NJNam

10th & 11th June, 2006

A weekend of Scenario Paintball

Anyone who has read some of my previous reports will note that I normally wake up and am on the road before dawn on Paintball Sundays. Not so this time, well kind of . . . This was an entire weekend of shooting paint. Camping, Beer, and Paintball: What more can one over worked IT Director ask for? Well, actually a lot of things, but that's not really the point of today's exercise in amateur writing.

Today's story actually begins about a month before the game. First I need to prepare my body. This is promising to be the largest game in the Loaded Crows career, and one of the most important. We are finally a sponsored team, and we continue to take our reputation more seriously than nearly anything else. So, I begin a diet, and start working out (only a little of course, we wouldn't want to shed too much of the spare tire J ). Next I order a full set of BDUs (Battle Dress Uniform), well actually with the advent of the new uniform, they are now called ACUs (Army Combat Uniform). Complete with a little Loaded Crows name strip! Next we fast forward to the week before the game. I am now in complete paintball mode, and am beginning to fall behind in my work during the day, because I'm surfing the internet and planning the next mods on my A5. The evenings are leaving my fiancé severely neglected as I am in the basement cleaning, checking and rechecking, re-cleaning all of my gear. Wednesday night I recheck everything one last time, and methodically begin to pack it away into backpacks and duffel bags. Thursday everything gets carried up and loaded into the Jeep. The c-c-c-cooler is stuffed with beer, grillables, and a load of ice to keep it all cool. Friday morning I begin my hour commute into Hoboken , as I'm leaving straight from the office this time.

Two o'clock couldn't come quickly enough, and it wasn't even 07:15 (my usual time) when I got to the office. I left my fully loaded Jeep in the garage, after triple checking the door locks. Glancing back I hoped it would be ok all day. I normally take the train, and have only used this lot once or twice in the past. Fortunately, there is plenty of work to do to keep my mind off of paintball for a few a few hours. So much in fact, that I began to worry if I'm going to be able to leave on time. 14:00 - Time to leave, and by some miracle, I've finished enough work to be caught up and ready to go. I walk out to the garage, and to my relief, the Jeep is exactly the way I left it. An hour drive and conference call later, I called Dave to see where he was. It turns out my co-captain was only about 20 minutes behind me, so I pulled off to a rest stop to wait for him. After we gassed up and grabbed coffee, the Jeep and X-terra are off to the field in typical caravan fashion, complete with FRS radios which were readily available and charged for the weekend. About 45 minutes before we arrived at the USANA field, there was a torrential downfall, bad enough that cars were pulling off to the side, at one point a small branch and fallen off a tree and bounced off my windshield. It didn't damage anything, but it surely gave me a bit of a jump. Not to be dissuaded, Lieutenant Lipitor a.k.a. TenaciousD a.k.a. Locke a.k.a. Grumpy bastard a.k.a. Dave and I drove on (one of these days we'll come up with a good name for him). To our complete satisfaction, it finally stopped raining about 15 minutes before we got to the field, and blue cloudless skies were seen once again.

We arrived at the field, and drove around for 20 minutes trying find a suitable campsite. Finally we agreed on a spot at half past 5. By 18:30 we were 100% unpacked and mostly setup. The Loaded Crows don't do anything half assed, and this was certainly no exception. For Friday night we had (between only TWO of us): One canopy, two folding tables, two tents, 6 chairs, a lantern, multiple citronella candles, two grills, 3 c-c-c-coolers, 8 cans of propane, and 7 paintball markers. As we were unpacking and setting in, we realized we were camped next to the NYOC (plus one GotKills?), and the SWAT guys. Except for 6 guys, our entire little camping section was on the VietCong side.

Now for a brief intro to this particular scenario . . . There were in the neighborhood of 800-900 players, split into two teams. As one can assume, this was a Vietnam themed weekend, with Objective names such as Hanoi and Saigon . The teams were aptly named VC and the Americans. Having been in the army, at first I had some reservations about joining the VC side, it somehow seemed un-patriotic, and just plain wrong. Those were quickly dissuaded as ALL the other Long Island / NJ related scenario teams (NYOC, SWAT, GotKills?, Reservoir Dogs, Assassins TPT, The E-Jam Army including: E-Jam Raiders, Team PAIN Team Recon, Team Prozac ) whom we play with were also role playing VC – together I think we numbered in the 80ish range, that's about 20% of the VC force alone. We truly were a force to be reckoned with. This was the first time the Loaded Crows played with (as opposed to against) most of these guys, but we were welcomed from the very start. Off the field, we are all friends and fellow paintballers, and it shows.

After chow, Dave and I lit up the lantern and began a final gear check. The little children from the next tent over came to peer and gush over our (rather impressive, if I do say so myself) armory of paintball weapons. As I said, there were no less than 7 markers in attendance, including: ICD Promaster, Autococker Trilogy, (2) Tippmann A5s, Tippmann Model 98, Warsensor WSP, and a Warsensor G1+. Every one has at least some type of modification or improvement over stock. After everything had been checked one last time, we packed it all into our gear tent, locked our lockables, lit two cigars, opened two more beers, and settled in to relax a little before going to sleep.

Saturday morning we woke up early. It was about 05:30 when I awoke, afraid I had slept through the alarm. I hadn't and about half an hour later I got up. Rustling for my watch had already woken a grumpy Dave, and we had chow and began the dreadful waiting. Probably the single most difficult part of the entire weekend was the waiting Saturday morning: Waiting in line for chow, waiting until 8:45 for the air compressor to be ready, waiting until 9:00 to get paint, and finally – waiting for Joe to show up J . Matt (not a Crow, but a friend of the team) and Todd (Crabman) both got lost and were there by 9:30. Joe (Cardiac Kid) strolled in (around 11:00) shortly after we hit the field, but before the game actually started.

The game began pretty close to on time, and at about 11:00 we jumped on a bus heading out to the VC insertion point. From the very start it was a blast. The Loaded Crows linked up with NYOC just before the whistle for some last minute tactics collaboration and a photo opportunity. NYOC had dragged their compressor, generator, air cannon and ammo out there, and were beginning to set it up . . . amongst the obligatory cigarette and cigar break, of which this author *may* have partook.

Whistle blows, masks down – smokes put away, paint is gonna start flying any minute now. Damn, that chopper insertion looked cool as hell, maybe we should have coughed up the extra 25 bucks a piece for it. Here come the Americans, charging down the road – right into a hailstorm of paint, ranging in .68 caliber to anti-personnel, anti-tank., and grenade rounds. We put up our barrels, and launch about half a hopper's worth a piece into that madness. Most of us take a long-balled round, but we are only a few yards from a VC controlled field hospital, so it doesn't really slow us down much. Dave and I make the decision to begin our own patrol, and we start our 5 man squad down Ho Chi Minh Trail to check out the action in Saigon . The way this game was setup, the VC needed to hold Saigon until 13:00 to get their points, or the Americans needed to take Saigon by 13:00, depending on which side you were on. The Americans never did actually take Saigon , and by 15:00 we were told the event organizers forced the VC out, giving the Blue team the city. This was done because the Americans needed to control it for the rest of the event to play out as planned. Not a whole lot happened in the next hour or so, we wandered around, and waited for the Americans to make their big push. It never really came, so we went looking for some more action.

Here we come to one of the funniest moments in the entire weekend. There was a road with a bridge next to Saigon , but just behind was the most perfect trail for an ambush, so we figured we'd give it a try. We wandered on over, and at the trail head, broke into formation. Crabman took point, I covered him, Lt. Lipitor behind me, then Matt and Joe in the rear. Spread 15 – 20 feet apart, and staggered left to right, we were in absolute perfect 5 man formation for a trail 8 feet wide. Todd was busy watching from 8-1, I was covering his 12-4, and so on down the line. We had previously been advised of the possibility of booby traps, mines, etc. so we were all on toes. Having not really seen much action yet, we were all a little trigger happy too. What happened next was nothing short of sheer beauty. At about Todd's 2, clearly within my field of fire, about 70-80 feet out, an American sees him, gets off the ground into a crouch, and began to slow advance. Not wanting to call attention to myself, as he only saw Todd, I signaled a stop, and moved into position. Within seconds, the adversary was about 40 feet and bringing his barrel to bear. I was already in position, and took the shot. As soon as he heard my A5's report, Todd dove, and the clown stalking him had 4 perfect .68 caliber marks up his left leg into his torso. I signaled the all clear, and the rest of the patrol double timed it a few steps to catch up to us. Dave and I, as team and squad leaders had another decision. Do we continue on this trail, or do we decide there is too much resistance and back off? What do you think we did? Hell yeah, we spread out and kept going. About another 100 feet up, we hit an ambush, Todd dove into brush and came up shooting. I've got my '98 Flatline on the A5, and I'm long balling like a son-of-a-bitch. I think I got 2 more kills right then and there. Dave ran up and took position to my 1, about 15 feet up. He begins to lay down some serious suppressing fire with ICD Promaster, and the rest of gang began to creep up. Suddenly Dave gets shot from behind. Correctly thinking we had already cleared everything behind us, he turns around. Matt immediately began to apologize. I'm too busy laughing to pay attention, and I take a round in my abdomen. Dave and I began to walk off. As we were exiting the trail back onto the main road, we saw about 8-9 guys, in matching team jerseys and speedball pants, running full out into the trail we had just vacated. I tapped Dave's arm and said “Dude, Dude, Dude – watch this! Our guys are about to get housed.” Well, they did and about 45 seconds later, out comes Matt, Joe, and Todd covered in paint. Joe was actually painted front and back, as somehow Matt had managed to shoot him in the back too. Those response triggers are pretty fast, aren't they? LOL.

As it was about 14:00 at this point, Dave and I decided a well deserved lunch break was in order. We hoofed it back to our Loaded Crows campsite, and proceeded to grill some hamburgers, some chicken and open a few more beers. After lunch, we found it to be nearly 15:00, and the game was going to stop at 17:00 for dinner chow. We refilled our paint pods, loaded our hoppers, topped off our air tanks, and hit the main road once again.

This time we set off into heavier brush in a portion of the field we hadn't played yet. We got a little separated on our next patrol, Todd and Matt stuck with me, and Joe and Dave stayed together. We tried a flanking maneuver, but my fire team was never able to make it back to our objective. I sent Todd up front crawling through some nasty brush, with Matt and I covering him. After about 30 minutes, it was becoming painfully obvious this plan wasn't going to work because all the fools around us giving away our positions, so I called him back. A little while later, I sent Matt and Todd to link up with Dave and Joe, and decided to take my sweet time regrouping myself. Holy Crap! Tank! Tank! Tank! I hear it coming, I peak my head up, damn that one is the main Blue Team (American) Tank. Holy crap, its coming down the trail straight at me . . . I turned tail, ran up the trail another 75 feet, and dove into some brush. I rolled over onto my back, so I could watch to see if the tank turned around or not, but I'm only about 15 feet off the road at this point and it doesn't look like its going to stop or turn around. No such luck, that damn thing is definitely not stopping or turning around, its driving right up the road to me. I immediately jump on the radio, what does is take to stop a tank? Does a grenade have any effect? I had two in my vest, and thought this was a perfect opportunity to give them a whirl. The tank is at 40 feet and closing fast, so I asked again over the radio. Now the tank is at 25 feet, and I'm frantically whispering my query once again simultaneously praying I'm being quiet and still enough to not be seen. Again, I receive no answer from the radio. Damn! Finally, I decide not getting shot at point blank from a tank is more important than hitting it with a grenade, so I shut up. I waited another 3-4 minutes, until that monstrosity was at least good 200+ feet down the road before I dared to move again. I sat up, looked around, no one was on the field, like ANY WHERE. It was eerie. I heard the report of paintball markers, but that sounded like it was 300 yards away. So, I adjusted my vest, held my weapon at high ready, and started walking. I rejoined the rest of my squad shortly there after, with what I thought was a pretty funny story. I learned after the fact, the guys heard my radio calls, but either their transponder wasn't working, or my receiver was hosed. Apparently the rules for this weekend dictated that while a grenade hit does stop a tank, it does not stop its turret or gunners, and the effect only lasts for 5 minutes. If I had taken a chance and thrown one or both anyhow, I would have been screwed in a very painful way.

As a Squad again, we decided we had time for one more mission before clearing out for chow. Nothing really interesting happened, we fought hard, we pressed on. We took some casualties but inflicted many times more. We Loaded Crows held our own, and by leaps and bounds continued to add to our well deserved reputation of being a small yet highly effective element on the paintball field.

We hump back to base camp for a little chow, and more beer. We have 2 hours before the night game begins. We dropped our vests and markers, and start checking our wounds. No one was hit badly, the worst bruise amongst us was on Dave's shoulder courtesy of “friendly fire Matt.” Todd and I hoofed it across camp to get our dinner chow, a couple of not so tasty meatball subs, the other guys grilled up some chicken, and we all drank a couple more beers. Joe was unfortunately not able to stay the night, so after gearing up and chronoing down to 240fps we said our goodbyes and the four remaining soldiers hit the field.

We took the field once again. There was about 30 – 60 minutes left of useable light, and we wanted to make it count. We double timed it up the road with sore backs and aching feet. After a short while we found a platoon sized element sweeping and clearing large area of brush, and joined the action. Immediately, a friendly took our rear position, and fanned us out to perfect formation yelling movement commands into our backs. He was great, it was very apparent he was ex-military, and definitely no supply sergeant. From his anonymous commands, one was able to determine he had been well trained in platoon sized warfare and clearly knew what he was doing. Dave and I discussed it later, we guessed he was either a high ranking enlisted-man or lower grade officer, probably of a Special Ops related M.O.S. After a short while, we completed our objective, and had that entire section of woods cleared. Later on, we broke off into our 4 man squad, walked up a road, just as dusk was settling in. Todd was on point again, then me, Dave and Matt. I saw movement about 150 feet to our 2, and called Todd back. He retreated to my position, the other guys moved up. We quickly decided to send Todd up ahead to call friend or foe. About 40 feet behind him the three of us heard clearly his call, and it was returned not with identification, but with paint. “Man down,” I cried, and the 3 of us opened up. One flatlined A5, an A5 RT (featuring the famous “straw mod”), and an ICD Promaster emptied about 1 and half hoppers in 15 seconds. We shouted, and they screamed back: “we're red, we're VC.” They clambered out. The two genius' pull out of the brush (clearly wiping our paint off themselves), to argue why we shot at them when they are on our team. Sheer Idiocy! One of the fools looks at the round Todd took to his chest, and says, “no problem, I'm medic.” He gives it a quick wipe and says “you're healed, keep playing.” We played for another hour or so, and hit up a different part of the field. It was beginning to get really dark by 21:00, and with as many immature fools out here, we felt it was beginning to get a little unsafe too. Dave and I make the command decision to call it a night, so we forced a march back over half the field to our site to settle in for rest, relaxation and beer.

We broke out the snacks: chips and cupcakes, and washed them down with more beer and cigars. Someone wisely produced a deck of cards from their car, and a lively game of Spades ensued. Next thing we knew it was nearly 01:00 long past when we should have bedded down for the night.

Sunday morning brought more waiting for paint, air and chow. We were all up, dressed, gassed, loaded, fed and ready for the field by 09:00. We quickly chronoed our markers back to 280 feet per second, and went to find a lift. We found the bus just before it was pulling out, and clambered aboard to shouts of “Loaded Crows!” from the NYOC guys. Yeah, it's pretty cool to know someone out there knows your team name and respects you as a formidable player.

So we took the bus out to the field. Now it's our turn to just harass the Americans until such time as we allowed to take back Saigon. After the previous day's action, none of us expected any serious resistance outside of Saigon, for we had the Americans bottled up pretty well there. We had no idea how wrong we were, for one of the fiercest battles of the weekend was about to be fought and we were going to be smack in the middle of it.

On the morning of the second day, as rumor has it, a large group of American troops composed primarily of Blue's Crew managed to “bribe” the bus driver into letting them off just down the road from the VC field hospital. There we were, having just reinserted from our field hospital when we see an American tank come rolling towards us, followed by 20+ troops. All the red troops in the area immediately responded. Thanks to a little bit of luck (in the form of an open reinsertion at the hospital), and the direction of several members of Team Pain and NETAG, we wiped out not only the American tank, but the opposing infantry as well. The intensity and ferocity of the fight for the VC hospital can be evidenced by the numerous hi-fives and handshakes between the two teams immediately following the firefight. Seemed like everyone there was muttering…”That was awesome!!!”. The reds who took part in that action were so pumped up that there was only one thing we could do next. It was time to go downtown.

So, alongside Team Pain, NETAG, TSSOC and assorted others we marched straight down the Ho Chi Minh trail. We came into a few ambushes, but we had 50 or so experienced players, and they really weren't any match for us. We were on the outskirts of the city within 15 minutes. I had been laying down a fairly impressive amount of suppressive fire with my trusty flatline, quickly ran out of air, and drew my sidearm. Todd ran out shortly thereafter. Before long we were both out of air, and looking out the end of a trail into Saigon, just out of range of those hated Blue barrels. What to do? We had about 60 guys surrounding us, and beginning to fade into the underbrush spreading out to converge into Saigon. Anyone who has played paintball in a major Scenario will realize while such a maneuver sounds great on paper, and would work in War, however in this type of game most players simply don't have the proper discipline to pull it off.. As I began to ponder what our next move would be, Dave stepped up to the plate. He offered his grenade to HiVi's most eliminated player. I held Todd's Trilogy, and he ran like the crazy SOB he is . Right into the center of Saigon, and lobbed that puppy with all his might. Sadly Crabman threw it from so far away that the 15 guys he was aiming at looked up, and moved far enough away long before the grenade touched the ground. He wasn't shot out until his return trip. Well, my WSP was now out of air and paint as well, and it was already 13:00 so I decided to start making my way back to our site to begin cleaning up and packing.

NYOC-Hurt had a similar intention, so we backed out to our field hospital, with the idea of walking down the main road back to our campsites. What luck! The bus was empty, and just about to take off, so we hopped aboard. There were only six guys or so on the bus including the driver, Hurt and I, and we were laughing and commenting on the game so far. Spirits were high, despite our exhaustion. No one ever had seen any of the promised booby traps, but we were still wary of them. The driver kept going down the road, and we came into a pretty heavy fire fight. Hurt and I looked at each other, as the windows and sides of the bus were getting pelted all around us, damn it almost felt like combat! About a minute or two later, he was through the fire, and we saw the end of the road. Then it happened. A deafening BOOOOM! We felt the entire bus jump up at least 4 inches underneath us, as if we had driven over a landmine. It was startling to say the least. Hurt and I just stared at each other with the same dumfounded look on our face, and the hint of a smile forming, I think we were both contemplating putting our masks back on. Looking out the back of the bus, we even witnessed a fair amount of smoke, but still none of the telltale gun powder smell. That was one hell of a booby trap. Later once the bus was back off the field, it turned out Hurt and I had the last bus ride. The explosion we had heard and felt was a rear tire exploding. There are too many possibilities to list, however my belief is it could have been a live round he drove over, as all 350 acres of the field are primarily used as a training facility and rifle range.

I got back to the site, lit up a smoke, dropped my vest, marker and sidearm. I started policing our area, and packing up what I could. The other guys were still on the field retaking Hanoi.

After reinserting from the field hospital, Dave, Todd and Matt were approached by the tank crew from the 13 th Legionnaires who stated, “We need help…a bunch of Blues just captured Hanoi”. Without hesitation, the three of them jumped into the back of the tank / APC (otherwise known as a hollowed out passenger van complete with gun ports) and headed off towards Hanoi. One of the great things about a scenario of this size is the ability to meet people from other teams. It's amazing how a group of complete strangers can come together to accomplish a goal in such a short amount of time.

As the Tank/APC pulled up to Hanoi, the crows were greeted by the familiar sound of paint hitting sheet metal, as they began to take fire. Dave quickly manned one of the gun ports and began laying down covering fire…ahhh the sweet sound of uncapped ramping. At close to 20 bps it didn't take long for Dave to empty a hopper and a pod, but it was plenty of time for the Legionnaires (and a few crows) to secure Hanoi. Todd was his usual fearless self. Under the base of fire provided by Dave he deftly surrendered the occupants of one bunker only to continue his assault and surrender the lone occupant of a neighboring guard tower.

With Hanoi secure, it was time to do a sweep of the surrounding woods to make sure there were no uglies about. As the Crows were pushing through the woods (in a standard skirmish line formation) they noticed several blues get up and start sprinting away…normally, this isn't the worst thing to see, but THEY WERE TAKING OUR FLAG!!! Apparently as they abandoned Hanoi, they decided to take our flag from the base, thereby preventing us from re-raising it. Didn't know that was allowed, but oh well…another game, another lesson learned. With the reckless abandon normally associated only to Todd, the Crows gave chase.

As they pursued the fleeing blues, the Crows were very careful not to end up walking into an ambush. As they moved down the trail, they noticed a large group of Blue players (in blue jerseys…Blues Crew) off on a side trail. At that point the Crows had a decision to make…do they withdraw and avoid the massive volume of paint capable of being thrown at them by Blue's Crew? Or do they add to their impressive collection of welts in search of greater glory. If you don't know the answer to that question, you haven't been reading very carefully.

It was pretty obvious they were there waiting for us to stroll by on the main trail as we pursued the absconding flag stealers, and while the odds were stacked HEAVILY against them, Dave, Todd, and Matt decided to set up an ambush of their own. Normally there are tactical rules about setting up ambushes, and only doing so when the numbers are in your favor for doing so, but let's be honest, this is paintball, the only sport where you can go down in a blaze of glory and come back for more. So, the three crows began creeping up the main trail but in the brush, hoping that the blue ambush would get tired of waiting and cross thru the woods on their way to the main trail. If this happened, they would cross directly through the crow firing lanes. After what seemed like an eternity (probably 5-10 minutes), the Blues started to move...and as luck would have it, they were moving just as the Crows had hoped. The first few blues moved past, but the Crows held their fire wanting to fire into the main body. Just as they were about to release the hounds, the distinctive sound of a Shocker was heard behind us, followed shortly by Todd calling himself out. Dave quickly swung around to face the incoming fire and got low, hoping to remain unnoticed. As he did so, he saw three guys in the brightly colored attire typical of a speedball team. With Todd eliminated, and Matt shortly thereafter, he realized it was just a matter of time before he too would be on his way to the field hospital. As the speedballers moved across his field of view, he waited until all three were exposed, then unleashed the full fury of the Promaster. While he succeeding the scaring the living hell out of the speedballers, he also succeeded in giving away his position to the other two members of the 5 man team who were trailing behind the original three.

Disappointed at not being able to pull off the ambush, and low on air/paint, the Crows began their march off the field.

And so, at 15:00 on Sunday 11 June, 2006, the Loaded Crows were able to hold their heads up high, as we piled into our various vehicles. It was a long, exhausting weekend. We came, we fought, and once again we TRIUMPHED. A special thank you to Pyro Paintball Productions. A shout out to all our *friendly* teams that were able to make it: NYOC, SWAT, GotKills?, Reservoir Dogs, Assassins TPT, The E-Jam Army including: E-Jam Raiders, Team PAIN, Team Recon NJ, and Team Prozac. It's always great playing, but this was kind of neat to play alongside, as opposed to against many of you.

Until our next game,

“Veni, Vidi, Vici” - Julius Caesar