Planning Night Airsoft Games Part 2

Special thanks to USASOC for this great series on nightsofting

General:

Although it breaks game flow, stop the game prior to last light, and bring your teams in (or bring them to a central team area) and go over the night rules.
After the briefing, have players go over their gear to insure it is secure, and they have everything they need.
Players should have all their gear attached and very secure; dropping a dark object at night means it is very likely lost.
Cheating in night games is difficult to control. But if you have complaints about a player, I would suggest taking them out of the night portion.
A good ID system, that works without having a light on, is reflective tape that is cut into a pattern (circle, square, triangle) attached to a specific shoulder.
Scenarios:

You must have good clear objective for both teams. Simple “run and gun” games do not work very well.
The structure of the game has to be objective based: patrol into this location and capture a person or thing, are good choices. You will have people who have very poor night vision. Giving them an objective to defend allows them to play.
Personal Gear:

Boots: real hiking or military issue combat boots. Running shoes or similar footwear will not cut it at night. What you are looking for is good ankle support. The chances of placing a foot down on something that will move at night are much higher than during day time. A good pair of boots will prevent, or at the very least, reduce the amount of injury to your ankles from bad footing. As a bonus, you will have a good set of boots for regular games as well. I recommend military style boots as they are generally designed for use in a wide range of environments, as well as being waterproof. A decent set of boots will run you between $40.00 and $100.00+. In Canada, about the same in CDN dollars.
Lower body: you want a good set of pants and warm socks. As we all know, the temperature drops at night, and depending on where you are, it can become very cold at night. While it is easy to layer your upper body, it is far more difficult to layer your lower body. My best suggestion is to go out at night around the time you will be playing and stay stationary on the ground for about half an hour. If your legs and feet stay warm, you are most likely fine; if not, get warmer socks and wear some light weight thermal long johns. To quote my old SGT Major, “Any idiot can be uncomfortable.”

Upper body: you can layer your upper body quite easily. The trick here is to have a number of light layers. I start with a t-shirt, followed by a green sweatshirt, and then my combat jacket. If I start getting too warm, I lose the sweatshirt. If that leaves me too cold, I switch off the t-shirt for the sweatshirt. I have some cargo straps that allow me strap the sweatshirt to my LBV, and the t-shirt just fits into a large pouch. The other thing to remember is a lot of the cheaper camo gear is made of very light weight materials, so you may have to adjust the clothes you wear. I use actual surplus camo so this combination works very well.

Head and neck: these are the most difficult areas to layer due to the requirement to provide proper eye protection. The simplest solution is a neck scarf and bonnie hat. Helmets, while they have a good cool factor, need a decent liner to keep your head warm. With the scarf, if you start getting cold, just use it as a head wrap under the bonnie; if you are over heating, remove the scarf. You can also use the scarf to cover just your ears.
Hands are the easiest to keep warm. A good set of lightweight gloves will do for most people. If your hands tend to get cold, get a second set of gloves made for hunters and pop them into an extra pouch on your LBV.
A light weight 'Ranger' blanket is also handy if you are playing at night as part of a Mil-Sim in which you may have some downtime. They rollup into a small bundle and add an extra layer of warmth while you catnap.

Vest / Webbing:
No matter if you use a LBV or a web belt with pouches, working at night requires some careful planning. The first thing to consider is, “Do I have enough space for my extra clothing?” This can either be an additional pouch attached to your current gear or a redistribution of your current gear. I personally go with an additional pouch. I have my LBV setup for regular play so my load stays the same; I just add certain items to take care of night requirements.
When packing your pouches, know where everything is. There is nothing worse than trying to find a misplaced item in the dark.
Pack light; only load what you really need in your ready pouches. It will be easier to access your gear, and the risk of losing something is much lower.
Magazines for your weapons: put them in the pouch base up if they are full. When you put a partial or empty magazine back, put it in with the base down. This will let you tell, by touch, if you getting an empty or full magazine. This is also a good tip for daylight use.
Illumination & Vision Aids:

Depending on your Mil-Sim requirements, there may be restrictions on your use of flashlights. You must have some sort of light in the event of an emergency, or in case you drop something valuable that your need to find. A basic Pentagon or Surefire tactical light with a scope mount, so you can rail mount, it will run about $130.00. You can, however, buy a basic rubberized blue Led light that can be mounted the same way for about $25.00, including the mount. The Led light will not carry very far, but it will get the job done.

If you are part of team, some sort of team patch or team ID should be worn. You want something that can be seen with the naked eye at close range but is not visible at a distance. A small piece of reflective material, as used on safety vests, works well. If you have night vision, there are a number of other options but these are very restricted since 9/11. Some of the materials are available, and some are not. Your best bet in the United States is contact one of the vendors listed at the end of this article and ask them some questions. Another option is reflective material used by bicyclists; this comes in a number of colors, but a neon-green works best. When hit with any light, including IR, this material is highly reflective making it ideal for this use. In addition, some of the material comes in preset designs like bars, triangles, and circles with a sticky back. In Canada, a package with a variety of symbols runs about $7.00.

Night Vision - this is great if you can afford it and play enough night games to justify the expense. The new generations are far better than the Generation 1 equipment, but the cost difference is significant, particularly here in Canada. But even Generation 1+ equipment will give you an edge.

Find out if you are night blind. Simply go into a dark field and wait for thirty minutes. This is the build-up time for optimal night vision in humans, but most of the adaptation occurs within the first five to ten minutes in the dark. You should be able to see a good distance on a clear night. What you are most interested in is how far can you see movement; go out with a buddy and have your partner walk away from you. Once they get to where they are hard to see close your eyes. Your partner then moves to a different place and stays stationary. Open your eyes. Can you see him? If not, have him move slowly. If you still can not see him, have him move closer until you can make him out. This will be your optimal unaided night vision range. It varies for every person, but you want it to be just inside your weapon’s effective engagement range. If it is closer than your weapon’s effective engagement range, it is worth looking into a Generation 1 night vision device for night games.
Weapons:

Generally your daytime weapons are going to be what you use at night. The main changes you need to consider are optics, mounting points for TacLights, and battery durability.

You should have a sling for your primary weapon; at night, there are many times where you will need two hands. You do not want to put your weapon down where it can be stepped on, or where it will take you a few precious seconds to find. With a proper tactical sling, your rifle will be right at hand when you need it

Pistols: have a holster that has a retaining strap for the pistol. If you have a Colt, Beretta, or similar pistol with a magazine release that can be bumped which causes the magazine to dropout, remove it from your pistol and put in an easy to reach pistol magazine pouch. Another option is to put some tape over the bottom of the magazine and sides of the pistol grip. The magazine cannot fall out by accident, but it is a little difficult to change magazine or reload. You do not want to drop a magazine at night; it is a very frustrating experience to find it in the dark. A lanyard is also very handy; this can be as simple as some green cord to a commercially made lanyard. It secures you pistol to the holster and avoids accidentally dropping your sidearm.

Batteries: in a night game, you generally want enough battery power to last through the night. If your battery is iffy or does not tend to last for an entire day, get a backup. Once you have a backup, you will need to be able to change it out in the field. With the M4, P90, and G3 series, this is generally not a problem. Any weapon that requires you to remove a pin is a concern: MP5s/etc. What I recommend is the use of either your kill rag or a similar light colored piece of cloth to place on the ground. Keep your weapon above the cloth and close to it when pushing out the pins. That way if a pin drops, it should hit the cloth and be easy to find. You will want to practice at home in the dark so you become good at this.

Optics: your day scope may not be suitable for night use; generally high magnification scopes with small lenses fall into this category. You need either a reflex scope or a scope with good light gathering qualities. Scopes don’t gather light, as most people think, although the term “light gathering ability” has become accepted jargon. Scopes transmit available light through the lenses to your eye while always losing a bit of light in the process. The more magnification you have, the less light you get to your eyepiece. The larger the objective lens, the more you get through your eyepiece. Generally, your night engagement ranges will be close so a cheap red dot or reflex scope will suffice.

To mount TacLights/etc, you will need some form of rail system. Avoid the temptation to load up your weapon with everything under the sun. In most cases, a single TacLight, or if it is allowed, TacLight and laser will do the trick. Mount these devices where they are clear of your hands, sling, and scope if you have one.