Where are all the Commonwealth troops? In fact, where..

I regret starting this thread.

Again you shouldnt. You've sparked off an interesting conversation and much better than looking on the board to find the only new threads are in the 'look at this thing i've bought' or the 'look at me wearing' it threads

You see until you brought this up and we chatted about it I had no idea there was dual booking and thought you'd been let down by a large chunk of the brit based impression community at the last minute - clearly not the case.

And the games in the UK gets even more attention from 'on the other side of that piece of water'. We will go and attend the Anzio game in November, with US, UK and German 'troops'. With, I hope, 7 players.

For just day-skirms the traveling is a bit too much.

I am one of the Brits who failed to turn up, and very occasionally my work gets in the way, being self employed with my own business sometimes I can't afford to let customers down,However on this occasion I snapped the cambelt on my car while doing a 100 mile detour to get a babysitter for my 2 dogs,very unfortunate but shit happens.

Actually I am pissed right off, having made a mortar for the event, bought and sewn on insignia, bought and sewn insignia on my new drinking uniform, and gone to the hassle of loading my bike on the trailer on my own ,to end up spending 4 hours waiting for the recovery van and then having to argue with him about not leaving my 2 labradors in the back of the broken down car really spoiled my weekend.
Before you criticize people for collecting kit and not using it perhaps you ought to travel to a few more events and see how much effort a lot of people put in to be there,many of us travel a very long way to support events and when we don't turn up its for a good reason.

And, I don't suppose I'm ever going to see my sandbags and ammo crate I left behind last time

And the games in the UK gets even more attention from 'on the other side of that piece of water'. We will go and attend the Anzio game in November, with US, UK and German 'troops'. With, I hope, 7 players.

For just day-skirms the traveling is a bit too much.

Brilliant, Arthur! Will be great to see you there.

I am one of the Brits who failed to turn up, and very occasionally my work gets in the way, being self employed with my own business sometimes I can't afford to let customers down,However on this occasion I snapped the cambelt on my car while doing a 100 mile detour to get a babysitter for my 2 dogs,very unfortunate but shit happens.

Actually I am pissed right off, having made a mortar for the event, bought and sewn on insignia, bought and sewn insignia on my new drinking uniform, and gone to the hassle of loading my bike on the trailer on my own ,to end up spending 4 hours waiting for the recovery van and then having to argue with him about not leaving my 2 labradors in the back of the broken down car really spoiled my weekend.
Before you criticize people for collecting kit and not using it perhaps you ought to travel to a few more events and see how much effort a lot of people put in to be there,many of us travel a very long way to support events and when we don't turn up its for a good reason.

Sandy you were really missed - what a crap thing to happen I hope it's not too expensive. I think nice chap wasn't aiming this at your good self - there were bookings from the local team that did not materialise. It was also on occasion very frustrating for myself and Andy to actually get some of the group to actually work as a team and follow orders - stupid as they may have seen ( well from me
perhaps). Maybe they were used to the lone wolf sort of style of play.
That said it was oodles of fun firing the mortar ( with Jimbo counting the costs at each missed shot!), and of course dadio's Bren was fab - I may even have got a kill!

Nasty Nazis. That's what everyone seems to want to be - followed swiftly by 82d and 101st Airborne. This was borne out by the Rhineland game, with a very low turnout of British troops.
So, what's the attraction?

For me the attraction of a German loadout was that I would be able to attend every event without having to borrow kit. Hope to do British next year though.

And more to the point, why does everyone post, but very few play? Collecting the kit is one thing, wittering about badges and their positioning is another, but the game is the point, and if we don't have participants, the game will wither and die, and all we'll have left is rooms full of unused kit. Come on ladies and gentlemen, play up, play up, and play the game.

I think their are many types of people using the forum with varied interests in differant aspects of the hobby. Like yourself I find it strange that people have the kit and dont play but each to their own, I think the forum is stronger for their participation at whatever level they choose.

A disheartened Nicechap.

I hope the low turnout for the Brits didnt spoil the day for you, I noticed that the organisers reacted well to events in several ways:
1) The MG42 was only used in the first defensive position, presumably because the Brits were struggling to press the attack.
2) Germans stopped respawning so that Brits would eventually wear down the German defences.
3) The German counter attack in the afternoon was I believe not part of the original plan, but to give the outnumbered Brits some respite.
4) Boshmann even helped ranging in the British mortars to make sure the attack got going.

I think the organizers overcame the unexpected low Brit turnout and provided an enjoyable day

Hope your not put off and to see you at another one soon

Sandy you were really missed!

Second that

Fremsley I don't suppose for a moment it was aimed at me, but I am gutted I missed it. mechanical stuff breaks,thats just bad luck ,but my point was different people have different reasons for not having turned up ,and a lot of people spend a fortune getting kit and getting to games,and it is not fair to criticize anyone without knowing the individual circumstances,it could just be bad luck that a lot of people all had good reason and it doesn't help anything to let rip publicly about it.
Anyway rant over,hope to catch up with you at a game soon, any chance you are going to Anzio ?

from my perspective the organizers pulled out the stops to even the field and i cant fault there efforts.
cash in full before the event seems a good idear for bookings.
this hobby is so multifasceted for me (and many others)that i think an all inclusive policy is best and adds a rich texture to this forum and a massive rescorce of information that i regularly use.its history and play and adrenalin and modeling in a mix that i love.
stof you were sadly missed and im sure if at all possible you would have been there,i was allready drunk when i found out otherwise i would have considered collecting you.
myself i can only usually make 2 events a year due in main to my work booking holiday upto 18 months in advance and being verry inflexible about change, when most events only give notice of a few months,no clitisism intended.if i could i would love to do 4 or more a year and im deeply jelouse of those who can attend more.
i dont think we were let down by the core members of this forum but maybe we werent able to reach out enough to the possible mew members,i use my tommy gear whenever possible at walk on days and it attracts notice and none of those people have ever heard of the cia forum(or its new name) and these games get no advertiseing on regular airsoft forums.if we want more folk playing we need to get the word out into the airsoft comunity at large and their forums.im not sure how to do this but im sure the way to start is to talk to the organizers of other forums about advertiseing games for each other.they can only say no or ask for money but they may say yes.
far more than i meant to say.

You see this is one of the more interesting convos on here in a while to be honest.

Its *good* to question what we do, how we do it and whos doing it.

Excellent points about British units being downplayed in hollywood and you'll also note that most US films do there best to portray the British Army as dawdling tea drinking idiots...

How we won the battle of Britain, the north african campaign and the russian convoys without them I'll never know...

Unfortunately Hollywood is unlikely to back a movie about a British nfantry unit (and if they did it would have to have token yanks in it), which means that Marui or similar wont make a gun, which means the chinese wot copy it...

I think a gun has to be really big in a film or computer game for them to take interest.

on a tangent (and discussed with evo on the weekend) it does make me laugh when people refer to the 'yanks' or 'germans' or 'brits' and get quite territorial and partisan about it when in reality were all (with the exception of a few overseas forum members) 'brits' and the 'german' probably comes from Barnesly

I much prefer the British kit although the webbing can be a pain in the arse at times.

As someone with multiple impressions I consider most WW2 webbing to be a pain in one way or another.
The US belt buckle is a pain, not as easy as the British. The British universal pouch is more versatile than those of other nations using a pouch for each magazine but have their own problems.
Canvas rubs, leather rots.
The British water bottle cradle is awkward and adjusting the belt is slow.
Without careful positioning German stuff rattles and requires constant looking after. The belts hooks do help spread the load and keep it all in place.
The Soviets gave up on Y straps/braces and hung it all off the hips. Not good for load carrying but they seem to have traveled quite light.

All the players aren't in Barnsley,they are not even all in the North,but we have had games in the past where we seriously struggled to get enough germans, Jimbo will tell you of offering free places to people coming as germans,others have given discounts to get german players,its swings and roundabouts, a poor turnout at one game ,particularly a southern game during a busy reenacting weekend isn't indicative of the norm.But it doesn't help encourage new players to criticise ,especially at the like of Ford where there are a lot of young players.
Hopefully Anzio will give you a better view of the number of players that are around , no hard feelings ,nothing like a bit of discussion.People join this forum for all sorts of reasons,some collect,some reenact ,some play airsoft , a lot do all 3 .

where are the Commonwealth troops? They can't ALL be in Barnsley..

LOL, no, Huddersfield, Chesterfield and Derby.

Perhaps we could do a different version of the 'which impressions won't you do' poll and instead see what impressions people have actually got?

Cheers
Martin

I know they're not all in Barnsley - that was a joke in response to Gadge's comment. I collect and play airsoft. Re-enactment has never grabbed me - too fond of my creature comforts to be honest.

And there nicely you re-enforce the 'broad church' argument.

To many of us WWII airsoft *is* re-enactment, just another form.

If you went to say Operation Ariel for example and took on the role of a hardpressed Tommy makng a fighting retreat from central france to the coast, if you agreed to take orders and be in a section and listen to the commanders... if you for one minute put yourself in the mind set, if for a second you were actually avoiding a patrol of 'germans' and not five lads from Doncaster.... then you *were* re-enacting.

WWII airsoft *without* re-enacting is, as Guy calls it, Skirmishing in Silly Kit.

Pesonally 'capture the flag' open day gaming in serge and canvas has never grabbed me

And I *know* that not really what you meant, but do you see my point that its subjective to the individual and what *they* want out of it but it is all still 'WWII Airsoft'.

...if for a second you were actually avoiding a patrol of 'germans' and not five lads from Doncaster.... then you *were* re-enacting.

Yeah, but I know which I'd be more scared of!

I want a like button for ^ this.

if we want more folk playing we need to get the word out into the airsoft comunity at large and their forums

It's not as simple as that. We don't just need more players, we need the right sort of players and they're not usually found in the general airsoft cummunity. WW2 airsoft is radically different from open day stuff, which is why it appeals to us all so much. Unfortunately it only works if people are happy to adopt a WW2 method of gameplay. It's an awful lot of work to get a game launched and running nicely. Organisers who are doing it purely for the love of the hobby don't want to add to their problems by having to spend the day arguing the toss with guys that simply want play the way do every other Saturday - basically wandering around the site looking for people to shoot. Guy summed it up pretty well when he said that he'd rather run a game with 50 players who have the right attitude than 150 players who are twits.

I was massively impressed by the player ethos amongst the Brits we had at Il Giogo. Everyone did as they were told and the game ended up as a stormer. It wouldn't have been anywhere near as rewarding if half of them had decided to go rogue and the other half wandered off back to the car park for a pot noodle

.

Agreed. Il Giogio was fantastic - one of the best I have ever played despite the weather. Hmm
Anzio sounds good and it I'd my birthday on the 18th. However will have to clear it with Memsahib.

Colin is that you? Put the kettle on old chap - milk and two please

Unfortunately it only works if people are happy to adopt a WW2 method of gameplay.

Yes, it is that which brings the thing alive. As Gadge says, if you can lose yourself in the immersion for even just an instant, then you *are* re-enacting and it makes the experience quite magical (sorry ). Which is probably why I'm just as happy sitting in a hole in the ground having a brew for an hour waiting for orders or spending 45 minutes looking for a missing telephone wire as doing the shooty shooty thing.

Cheers
Martin