Hey everyone! So I get a lot of questions about my time spent in the States, and MilSim West: Objective Stavropol is always a topic of conversation! When I was asked this weekend about it I remembered, I hadn't posted the blog post of MSW so here it is!
On the 26th April 2017 myself, Unicorn Leah and Jet Desertfox flew from Ontario, California to San Jose, CA and then finally onto Seattle, Washington for the next instalment of MilSim West. As many of you will know from watching Leah and Jet's social media feeds that they are avid MilSim West fans and they took me along to pop my MilSim West cherry. We arrived in Washington a little early - a couple of days in fact so we had a few days to chill before the game. On our first night we visited the 'Rep House' to hang out with the Rushing Russians. After our stay at the Rep House we made the enormous drive from Seattle to our next stop - an Airbnb in Centreville which was around 5 hours away via car. On the drive through it seemed like we drove through every season/every terrain - from the snowy mountains to the rolling green hills. Washington is absolutely gorgeous. We arrived at the Cadre house in the afternoon and set about relaxing before the event. We left for the op location at 12pm the next day.
Once we arrived at the op location after a short 30 minute drive and we started to get kitted up and reshuffled our rucks ready, whilst we were getting our gear sorted we met up with the rest of our section which included Omar from Enola Gaye, PNW Punk, Dayton from The House Gamers, Poi and Lupe who is behind the IG account Slayerella. We spent the next few hours chatting, preparing our kit and eating in the barn waiting for the game to kick off later that evening.
At 7pm our briefing began, the Russian and Militia Cadre briefed us on what the next 36 hours would entail, the AO and the mission we had to undertake - remove NATO forces from the area, by any means necessary. They then made sure we had everything we would need - we had to lay out all of our kit and show our Cadre that we had everything on the tacsop document. Due to the testing nature of these games it is super important that everyone is prepared to prevent discomfort and injury.
At sunset, all Russian and Militia forces organised into their sections and mobilised, we slung on our rucks and started walking in formation to our first FOB which was around 1 mile into AO, the walk took us around 20-30 minutes. I've never had to ruck anywhere before so this was a completely new experience for me, it was tough going but we all completed the walk.
It was almost pitch black when we arrived at our Militia FOB location so it was pretty tough going with uneven ground from rabbit warrens, debris from fallen trees and rocks protruding from the ground. When we got to our location we set up a defensive perimeter as our squads prepared their kit for the night. Militia HQ squad went out on a raid during the early hours of the morning and for Lupe (@slayerella) and I, it was time for STAG duties. We were on STAG for around 3-4 hours, we positioned ourselves amongst a mound of debris from a fallen tree and stared into the night with our weapons raised ready to engage any NATO that entered our FOB. Temperatures dropped pretty quickly Friday evening from a lovely 10 degrees celcius to around 1 degree at 3am.
I have been to Ops in the UK where it has been cold as fuck mixed with rain but nothing quite prepared me for MilSim West. Our Op location was opposite Mount Rainier, so we had a deathly cold wind blowing in from the mountain along with the low temperatures. Shortly after 3 am, myself and Lupe made the decision to get in our sleeping bags, despite both of us wearing cold weather gear and wrapping a sleeping bag around us on whilst we were keeping watch, we were both shivering. That night I barely slept, it was so cold as we had no shelter to shield us from the wind and sleeping out in the woods.
During the night, our Militia section hit 2 NATO patrols during the raids and returned at 4am. At around 8am whilst we were preparing for the day we were informed that enemy platoons were on their way to our location so we all threw our tac kit on ready for a scrap. One thing about MilSims is the pace of play can be slow at times and after around 20 minutes of waiting NATO troops to descend on our defensive positions, we decided to take the fight to them.
Militia HQ taking orders from Space Commander General Jet
We walked out of the FOB in the cold, brisk morning air and started closing the gap between our position and the NATO FOB. Jet took a small team ahead with him to their position, leaving myself and a few others to maintain a defensive line.
We walked out of the FOB in the cold, brisk morning air and started closing the gap between our position and the NATO FOB. Jet took a small team ahead with him to their position, leaving myself and a few others to maintain a defensive line.
Dayton in a defensive position
Waiting
Our scout squad returned after around 15 minutes with details of the NATO FOB location and orders to attack their base, orders were sent out over the radios for the Militia call signs to join us at our location so we could launch an attack.
As our Militia call signs arrived at our location we started moving out towards the NATO FOB, as our other call signs flanked left to get the drop on NATO, Militia HQ and Honour guard squads walked across the open fields hooking right to distract and divert their attention. As we approached their position we popped smoke grenade upon smoke grenade to cloud their vision and our blank fire squad disorientated them with a barrage of shots.
Once in range we started engaging the NATO troops, taking out those that we could, popping smoke and medicing our squad members that had been hit in the advance. On our advance my gun failed meaning I was unable to engage anyone, so I instead supported the rest if our squad by throwing pyro and medicing those who needed it.
We had distracted the NATO players so well with our right advance that it gave our Militia call signs on the left enough time to infiltrate their base without being heard or seen. Once we had call signs in the FOB, we took out their troops and gained ground quickly. Once the FOB was cleared of enemies we started to search their bodies for intel and ammo - once located we moved this outside their base so we could load it into our vehicles that were en route to our location.
Searching bodies
'Vape nation'
After the attack on NATO we walked back to our FOB and started packing our gear up into our transport vehicles to take us to the Russian FOB on the other side of the base. When we arrived we started making a shelter for the night to come. Whilst I collected dried, dead leaves to lay on the ground of the shelter, Dayton and Poi dug the ground out from behind a pre-existing barricade.
The night for the HQ squad was spent refuelling on food and sitting by the fire. Russian and Militia forces were out at all hours of the night, hitting the NATO FOB on the hour, every hour.
At around 5am, there were shots fired into the Russian FOB, a small group of NATO soldiers had managed to evade all of our patrols. We woke up to pyro being thrown, shouting and guns being discharged. Our squad member Poi exploded out of bed and into action, throwing our rifles to us before he ran out into the darkness from where the shots were coming from.
We sat up in bed, clutching at our rifles, listening intently to determine where the shots were coming from and how close they were. BBs started hitting the tarpaulin of our shelter narrowly missing us so we hunkered down. After around 5 minutes, the shots ceased.
We were up early, at around 7am. Militia and Russian troops were still out fighting against NATO. We started packing our camp away and reorganising our kit in anticipation for the very last assault. The last assaults at MilSim West are somewhat legendary!
The last battle came an hour before the Op was due to finish. At 10am, a wave of NATO forces pushed their way from the treeline into the Militia/Russian FOB. As I was sat by the fire digging a tick out of my arm, we heard shouting and weapons being discharged so we stopped what we were doing, picked up our weapons and started running towards where the shots were coming from. Once we got into the tree line we saw our Russian brothers and sisters getting stuck in. The engagement lasted around an hour with mortars being dropped, smoke and pyro being thrown all over the shop and rounds whizzing past. The battle cries in russian added to the atmosphere.
I can honestly say, that MilSim West: Objective Stavropol was by far the hardest experience I've undertook in my 3 years of playing airsoft, from the cold to rucking all my kit, gun failures, sleeping rough outdoors it was an experience but after I embraced the suck, it was fucking awesome. I would fully recommend MilSim West to anyone looking to take their MilSim game to the next level. I also want to say a huge thank you to MilSim West for flying me out with Jet and Leah to take part in this awesome op.
Check out my gameplay video from the final battle at MilSim West: Objective Stavropol below:
Photography thanks to Poi Apeles Photography.
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