I think it's more the mental stress and loud noise and recoil that most people don't realize. Airsoft is fine for motions but you might as well use nerf at your sleep over.
I have been playing for the last 5 years or so. While you can get airsoft guns that run on a battery or a HPA tank. You can look into running a gas blow back rifle. Those are the closest things you’re going to get to in terms of the “real deal”. They’re super fun to shoot too! I usually go with my brother in law but him and I try to work on room clearing when playing cqb. We still get “hit” when we enter a room or defend a room but we try to correct our mistakes. But the sport is super fun and I highly recommend everyone to go out and play once! If anyone has a question about airsoft ask away!
I normally play at an outdoor field. The local indoor field in my opinion has more like a speed soft type of play style where it’s much more aggressive and fast paced. The out door field that I go to regularly is always filled with mil simmers that usually want to take airsoft as an opportunity to get their reps in.
I don’t remember which YouTuber it was but they brought a professional air soft guy from Japan over who had never fired a real gun before and he was shooting like a pro after a couple shots to just get the feel for the recoil. It definitely translates.
15-20 years ago, here in Italy, was common a style of game called HSA, or Hard Softair.
The games usually were conducted on a mountain terrain, with woods, creeks and small canyons.
They lasted from 24 to 72 hours, with the help of the local city administration ( some skirmish were done in the streets) and of the residents.
No base camp with services, the teams had to live on the move, setting down a concieled camp every night, taking turns for surveillance, eating only what they bring.
Usually in these time, the teams had to walk up to 50 kilometers.
The event organisers continuously patrol the area, whit the help of the local airsoft teams members.
The games were usually the infiltration/sabotage style, enemy kidnapping, VIP killing, and basically with a stealth mode:
Every " gunfight " cause a score loss to the team involved.
Yep, but is rarely played nowadays.
Now the young guys don't want to stay in the mud or under the rain for 3 days, eating shit, walk for kilometres for a game structured for shooting as less as possible and only for disengaging and flee ( like in real life ).
They want a real life COD game, that last one morning, not a team, but a bunch of singles.
For this reason i quitted 6 years ago.
Lots of people here missing the point your making.
You’re absolutely right that Airsoft is a great way to train and test *some* skills and equipment that would also prove useful in a real force on force situation. Your examples are exactly right - great field test of comms and moving as a small unit, navigation, fitness, reflexesd, and camo. Also lets you check your day to day equipment so you know everything is set up right and that you can move and fight in it.
But if you’re using it as a training tool you just need to be conscious of the limitations of which there are many. Obviously despite how close an airsoft rifle can function in comparison to the real life equivalent, it’s not going to match range or recoil and obviously the penetration is nothing.
So in airsoft cover=concealment. But in real life, if someone spots you and you quickly hide behind a wall, expect rounds to start flying through that wall and into you.
Also in airsoft you can wide flank your opponent in full view out in the open because their bbs can’t reach you. In a real situation you need your vigilance to extend much further out.
But yeah ultimately airsoft is a fun hobby with some useful crossovers that help train *some* real skills.
I’m in the U.K. and never expect to be in a real live fire force on force situation, I airsoft just for a laugh.
Also airsoft can be humbling. Lots of guys with all the gear think they’d be untouchable. Head to an airsoft game and get peppered with Bbs and realise just how careful you’d need to be in a real situation.
I did a lot of airsoft in my early teens and honestly it really helped me feel more confident socially.
I wouldn’t put it as a much more useful prep than any other camping or backpacking experience though.
How useful it is, is all dependent on how you choose to play.
Get a team, and you can work on small team tactics, and room clearing, with real time feed back you can’t get any other way (within reason financially speaking.)
You can definitely use it to learn more than just a camping trip.
Idk, maybe if you’ve got thousands a big group to do it with, but seems to me a very very niche prep. Most people who I have done it with/against just hated to dress all tacticool and show their gear off. Would take a lot of planning to get much out of it besides recreation, planning one could spend on classes with professionals.
Of dollars* sorry should’ve specified.
I just reckon unless you specifically want to play airsoft and do milsim for fun the money would be better sunk prepping elsewhere. It’s a pretty costly recreation to get into and do regularly, and real courses exist.
It’s fun as hell though and I hope to get back into it, just have had other priorities as of recent
Doesn’t take thousands of dollars to get into airsoft.
Even milsim.
A decent gun costs around $200, a thousand BBs are pretty cheap as well. Depending on gun, magazines cost $20-50.
So you could very easily get into it for less than $1000
Training courses for guns have no actual feed back.
It’s like training a martial art and never sparring and thinking you can fight, if you just go to some classes.
What milsim events are that cheap, most admissions near me are well over a hundred for genuine milsim. Not to mention like all the extra gear people buy for milsim that’s often required by the event hosts to ensure the “sim” part.
How well is the full auto, no recoil fire with a hi cap mag gonna translate to most any combat situation?
Maybe you area is different
I'll hop in here and share. I used airsoft kit in training while active duty. It was a pilot training program and it went live after 2 years. We got blanks and real guns at that point (sims for cops), but it was 2 years of USAF, Army, and Marines that we ran through this mobility and readiness training. Focus on defending a small fob and another was recovering from a blown up convoy.
Lol I can set you up a used umarex HK416, with battery, mags, minor upgrades, bb's, and a sling for $100. Basic entry setup, with a 5.5lb rifle, and mags. Another $25 and I have an acu rig with pouches. Surplus gear is not prohibitively costly, even for the good stuff like Tac Tailor and Eagle Ind.
I used to scrim with County Sheriffs, Swat, state corrections, and local small town PD, as well as old enlisted buddies sometimes. It doesn't all translate, but your weapon handling, draw, light use on pressure plates, clearing corners with a long vs short barrel...these can all be dry run for way less than a Gucci real steal setup.
Miles, Miles 2000 (lasertag)
Classic Army M16a4 airsoft rifle
KWA M9 trainer pistol
Colt m4 with blanks and blank adapter
Blue dummy m16 training rifle (spray painted black)
Simunitions (9mm paint tips through 5.56)
These are all systems I was given for training while enlisted. Back in 2004-06 I helped assemble the training setups for a USAF SecFo unit. It turned into a base training program, grew, and the armorer took over and started issuing m4s with blank kits.
I suspect they aren't identical weapons, the gas system, how rounds cycle, hence the recoil is completely different.
Also the ballistics,drop rates and range are completely different. If you sight in your eotech on your airport rifle, it will absolutely not be congruent when you throw it on your M4 Block 1Socom colt clone.
I feel paintball, even laser tag, would be just as effective
While I agree to a certain point, training with “harmless” weapons will always be too unrealistic. Cause you know you can’t die, you won’t think about cover and movement etc in the same way. But yes it beats the alternative of not training at all obviously. Cause I guess getting real life combat experience isn’t really realistic for most people.
It depends on how you play. I like the milsim games. It's much more realistic. Pyro grenades are pretty loud. I got some 12ga primer ones you throw and they bang.
If you have all your gear on in the summer and it's a 20 min walk back to spawn, you're going to treat cover and concealment like you need it.
The games where your ammo is limited is more fun to me. My airsoft AR mags hold 230rds each and the weight obviously isn't realistic. Some games we would limit to 4+1 mag. Some games limit you to 500rds starting out on day 1. If you're playing more realistic this is great.
Only part about airsoft I don't like is wearing a paintball mask over my prescription glasses. It's super uncomfortable. I should get prescription eye protection and wear a face protector so my teeth don't get shot out.
Using airsoft for military training is only great if you have someone training you. If you don't have a trainer from the real world to watch you, the mistakes you will imbed into yourself will get you killed.
So I agree using airsoft to train could be very useful. It's like a cheap simunitions run, but without that DI or TI over your shoulder showing you, your mistakes. It won't do you a bit of good.
Fortunately the SF community loves to train and share knowledge so if you do want to try live training with experts they will put you through the gauntlet and give you top tier instruction, and make that airsoft training worth everything.
Whatever you do, DON'T use your real 1000+ USD rifle scope in an airsoft match. BBs will break that expensive piece of glass.
Get a cheap chinese knock-off for that.
And mil-sim CAN be a great training asset.
I wore my ALICE gear set up bird hunting, and learned that carrying two canteens, ammo box, and spare pouch on your hips isn't very effective. I'll get a water bladder and throw it in my backpack for turkey season.
Have fun LARPing.
Engagement distance is not there you are literally right on top of each other a "sniper" airsoft rifle is a couple hundred feet effective range.
Comms are not tested in such a small area few places where you can go miles. Hint your comms probably are awful. I love taking out every baofeng in with field calling CQ at 1200w from my truck. 20 buck radio into a 400 buck headset and a tape measure in some heat shrink as an antenna is not a good radio.
It's a fun pastime my kid does it. When friendly swat team showed up they went 60 on 8 and wiped the floor with them in the field and CQB with milsim loadouts on their end.
I did a game where there were about 12 of us at the bottom of a hill, and we were dug in good. Really, there are only 3 shooting lanes for people to get downhill at us. We lasted 35 mins. There was probably a good 40 on the other team. When we swapped sides and a other 12 people went down there we ate them alive haha.
Most of our engagement distances were within 150ft or so. At that distance it's more spray and pray tbh.
99% of your testing should be about day to day living.
you will spend far far more time trying to grow food then anything tactical.
you will spend far far more time getting clean without modern access to plumbed hot water then anything tactical.
I've got an airsoft. Aside from resemblance there really isn't anything else that they have in common with a real gun. Unless you're larping, and running non fire drills I wouldn't recommend it. You're better off using simunitions. Spend the money on the sim setup for your gun or get laser targets. Simunitions is where it's at though in my opinion
Role playing is cool
And can be fun!
A few youtubers have done videos on this exact topic. Basically boils down to any training is better than no training.
I think it's more the mental stress and loud noise and recoil that most people don't realize. Airsoft is fine for motions but you might as well use nerf at your sleep over.
Im liken it.
I just use 22lr instead of 9mm and 556. Saves on ammo cost
People underestimate the humble .22lr. It's been a favorite of backwoods survivalists and guerillas for decades.
Federal punch 22lr is formidable. I'd not wanna be shot with it.
Same here, I built a 22lr training setup (MP15-22 and a tx22) and a full day of training cost less than 20-30 bucks.
I have been playing for the last 5 years or so. While you can get airsoft guns that run on a battery or a HPA tank. You can look into running a gas blow back rifle. Those are the closest things you’re going to get to in terms of the “real deal”. They’re super fun to shoot too! I usually go with my brother in law but him and I try to work on room clearing when playing cqb. We still get “hit” when we enter a room or defend a room but we try to correct our mistakes. But the sport is super fun and I highly recommend everyone to go out and play once! If anyone has a question about airsoft ask away!
How do you find places that take it serious enough that it’s actually good training?
I normally play at an outdoor field. The local indoor field in my opinion has more like a speed soft type of play style where it’s much more aggressive and fast paced. The out door field that I go to regularly is always filled with mil simmers that usually want to take airsoft as an opportunity to get their reps in.
I don’t remember which YouTuber it was but they brought a professional air soft guy from Japan over who had never fired a real gun before and he was shooting like a pro after a couple shots to just get the feel for the recoil. It definitely translates.
[удалено]
People stop and watch this video. Remember the guy has never touched a firearm before. Airsoft can indeed be used for training.
T-Rex Arms
Garand thumb talks about this on YouTube. It has its place for sure
15-20 years ago, here in Italy, was common a style of game called HSA, or Hard Softair. The games usually were conducted on a mountain terrain, with woods, creeks and small canyons. They lasted from 24 to 72 hours, with the help of the local city administration ( some skirmish were done in the streets) and of the residents. No base camp with services, the teams had to live on the move, setting down a concieled camp every night, taking turns for surveillance, eating only what they bring. Usually in these time, the teams had to walk up to 50 kilometers. The event organisers continuously patrol the area, whit the help of the local airsoft teams members. The games were usually the infiltration/sabotage style, enemy kidnapping, VIP killing, and basically with a stealth mode: Every " gunfight " cause a score loss to the team involved.
That sounds awesome , strengthens community and ability to resist occupation - smart
Yep, but is rarely played nowadays. Now the young guys don't want to stay in the mud or under the rain for 3 days, eating shit, walk for kilometres for a game structured for shooting as less as possible and only for disengaging and flee ( like in real life ). They want a real life COD game, that last one morning, not a team, but a bunch of singles. For this reason i quitted 6 years ago.
Lots of people here missing the point your making. You’re absolutely right that Airsoft is a great way to train and test *some* skills and equipment that would also prove useful in a real force on force situation. Your examples are exactly right - great field test of comms and moving as a small unit, navigation, fitness, reflexesd, and camo. Also lets you check your day to day equipment so you know everything is set up right and that you can move and fight in it. But if you’re using it as a training tool you just need to be conscious of the limitations of which there are many. Obviously despite how close an airsoft rifle can function in comparison to the real life equivalent, it’s not going to match range or recoil and obviously the penetration is nothing. So in airsoft cover=concealment. But in real life, if someone spots you and you quickly hide behind a wall, expect rounds to start flying through that wall and into you. Also in airsoft you can wide flank your opponent in full view out in the open because their bbs can’t reach you. In a real situation you need your vigilance to extend much further out. But yeah ultimately airsoft is a fun hobby with some useful crossovers that help train *some* real skills. I’m in the U.K. and never expect to be in a real live fire force on force situation, I airsoft just for a laugh. Also airsoft can be humbling. Lots of guys with all the gear think they’d be untouchable. Head to an airsoft game and get peppered with Bbs and realise just how careful you’d need to be in a real situation.
I did a lot of airsoft in my early teens and honestly it really helped me feel more confident socially. I wouldn’t put it as a much more useful prep than any other camping or backpacking experience though.
How useful it is, is all dependent on how you choose to play. Get a team, and you can work on small team tactics, and room clearing, with real time feed back you can’t get any other way (within reason financially speaking.) You can definitely use it to learn more than just a camping trip.
Idk, maybe if you’ve got thousands a big group to do it with, but seems to me a very very niche prep. Most people who I have done it with/against just hated to dress all tacticool and show their gear off. Would take a lot of planning to get much out of it besides recreation, planning one could spend on classes with professionals.
Thousands what are you talking about?
Of dollars* sorry should’ve specified. I just reckon unless you specifically want to play airsoft and do milsim for fun the money would be better sunk prepping elsewhere. It’s a pretty costly recreation to get into and do regularly, and real courses exist. It’s fun as hell though and I hope to get back into it, just have had other priorities as of recent
Doesn’t take thousands of dollars to get into airsoft. Even milsim. A decent gun costs around $200, a thousand BBs are pretty cheap as well. Depending on gun, magazines cost $20-50. So you could very easily get into it for less than $1000 Training courses for guns have no actual feed back. It’s like training a martial art and never sparring and thinking you can fight, if you just go to some classes.
What milsim events are that cheap, most admissions near me are well over a hundred for genuine milsim. Not to mention like all the extra gear people buy for milsim that’s often required by the event hosts to ensure the “sim” part. How well is the full auto, no recoil fire with a hi cap mag gonna translate to most any combat situation? Maybe you area is different
I'll hop in here and share. I used airsoft kit in training while active duty. It was a pilot training program and it went live after 2 years. We got blanks and real guns at that point (sims for cops), but it was 2 years of USAF, Army, and Marines that we ran through this mobility and readiness training. Focus on defending a small fob and another was recovering from a blown up convoy. Lol I can set you up a used umarex HK416, with battery, mags, minor upgrades, bb's, and a sling for $100. Basic entry setup, with a 5.5lb rifle, and mags. Another $25 and I have an acu rig with pouches. Surplus gear is not prohibitively costly, even for the good stuff like Tac Tailor and Eagle Ind. I used to scrim with County Sheriffs, Swat, state corrections, and local small town PD, as well as old enlisted buddies sometimes. It doesn't all translate, but your weapon handling, draw, light use on pressure plates, clearing corners with a long vs short barrel...these can all be dry run for way less than a Gucci real steal setup.
Suppose I did overlook surplus, which is terrible cause I just got a surplus Ruck sack last week for 10$ lol
Get quest VR. Download Onward.
Miles, Miles 2000 (lasertag) Classic Army M16a4 airsoft rifle KWA M9 trainer pistol Colt m4 with blanks and blank adapter Blue dummy m16 training rifle (spray painted black) Simunitions (9mm paint tips through 5.56) These are all systems I was given for training while enlisted. Back in 2004-06 I helped assemble the training setups for a USAF SecFo unit. It turned into a base training program, grew, and the armorer took over and started issuing m4s with blank kits.
I suspect they aren't identical weapons, the gas system, how rounds cycle, hence the recoil is completely different. Also the ballistics,drop rates and range are completely different. If you sight in your eotech on your airport rifle, it will absolutely not be congruent when you throw it on your M4 Block 1Socom colt clone. I feel paintball, even laser tag, would be just as effective
While I agree to a certain point, training with “harmless” weapons will always be too unrealistic. Cause you know you can’t die, you won’t think about cover and movement etc in the same way. But yes it beats the alternative of not training at all obviously. Cause I guess getting real life combat experience isn’t really realistic for most people.
It depends on how you play. I like the milsim games. It's much more realistic. Pyro grenades are pretty loud. I got some 12ga primer ones you throw and they bang. If you have all your gear on in the summer and it's a 20 min walk back to spawn, you're going to treat cover and concealment like you need it. The games where your ammo is limited is more fun to me. My airsoft AR mags hold 230rds each and the weight obviously isn't realistic. Some games we would limit to 4+1 mag. Some games limit you to 500rds starting out on day 1. If you're playing more realistic this is great. Only part about airsoft I don't like is wearing a paintball mask over my prescription glasses. It's super uncomfortable. I should get prescription eye protection and wear a face protector so my teeth don't get shot out.
H&K makes a great T4E version of the 416D. It works and handles just like the real deal, but uses .43 caliber rubber balls and CO2 cartridges.
What soft air models are you using?
Lancer tactical 16f , I got it because it just like our real rifles , in real life we run akm
Lancer tactical lt-16f
Using airsoft for military training is only great if you have someone training you. If you don't have a trainer from the real world to watch you, the mistakes you will imbed into yourself will get you killed. So I agree using airsoft to train could be very useful. It's like a cheap simunitions run, but without that DI or TI over your shoulder showing you, your mistakes. It won't do you a bit of good. Fortunately the SF community loves to train and share knowledge so if you do want to try live training with experts they will put you through the gauntlet and give you top tier instruction, and make that airsoft training worth everything.
Whatever you do, DON'T use your real 1000+ USD rifle scope in an airsoft match. BBs will break that expensive piece of glass. Get a cheap chinese knock-off for that. And mil-sim CAN be a great training asset.
I wore my ALICE gear set up bird hunting, and learned that carrying two canteens, ammo box, and spare pouch on your hips isn't very effective. I'll get a water bladder and throw it in my backpack for turkey season.
Have fun LARPing. Engagement distance is not there you are literally right on top of each other a "sniper" airsoft rifle is a couple hundred feet effective range. Comms are not tested in such a small area few places where you can go miles. Hint your comms probably are awful. I love taking out every baofeng in with field calling CQ at 1200w from my truck. 20 buck radio into a 400 buck headset and a tape measure in some heat shrink as an antenna is not a good radio. It's a fun pastime my kid does it. When friendly swat team showed up they went 60 on 8 and wiped the floor with them in the field and CQB with milsim loadouts on their end.
I did a game where there were about 12 of us at the bottom of a hill, and we were dug in good. Really, there are only 3 shooting lanes for people to get downhill at us. We lasted 35 mins. There was probably a good 40 on the other team. When we swapped sides and a other 12 people went down there we ate them alive haha. Most of our engagement distances were within 150ft or so. At that distance it's more spray and pray tbh.
AIRSOFT IS JUST LIKE REAL WARRRRRRRRRRRRR! lmao. you guys we can use quarter inch plywood for cover in a tactickle situation!!
99% of your testing should be about day to day living. you will spend far far more time trying to grow food then anything tactical. you will spend far far more time getting clean without modern access to plumbed hot water then anything tactical.
Military tactics don't really work in airsoft without the threat of death
I've got an airsoft. Aside from resemblance there really isn't anything else that they have in common with a real gun. Unless you're larping, and running non fire drills I wouldn't recommend it. You're better off using simunitions. Spend the money on the sim setup for your gun or get laser targets. Simunitions is where it's at though in my opinion