Operation Crimson Ghost Pix Post of Doom!I'm terrible with names. If you see yourself in any of these pix and you wish to be identified, send me a PM and I'll quietly modify the text. These are in roughly chronological order. I've got bigger versions, if anybody wants copies.
Ahh, the early morning sunshine of Midwestern Michigan.
It truly was a gorgeous fall day, one of three we usually get here in Michigan.
Some of the German team getting pumped up and geared up.
It's briefing time. ACO explains how it going to go down.
Shots of the crowd held in rapt awe by the organizers.
Most of these guys ended up as Soldiers Of Fortune.
German team gets ready to move out. Check out Firelotus' GP30 grenade launcher! It's kinda hard to see in this photo. It's underneath the barrel of the AK in the pic, ahead of the mag. It's black. Hey, it's Zorak and the EOTech reddot behind him!
Team Germany heads off on down the road towards vistory. It was at this point I realized that my Bazooka would not be the best primary weapon and I would need more backup than a Mac11 with two mags. So I ran back to my gear and grabbed my AKBeita. Twenty seconds later I was locked, loaded, and lethal!
This is why I'll never be a combat photographer. When I took this picture, ½ of Team Germany was concealed in the thick tangle a few feet from the road, waiting to ambush the enemies of the Fatherland. Imagine youself filled with tension, sweat dripping down your face, nervously gripping your weapon. The ambush went spectacularly for us, as it turned out.
About 30 tense minutes later, I found myself dead in between rows of bluberry bushes. I remembered my camera and snapped a few pix of the ensuing action. Here's a dead guy - complete with kill rag.
Action-o-rama! He gets the kill!
After a few minutes of this, I respawned, fired a huge salvo from my bazooka (almost getting a kill!) and ran away. I circled the field, looking for my teammates and found the Soldiers of Fortune, with a few prisoners.
They took me prisoner as well.
This guy is not Spiderman©, turn your head sideways...
Through a series of dazzling manuevers, I managed to escape my captors. Well, not really dazzling. I just kinda shot at them for a sec and ran away in abject terror. A teammate came with me, and we circled around a bit before laying in the field, concealed, to do a bit of recon. We were not in contact with our team, so we were hoping either to surprise and engage the enemy, or find our comrades.
The latter happened. Our re-grouped squad of Germans headed back to base to re-equip, re-arm, and re-group. Zorak on the far right, xaos third from left (I think).
Our goal at this point was to set detonators on a group of rockets and blow 'em up. In the very center, you can see a brave German sapper setting the charges. I went with Comrade Zorak to set a perimeter. I had a pic of Zorak hidden in the grass, but the guy's a damn chameleon! It's impossible to see him, even though the camera was aimed right at him. Take a look:
Do you see him (and it's not that blob in the center, that's a rock)? Me niether! In any case there was no enemy contact was to be had. Explosives went off and Team Germany was victorious!
Quick break for water and snacks after the game. Who is that man in the tan t-shirt? Why it's Hawkeye!
What are these people looking at?
Or this group of people? What do they see?
Oh, it's Ryan from ACO explaining some things. He did some advertisement for the winter CQB leagues.
Sign up today!! He also talked about upcoming events and some exciting developments from ACO.
Then is was lunch break time. In the center of this pic is German Team leader Munin (I think). A better leader of the Sons of Germany you cannot find.
Jacko tells war stories. Check out the mad hand-gesture action! Couple of us went to Burger King in a team-member's Impreza WRX. I've wanted one of those for a long time. I might be able to afford one if I didn't spend so much damn money on Airsoft. We had some pistols-only games after that. I actually did OK on these ones. Mac11 in one hand, Mauser in the other, I was a propane-powered machine!
The next game was a simple assault on a fixed position. Our brave German comrades executed a brave and bold dash across an open field, under withering fire. Many were cut down. It was sad. I made it. In an attempt to distract the overwhelming enemy forces, I took a picture. In the dim twilight, the tremedously disorienting flash allowed our team to attack in force and win the day!
...
OK, I lied. The flash was only attention getting and when I rose up to attack I was cut down mercilessly by a withering hail of fire. D'oh!
It was getting dark (and cold) fast. Some people headed out to leave, and some stayed for a night game. Immedately after this shot, about 6 guys yelled at me for ruining their night-adapted eyes.
So I did it again! Haw! I was too far away for the flash to light up these guys (reciprocal failure and all that). I put it in the post because it captures very well the conditions under which the night game took place (partially the reason I shot my own team member about 30 minutes later...). That's Zorak on the left, then Munin, then Firelotus.
This is a special request. What's with a solid black jpeg?, you ask. During the night game, I tried the "digital camera flashbang grenade" tactic again. This time it worked. An enemy, dazzled and perhaps confused, stumbled out into view. I promptly lit him up.
With BBs! Booyah! Reciprocal failure of the flash killed any image that might have recorded (and I wasn't pointing it at anything anyway, I didn't know where anyone was!). This was what was recorded on the SD-card.
That's it folks. Hope you enjoyed it. Took me nearly an hour to type and upload.
This guy is not Spiderman©, turn your head sideways...
