paintball

08 Aug 2006 We went paintball shooting 2 days ago, somewhere in Limburg. I'd recommend it to anyone :)
You get the chance to fire a weapon at your friends, and not get arrested for attempted murder :P

The paintball arena has very strict rules regarding dresscode and weapon safety, and they will punish you if you don't follow the rules. Firing your weapon outside of the arena for example, even if it is by accident, will make you stand in front of a firing squad and taking 5 hits.

But that's ok, the bullets don't really hurt that much.
Once you get hit in the arena though, the game is over and you have to sit it out outside the arena (obviously). A game lasts about 15 minutes.

During the first 2 games, I didn't fire my weapon too much to spare ammo, but that's just stupid.
It didn't take me very long to realise that it's better to fire in short bursts, mainly because the weapon is not super-accurate and the first shot only serves to aim.

There were 13 players in the arena, divided in 2 groups: yellow and red. I was on the yellow team and we weren't very good at first :)
That changed by the end though.

As you would expect, a lot depends on what tactic you use in the field. Our first games were more or less without tactics. We split up in 3 pairs and moved along the arena. This is of course stupid if you're not going to cover your partner.

By the end, we had developped some kind of unspoken tactic. Everyone spread out and moved along the arena in small steps. I felt that the best tactic would be to outflank the enemy and attack from either the side or the back. That proved to be true :)

A while back, I read a great deal about strategy and tactics in computer games such as Enemy Territory. These same tactics can be applied to paintball.

It's something to remember for next time :)