A look at my green team/US Woodland/Rifleman loadout for airsoft. This is a great all-round skirmish loadout for a variety of events and it’s been working well for me. It’s ideal for woodland sites where you want more manoeuvrability than a heavy chest rig or plate carrier setup.

Standing in the safety briefing at Dirty Dog Airsoft with about 150 other players, I was looking around at the variety of kits on show. Skirmish brings everyone together with a lot of different styles of loadout, from casuals to speedsofters to reenactors. I was admiring my friends Auscam loadout when a guy in period Russian kit came and looked me up and down.

“Sooo…you’re…sort of the 90’s then yeah?”

Yeah, kind of. But it’s not a reenactment kit or anything specific, I’m just trying to put together a balanced and functional loadout. I’ve put this together as a green team loadout both for summer months, and also any events where there’s a Green vs Tan camo rule. For years, with England and with Black Hawk Down-related events, I’ve built up plenty of multicam/desert kit so this is partially an alternative, but also to fix a few issues with heavy CQB-oriented kits in more diverse environments such as Dirty Dog, which mixes a two-level outdoor CQB arena with open fields, bushes and treelines. It doesn’t suit plate carriers because it’s quite fast-paced and you get very hot very quickly. Chest rigs become a struggle when you have to get flat and crawl (not that a lot of the new players do these days). So, I’ve decided to go back to a basic belt order and after doing Defiant Event’s Black Hawk Down inspired “Operation Irene“, I was quite impressed with the humble ALICE belt, so I’ve dug that back out and I’ll go over that in more detail shortly.

For starters though, the clothing. Plain greens, US Woodland and British DPM are fairly universally accepted within green team camouflage rules at most Airsoft events and milsims. I know there are some really nice, more exotic patterns on the market but I don’t want to pay extra to look different, only to get the pattern refused due to camo rules. Additionally, these three basic options have a huge amount of easily sourced accessories available for very little. I’ve got plenty of DPM gear so I thought I’d look at the US Woodland, sometimes incorrectly known as “M81”, as a bit of a new project. The trousers are now very old Teesar ACU combat pants which are a bit bright and yellow colour-wise, but bought because they have knee pockets to add neoprene padding. The shirt is a genuine issue, which I picked up for £5 from a surplus stall. It’s great quality, hard wearing, and much better than spending £30-40 on a repro version that will rip with a few uses. I’ve got a British issue thermal shirt on underneath because it’s damn cold outside, and some Pentagon Tactical Nomex flight gloves which I got to be period correct for my Delta Force 1993 kit. On the head, I have a Lonestar Tactical face mask and a pair of Wiley X Sabers which are my go-to daily sunglasses and eye protection. Yes it’s cloudy, yes I can still see very clearly.

The next item is the rifle. The rifle choice invariably affects the rig in terms of ammo pouches, and most of my rifles are M4-based so that I can use STANAG-type mag pouches across all of my kits. It was originally a second hand M4 that I saw as a bit of a project gun, which came with a carry handle and mounted optic and looked very vaguely Black Hawk Down. The optic mount was glued, the gearbox was full of sellotape and black grease and it’s been such a big rebuild that only the lower receiver, buffer tube and outer barrel remain. It’s now an almost-perfect M727 build and I have a better guide in a separate article here. The M727 is a great all-purpose weapon and is rugged and reliable, despite looking like it’s been dropped out of a moving car. It just doesn’t give me any issues. No optics or lasers, just a simple (period correct) Surefire 660 torch and pressure pad, and a Vietnam era 2-point sling that is very short, but actually hangs nicely high on the chest making it easy to get on and off. I run four or five G&G 125rd mid cap mags for a skirmish day which is more than enough when we’re back in the safezone hourly to reload. They’re the classic style, metal mags. At the moment I’m trying to burn through two bottles of the terrible “Rebel” bb’s from UK retailer BZ Tactical, which leave residue, jam, break apart in the barrel and just fly off everywhere, so I’m using a lot more full auto than I would normally to get rid. Still, 4-5 mags are plenty and I haven’t run out despite some intense firefights.

When it comes to the rig, I don’t need excessive amounts of ammo pouches. I do sometimes think that players carry loads more mags than they need just for looks, and it leads to some very front-heavy setups. I’ve mentioned earlier about the need to get flat and crawl at times, or to lay atop the berm in a defensive position. Indoors, there’s no need to crouch or go prone but if you’re doing proper outdoor airsoft, your needs change. Rather than having all the weight on the front of the chest, a belt order spreads the weight across the shoulders via a yoke or harness, and then onto the waist. It is ridiculously good at spreading the weight to the point that you barely notice it. However…

When I say “belt order” I’m not referring to those low profile rigger-type belts that pass through the loops of your trousers. The ones where you put a couple of mag pouches and a holster on for a day at the range. For the range, that’s fine. But in the field, you’re putting weight onto your trousers which affects movement (yes, even your stupid expensive belts), and that’s not ideal in a high speed environment where you’re navigating difficult terrain. The harness type will rest on your waist, but the weight is carried (suspended) off the shoulders so it isn’t going to pull your trousers down when you run.

This is my load bearing for the event. A 28 litre Belgian Alice backpack is added just to test it out for comfort; I’ll be using it as a daysack for bigger events. For this skirmish, it held my DPM smock, spare hat and gloves, water bottle and tarp just to add some bulk. In the future it’ll take food, water and spare ammo too.

I know some guys will say that backpacks restrict you in tight environments, but I’ve had no issues in buildings with this one in particular. It’s wide, but doesn’t have lots of stacked pockets like those cheap molle backpacks off Amazon.

The ALICE belt in detail (All-purpose Lightweight Individual Carrying System). This system was developed by the US in the 1960’s and saw use up until the late 1990’s. It’s basic, but functional kit. Pouches are attached to a sturdy fabric belt by clips which push closed. You’ll notice here mine are zip tied on – the belt isn’t original so it’s not thick enough, but I preferred the chunky af plastic buckle. Pre-MOLLE goodness.

Stops them moving. So, what’s on it? The harness was about £10 off eBay, and the belt itself I think was around the same price off Amazon.

Pouch wise, I picked up two triple ammo pouches for £5 at the Midlands Airsoft Fair last spring. They’re springy clips that are easy to operate using gloves. Left to right then;

1. Triple mag pouch
2. Dutch MOLLE General Purpose Utility pouch – the MOLLE fits on as well and is zip tied in place. This utility will take food or spare ammo, or any other bits and pieces I need.
3. ALICE buttpack – £25 off my man Bubba. It’s like a mini backpack, for your butt. Usually carries soft stuff like spare hat and gloves, or a rain poncho. After some quick maths, it’s an 8 litre bag which can carry a lot of kit for resupply.
4. Water bottle pouch – with water bottle, for water. Obviously. Needs replacing with the real thing, I believe this is a cheap Webtex copy but it was £3 from a surplus stall and plugged a hole for now.
5. Compass/First aid pouch – Not visible, but pics below. A really small pouch added because why not, that doesn’t quite fit a box of paracetamol. In time, I might get a compass for it.
6. Triple mag pouch.

Now, the amount of pouches you can fit on is going to be directly related to your waist size. Despite packing it on over Christmas, I’m nowhere near being able to add a second utility pouch. Such is the need however, and I do like the Dutch version I have on, that I might relegate the water bottle to the backpack and swap the water bottle pouch for another utility. At skirmish, I’m back in safe zone often enough to eat or drink. At a longer game, it’s easy enough to take the backpack off and have five minutes to get some food and water down. Using it as an admin pouch, I went into the utility more often than the mag pouches at a recent milsim.

The only thing I need to change for regular use is to add a radio pouch or similar onto the left shoulder strap. At the moment, two ranger bands and/or green tape hold onto my comms but I’d like a better solution. If anyone has one, please drop it into the comments.

Fight light, fight right.

It’s often said that Airsofters go through a period early on of buying loads of MOLLE kit and slapping as many pouches onto their plate carrier as possible to take an entire wars worth of kit into skirmish, after which the experience tells them to drastically reduce the kit and that’s where we start to see really good loadouts. Obviously, if I could I’d advise all beginners to just start light but the lure of shopping is strong and we have lots of cheap “tactical retailers” springing up all over the place at the moment trying to get you to part with your hard earned cash. Resist the temptation to cover every inch of your body in “armour” and try to keep yourself free to actually play would be my best advice. Yeah, this ALICE stuff might seem pretty old hat, but it’s comfortable and works really well. If I wanted to really add some capacity, I can clip my LBT 1879 rig with hydration bladder back onto the belt and lose the harness, but so far it’s just not needed.