Out with the old, in with the new?

I’m an absolute gear whore. My house is absolutely loaded with kit and there are always trips and opportunities to go visit surplus stores and collect more. If you follow my socials, or indeed the blog, you’ll know I have a preference for the 1980’s/90’s/Early 2000’s British and American kit. DPM, US Woodland, their desert counterparts; not just the BDUs but the accessories too. If it smells musty and has a layer of dust in a surplus store, I’ll have it. It’s worked well for me down the years and doesn’t cost the earth to put lots of different kits together.

I haven’t looked at, bought or built any kind of “modern” loadout since 2013. I remember the old days when a DPM Ops Vest, ALICE, or PLCE were perfectly modern compared to the WW2 and Vietnam reenactors and they’re perfectly functional still. I don’t mind my vintage canteens, rare finds, simple wood burning stoves etc and the webbing and clothing just looks and feels better than the replica stuff on Airsoft websites. It’s robust, reliable, well designed gear that has been used in real warzones, and it’s cool to have stuff that has a story in terms of development and use. So I started collecting more. Lots more.

I could probably put ten loadouts together easily and they all have their advantages and disadvantages, but that’s where it takes me a while to pack for a game. Even choosing what I want can take a few days and then I have to go and locate it all. There are a few guns on the workbench, some half-finished belt orders that may never see the light of day and it’s perhaps time to just lay off the surplus a little and streamline my collection.

As fun as it might sound, trawling through cupboards and boxes hunting for things I need to suit each event every time I want to go away is tiring, and I’m at the point now where I’d rather have one bag and kit that I can just pick up and go, knowing that everything is in there and everything works. Not that old gear doesn’t work of course, it’s often a just a case of switching rigs around for different guns and environments and making sure everything is still in the right pouches. Old stuff is fine but you do need to deal with a couple of inconveniences – it can sometimes get cold, wet and heavy but I’m in decent enough shape to be able to shrug it all off for a couple of days. Someone recently said that I did milsims on super hardcore mode with the gear I took along and I do agree some stuff could be made a little easier.

At the 2025 Midlands Airsoft Fair I had a good look around Deadly Customs’ stall and was offered to try one of their rather nice new slings, and I know many of you will either have one or have similar, but for a guy who usually runs a genuine Vietnam-era M16 two point sling, it was quite an eye opener. Slick, comfortable, lightweight. If it fitted with the rest of my gear I’d have bought one on the spot.

I’ve since spent my free time trawling through tactical videos on YouTube and it’s remarkable how far kit has come since the last time I tried to buy something from this century.

And it got me thinking.

For the last year or so I’ve been experimenting with lots of different retro loadouts trying to find that sweet spot, the “ultimate” Airsoft loadout. I’m searching for something that I can use at all kinds of events and in all conditions without having to spend a full day packing every time. In a sense, I’m after one loadout to rule them all, instead of separate cqb and woodland kits, or skirmish and milsim kits. If you’ve ever seen me at a game day, I tend to carry a double rifle bag that is rammed full of all sorts of stuff I don’t need, accompanied by a 120 litre holdall that is even heavier. It’s a lot of stuff to have at each event.

The loadout needs updated, and I need updated.

The game too has changed, not so much the games themselves, but the players are a very different proposition to what they were even just ten years ago. There’s a lot more plastic flying around (most guns seem to have drum mags), camouflage is a dying art, everyone has a hose connected to their backpacks and everything is filmed. It’s a faster game with a lot more trigger time, less organised and less predictable.

And I am…a little older and slower, although hopefully wiser.

So to start this loadout off I’ve sat down and had a lot of discussions with teammates about all the events we’ve done and the kit we’ve used, what worked and what didn’t. It’s always great to have experienced guys and a little community of like minded people to talk to. As much as I hate MOLLE with a passion, it might be time to modernise to get a much more efficient loadout which is lighter, warmer and more comfortable to play in. Whereas often I would sit and look at old reference photos and decide “yeah that looks cool, lets do that”, this is a blank canvas with no historical template or influences. This is something built to suit me and my style of play. Which I guess is a kind of recce role, with lots of solo flanking manoeuvres, a need for camouflage and stealth still and a lot of time away from respawn or resupply areas.

I do find a lot of the big events in the UK now tend to be at large urban sites, so it’s not CQB as in an indoor warehouse type arena but there will be a need to work in buildings. Vehicles I’m not keen on because they’re a very noisy way to arrive at a target location, but sometimes I might need to squeeze in on occasion, so the belt orders are going to have to go.

My base idea is a chest rig for combat and a backpack for overnight and replenishment, with no belt orders or drop legs, so everything is going to have to fit in the rig up front. As much as I love a good ALICE belt, it’s a lot easier to dig through your kit when everything is accessible in front of you. I don’t shoot a lot, most of the work is done on semi auto so I don’t need a lot of mags, or space for a secondary. I’m a firm believer that it’s better to reload your rifle that has 120rds in it, an aiming device and a torch, than to pull up a pistol with only 20rds in it for a firefight, so there’ll be no pistol to fit in.

BDU’s aren’t really a concern, I’m looking to add better technical layers underneath to manage the unpredictable UK weather. From cold and wet, to hot and wet, to hot and sweaty, to wet, to wind, to snow which is also wet, twelve months here is like a world tour, so although it seems quite temperate and boring the British Isles are horribly inconsistent and that presents a few challenges.

The rucksack needs to be able to comfortably carry sleep kit as well as food and water replenishment and a few spares, such as batteries and ammo so nothing too challenging. 55-80 litres should be ideal and challenge me to cut down on the enormous amount of crap that goes to events “just in case”. Does it need to be a £300 behemoth? No. Will it be one of those cheap Amazon MOLLE things? Also no.

I’m interested to hear what people are using because I’m just starting out with this project and completely open to ideas as long as it doesn’t involve a plate carrier. What I’ll do then is put a few blogs together about building what will be a higher level of kit for players who are interested. Either drop them in comments or send me a DM somewhere and save me watching a few too many Garand Thumb videos.