Gucci Airsoft kit is everywhere these days. The term broadly applies to expensive kit, rather than being designed by some Italian fashion house that gave the world items that look like they were made from old curtains.

Appropriate for some players though…

How much of a difference does Gucci kit make to your game though, and is it worth saving up for? You can split the community into two; the haves, and the have nots. Those who have the kit will recommend it highly, the have nots will tell you you don’t need it. And understandably so – if you’ve spent £300 on a pair of trousers you’ll go all out to justify it. If you can’t afford that, you’ll tell people your £15 surplus trousers are just fine. But what if you’re sat there with the money wondering what to do?

To be honest, it depends exactly what part of your kit you’re looking to get. I have a £5 British Army Osprey water bottle. It holds water. If I spend £100 on a water bottle, it’s still going to hold water all the same, because no longer can I afford to fill it with vodka and sneak it into sites. If I buy a very cheap set of night vision, it’ll work to an extent but not as well as a £20,000 setup. What you need to do is ignore all the opinions on kit and weigh up the facts; what are you buying and what does it get you? If the answer “it’ll make me a better player” comes up, that’s just bullshit. Gear and gear upgrades might tweak some of our capabilities but it won’t change our ability.

To go back to the trousers example;

• A £15 surplus pair will do the job of covering your legs, and survive crawling around.
• A £100 pair will do the same job, but perhaps dry a bit faster, which is a performance increase.
• a £300 pair will do the same as the £100 pair, but perhaps prevent you buying three of those pairs.

Some clothing might be waterproof, which you might want, and that would be worth paying the extra for. Some might have better stitching and last a bit longer if you’re happy staying in the same pair. If you’re going down the cheap replica route though you’ll find a lot of that stuff fades in the wash. But as for the Gucci kit, and let’s name Crye in this – I’ve seen two instances of Crye trousers ripping on barbed wire on the first game day. You’d cry too after strutting around the car park trying to show the label off to everyone.

Load bearing, lets just say you can spot an ill fitting, badly coloured replica a mile off and it probably won’t survive the day in one piece – real load bearing for me is the only way to go. Go surplus.

In terms of guns, I did see somewhere recently some player bragging about having a £1500 rifle. To be blunt, as nice as it may be, it’s still chucking plastic balls out to 50m as well as a £100 rental gun, and if you’re in a 1v1 situation like that, it’ll come down to whoever got into a position to shoot first rather than the cost of the rifle. Probably a skill issue. Or awareness, like having your expensively equipped squad stacked up on a doorway just to get picked off like noobs by a well trained sniper team. Story for another day though.

Radios and headsets is definitely an area I’d look to put money into, as team comms really does make a difference to team performance (not so much individual skills). Unreliable, unprogrammable radios and headsets that shit themselves in the rain are no good to anyone. Having said that, as a base unit most players will agree that a £25 Baofeng UV5R will do the job just fine – I’ve hooked mine up to a £75 fist mic which is simple but works. It’s more than the £10 fist mics on Amazon, but I’ve had 8 of those and only 3 worked, and none for more than two game days. Cheap electronics just don’t survive airsoft.

One of the more curious trends on media at the moment is the proliferation of NVG’s. Night vision is understandably more popular in the 24hr milsim world and I know some guys take their kit very seriously, but every Instagram model seems to have them now and many of them only play Sunday skirmish (daytime) so I’m minded to think it’s more as a flex rather than a carefully thought out acquisition. There either must be one guy just making his way round with a camera and a set for everyone to borrow, or they’re all 3D printed versions, because most of them cost more than a car.

Does it make a difference in game? No, and it’s interesting to see that at a lot of milsims where you have a team dressed to the eyeballs in high end multicam drip, they’re losing to “rebel” or OpFor teams that look like they’ve picked something up out of a charity shop. It’s something I’ve seen and experienced a lot myself down the years so the cost of your loadout does seem to either drop performance the more you spend, weigh you down, or just give you false confidence.

On the whole, Gucci kit is obviously decent and nice to own but usually not worth the extra money, especially for Airsoft where we’re not living in it for months on end. Mid level options and real steel surplus gear is more than enough. Cheap copies like Kombat and Emerson are ok for a photoshoot, or perhaps some gentle indoor play, but won’t last long being abused outdoors. Weigh up what you’re paying for though; does it have any advantages over your current setup? What is it actually giving you for your extra money? And most importantly, can you afford it or is your money better spent on other things?. Everyone has to live within their means, and it’s important for all players to respect that. It is important though to make the correct kit choices – make sure you have what you need and it works, rather than the cost of it or what designer label is on your tactical underwear.

And please don’t sit and believe adverts or retailer reviews.