set against them there was an urgency straight from the off with all players running to get into the action straight away. What I can talk about is where aspects of the day in my opinion where brilliant and where they could be improved.

Within our 9 man team for the Milsim 5 had Comms and Rich for some reason was running a different channel to the rest of us, no wonder we couldn’t raise him all morning. We felt that as a 9 man team we would be able to force ourselves around the site, moving from building to building clearing opposition along way with relatively ease. In reality we found ourselves bogged down every time we engaged targets. During the first 30 minutes of the game our main blue force carried out mission 1 and we decided to protect our teams flank by holding up in a building with clear visibility and access all around. During this time enemy forces had taken the neighbouring building and ignoring the ground level set up on the first floor which turned out to be very smart indeed.

By securing the first level of a building in an open playing area you have elevation and a killing range of up 60…maybe 70 metres with the gradient. So when it comes to attacking such a building your easy pickings for any chump with an AEG sitting in a window, and if there is little cover your chances are limited. Unfortunately for us our next mission involved passing by this building so it had to be taken, something that took along time. The problem with set timed missions is you always get bogged down and distracted. Mission 3 was already under way by the time we cleared two building, making only half the ground necessary to complete mission 2. Due to the open site and the lack of cover you have no option but to go building by building, something it was clear, we didn’t have enough men for.

Throughout the day there was some brilliant Airsoft, all players got stuck in and with no visible Marshalls (in game Marshalls used) the game played very smooth and there was little in the way of cheating and accusations being thrown about. The Milsim really did bring the best out in all the players we saw and was only marred by a couple of small “incidences” that will always occur during the game.

If I was running UA at the next Milsim event I would half the mission brief, to give more time to complete missions and would limit the amount of buildings in play or make certain buildings bottom level only. I think this would create a more even level playing ground and prevent “First Floor Building Campers” holding up missions. I do also believe that the ammo limits need to be adhered to, or at least make players have to return to there base to rearm, 5 guys in a room with 20,000 rounds could keep an entire teams head down with little effort.

For me though, the only thing I did think was a little silly was lunch time. When I decided to go to lunch I found the majority of my team was there, 5 minutes later, the red team basically walked into our base and stole out flag. Like I said earlier this is Airsoft, and in some people’s eyes a “heart attack in a box” from the burger van holds more sway than a mission brief and a flag.

UA Milsim 8/10