Operation: Safari Strike III

This past weekend my bro, my buddy and myself attended Operation: Safari Strike III over at Pinnacle Woods Paintball. The event was put on Tactical Airsoft Cleveland, certainly the most dedicated airsoft team in Ohio, and sponsored by many different airsoft retailers and manufacturers. Overall I have to say it was a pretty great event. I had played in a couple of Pinnacle’s big paintball games before and never really enjoyed them as much as their standard open games, so I was a little skeptical on how good this event would be considering that the field layout would be extremely similar to a Pinnacle big game. I was pleasantly surprised that this was not an issue. The organization in airsoft made the problems I found with Pinnacle’s big games non-existent. Radio communication being aloud for one is big help so you can find your squad mates when you get separated and having clear cut objectives makes it a lot better than just wondering around the field looking for people to shoot at; people who even if you do hit won’t call out because there is no ref around to witness them cheating (paintball players suck). I definitely enjoyed this event.

On to the event itself… The op was split into two parts; an A.M. Mission and a P.M. mission three and a half hours each. After playing a a couple John Lu events I was use to 2.5-3 hours for first mission, 1.5-2 for then next then a third at 1-1.5 hours long. These two long missions just seemed like forever. I don’t mean that in a bad way though. It was cool being able to really get a lot of time to complete your objectives, because after all, when you’re facing an equally sized and skilled opposing force these things are going to take time. The thing is, these long missions, combined with the 90+ degree weather and the humidity in the woods really takes it’s toll on a person. Over the course of the op the game was paused twice so the EMT’s standing by could pull out and treat people with heat stroke. Guess they didn’t drink enough water.

In the op my buddy, bro and myself were sort of on our own squad. Shortly after we signed up for the even we were put on the HQ staff which basically meant we stuck with the XO and CO. The day beforeMG36 the op I see we were switched to the Special Forces squad. Not only that, but I was no long in the SAW(squad automatic weapon) gunner position whichI was kinda ticked about because I had just gotten my MG36 together and now I wouldn’t be able to use it. Well we get there and the CO tells us were back on HQ staff. Great considering we stayed up late the night before memorizing our objectives for special forces. The good part about this though was that I was able to use my MG36 so overall I was pretty happy. As we got into the game suddenly my CO says, “ohh, you’re our medic.” Now I was a SAW gunner medic… unconventional, but ohh well.

Due to my medic role I did less fighting then I would have, but I still did my fair share, laying down the cover fire when needed and popping in a few kills every now and then. I excelled in my medic role however. There actually was times where I felt like I was playing Battlefield 2 and my teammate would get killed, I’d revive him, he’d get killed again immediately again and the cycle would repeat. In the P.M. mission I ended up with 32 revives for a total of about 45 for the op. A ridiculous amount by all accounts. At the end of the op I had about 7 kills was shot 3 times but revived every time so 0 deaths. Combine that with my medic score, a few resupply points I got for resupplying my bro and buddy, a building capture and some assists, and returning a couple IED’s back to HQ and if this was Battlefield 2 I would probably have gotten a Gold Star! 😛

The last thing I gotta say about the op was man did they have a lot of swag to give away! At check-in everyone received a bag full of prizes and a raffle ticket. At the raffle they had a ton of stuff. I was fortunate enough to win a $200 gift certificate to an airsoft retailer so I more than made up for my admission. My bro and buddy also won the raffle. My bro won a new tactical cross draw vest and my buddy won a remote control tank that shoots airsoft bb’s. An odd prize, but definitely the envy of the crowd!

It was a great event and I’m definitely going to do it again next year!

This entry was posted in Airsoft. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *