Tuesday Thinkings #2. Although I’ve not had chance to do much practical stuff the last two weeks, I’ve still been looking at stuff every day and thanks for the positive comments about the first Thinkings blog, and had some useful conversations off the back of it.

First up, Concamo, which is starting to appear everywhere now that the initial buzz of Pencott is settling down. It’s certainly quite a detailed pattern, and has nice colours, but due to the lack of manufacturers making it the price is still quite high which has put me off testing any for now.

Pics from Google images.

Actually, I’ll say that the colours are absolutely superb, in nearly all of the pictures I’ve seen. And it does work across different environments which is very useful to us snipers, rather than having a suit that is too specific to one area (think of a leaf suit in grass or a grass suit in woodland). By having something perhaps a little more abstract it’ll help you blend in better across different terrain. Normally I’m quite set against camouflages that have small, repeated patterns because it doesn’t break up the human shape enough – it’s tiled and that stands out. But Concamo seems to be cut from a much bigger overall pattern; you get areas with more brown on one side and more tan on the other as an example. It works well to break up shapes too. So is it the perfect solution for snipers?

Nope…

There’s an inherent problem with most (modern) camouflage. The fabric that it’s printed on. Now, this might be going into too much detail but details make a difference. Bear in mind a lot of photos are set up to make it look good by the manufacturer.

Shine. Sheen. Whatever you want to call it. Check this second picture out. I think it’s probably because all the modern combat kit is heavier on polyester, acrylic and other plastic based fabrics – the old 95 pattern DPM combat pants and shirts didn’t have this problem. But, people like weatherproofing and quick drying in their clothing. This shine is something we need to avoid and that’s why building suits out of lots of components works better. The flat surface of fabric, no matter how good the pattern looks in the adverts, will give you away because it’s unnatural. I’ll cover more on this soon.

Next, I spotted a post from a once famous airsoft sniper by the name of Bodgeups who was offering “tips” to players attending the National Airsoft Festival in the UK. One was to close down snipers (cheers…), another was to watch Kicking Mustang for cheating (Mustang didn’t attend but Bodgeups seems to have a really unhealthy obsession with him at the moment 😕), but one that got me was the suggestion that wafer thin leaf suit wearers are deserving of having a full mag emptied into them. From a leaf suit user, that’s a bit odd. But more importantly, whatever role you play in Airsoft there’s never an excuse to be a dick or to deliberately cause harm to another player, no matter how many subs you have on your YouTube channel or how highly you rate yourself, and it’s been a hot topic lately among snipers with a lot of Facebook groups set up to call out shit sportsmanship. Disappointing from someone who used to hold influence.

Range. Always a debatable topic. Usually people questioning how extremely long shots are measured, some well known player trying to advertise a product recently shooting with a strong wind behind him while getting his opponent to shoot into the wind. And last week I saw an incredible contraption of a rifle with laser rangefinder and I think a spirit level designed to help measure and calculate lob shots out to 140m+. Which is great, but realistically by the time you get set up to take the shot, the target will likely be gone. I don’t understand the obsession with accurately measuring distance like it’s some kind of trophy. “My vsr will hit 91.4m”. That information is of little use in game because of the speed of the game, the opponents movement and bb flight time, even if you do have a rangefinder to measure it out. What you need is to develop a feel for your rifle. It’s a case in game of being able to judge and think “yeah, I can hit that”. Extremely long shots are impressive but rare. Learning to move without being seen, to get inside 70m and into usable range, is far more useful.

And finally, I’m very sad to report that Sniper Mechanic is no more, at least for now. I know his workload running skirmshop and SM is massive, and understand the need to take a breather. He’s done some fantastic stuff for the whole community on the technical side and will be missed, especially his inspiration to others. I hope it’s not permanent but I guess when it takes over life you need a break now and then.

Thanks for everything Dan.