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they have bio degradable ones now, if it were my property I would require that. Of course I wouldn't be hosting airsoft events if I had 250 acres, I would be hosting Firefight events  That's one of our guys, they have more participation than we have MILES. KCAA does that one, Operation Eastwind. But wouldn't it be cool if we could do something like that with MILES? We plan to in the future have full immersion events in the future Weekend long and week long. The Eastwind folks borrow a lot of gear from One Shepherd as well, Night Vision gear, Tentage, etc. It is a good event they run it like a military exercise, as much as possible, I will see if I can dig up some pics from last year, they even use rations appropriate to the time and force whether Nato or Eastern Block. www.operationeastwind.com |
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they have bio degradable ones now, if it were my property I would require that. Of course I wouldn't be hosting airsoft events if I had 250 acres, I would be hosting Firefight events That's one of our guys, they have more participation than we have MILES. KCAA does that one, Operation Eastwind. But wouldn't it be cool if we could do something like that with MILES? We plan to in the future have full immersion events in the future Weekend long and week long. The Eastwind folks borrow a lot of gear from One Shepherd as well, Night Vision gear, Tentage, etc. It is a good event they run it like a military exercise, as much as possible, I will see if I can dig up some pics from last year, they even use rations appropriate to the time and force whether Nato or Eastern Block. www.operationeastwind.com I don't think that would encourage participation on the eastern block side 
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Quoted:
they have bio degradable ones now, if it were my property I would require that. Of course I wouldn't be hosting airsoft events if I had 250 acres, I would be hosting Firefight events That's one of our guys, they have more participation than we have MILES. KCAA does that one, Operation Eastwind. But wouldn't it be cool if we could do something like that with MILES? We plan to in the future have full immersion events in the future Weekend long and week long. The Eastwind folks borrow a lot of gear from One Shepherd as well, Night Vision gear, Tentage, etc. It is a good event they run it like a military exercise, as much as possible, I will see if I can dig up some pics from last year, they even use rations appropriate to the time and force whether Nato or Eastern Block. www.operationeastwind.com I don't think that would encourage participation on the eastern block side 
Well 80's era Soviet rats are not horrible, They bought food from a local russian grocery for the event Sprats in tomato sause, Sprats in vinegar, sprats in mustard etc... Bread, Akin to soviet mountain rats. Which is a few tins of meat along with the fresh vegetables... Onion, potato, Radish, Turnip, Carrots etc then cooked into a soup. It really is not bad from what I heard, they run a chow line too. What I was told is the Russian chow beat the US chow. Which was T-Rats... though the guy doing the cooking is a good cook and he did do one hot from scratch meal per day. US Rations from Eastwind last year. This is a US "A" Ration 
Part of a Russian "C" Ration or MRE equivalent There aren't any pics of the Russian "A" Rations 
An army marches on its stomach. NATO and East Bloc troops are served authentic rations at Eastwind. NATO troops are issued MREs and the NATO mess hall utilizes recipes from period-correct US Army field manuals. Anyone who has served in the US Army will be very familiar with the bill of fare...except there are rumors that our cooks are one heck of a lot better than the average Army cook. Soviet troops are issued authentic C-rations and emergency ration packs. Their mess hall serves authentic breakfast- kasha, black bread, and sometimes a treat (ham, butter, or authentic Russian preserves) and dinners that would make a Russian feel at home- borscht, kasha stew, beef and vegetable stew...the list goes on and on. One occasionally hears stories of ambitious black marketeers selling kontraband items in the Soviet Army. If you need a pack of Primas, ask around. Anything's possible, even in a communist country, for a price. |
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East Wind is my event so I'll address a few of these comments.
Re: "Little BBs everywhere" Not by a long shot. BBs tend to disappear into the ground pretty fast and with 99% of the dipsticks of the world warded off by the level of play required at East Wind there is really not that much ammo that gets flung about. Most of the players are skilled enough to get who they are shooting at fairly quick and without spray and pray. If you looked over the most hotly contested portions of the East Wind battle space from last year you would be VERY hard pressed to find a single bb. Blanks and MILES makes a MUCH bigger mess. In both cases, be it blanks or bbs the weapons do not make much of a mess compared to simple transport of gear into and out of the property. A bunch of Deuces carting trailers in and out is WAY bigger impact than any amount of bbs and or spent shell casings. That's why we pay $1500 cash and specify that we prefer fairly firm ground to lessen our impact on the property.. Re: "Using Miles" Quite some discussion has occurred over this. We would like to move that direction in general particularly with the increased use of vehicles and armored vehicles on the near horizon there are several factors that are somewhat limiting with regards to MILES. First obviously is cost, in order to run East Wind on Miles and be sustainable you need a minimum of 200 sets of MILES gear in addition to the weapons themselves (not as big of an expense). Secondly is the unacceptably high failure rate of MILES gear. This alone means that the 200 set we needed now needs to be bumped up to about 250 to account for the units that are likely to fail on extended use. Thirdly is the need to purchase specialized sats and receiving gear for vehicles, AT weapons, mines etc. Again, you are looking at an expense measured in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Even of you did get around all of that then you have to deal with the immense expense and hassle of dealing with blank ammunition plus the expanded failure rate of the weapon systems themselves. While you would think that a replica weapon with a little gearbox spitting BBs would not be as reliable as a real weapons the simple fact is we have a very low failure rate with the systems we use. In short: If prices come down on the equipment exponentially, if the system reliability makes a marked improvement, if a broader range of accessory equipment becomes available and if blank prices come down we would consider it. Right now, it is just not in the cards. Christopher and I have discussed basically rotating a Firefight! MILES event in directly behind East Wind taking advantage of pre-set up scenario and infrastructure but I think in the current economy it would be hard to find enough customers who could shell out the many thousands of dollars required to even break even on an event like that. Re: Rations. It's all a matter of perspective. 3 basic types of meals are served at East Wind. A-Ration meals are fresh meals from prepared ingredients. In the case of NATO troops this would be your usual chow hall or in our case MKT-85 (mobile kitchen trailer) based meal such as the one AFSOC pictured above with the ham steak. On the Soviet side, A-ration meals are generally hearty stew type meals like Kasha and Beef or Borsch with sausage. Most of the Soviet meals were designed to be single pot meals so you just get a big serving of Borsch and then a few big pieces of Russian bread to go with it. In both cases, the meals are cooked to the proper military recipe cards from the era (we have both US and Soviet recipe cards). To a man, EVERYBODY loved the A-rations on both sides of the event, the Soviet side guys in particular loved their A-ration meals since in the cold weather and high winds we had last year, nothing satisfies like a good heavy stew. Nato targets serving one A-ration meal per day, the Soviets generally serve 2, with one of them being a breakfast of whole grain hot cereal like Millet or Barley with a meat like ham on the side. T-ration meals are the infamous thermo-stabilized flat can meals loathed by all. Designed to rapidly feed lots of troops (and make them all angry). The NATO side gets T-rats, the Soviets are off the hook since we have not found an economical way to import them from Russia. While our cook would rather put in the extra work to crank out something that everyone likes T-rations were a staple of forward deployed US troops and hence to get the complete experience you certainly have to get your T-rat McRib on shelf stable bread sandwich. Nato targets serving one T-ration meal per day. C-ration meals are your combat meals. Obviously for the US guys this means MREs. On the Soviet side we have carefully reproduced as era correct a C-ration menu as we can using imported and available foods. Pretty much across the board the Soviet meals are more popular than MREs. Russian instant Kasha was a particular favorite and believe it or not everyone really took to hard tack quite well. Even on the NATO side, captured Russian rations were quite the prize to be coveted. In both cases the target here is 1 per day although if forward deployed to an area that is impractical to mermite food out to you may get 3 meals a day till you get back closer to the support network. (yes, we have east bloc mermite cans too) Overall, there is something of a sibling rivalry going on with the food. Both side fervently insist that their food is the best. Actual fact is that the food is pretty good on both sides of the iron curtain. Once you factor in T-rations however the Soviet side probably has it better. Meals are generally not the deciding factor that keeps people away from the East Bloc side. I think the biggest impediment is gear. You could decide to go to East Wind as a US soldier the day before the event and zip around KC with your Mastercard in your hand and get all the gear you need in time. It is quite another matter if you intend to do either Soviet or NVA (East German). In both cases, gear cost is about the same but there is a little bit more effort involved tracking down the correct equipment and lead times are generally a bit longer. Many people I think are somewhat daunted by this and are of course leery of trying to live in East Bloc equipment for that span of time. We all grew up hearing that our stuff is great and there stuff is crap etc etc etc and I think that makes dealing with East Bloc stuff a little intimidating to a lot of people. This is not always the case. Not to say that their stuff is great so much as to say our stuff in that same time frame sucked about exactly as much. If you look at the pics in the East Wind photo gallery of the East Bloc guys you might be surprised. The Soviet 6b4 body armor for instance wears much better than a PASGT vest and of course their winter wear is not too shabby either compared to the equivalent US or German gear. Probably mostly a matter of what is familiar to people I suppose. |
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Quoted:
East Wind is my event so I'll address a few of these comments. Re: "Little BBs everywhere" Not by a long shot. BBs tend to disappear into the ground pretty fast and with 99% of the dipsticks of the world warded off by the level of play required at East Wind there is really not that much ammo that gets flung about. Most of the players are skilled enough to get who they are shooting at fairly quick and without spray and pray. If you looked over the most hotly contested portions of the East Wind battle space from last year you would be VERY hard pressed to find a single bb. Blanks and MILES makes a MUCH bigger mess. In both cases, be it blanks or bbs the weapons do not make much of a mess compared to simple transport of gear into and out of the property. A bunch of Deuces carting trailers in and out is WAY bigger impact than any amount of bbs and or spent shell casings. That's why we pay $1500 cash and specify that we prefer fairly firm ground to lessen our impact on the property.. Re: "Using Miles" Quite some discussion has occurred over this. We would like to move that direction in general particularly with the increased use of vehicles and armored vehicles on the near horizon there are several factors that are somewhat limiting with regards to MILES. First obviously is cost, in order to run East Wind on Miles and be sustainable you need a minimum of 200 sets of MILES gear in addition to the weapons themselves (not as big of an expense). Secondly is the unacceptably high failure rate of MILES gear. This alone means that the 200 set we needed now needs to be bumped up to about 250 to account for the units that are likely to fail on extended use. Thirdly is the need to purchase specialized sats and receiving gear for vehicles, AT weapons, mines etc. Again, you are looking at an expense measured in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Even of you did get around all of that then you have to deal with the immense expense and hassle of dealing with blank ammunition plus the expanded failure rate of the weapon systems themselves. While you would think that a replica weapon with a little gearbox spitting BBs would not be as reliable as a real weapons the simple fact is we have a very low failure rate with the systems we use. In short: If prices come down on the equipment exponentially, if the system reliability makes a marked improvement, if a broader range of accessory equipment becomes available and if blank prices come down we would consider it. Right now, it is just not in the cards. Christopher and I have discussed basically rotating a Firefight! MILES event in directly behind East Wind taking advantage of pre-set up scenario and infrastructure but I think in the current economy it would be hard to find enough customers who could shell out the many thousands of dollars required to even break even on an event like that. Re: Rations. It's all a matter of perspective. 3 basic types of meals are served at East Wind. A-Ration meals are fresh meals from prepared ingredients. In the case of NATO troops this would be your usual chow hall or in our case MKT-85 (mobile kitchen trailer) based meal such as the one AFSOC pictured above with the ham steak. On the Soviet side, A-ration meals are generally hearty stew type meals like Kasha and Beef or Borsch with sausage. Most of the Soviet meals were designed to be single pot meals so you just get a big serving of Borsch and then a few big pieces of Russian bread to go with it. In both cases, the meals are cooked to the proper military recipe cards from the era (we have both US and Soviet recipe cards). To a man, EVERYBODY loved the A-rations on both sides of the event, the Soviet side guys in particular loved their A-ration meals since in the cold weather and high winds we had last year, nothing satisfies like a good heavy stew. Nato targets serving one A-ration meal per day, the Soviets generally serve 2, with one of them being a breakfast of whole grain hot cereal like Millet or Barley with a meat like ham on the side. T-ration meals are the infamous thermo-stabilized flat can meals loathed by all. Designed to rapidly feed lots of troops (and make them all angry). The NATO side gets T-rats, the Soviets are off the hook since we have not found an economical way to import them from Russia. While our cook would rather put in the extra work to crank out something that everyone likes T-rations were a staple of forward deployed US troops and hence to get the complete experience you certainly have to get your T-rat McRib on shelf stable bread sandwich. Nato targets serving one T-ration meal per day. C-ration meals are your combat meals. Obviously for the US guys this means MREs. On the Soviet side we have carefully reproduced as era correct a C-ration menu as we can using imported and available foods. Pretty much across the board the Soviet meals are more popular than MREs. Russian instant Kasha was a particular favorite and believe it or not everyone really took to hard tack quite well. Even on the NATO side, captured Russian rations were quite the prize to be coveted. In both cases the target here is 1 per day although if forward deployed to an area that is impractical to mermite food out to you may get 3 meals a day till you get back closer to the support network. (yes, we have east bloc mermite cans too) Overall, there is something of a sibling rivalry going on with the food. Both side fervently insist that their food is the best. Actual fact is that the food is pretty good on both sides of the iron curtain. Once you factor in T-rations however the Soviet side probably has it better. Meals are generally not the deciding factor that keeps people away from the East Bloc side. I think the biggest impediment is gear. You could decide to go to East Wind as a US soldier the day before the event and zip around KC with your Mastercard in your hand and get all the gear you need in time. It is quite another matter if you intend to do either Soviet or NVA (East German). In both cases, gear cost is about the same but there is a little bit more effort involved tracking down the correct equipment and lead times are generally a bit longer. Many people I think are somewhat daunted by this and are of course leery of trying to live in East Bloc equipment for that span of time. We all grew up hearing that our stuff is great and there stuff is crap etc etc etc and I think that makes dealing with East Bloc stuff a little intimidating to a lot of people. This is not always the case. Not to say that their stuff is great so much as to say our stuff in that same time frame sucked about exactly as much. If you look at the pics in the East Wind photo gallery of the East Bloc guys you might be surprised. The Soviet 6b4 body armor for instance wears much better than a PASGT vest and of course their winter wear is not too shabby either compared to the equivalent US or German gear. Probably mostly a matter of what is familiar to people I suppose. Wow, Sounds like you guys are really into this. What does an individual pay to be a part of this event? |
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Re: “real as airsoft can get”
Yes, that’s about as close as we can get with the systems we have available. I think we all know that the future of this sort of simulation will eventually be MILES but until the systems advance a bit it is just not practical. With Airsoft we can also affordably field useful 60mm mortars, claymore mines, contact mines, hand grenades and Soviet pattern POMZ-2M stick mines all of which would be cost prohibitive in MILES at the current generation. Good airsoft weapons also look and feel the part a lot better than those of you who are accustomed to cheapy ones might think. My airsoft M16 feels MUCH more solid than my clattery old real steel SP1 (mind you, it is old as the hills and is a light barrel) When I showed AFSOC my airsoft AKS-74 the only thing that immediately stood out to him as “not real” was the fact the stock was more solid than usual and did not wobble. Airsoft is far from perfect but at this point in time it is the best simulation system for this type of event. When something better comes along, we will be all over it. :) Re: “really into this” We are into this like crack addicts… You have no idea… Almost every weekend is spent working on equipment, making equipment, driving to coastal Alabama to get equipment, testing equipment, or going out to training events. My partner and have been burning our candles from all 4 ends for the last 2 years doing this stuff and have been having a blast in the process. Just Saturday, we finally got all of out cabling into the MKT-85 and fired off all of the MBU burners at once to measure the power draw from the battery pack before shutting everything down and packing that guy up till the event. That was the end of a project that started off in October and has kept several of us busy ever since. It has been lots of work, but that thing is near perfect now and will be a real addition to the event that I am sure everyone will appreciate. We obviously could have just cooked on propane burners under a pop up sun shade for a lot less hassle but the MKT is the right way to do it and we really prefer to do it the right way. The event motto is “Not because it is easy but because it is hard” we do not like to do things half way. Re: Cost. I do not want to run afoul of the “no pimping” rules of the site here so I am not going to go too far into this. Short answer, $200 including all of your food or the time you are there. More information can be found at the event website. www.operationeastwind.com |
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Yup the AK in question might have a slightly better fit and finish than the real thing.
The wood looked much nicer and the side folder was more solid indeed. Allan has a lot of really sweet gear for sure, Deuce and a half, MKT, Trailers other than the MKT, a couple of CUCVs the russian side has GAZ trucks and so on. Real Russian Tentage, I would like to get out to the site to SEE the setup this year! |
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...I would like to get out to the site to SEE the setup this year! Say.......remember back in the late 1700's when we were fighting Britain for our independence? Folks would routinely picnic on a hillside near the battles and spectate. Sounds like a good plan to me! 
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