Fulda Gap 2013

[marpat96]

I had a great weekend, probably one of the best weekends I've had all my airsofting career.

Pros:

Great gameplay
Lots of firefights
Sunday always the best
Night game was AMAZING
Saturday at Rex was fun

Two long range headshots with my VSR G-Spec, the first one was a headshot on a Warsaw sniper with an SVD, was putting our heads down pretty hard around 200ft even, my team mate drew him into cover, I waited for him to pop his head out....GOT YA SUCKER. Second was only 180ft, but it was Sunday, and what made that shot great was the brush I had to get through.

Great time with my friends, and had a good time with Rangergranger (Ryan), ODA 105, Specter, atl, and several others. Oh, also great to see USC represented with Chad Taylor and Infidel, along with others.

$6 breakfast Sunday morning

And finally seeing Greg Page (idiot88) win the grand $300 prize. He is a good guy as well.

Cons:

Nukes make Warsaw un killable? I though Rex was blown, maybe not.
Usual butthurt
McDonalds far away from anywhere, making us buy Bojangles ($$$$) or $4 burgers.
Not using VSR during first parts of game, would've gotten multiple kills


SIDE NOTE:
Commanders trolling each other, and seeing Ghost (Jamie) busy busy busy all weekend

Loved the game, will be back again in 2014, with a farther shooting bolt action.

[Star_folder]

First thought, Kyle was using an SVD. I really want him to be your head shot.

Um, where to start. Well, I used an M60. I went through approximately 17,000 rounds. I'd like to think I made a reputation for myself by the end of the day. I did do a full mag dump at one point during the day. The motor was nice and warm, so much so that the metal body warmed up with it. hehehe

Needless to say, you guys can expect to see me with an M60 for at least a while.

Most of the fun I had was taking rex and then past that into the woodline. When they made rex worth more points, and we all drew back to the line. We held strong with the tanks that kept rolling through.

Very much looking forward to next year. I can't decide who to play for though. I had a blast playing under Moses and with his men.

[2nd Ranger]

Well, I used an M60. I went through approximately 17,000 rounds. I'd like to think I made a reputation for myself by the end of the day. I did do a full mag dump at one point during the day. The motor was nice and warm, so much so that the metal body warmed up with it. hehehe

WHAT?!? lol, I would have LOVED to see this! Dang, I am so bummed I had to miss this game. Aw, well there is always next year. Kory, is that Robbie's/Dom's old M60?

[Star_folder]

Well, I used an M60. I went through approximately 17,000 rounds. I'd like to think I made a reputation for myself by the end of the day. I did do a full mag dump at one point during the day. The motor was nice and warm, so much so that the metal body warmed up with it. hehehe

WHAT?!? lol, I would have LOVED to see this! Dang, I am so bummed I had to miss this game. Aw, well there is always next year. Kory, is that Robbie's/Dom's old M60?

Not completely. I took the gearbox out of his and put it in our Mk43 body. I also replaced the mosfet with one that wasn't dead, as Robbie's/Dom's mosfet died soon after I got the gun. Besides, who REALLY wants to slow down their rate of fire.

[marpat96]

I don't think it was Kyle, this was before 12 noontime I'm pretty sure, when Warsaw made a few pushes to take Rex. The guy I shot had a boonie hat on and was about like my frame. That guy with the SVD was absolutely killing us, he took out several of our heavy gunners.

[slickridley]

Had a good time, glad to see everyone and pee in the fire with them

The good points
They DID ENFORCE EYE PRO this year, wow! They did kick players off the field for lack of propper eye wear
I didn't have to manage refs as refs (in my area) had some training.
Weather was great,
Pretty good overall sportsmanship

The bad
Camo rules still too weak/"flexible"
Still not chronoin' with .25's
Ferg beat me up
Players filling up their camelbacks at the water stations, leaving no water for others


My RANT
(right after my hammer tank kill) If they enforced the 20ft rule around the tank enough to almost throw me out of the game, Then they can put that level of effort into all the rules and the game could be 5x's better.

I'm not 100% sure if i'll be back for next year since it's a year away, but I'll probably go if I can.

[Felix]

gameplay was fine.

Refs were the worst ever. I can sit here and name off all the problems but It would take too long. unless you all want to hear

[marpat96]

Yes, we do. On my side we were good with the refs, but please rant. Its good to know these things.

And it was nice to see you Felix, hope you and your Woman had a good time as we did.

[Star_folder]

The only issue I can recall with refs on the field is they occasionally were in the way of my targets. I do recall several times them hunting for eye pro, I don't recall anything specific that was poor of them.

[Felix]

Well from what I saw.

Chrono was NOT enforced.
> Ghost went to chrono his sniper rifle for me to use (i was given a sniper card) the rifle chronoed at 390 FPS with .3s. The ref handed him a white tag and said he was good to go. Ghost told him it was with .3s, so it would shoot harder than that, and needed a red tag. The ref disagreed and handed him the white tag again. So the refs did not understand in the least how an airsoft chrono worked with different weight BBs, and did not check to see if there was .25s in the rifle
> On Sunday the same rifle was chronoed shooting hot. Sniper card was shown, and I was given a WHITE tag. Red tag was still on the rifle. They did not watch to see if I put it on or not. So the tags were not uniform, or checked at all.

Eyepro was not enforced.
> I broke this rule, because I always play with my 3.0's. I actually saw the ref turn someone away directly infront of me because he was wearing clear safety glasses. When I walked up he looked at my dark colored shades and let me pass. I actually forgot my goggle strap and gasket kit for them, so they literally looked like and were sunglasses. Every ref I saw for the rest of the trip did not care that I was in clear violation directly infront of them. So the refs did not care about safety glasses.
> There were also multiple people who went through the check in with mesh goggles. Straps and all, but mesh was against the rules. So refs did not care about mesh.
> Even worse is that there were refs all over the field with shooting glasses and mesh on. There were a few that had the full seal gaskets, but not all. So even the refs blew their own rules.

Refs knew very little about anything
> This happened twice in a five minute span the second day. Multiple purple shirt and orange shirt refs were asked to put on their eyepro on field as we moved to the staging arena. The second one got angry and got in our faces as he was asked. People were test firing everywhere. Even during the game did Is see refs with no eyepro on in groups all of a shot away from action. So refs ignored even the simplest of airsoft AND paintball rules.
> During the start of the second day, we were told that spawns were open for all teams use. Then a particular spawn was just Warsaw (where it was NATO before), then as both teams sat around the respawn trying to figure out who's it was, we were told that all 3 of each teams respawns were back in their own possession. So the refs have no communications in their own ranks.
> Oh this one got me heated. One of the refs decided that an area of at least 100-150 YARDS was out of play because it was within 100 FEET of a NATO respawn. After halting game play for that area, calling all Warsaw out, myself and a few others went to find this ref and tell him how wrong he was. Of course we couldnt find him. But the new ref that walked over didnt seem to understand what we were talking about. After explaining that HIS field set up 100ft boundaries marked by the orange tape, and that the area was in fact in play, he say alright, start shooting. Thank god the NATO player next to us knew better. We both parlay'd and said once Warsaw moved down, we would start play again. So refs don't seem to understand their own boundary rules.

General stupidity
> Star_folder is right, the refs seemed to spend half of the day infront of my gun instead of to the side watching for people not calling hits. There were multiple times as I recall that a ref saved my skin because he got inbetween the line of sight of myself and the enemy, and I could move. They also would only yell out that of people who already called their hits. Not once did I see a ref call someone out who we said were not calling their hits (and there were a few) even if they were standing within 20 feet. Either move away, or call people out. I guess the lack of paint made it hard for them. So refs were in the way and could not pass good judgement.
> This has been a complaint of mine since the beginning of Fulda Gap Airsoft.. The tank 20 feet rule. Don't get me wrong, its a good thing, but when refs who walk with the tank literally call out an entire bunker because the tank rolled past it? Thats crap right there. One got on me because the tank was going slow down an incline and i walked around the tank on the outer edge of the road. It was my tank, there was no fighting, and I was well out of harms way. Any farther and I would have been in a ditch, still within 20 feet. So the tanks have a ref-watch kill radius of 20 feet.

>Now this situation I wanted to mention, but I don't know how I really feel about it. Lets see if I can explain. Slick brought this up and I was actually there to witness what happen. Before, a joke was made that if the Para-Hammer (big, foam all through, pvc handle I think.) could hit the tank, that the tank would honor it as a hit. Later in the day, the hammer was given to a Para who ran it up towards the tank and tossed it, hitting the tank. I did not hear, but I believe the tank honored it as a kill. Then we swarmed the bunker the tank had just taken out. As we swarmed, a head ref who was watching came over yelling for the person who just threw it. Firing was stopped as the kid said "well.. I did.." The ref then called him out. When Slick asked why, the answer was that he was within 20 feet and the hammer was not an authorized tank killing weapon. Now over this Fulda Gap... I saw kids in horse heads, american flag chubbies, ostrich fat suits, banana suits, and some sort of reaper of death costume. A kill with a hammer actually makes sense and fits in. But it was illegal and I honor that. However if the tank decided that it would, then it would. However, the main thing the ref said was he was within 20 feet. All of the players present as well as the tank crew said he was at least 30 feet away when the hammer was tossed. The ref would not have it and said he would throw us all out, and the tank was still in play. We told him we would honor his decision as a ref, and we asked if we could back off as not to be raped by a tank. He agreed. Kudos to the ref for making the call, but then again with everyone saying nothing was the matter, this was NOT the one rule you HAD to enforce. With everything else before mentioned as a problem, this one situation did not need the level of scrutiny it received.


And anyone posting this elsewhere, please let me know. I want to be able to weigh in my opinion.

[Felix]

And it was nice to see you Felix, hope you and your Woman had a good time as we did.

Yeah man, it was great seeing you, and we had a great time. She is itching to get out and play some more. It all depends on my money however

[marpat96]

Makes me wonder now actually what I saw that wasn't correct......

1. Refs were in the way several times, and one ref walked right in front of my VSR as I pulled the trigger. He got hit right in the ear, but did not say anything to me.

2. At first, eyepro was enforced. I still think glasses should be allowed, and mesh too, but whatever. Now, I used mesh at night and all day Sunday, as did my whole team basically. No ref said anything to me. As for the big chubby ref at DZ4, he did a great job with enforcing mags out, giving us water, and dish soap to those who fogged.

3. When I went to chrono my guns, the refs asked me what gram bb I had. With my AEGs I said .25g, and with my VSR I said .30g, and I told the ref the VSR shoots 367fps w/.25g if he wants to check to be safe. He said no need, and I went through chrono safely. Possibly that there were different refs running chrono maybe?

4. Refs WERE on top of their game as far as catching cheaters and such. I did thank refs that were doing a good job and scolded refs that were not.

5. I thought that finally the overall gameplay was awesome, as our team footage showed.

[Dominum]

I appreciate the level of detail given by Felix in his AAR, and it sounds like I probably won't go next year for the same reason I didn't this year. (In reference to your point, I wore a rubber Obama mask last year lol).

@Kory and Marshall: I never bothered to put a MOSFET in that GB due to how easy and cheap it is to swap the trigger switch (so I assume Marshall put one in?), but the rest of the GB I left almost totally stock. I cleaned it all out, did all the usuall compression/AoE/shimming etc. and then proceeded to run tens of thousands of rounds through it without ever having anything break. To my knowledge (Robbie or Marshall can tell you otherwise) the GB is still almost totally stock and hasn't had anything in it fail yet, and I often ran it for long periods of time over 25RPS.

I do have to ask... did a certain someone bring any apple pie this year?

[Star_folder]

I don't believe a certain someone was there this year.

[RPK95]

I guess I'll do my AAR after waiting a week.

First off, I have never had as much fun at a game as this one. Playing as NATO, I felt, only gave me more targets to shoot at. Starting the game at Rex was intense, and I thought it was funny to see the Commissar guy come running up to our bunker with a pistol, only to be cut down in a hail of fire. I half expected us to lose Rex in the first hour, like almost every year, but we had a much better general commanding us at Rex and more motivated players. Our general would constantly call out targets and give us excellent orders to counteract Warsaw's movements. It was these factors which allowed us to hold off a much larger Warsaw force for several hours.
Unfortunately, Warsaw was able to reinforce their divisions with more people, and their numbers overtook us.
The rest of Saturday went by with a heavy stalemate. Warsaw now occupied Rex, but couldn't push into Sim City. I feel proud that the only way they could push us back was with a nuke.

Now, the night game was ten times better than last year's. I loaded up my TM P90 (courtesy of Dom) and took three midcaps and a speedloader out to the field with me. Several interesting engagements occurred, such as when several Warsaw players mistook me for one of them. Thanks to marpat96, our cover was blown, with me killing all but one of them. With one Warsaw left pointing a rifle at marpat96, and him the same, a parlay was called, and both parties went their separate ways.
Later on, me and a teammate entered a shack in front of Sim City, near the intersection by the NATO spawn. He flattened against a corner, and I laid down in one. It was this manner that allowed us to kill 20+ Warsaw as they walked in, completely oblivious to our presence.


And now for Sunday.............
Started off good, with NATO holding all the bases needed for us to win the game. However, Warsaw made a large push around 12:30, and we in turn decided to eliminate the base they were using and a large portion of their numbers. We nuked Rex, and as word of this spread through our lines, the slim chance that NATO could pull out a win emerged.

According to the refs, NATO's nukes were not as powerful as Warsaw's. A small part of Rex was cordoned off, and Warsaw kept rolling. Due to the "bunker tag" rules, we ended up losing Sim City to Warsaw, and a base rape of Biblical proportions ensued. In the ensuing chaos, we noticed that many Warsaw were now invincible. I personally hosed down a crowd from 30 feet away, and saw no dead rags appear. One of our teammates shot an enemy player in the groin point blank, only to have that player continue playing. I was present for a Hamburger Hill counterattack, and was one of the few NATO to hold onto Limberg in the games final minutes. Overall, I had a great time, but did see some serious issues.

Cons
1. It seems NATO is set up to lose. With weaker nukes (seriously!), further respawns (walk to Gotha respawn is flat, walk to Rex respawn is hilly and a bit longer), and Warsaw's larger numbers, a NATO loss is almost always guaranteed.
2. Sunday hit calling was ridiculous. There was actually a joke going around that the nuke mutated Warsaw, making them invincible to hits.
3. Refs getting in the way. I'm sure Felix and marpat96 have already discussed this enough, but it was a recurring problem.
4. Weather was too humid for October.
Pros
1. More NATO players trying this year, and more Warsaw death charges!
2. Far better generals for NATO.
3. Exemplary toughness shown by NATO on Sunday in refusing to quit, despite being outnumbered and outgunned.
4. Improved refs.

Hopefully I will attend next year!