Paintballing

My son turns 13 tomorrow.  We’re waiting for the kevin moments like, “I didn’t ask to be born” “It’s not my fault” “Leave me alone” “I hate you” blah blah blah… and to be honest, as soon as we get it we’ll mock him something rotten ’cause thats the caring kind of dad I am!

On Sunday we took him and his mates paintballing at Delta Force just outside Hockley Heath which is only a 20 minute drive from home for us.  They have 64 acres of woodland with 10 different game zones in it:

• A Bridge Too Far
• Afghan Command Post
• Chemical Alley
• Mad Murphy’s Jungle Attack
• Minefield Attack
• Pablo Escobar’s Jungle Airstrip
• Terrorist AttackThe Haunted Graveyard
• Tomb Raider
• Viet Cong Village

We arrived at 9am and after a brief registration which is effectively a “if you fall and break your leg it’s all your fault” kind of process we were soon kitted out with overalls, head protection including fixed goggles, a hopper for feeding the guns and a box with 3000 paintballs in it.  There were perhaps something like 200 – 240 game players getting ready for the days action but me and the lads were teamed up with another group of lads and given blue armbands to mark us out as the blue team.  We had about 16 players in our team.  I soon sought out the “extra’s” man and upgraded my weapon from a standard issue gun (see picture above) to a black M16 which gives greater accuracy over a greater range. Well wouldn’t you?

There was a very thorough safety briefing which was both amusing and informative and because of that held the kids attention very well.  The main point being that the paintballs exit the muzzle at about 180 mph and typically strike at something around 100 mph.  For this reason there were two fundamental rules: No firing at people less than 3 metres away and more importantly under no circumstances should anyone remove their head protection for any reason whatsoever from the moment they entered the weapon collection zone, for the transit to/from the play zones, during play and even until after exiting the weapons return station at the end of each game.  Delta Force operate a zero tolerance approach to this rule which means anyone removing the mask even enough to show their chin and teeth will be removed from the combat zone and will take no further part in the days activity.  When the safety briefing explained that a shot to the eye would almost certainly detach the retina and result in loss of sight the kids bristled a little but there was no doubt in their mind that this was for real.

We played 6 games during the day with each game being played twice.  Once as the attacking team and once as the defenders.  Each of the 12 game plays offered a maximum of 10 points so during the course of the day there was a maximum of 120 points on offer.  By the end of the day our team had scored 80 points.  The next best team were on 58 points with two games to play so the maximum they could get was 78.  Our team beat all of the other teams competing.  Even lunch which was an individual pizza for each competitor was received well by the boys who at the end of the day were raving about the days experience and all planning to ask their respective mums and dads if they could do paintballing for their own birthday parties.

During game play if you were hit with the exception of the head or the weapon you had to put your hand in the air and walk to the dead zone outside of the play zone.  At this point you were out of play until the next game.  On the viet cong village event the objective was to capture 4 village huts with at least one team member in each hut.  I split blue platoon into three and we made a three pronged attack with me leading the left flank for the first hut.  We made the hut quickly and I put myself against the inside hut wall out of sight of the advancing enemy.  As I looked up I took a shot straight into my mask which knocked me off my feet.  I initially thought the goggles had broken such was the force of the shot and paint had also come through the air vents in the mask at quite a force enough to sting my face to the left of my mouth.  I could taste paint.  I’m pretty sure this was the work of the terminator, one of Delta Forces own staff because where the shot had come from was no where near where our enemy were.  Anyway, head shots don’t count so on we went.  With the M-16 paintgun the accuracy is pretty good.  With an enemy combatant sheltering behind a tree at say 150 yards away you can typically hit the tree with the first shot and then shift the sight to accurately pick off the enemy when they lean out from the tree albeit it that they can if they are really really quick see the shot coming and get out of its way.

We finished playing at about 4pm. All in all a very successful day.

Tagged as: Fun, Paintballing