AAR Fulda Gap Taylorsville, NC 10.11.2014

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DRK
Posts: 134
Joined: Tue Aug 02, 2011 9:25 pm
First Name: Derek
Last Name: pom

AAR Fulda Gap Taylorsville, NC 10.11.2014

Post by DRK »

I first heard about Fulda Gap airsoft back in 2010 from friends across the country, I finally got around to signing up and flying down there. The week right after lion claw's OP Swift Justice mind you. The production company that runs it is called command decision war games, the owner is named ferg and since its a largely paintball field they fun a follow up huge PB game the month after the airsoft version.

Rarely do you attend an airsoft game that is historically themed, Fulda gap tries to do that but by being practical given the cost of looking era correct.

The story line is based on what would happen if WW3 took place in eastern europe, the strategic likely hood of armed conflict between NATO vs the Warsaw Pact. Geographically it would have started at a location in germany known as the Fulda Gap, to act as a border or boundary the AO was cut in half uniquely. Power lines literally cut the AO in half to represent the cross border conflict, it keeps it wide open on the border which is vaguely realistic.

Here is the AO map, its decently large at about 57 playable acres:
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With the Warsaw pact as the aggressor, NATO's sole job is try to stop the onslaught of warsaw pact nation military's from overrunning them before tactical nuclear weapons are used. on that map you will notice battle lines bowing further south, those are battle lines NATO is expected to fall back too.

The game is set up with 3 divisions for each side with 2 specialized units for each side. 1 unit being special forces of a max of 30 players whom are the only ones to bring Nods for the night game and then a special unit that acts as airborne dropped players behind enemy lines to try and break up any stale mate. For the 3 main divisions, all it meant was where you start out and where you should be operating along the border. I choose the 39th guards division for Warsaw pact due to the fact they will be taking the brunt of the job by attacking the deepest front, it also meant to deal with the steepest slopes along with the most tank support.

We started at the city on the map marked Gotha, regen was just behind there in the tree lines. This event was far far different than what most of the community here dubs "mil-sim", but I felt it was more realistic and economical than any other national or so far regional has been pulling off.

The event is more "en mass" mentality then "squad based warfare", you may have been to events where you would plan and act as a squad or even a platoon. Now imagine have 120 players per division, attack at the same time with tanks just ahead of them with Nerf artillery in the background landing shots at the buildings. Daunting to organize and hard to execute, but fun to play. What's funny is the game started on time too. Some points in the game it was similar to the intro of the movie Gladiator. When the 2 divisions further down the valley engaging across the border at the same time, hearing this... this howl of players entering the enemy treeline with the rapid chirping of AEG's and airguns going off. Yelling Urah as we all attacked, open mouth's shouting this into oncoming polar star and SMP full auto fire with no cyclic rate limit. Or the Flag bearers, they charged up hill with no weapon, just the Soviet flag or the East German player running with just the GDR flag.

That was dental bravery.

The tally was said to be over a thousand players, the parking lot looked like it. But I will believe it to be 600-700 players. The parking was so bad that the "overflow" sections based on one's faction had warsaw players parking in the Nato over flow parking. A LOT of players camped, likely the bulk of them too. Where i had to park was about 150 feet and hike the rest, I would take a stab and say quarter mile walk to AO staging for the 39th guards division on the map. I met an older Comrade by the call sign of Smirnov from the Red Alliance forum, we have done business multiple times over the past few years along with some of his team members. To use a cliche, I like the cut of his jig. His cossack team worked great together and were accurate in the look department. It was a real pleasure to meet them, as they stated its the biggest game in North Carolina that some teams prepare all year for.

Registration started back in July making the cost just $60 but price sky rockets to $85 if you reggy the month of the game, try finding that with such a turn out. They also require that you watch a 15 minute youtube video regarding the safety rules of the field and answer a questionnaire. If you didn't do that online you have to do it friday, which I did. it was actually the paintball safety video being used for the airsoft event, had to fill out the long waiver and then i got my swag:
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It's a PINK dead rag that has printed on it all the vendors sponsoring the game and AO map, pretty nice actually since it was a soft cotton to wipe my fogging goggles. It also included a ticket that you walk over to vendow row to a store called stampede airsoft to trade it in for a shit in my size for Warsaw.

Vendor row, was vendor row. Like I wish and think more regional and national organizers take a cue from this. it was set up exactly like a street fair, food vendors near the entrance and airsoft tables set up along the path way to the AO. Which included an air fill station for air gun users (it's a paintball field first and foremost), an on site airsoft gun tech/medic. It used to be a portable chow hall that way things can move along cafeteria style, regional stores such as airsoft atlanta, stampede airsoft and airsoft junkiez. Plus suppliers of smoke and my friends at Krytac set up a booth showing up whats out and whats coming right at the end of the AO entrance. that way it was a free show for them most of the day (some played too).


This event was also a tad different with the rule set on all the ancillary/indirect ways to get killed.

First was the vehicle support, each side was split with 3 each. some were classed as light with 1 heavy. tanks can kill a tank and RPG gunners can kill a tank, but RPG gunners cant kill arty or kill a building. tanks can only kill arty, other tanks or buildings but also include a 20 foot instant kill radius. any player, regardless of faction near any vehicle is instant killed as a precaution so no one gets run over. If a tank was killed, its out for an hour. Plus some of the tanks, like this really cute Warsaw tank can actually stall. But mostly the "tanks" were chopped up SUV's, like a RAV4 and/or suburban.

Arty compressor nerf cannons had to be approved and tested by game control long before the game. By in large the task was to hit these orange colored diamond shapes painted on each build or useful structure I.E. a guard tower. Since they were portable/on wheels and had no aiming, a lot of the shots missed. If a round landed inside a structure that was the only way players could be killed outside of tagging that diamond. Sounds odd, but it would have been tougher for the ref's to call the kill radius of every nerf round that fell in.
Not only that, but if you run out of nerf rounds you have to get lucky that the enemy misses and reuse rockets. At the end of the event, if you are missing rockets then that's on your arty team. So running the light or heavy arty team required 4 men to allow it to move anywhere, they cant fire rifles while in operation as a well as the increased cost of operating it. It was thankless but it helped a lot during wave attacks. Often the air tank ran out and had to be recharged so there was a delay and it sucked attacking during that.

Given the story line, trying to keep the combat conventional was mutual. certain exceptions allow the use of a tactical nuclear strike. If used, they set off a fireworks show and that structure out of the game for the entire day. There was also chemical weapon attacks, any smoke grenade color was allowed except for those expired orange naval smoke. If the smoke engulfs you without a duster mask on, then you are dead. Thankfully our division leader brought a 50 pack and handed them out. Air strikes were also used, it was a fire works charge that went off about 200 feet above everyone's head and the ref declared an area cleared, but they were a limited quantity.

Grenades:
I was really shocked by how few grenades were in use, the reason why could be because of those orange diamonds painted on each building. Pyro grenades are not allowed, just thunder B or tornado. to keep the rules simple, if a live player was able to run up to a structure that had that orange diamond and bang on that spot, it was meant that a grenade was thrown in killing all inside. Airsoft is a game of Honor and that rule was put to the test with this. A ref couldn't be everywhere and I did see some intimidated to get near the heavy cloud of action going on some places.



At some point I had to just stop and take it all in and decided its time to start shutter bugging. When the light rain fall came, like all airsoft events some players petered out.

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^ that tank was taking aim at me while I snapped the photo

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I took this clip within the first hour of game start, just to give an idea of what it was like in that chaos for an invasion style game:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVktu6z ... S7_Vj0EZtQ


Without tank support you can see how survival time is less than 30 seconds during a wave attack:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDC_1Yl ... S7_Vj0EZtQ

I lived just a minute longer next wave:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1jmnlJ ... S7_Vj0EZtQ

I lived longer by being cautious but died the same
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keLJiXp ... S7_Vj0EZtQ

A little bit less life time this wave:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keLJiXp ... S7_Vj0EZtQ

another look around:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Khv8eDO ... S7_Vj0EZtQ

A couple hours later I decided to do some spectating, thinking any players looking to travel to this next year need to understand what they are getting into:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyzTt6B ... S7_Vj0EZtQ

Part of Smirnov's Cossacks with the heavy arty:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3O1JxR- ... S7_Vj0EZtQ

It was wise to stack up for a wave attack with tanks rather than just attack in groups of 30+
to see 30 guys race up a hill and get wiped out just to hear your wave is next. FML
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3O1JxR- ... S7_Vj0EZtQ

Now this game didn't have breaks, it was from 10AM Saturday till 5PM straight. Then Sunday is the "counter attack" day by Nato. Nato held ground much better than expected. Warsaw should have penetrated the cities hours ago, here is just the mere edge of the city after taking the NATO first line:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3O1JxR- ... S7_Vj0EZtQ

then NATO counter attack from the city, into the tree line trying to take back the 1st line of defense with air strike and chemical attacks:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAT536A ... S7_Vj0EZtQ


Here my last footage from sunday, the neighboring division asked for help to push out some NATO that made it across:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASm8X1q ... S7_Vj0EZtQ


To show solidarity, East German player shaking hands with a Russian player vs the plight of NATO
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Yes, the stories were true after the game: some idiot tried to steal from one of the vendors, stampede airsoft.
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Myself on the far left with the rest of the Comrades and that awesome little Warsaw tank:
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Right after these photos were taken, Myself and Comrade Smirnov and his Cossacks marched to his camp. Since I was looking more officer than the others I stood beside him in step with the column behind me.


So at camp where I chatted up with Smirnov's team, one of the players came out of his tent with this jacket since it was cooler that day. He stated he bought it from the country of Jordan and called it his star wars jacket. it was just too uncommon to not photograph:
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So to end it, I liked the game, I really like the invasion style game. There may not be much cover when doing the border cross, but as the defender you want open ground to harm the attacker. I will be back for 2015's Fulda gap airsoft.

Pro's:
cheap game with large turn out
more attack vehicle support than you are use too
consistent indirect attacks
onsite aeg repair option
free air fills

Con's:
Players as young as 10 (lots of son's and dad's playing)
hit call issues given player quantity
long drive; 1 hour drive from airport to hotels then another 20 min drive to AO
long walk back to regen
For Russia

OP: Northern Light 1,2,4
OP: Lightning Strike 1-4
OP: Bulldog 7
OP: Lion Claw XI
OP: Shahrazad 1,3
OP: Red Storm East 1,2,4,5
OP: Red Storm West 2014
OP: Swift Justice
OP: X 1,2
The Milwaukee Project
The Ohio Project

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