What would you like to see at an event??

I honestly thought Cassino was perfection.

For me it was the 'stress' of knowing you had to be careful as you were not going to be able to keep getting back in for a while if shot but without the 'stop start' some of our combat missions suffered from.

I'm not going to open up the episodes/regen debate as each has its place dependant on scenario/site and can also be mixed in well as section of the same event but for me, at that time I couldnt fault it.

I agree with craig that the best 24hr game has to be living it, not shooting it. I would get so bored of shooting for 24hrs it would be unreal. We're trying this in April with Cold War so ill make sure we give a report on the style of battle.

I will always remain of the opinion that for the best game I could play, it would start Friday night and finish Sunday lunch time. As long as there is water butts at the camps and a loo nearby, I could live the rest of the weekend in game. Downtime in game but no shooting

I will always remain of the opinion that for the best game I could play, it would start Friday night and finish Sunday lunch time. As long as there is water butts at the camps and a loo nearby, I could live the rest of the weekend in game. Downtime in game but no shooting

For me, Jedburgh, Churchill and Bryansk were pretty close to that. Minus the water and toilets (people can bring their own water and dig a hole for ablutions). I was in the field and living a reasonably authentic 1940s reality for most of those weekends. Jedburgh especially...I slept under a sheet having carried all my stuff all day.

I think its very tricky to balance

You cant have 24 hours 'in play' let alone 24 hours shooting as people need to sleep and wash etc and need to remove eye protection.

This means you have to have out of play safe camp sites as it would be disasterous for someone to lone wolf and lace someone bivouac up with bbs in the night , thinking they were being 'amazing' but actually being dangeorus... hence you'd need really well defined 'no go areas'.

Socials are also an issue. For a lot of players they are 50 per cent of the reason to be there, to have alaugh with like minded players but we've all seen the socials with some players up til 5am still drinking... what happens when you want to stage the 'dawn raid' and 15 guys in one side are either sleeping off the whisky or still drunk?

Again you've got to have 'volunteers' for the early and late missions and volunteer 'sentries' or defenders. Going on a 'night patrol' or 'dawn raid' when the entire enenmy force is in a no go safe area would be pointless and just sneaking about the woods in the cold for the sake of it

My ideal would be arrive Friday night, have a twiglight/night recce scenario that required each side only to field at most a quarter of the main force who volunteer for it. Then back to camps with sentries put out until say 1am and from say 5am (leaving only 4 hours truly 'safe' time).

Make any dawn/night objectives *useful* to the main battle but not critical, like knowing where mine fields are, or being able to deny the enemy a resuuply point by blowing it up.

The Saturday have a full force or force battle, ending about last light with the option of driving home or staying for a 'all together' social.

That would be perfection for me.

while i love a beer as much as the next guy, while we have parties til 4am the night before the battle each night we're never going to get people into the idea of staying in character or doing dawn/night exercises.

What i *dont* want though is a 24 hour full on army exercise and having to make people go on sentry etc, done enough of that when i was being paid to freeze my nuts off in a forest watching for pretend enemies

A little bit of it is fine and if we can use the dawn and dusk, that would be great but true night games *always* go to ratshit as those inclined to be a bit teflon get worse when no one can see then being hit, people think they've shot things they havnt, people get lost and you have little to no chance of forming up with your squads.

Night manouvres were a bloody nightmare when we used to do them with trained proffesionals and night vision... no wonder they dont work in airsoft.

The only one i've ever seen work was the nam game one at free fire zone when it was a VC attack on a us fire base that was illumiinated by sporadic flares and the route back to the regen points was marked out with cylumes every ten metres.

I am very interested in the Cold War game. I think it will be a rather good learning curve for other games.
So to keep this short, what gadge said. Especially about the nam games. The night fight was amazing, think apocalypse now and you havea good mental picture but squads were non existent, I was shot by my on side more than anyone else, so it had certain issues.
But to be honest it was excellent. Sadly let down by a lack lustre second day.

Has anyone raised the spectre of the regularity of night-fighting in WW2? Was it really that common? I honestly don't know.

I guess it might have been a regular occurrence in Nam, but very rare in WW2. Most drops and major battles took place in daylight didn't they?

Has anyone raised the spectre of the regularity of night-fighting in WW2? Was it really that common? I honestly don't know.

I guess it might have been a regular occurrence in Nam, but very rare in WW2. Most drops and major battles took place in daylight didn't they?

Plenty of night battles in WW2, many of them total chaos, for example the Americans in Italy in 1944 crossing the Rapido river near the Liri valley and Monte Cassino.

My knowledge of WW2 history is pretty poor TBH!

Not really that uncommon.

Pegasus bridge and all the pre d-day airborne drops took place at night.

A lot of russian front battles were at night as were a lot in the western desert. A lot of attacks start at dawn or dusk, thats why most proffesional armies 'stand to' at last light and first light as its when you're most likely to be attacked.

Many battles went on for days, day and night. I think you just see more photographs of operations during the day as you'd be suicdial to use 40s camera flash on a battlefield at night.

In general well disciplined armies prefer to attack crap ones at night. Nearly all british commando operations took place at night or just before dawn.

This is why the US didnt do many night attacks in WWII (joke)

Also the rhine crossing was scheduled for the night, thats why the 'canal defence light' tanks were built and 'montys moonlight' invented to create enough light to manouvre by and also to shine lights at the defenders to blind them.

Yeah plenty of WWII night operations.

Done right, it would be an event to remember. You for get just how claustrophobic woods at night can get. It would even need to be a full night. Yes thinking of it now I would be very much in favour of some night actions.
Beginning at dusk and into say 3 hours.

You see i think a short night action could be a good game but i'd do it the other way and start *really* early so the start is tense and confusing but as the light gets better you get a better sense of awareness and know where you're going when you need to regen/rally.

The trick is either way to get the two hours of half light timed just right. In summer you can do it but spring/autumn it shifts from day to night in the space of 30 minutes.

At Mace we did a small 'night action' in the Tuddenham buildings - where Germans tried to slip though the cordon and escape - that was fun. a full battle, especially in woods, doesn't sound that interesting. Dusk is great - At Schaulen our attack on the German camp went in as the sun went down. it looked and felt beautiful.

The problem with doing what we did at Mace - the evening after the event propper - was that most people just went home, so there was only about 8 of us left.

I agree with craig that the best 24hr game has to be living it, not shooting it. I would get so bored of shooting for 24hrs it would be unreal. We're trying this in April with Cold War so ill make sure we give a report on the style of battle.

I will always remain of the opinion that for the best game I could play, it would start Friday night and finish Sunday lunch time. As long as there is water butts at the camps and a loo nearby, I could live the rest of the weekend in game. Downtime in game but no shooting

Me too. Ive written a game scenario that would fit this well. It also follows Craig's linear plot approach and I think I've covered how to work the transition between each! Arent I a smart arse!

For me I love
huge games as they give you some awesome spectacles and epic battles - more please
i'd like to try smaller more atmospheric games that focus on perhaps small section sized battles with a cross roads, hill or buiding to fight over
a 24 hrs game - everyone I sign up for gets cancelled would have loved Jedburgh)

What we all need to remember and appreciate is that we all obviously care alot about our hobby and want to protect it hence the heated 'discussions'! We should be pleased we have so many passionate people wnting the best experience for all. Happy days.

But most of all I want to see my name on the booking thread of as many games as possible!!!!

We did at dusk-into-night skirmish at Bryansk too. That's when Rhys got a BB lodged in his chin IIRC.

My only experience of night fighting was at... D-Day, was it?? (Long time ago.) Got shot in the ear at very close range, which really hurt a lot! Whilst it might seem appealing, it seems like a recipe for injury - pretty much like blind firing, really.

hence why i reckon a night approach which means that the actual fighting happens as dawn is breaking is probably the better option...

Night time sneaky beaky but daytime safety shoot.

It does rely on getting airsofter up and getting their kit in order in less than three hours though so its never going to happen

Don't mind dusk at all (and looking very much forward to our dawn op at Grafton Park, so yes it will happen Gadge!) - tricky for sure, but I like a challenge. Dislike fighting in the dark - opted out of the night game at original D-Day 'cos I had no idea where anyone was nor who they were (fell about laughing at the swarm of crickets though ) and as Steiner says it is tantamount to blind firing, much frowned upon normally! That said, the vehicle convoy at A2C was awesome to watch with parachute flares etc. and I do like the idea of night recce with undrawn weapons and a couple of buddies for safety.

Don't mind dusk at all (and looking very much forward to our dawn op at Grafton Park, so yes it will happen Gadge!) - .

I'd love to be proved wrong dave but you've got your work cut out there

Don't mind dusk at all (and looking very much forward to our dawn op at Grafton Park, so yes it will happen Gadge!) - .

I'd love to be proved wrong dave but you've got your work cut out there

Well, it is a training day...plus Dave's bringing his 'special' belt and attachment for non-risers.

No need for appliances, the dawn op has not been called "Morning Glory" for nothing!