TheLostGlobe

Last weekend I spent most of my Saturday running around in the bush aiming at peoples heads and pulling the trigger without a second thought other than making sure the person I was shooting at didn’t look like me. It was a game of course the guns were infra-red and the only thing really different between me and my enemy was the hats we wore. If you’re like Jack Thompson you might think that spending your weekend doing such things can’t be good for your mental health, it may even make me a more violent person. That may be true of Jack but in real life the effect of computer games and related media is far more subjective than he would have you believe. Of the 30 odd others who took part in the game with me maybe I was the only one who thought about what we were doing, I don’t know. I was aware that there would be some degree of realism that could definitely give me a better understanding of what war may actually be like. This is what I learned.

I believe that from understanding comes a greater level of respect and experience is the best way to understand. Our first mission was simply a team on team firefight 20 minutes long, both teams sustained at least a 200% casualty rate (we were given multiple lives), I was killed 3 times in that 20 minutes. I was shocked, the realisation was that if for some reason I was ever forced to fight in a war there is a very high chance I would be killed, anyone who has thought about going to war thinks they would survive, the reality is far from what is in your head.

Before going on I must say that I am under no illusion that this was somehow a highly realistic affair, there is no way to compare the gore, atmosphere, bullets flying around you, explosions and the difference actual military training and teamwork on a real battlefield to a bunch of people running around with phasers. But with that understanding there is still much you can learn.

I found the Australian bush is not a friendly place to fight in, although we were limited in the area we could fight in which intensified the situation combat happens at surprisingly close range quite often anyway because it’s fairly easy to keep well hidden. One annoying thing was that there is a sensor on your gun so you get shot when it’s actually your gun that gets shot, shooting a gun is a fair tactic but it doesn’t effect your health normally now does it?

Probably the most realistic game we played was the “capture the flag” type scenario, we started out defending all we had to do was maintain control of the area around our flag. Obviously this involves setting up a perimeter and defending from there of course you could scout too but that didn’t prove to be a good idea as the other team discovered. We succeeded in defending our territory and when the scores came in it was obvious that attacking meant taking a lot of casualties. So when our turn came to attack we had a bit of an advantage in knowing where it was hardest to defend the flag from. I was in a group of about 5 who tried to flank their base and come in from the rear which turned into a bit of a debacle that got us all killed. I think everyone but me gave up on that idea except me but this time I took a wider berth, the other team had been maybe a bit too aggressive in their defense and while my team was taking care of them I crawled into their base and directly under their flag and found a few others doing the same. I was surprised I thought defending was quite easy but obviously if you don’t deal with someone getting in right away it makes things very difficult.

I felt in those two games a real soldier probably doesn’t think to much about what they are fighting for, at least not on the attack, I imagine seeing so many people die around you in what in the moment only amounts to gaining ground on the enemy it all seems quite pointless, who cares about the ground when it’s costing lives? I just doesn’t seem worth it.

So it was actually a very fun day and if you ever get the chance to play Laser Skirmish of Paintball in a bush setting, I say go for it. There is a gallery of pics taken from our Skirmish here. I’m looking forward to our next event where I can try out some new tactics, Hasta la vista baby.

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