Colin Allen

It does indeed; I preferred the version it replaced.

Guess what? That is the upgraded website.

While it has all the issues that one might expect from an Ares, it is a very easy gun to work on, except for the mag catch and the bolt release. Mine now has a real steel mag catch and spring. Fitting a battery into the handguard is a definite stress raiser.

One of my MP5s is an SRC. Well, the externals are :).

I have an L1A1 and a VZ58.

It is far from being crazy. They are badly designed, badly manufactured and badly assembled, with poor quality parts. I have had a number of them over the years and am now down to two and only keep those because I cannot get those two guns from any other manufacturer.

Ares make beautiful RIFs that are junk internally.

A chap who goes by the name of Siggi Langnasen.

Not that I am aware of. I have just seen an old post from you on another forum that mentions the individual :).

Indeed! It was rather impressive really. As the site is so large, the beginning and end of the two minutes were each signalled by a single shot from a blank firing pistol so that everyone got the message at the same time. I will be observing two minutes again tomorrow. Those cheap DE shotguns are surprisingly good.

Following the rather less than wonderful experience last time out, I set out on a cold and foggy morning for Airsoft Plantation. The site was not quite as busy as usual, with probably only about 100-120 players present. For once, I didn't have any guns to test and set up, so my pre-game experience was rather more relaxed than it generally has been of late, leaving me time to chat with other regulars, the site owner and Luke, one of the marshals, who was also at Splatoon last time out. The first game of the day was a fallback. Starting at Swaziland, we had to drive the enemy out of the DEA base and then push on to get five players onto the bus located at the back of the mortar pits. We had infinite buddy regens after a 30m fallback, while the defenders had three lives to take wherever they chose after a 30m fallback. I started off on our right flank, pushing up along the site boundary with a group of players and flanking the DEA base; we managed to take out a lot of defenders to our left, although our advance was slowed by a couple of very annoying snipers. Having cleared the DEA base and after an impeccably observed two minutes silence starting at 11:00, we pushed on to the mortar pits, where everything bogged down a bit. We slowly fought our way in against tough resistance; I was particularly pleased with a flashbang that I lobbed over some bushes which I thought a couple of the enemy were hiding behind; after a shout of "Oh, fuck!" and a loud bang, seven of them walked out with their hands up. As we moved forward, I used the SR47's range and accuracy to help neutralise the defenders on the bus by making it too dangerous for them to appear at the open windows. Eventually, five of our players made it onto the bus. Huzzah! After the usual short break to reload, the game was turned around; suspecting that some of the enemy might try to sneak through the scrubland along the edge of the firebreak, a small group of us took up position in and around the fort. They did indeed do so and we had a great set of firefights, along with more lobbing of some of the 16 flashbangs that I won in one of AP's raffles a few weeks ago. Inevitably, I was eventually hit and retreated to a position behind one of the berms, from where I picked off enemy players who showed their heads above the fort's crenellations and those trying to force their way around by the comms truck. Being hit again, I was falling back when there was a shout that the enemy were attacking in force from the other side of the mortar pits. Moving over there, I found a spot behind a car from where I was able to interdict their movements across my front until a couple of snipers appeared, one of whom potted me. The enemy completed their mission. After luncheon, which as usual, was delivered delivered very efficiently, we walked out to the mortar pits for our own commemoration of WWI, a very short game with the two teams lurking behind facing berms and, after the application of copious amounts of pyro by the marshals, having to "go over the top" towards each other. It could have been trivial, but it was actually quite thought provoking. After that, we played another fallback game; we started at the border, with infinite regens on a marshal, while the defenders had one life in each of the village and the mortar pits. Our objective was to clear the village and then capture the bridge in the mortar pits. We pressed forward against a stiff resistance, which involved me making multiple trips back to regen on Luke, which is always a somewhat disturbing experience. After a hard fight, we pushed into the village and cleared it; myself and another player then swept the village, making sure that no defenders had been left behind. Having done that, we followed our colleagues towards the mortar pits and were moving into the fort, which rather dominates the bridge, when an enemy player popped up and shot a load of us in the back; clearly, our sweeping of the village was not as effective as it could have been! Having regened again, we joined the push towards the bridge, which was duly taken. This game was duly reversed and I found myself on our extreme left, lurking behind the hut in front of the still dried up pond; in the pond were a sniper and a couple of other players. It was a great position, from which I was able to slow down the attack by sending a large number of attackers back to find a marshal to regen on. As the pressure grew, the players in the pond bugged out; I was unable to do so, so I sold my life dearly. Crossing the firebreak, I moved into the brushland with a few comrades in case some of the enemy swept through that way; quite a few of them did and we had a running fight with them, engaging them to slow them down before pulling back to new positions. We held them at bay, but another group to our right eventually pushed through to the bridge, ending the game. It was a typical AP day of well thought out games which engaged both the experienced players and the fairly large number of rentals, played in a good spirit apart from the couple of typical tiny tantrums that seem to happen whenever grown men play with toy guns. Weapons used: Hurricane Kit SR47 Golden Eagle AMD-65 ASG XP18 Commander (CO2)

Cat Crap is excellent, as is Absolutely Clear; it was recommended to me by my eldest, who uses it when diving.

At one site where I used to marshal, a chap who became somewhat notorious in parts of the airsoft community started attending in full Waffen SS combat gear with the eagle and swastika badge and lightning rune collar tabs, accompanied by his young half-Japanese son in full HJ gear with a swastika armband. We persuaded the site owner to make them cover up or remove the Nazi emblems. After his first appearance, a bit of research revealed that he wasn't just playing at being a Nazi. He finally got the message that he wasn't wanted and never came back. As this was many years ago now, I am content to say that his lunch always had added ingredients.

Yes, you would think that the swastikas would be something of a giveaway.

That is an immense simplification of a far more nuanced and complex situation. The policy of gradually increasing representation of non-whites in line with educational and economic development would probably have resulted in an eventual transition to majority rule as opposition to the policy decreased, with a much better outcome for everyone than what actually transpired in both Zimbabwe and the majority of other sub-Saharan African nations. The utter disaster that was and is Zimbabwe could have been avoided. Unfortunately, the rush to hand over power In former African colonies has been anything but a success. Before anyone calls me a racist or a fascist or anything similar, I am moderately left wing and very definitely not racist.