Crye Jumpable Plate Carrier (JPC) Update

Here is my new Crye Jumpable Plate Carrier (JPC) setup! I have an extended baofeng setup so I decided to get the MBITR pouches that are designed for JPC's and went from there! I also ended up adding wires and a whip antenna! Extended my radio's range by a HUGE amount haha.

Preparation: Half of the Battle

So instead of waking up to a day of airsofting, I woke up to a day of sickness and the flu so I decided to hang out in front of my computer screen writing a requested blog. “How do you prepare for an airsoft game?” I will tell you one key idea behind this. Being prepared will save you from a lot of potential headaches.

I have always been that “being on time is showing up ten minutes early” kind of dude. I hate feeling flustered and I hate being late. I love showing up early, being prepared and giving myself time to soak in the environment. Showing up prepared is beyond having everything ready on time; it is having everything ready with ample time and planning your approach to the day. I am not sure about you guys but when I get ready for airsoft, I have to plan an entire day around my event. An event that goes for six or more hours and that doesn’t include the two hour drive one way. That’s at least ten hours of airsoft related activity. That’s 62% of my waking day (assuming that I sleep a minimal eight hours). I prefer not to feel flustered or nervous about forgetting anything during that ten hour period. 

Here is an example of one of my packing lists (speedsofting packing list):
Click Here to Download

Before you keep reading, I want to note that the following is what I do. I don’t want to say you should do everything I do and in all honesty, it may be overkill but it’s important to look at this from a “what can I learn” perspective. You can come in close minded and tell yourself “yah… okay… this is pretty stupid” or you can come in open minded and ask yourself “why does he do that?”

My day technically starts the day before with preparation. I start off by charging my batteries and checking their integrity.  Older batteries will struggle with memory loss and holding a charge. Since I do use older batteries, I have to keep an eye on them. I make sure I have two fully charged batteries during the day. There’s nothing like ruining an entire day because of a bad battery or a lack of charge. I, then, go through my packing list. My packing list is a detailed listening of gear and “things” that I bring during an airsoft game. It is number coordinated with each item number on the list corresponding with a number on my tangible items. After that, I sit down and plan out my entire day. When do I have to wake up? When is the latest time I can leave and still make it on time? What time should I arrive? Etc, etc, etc.

As you can see, it’s not too bad. It’s all about preparation and planning ahead. It doesn’t take long (my routine takes roughly an hour) but it will save a lot of your headaches. I hope this helped!

Operation New Dawn AAR

Well where do I begin? Besides the fact that I got lost temporarily, it was a pretty relaxing drive. It was a pretty standard wake up at five, eat some breakfast, verify my packing list, and drive two hours to the  rendezvous location. Okay, maybe it was more like three hours. I straight up took a right in Cheney, WA instead of a left. Woops! When I arrived, I was greeted by the event hosts, Northwest Airsoft. They were a bit aggressive about telling me not to park on DNR land (which was inside the gates), even though my rear view mirror clearly had a DNR pass on it. After an annoying two minutes, they finally allowed me to park inside the gate. There was a group of people just messing around with their gear and just hanging out waiting for the next truck to take them up a half mile long hill to the staging area. My fellow teammate and battle buddy Drew showed up with his friend, Parker and we hung out for a bit. After ten or so minutes, we finally loaded our gear into a truck and headed up a semi sketchy, very muddy road. At the top was a nice green clearing and about fifteen or so people chilling out. I instantly recognized Skyler, Jared, Andrew, and a few other friends. I will admit, I didn't recognize most of them. There was twenty people total. I expected thirty but I guess that didn't happen.

Thirty minutes later, NWA finally got things rolling. We started chronoing and there was some personal confusion about zip ties but that's whatever. Everyone was shooting below 400 except one person. Oh, and I finally got to see Drew's new WA GBBR! The range was more than lacking (turned out that Drew didn't install the hop-up retention spring which is cool) but there was amazing recoil and the full auto sounded awesome. Anyways, we went through the standard safety briefing and a relatively short ruck to a secondary location. The entire walk, I couldn't help but go over the safety briefing in my head. I felt like something was missing from it and that it wasn't complete. I have no clue why or what it was at the time. Afterwards, Drew mentioned that he didn't hear anything specific about law enforcement, ceasefire or related. Lucky for us, there wasn't an incident. I haven't played with a few players and I wasn't sure of their experiences.

The secondary location was incredible looking. It was relatively small reed covered lake with one rocky hilly side highlighted by rocky overwatch positions and a slower, flatter, side featured by a valley and a very aggressive hill. After a few minutes of admiring the view, we were split into teams and told of our objectives. A battlefield style "Rush" game with five capture points, two on the right and two on the left and one past the lake. We must capture the first flag on each side before progressing to the second set of flags and we must capture the second flag on each side before progressing to the last flag. The explanation of each flag and where they were at was confusing at best. I wasn't sure what was going on to be honest. Aww well, what can you do right?

After a lack of assertiveness from anyone on my team (who was defending), I decided to split into two independent squads. One side, led by Andrew, will take the hill side while my squad takes the valley. The valley was interesting. The distance from the attacking team's CCP to the first flag was half the distance of our first flag and our spawn. The valley also was a huge disadvantage for us since the attackers could pick at us well before we can set up a relatively viable defense. However, Parker was the difference maker. He was able to effectively harass the opposing team enough that our defense could solidify. We did eventually lose that first flag but that's all we needed. We had a nice hill that allowed us to bunker in and eliminate targets using range. They were stopped stone cold. One hilarious moment was when I was walking back into combat (from my CCP) and there was a gaggle of four tangos down range at roughly 300 to 400 feet. One attempted to engage and fell about 100 feet short... Skyler then stated "why do you even bother? K-21 has the longest range on this field." Probably made my day. To prove his point, I raised my gun and sent a few rounds downrange. That made them scatter pretty fast! The rest of the round was relatively boring. Someone kept harassing us on the left flank so I sent three people, including myself, to flush him out. That resulted in a futile search and us stalking the entire attacking team who thought the coast was free. Nope. It wasn't.

After a very long break, my team was tasked with assaulting the hill. After a very treacherous climb down a very sketchy hill, we were faced with a daunting task. We had to flush out five people who were on top of an impossibly steep hill. I remember looking at Drew and seeing his "I will kick your butt if you make me climb this while being shot at" look. Drew is always full of surprises. He has great knowledge of real steel and good skills on the field. He is fast and he is even smarter. He is definitely XO material. Anyways,  he suggested that we flank around right on a path lining the lake. This suggestion singlehandedly won us the battle. Parker, Drew and I spent the next fifteen minutes ninja-ing our way around the right side. We got in a firing line and slowly marched on their 6. We saw all of them turned away from us. It was almost perfect. Almost. They anticipated our move and had rear security. We got off lucky because he decided to look a different direction. I did get too greedy though. I moved up even closer with no cover. When he turned around, I had no choice but to engage. Screw silence. I gave him a healthy dose of bb's and sent him off cussing (and a few threats pointed at me... something about killing me in my sleep). Drew immediately called out three left side. Parker was too busy engaging a tango right side so I had to swing over and help. One was laying behind a small log and another was using a tree for cover. I am not sure how, but I was able to dispatch both with relative ease. I'm pretty sure they were still confused about the situation. This left one person (Drew took someone out). I ran over to give Parker some assistance and almost getting hit in the process. There was a grassy plateau and I could barely see the enemy target. I gave him a spray and sent him packing home. It all happened in literally a minute. While the rest of the team set up a firing line and started pushing forward, I spent the next fifteen minutes hunting for the capture point. Quite embarrassing to be honest. We missed it. It was right where we were... at the plateau. Skyler couldn't help but laugh his butt off. Thanks Skyler.

This is where the game went downhill. We pushed up so well. Our team kept picking them off without any effect to our momentum. In fact, we were too good. We ended up completely flushing out the second flash and had defensive positions on superior ground. The enemy team called a cease fire on our side of the field and came over to watch the fight on the other side of the lake with us. Nothing really happened after that minus me scaring their entire team by shooting across the lake. That lake had to be at least 350 feet at this point. I just had to angle my gun up a little bit and I made them scatter pretty dang fast.

The rest of the game was quiet. We were asked to go over and help and we did... but nothing came of it. Drew, Parker and I decided to call it a day. After an awesome raffle sponsored by Precision Airsoft, we peaced. I would rate my experiences a solid six or seven out of ten. It was a free game at a new location. I can't blame them for not getting a higher score. Just to note, a ten would be Milsim West level and that's 24 hours of immersive military simulation. Overall, it was an okay day.