URBAN6
OPERATION: CLEAR SKIES
Urban 6 Airsoft
puts more effort into
its storylines than
Stephen King. Sian
Westall and Gareth
‘Gadge’ Harvey give
us the lowdown on
Operation: Clear Skies
T
here are some things in
life you always mean to
do but for one reason or
another just don’t seem to
get round to. One of those
things I’d been meaning to do was visit
Urban 6 Airsoft, and boy am I glad I did!
Now I have to admit to not being
totally impartial here. Some time ago an
old army buddy of mine collared me at a
re-enactment show, said he was setting
up a site and asked if I’d like to come and
have a look. D espite best intentions of
going along for a game it took me a good
year or so to get myself and some of the
Airsoft Action crew down to Urban 6’s
regular site – Swynnerton Army Camp, an
MoD base recently revamped to supply
realistic training to troops set to deploy to
Afghanistan.
Eventually fulfilling my promise to Urban
6 head honchos Mark Warrier and Nigel
Armitage we loaded up the car with the
usual airsofting paraphernalia on a freezing
winter’s morning and set of for a lengthy
drive to Swynnerton in Staffordshire.
It wasn’t the easiest site entrance to find
but once there we were quickly checked
in by the Urban 6 team, and with less fuss
than expected a quick and concise safety
brief was issued before the real nitty gritty
of the day’s play was explained.
016
March 2012
While it’s usual to have one or more teams
with pseudo-military objectives for the games
very few sites put as much effort into their back
story and props as Urban 6 does. At times it
felt more like we’d booked onto a well-themed
weekender (like those run by Stirling Airsoft) and
I’ll explain why.
Nigel and Mark’s crew had created an entire
military operation for this weekend. We were
told that a renegade Russian state had been
causing mayhem in the East and that UN forces
were needed to go in to stabilise the region…
‘Simples’ you might think – but the main NATO
force couldn’t go straight in as well-camouflaged
man-portable SAM sites were taking out NATO
helicopters by the dozen. There was only one
thing for it: a NATO ground team would have to
go in.
With more than a little pre-battle prep, the
Urban 6 crew had warned for anyone wanting
to play on the NATO side to wear temperate
woodland shades with the Russian rebel militia
in black and mixed camo patterns. This also
meant that, well in advance of the game, one
team knew they would be largely in defence
and were happy to be so.
Sian: From a player POV the different kit
requirements did a good job of differentiating
the teams. I was expecting to find it harder as I
didn’t know any of the other players at all. Even