Realish steel ammo limits

Yes and no.

Yes, it would stop people spraying a full mag at a group of people and wiping them out, it'd also put rifles on a more level playing field with smg's. It would also make pistols a lot more useful. More tactical play as ammo limits are something you have to take into consideration.

No, point a real thompson at a man sized target at 10m in low wind outdoor conditions and let an aimed burst off. 99% chance of hitting. Airsoft with a burst you'll be lucky to get one. rate of fire on most aeg's is way above the real gun.

I think as far as translating realism goes 1 bullet = 3 bb's in a aeg. 2 or so in a rifle and going by my accuracy 50 in a pistol!

I'd go for low limits not real limits unless all the guns are tightbore, low rof, awesome hop monsters.

I would be interested in giving it a try but then being a bolt action user most of the time I may be a little bit biased. Of course it may be difficult to do with the limited availability of magazines for some guns.

No, point a real thompson at a man sized target at 10m in low wind outdoor conditions and let an aimed burst off. 99% chance of hitting. Airsoft with a burst you'll be lucky to get one.

At that range I think an airsoft gun probably has more chance of hitting than the real thing due the lack of recoil. Put a few twigs in the way or a light breeze and its a different matter though!

I do think not enough faith is given to Airsoft rifles! I can still make a 30 hit on single shot with a standard rifle 330-350 fps! And most of the guys that play these games don't consider themselves playing Airsoft, but using Airsoft to help the combat experience their playing.

Also most of the pistol are more acurate and can fire as far as an aeg, so limited pistol rnds don't have a great effect.

I understand peeps conserns with the limits however

I'd say ammo limits depend on the location and scenario style. Our Op Jed game in July didn't have onerous ammo limits (IIRC 300rnd) but the nature of the game meant some never fired a shot, let alone reached any 'limit'. Devil's Hill had a 300rnd limit but easy resupply so the lead flew thick and fast at times, as it was an assault scenario. Upcoming Hauptmann Holt will be very brutal with ammo supply and every round will have to count!

I'd love to see a proliferation of bolt actions, we did pretty well as Op Ariel, but folks will keep recommending new players to buy an AEG as their first gun, which doesn't help!

i say treat it like a gobstopper "suck it and see".start with the rule of real limits ,but tell people to bring up 300 rnd worth of mag's with them, if it's not working revert to higher limmits.my guess is it would make thing's far better as there would be times when we would have to call in a machinegunner to storm a position or lay down fire to help people move up ,thats far more what they were used for in the day.whats really needed imho is when booking to designate weapons to players to even the sides.then you could really make ammo limits work.i know that would mean that you would need a lot of rentable bolty's for players that dont have them,but Josh seemed to have that covered(top marks), it would also have the effect of encouraging more people to invest in their own bolt'y as given the choice most people want to use there own gun.as a real soldier you didnt get to choose you'r weapon ,you were selected by an oficer to be trained up if you good enough and fortunate to use a better weapon.

Why would 35 rounds be 'real'? Your ammo allocation would depend on the weapon you carry, the mission to which you are assigned and the supplies available. I don't see 30 rounds necessarily as any more 'realistic' than 300. And in any case meaningless unless you factor in resupply - is the dump 30ft from you or half a mile?

d day the sten gunner was carrying 8 plus mags of 30 ish rounds ,even had a spetial bandolier for the purpose.30 rounds then a mag change might add the realism of mag changes under fire rather than hoseing a whole 100 rnd mag at someone.might be worth a try is all,.

So you are advocating limited magazine capacity now, not limited ammo limits! Already many players choose low caps for the panic 'mag change under fire' experience so nothing new there, and we have already had no ammo at all (Eagle has Landed), ten rounds only (Eagle has Landed). Even if you give chaps with bolt action rifles a 300 round limit there is no way then can use that amount of ammo without a thumb dropping off or getting killed - in effect boltie users are self-limiting.

So, no need to 'suck it and see' - we know restricted ammo can work, but it depends on scenario, game style and regen/resupply rules to make any sense at all.

A lot of it comes down to the fact - M1A1 400 round (ish) hicap = free with gun or £15 vs
box of midcaps £35

People don't like the outlay for mid/lowcaps. This combined with the availibiliy of different capacity mags for some weapons can be an offputting thing.

I just got an mp40 so no hicap worries for me!

I'm all for 8 rounds a Wellrod and a Fairbairn-Sykes Fighting Knife!!!

i dont want a row i was just throwing in idears ,to try and match the real weapon to the way we use the airsoft counterpart is something that will add a sense of reality to game play.fine tuning of mag capacity or ammo limmits to the mission is as you say the way to go,but i dont see a problem with playing with the vairiables to see what works best,even on a particular day so long as its well co-ordinated.

Agreed, it would be nice to see this done well as it would take quite a bit of organising. It would make for some great games though. Units pinned down with low ammo, people making a break to resupply, firefights over ammo dumps etc!

i dont want a row i was just throwing in idears

Row? I'm just pointing out its already been done in various way and it works, CiA have done it. But whatever rules organisers come up with they have to match the scenario and that's why we don't have a fixed rule set - every game brings it's own nuances. It has to be borne in mind that a six hour assaulting game would be rubbish if chaps had just 35 rounds and they had to traipse a quarter of a mile to resupply (in pitch black tunnels maybe), airsofters are a pretty unfit bunch and the game would die a death!

agreed we all want to have some fun (well most) in what we'r doing,not just a day of marching to and fro to re-gen

What's fantastic about real steal is there's no limit on the mags or amount you can carry.
At nam the guys have bandeliers and mag tins loaded and ready to through out to there buddies whilst in sustained firefights and guy loading reloading mags at ammo crates. There's no reason this visual would be any less awesome in ww2. Also guys with bolt action rifles get to reload by hand in the field, pushing the rounds in with their thumb, another great visual.

Jeds would have been one of those games that would have benifitted from this style of play as the fighting wasn't what the event was about, it was a pure experience. For me, it's about slowing the battles down but keeping them fun, in an ideal would everyone would field a rifle unless designated, but that's a hard one to achieve with 80-120 players in the field, but I know a few organisers have achieved it which is epic

I do agree with Dave that the senario is important for this to work and this style of experience isn't for you Sunday skirmisher, but your enthusiast.

I dont think buying extra mags for your hobby should realy be a consern, this isn't a cheap hobby, especially retro Airsoft as once you start collecting your buggered lol
£35 is a night down the pub, or a video game.

Lubx

It has to be borne in mind that a six hour assaulting game would be rubbish if chaps had just 35 rounds and they had to traipse a quarter of a mile to resupply

CW it sounds like you're getting confused over whats being suggested here. Josh is suggesting 35 rounds per mag with as many mags as you want up to say a 300 rnd limit. Those without the necessary mags to reach that limit can reload in the field- but only by hand not with a speedloader. No one is suggesting an overall limit of 35 rounds as a standard load (great for special situations like TEHL though).

35 rounds will be generous for HH!
Josh already has a midcap mag only rule for all his WW2 games even though midcaps aren't available for all guns - it will be even worse for a lowcap rule. If there isn't one rule for all is is rather pointless I'd suggest. Ammo limits, mag limits are a means to an end - all very 'airsoft' and not in the slightest bit 'real steel'. That is to say, if you want to limit 'spray & pray' (surely not a part of the WW2 airsoft scene anyway) just have an ammo limit and restrict resupply, don't force people to buy more kit. Those that want to faff with low caps already do so

CW, we only have the rule of mid/low if they are available and the lads have to bag up 300rnds if the weapon only supports high cap. Also after a chat with stiener at Shingle, having a single shot inky rule fir high caps would help in the interim. I'm all about easy not giving myself a head ache.

I'm also not suggesting a new global rule here, just a few senarios to try out a new way of running ww2 battles as we did with the 300rnd limit

I totally understand the worry that it means guys might have to spend more money, or just take a cheap wood finish bolty into the field but that would be one of the benefits

I'm all about easy not giving myself a head ache.

That's the sort of rules I like too.

Heh, I'm not one of those convinced by the 'SMGs aren't fair' argument. If you loose off 300 rounds and you have to walk half a mile to resupply then you are a numpty and its likely you have contributed nothing to your objective or been of any use to your fellow players - a good player will preserve ammo under these circumstances. The style of game depends on what thought has been given to the gameplay - Devils Hill was full on assault so resupply is near at hand allowing attacks to progress - at Jedburgh players couldn't re-arm unless they were at bases, which meant players were conservative 'cos it was a long blummin walk!

Of course there are too many SMG's in-game but a boltie only scenario is a pipedream - even then you will get arguments about Tanakas not being fair when pitted against Doboys!

Anyhoo, you can be the guinea pig Josh, personally I think the easy way is just to not let people re-arm!

Totally agree with that CW, limiting re-supply is a big part of the art that's running events and it's hard to get it right every time, we can't be everywhere all the time. For me experimenting is trying to find new ways to make that vision come to life.

I'll leave the debate open as imput is a massive help.
Cheers so far guys