Battle of Guadalcanal ‘07

This was West Point’s 2007 Spring Game. The last time I played West Point in Spring of ’06 the weather was very cold with torrential rain. This weekend, the weather was beautiful! Cold Gear out, Heat Gear in. Both Saturday and Sunday, the temperature was just below 80°F with sunny skies. Point is… it was a perfect weekend for paintball.

West Point has great natural terrain for paintball. The field was located by Camp Buckner off Route 293 and was rather large. I found, for the numbers playing, there was plenty of room to maneuver, be it to flank or sneak around. Some of the hill inclines were rather steep and long though. Shortly after the open of the game, several of us Japanese saw American opfor trying to sneak around our base. We came down one of these long hills to meet them; down, all the way to the shoreline of the lake that was the west border. We repelled their push, but not without losing most of our squad. We had been eliminated down to two men when Opfor began pushing again. After my other teamate was shot out, I began bouncing from cover to cover, trying to get angles on the approaching team without getting myself surrounded. As they advanced further this turned into a Lazy D until I started to get low on air. At this point I retreated about 40 yards until I was out of sight and then advanced back through the cover of pricker bushes, about 25 yards, to what I figured would be the center of their advance. I sat and waited. My idea was to pop up in the middle and try to eliminate a few before I was eliminated or ran out of air. I could hear rustling out in front, then to the side and then behind. Turns out, from behind me, Japanese friendly reinforcements were moving up. Opfor must’ve seen them coming and decided on another route. After we swept forward through the area, I broke off to get air. That’s when I realized how far down the hill I had traveled! Let just say that I had to stop several times to catch my breath and the CLIMB was not easy. Now, I’m not the most in-fit nor anywhere near the youngest on the field, but I didn’t see anyone who could bound up these hills without stopping for a breath! God Bless the Cadets whom train out there! During the course of the weekend I trekked down and up twice more. It may have been smarter to let the fight come to us, but that wouldn’t have nearly been as fun!

I had the pleasure of meeting Chibbs of Team Voodoo and playing alongside him. -same for Mariol, General Rob and the rest of the Hell Katz. Barney, Craig and a contingent of RT Raiders dealt swift HAMMER blows to any Allied forces in their path and the Red Raiders brought one hell of an arsenal to send the GI scurring. (Besides the “normal” bazooka-type shoulder fired rocket launchers, these guys also had M2-type baseplate’n’tripod infantry mortars, as well as 3-man slingshots to hurl grenades!). I think it’s well established at this point that the sides were balanced heavily to the Japs. By lunch of the first day, the Cadets were already trying to get people to jump sides in an attempt to even things out. Our opening push drove the Americans back to their spawn points at their Base & Airfield and we had control of most of the field real estate. That’s not to say that there weren’t a number of tough skirmishes at various points across the map. There were several ‘beach landings’ where the Americans were advancing on our base. In fact, at one point we were being overrun and were told to evacuate the base so that our own side could send in artillery fire to clear Opfor out. In the first day point totals, the Japanese had accumulated 4 or 5 times the points of the Americans. My best guess at my personal death/kill ratio is recorded in the play log section of my brigade page.

At the start of the second day, the Cadets had redistributed the teams again and due to people choosing not to play the second day, they effectively shortened the field by moving all objectives to one side of the field. I remained Japanese and again, we brought the fight to the Americans. Resistance was much stiffer now and real estate much harder fought over.

It is interesting to note that the two days had similar weather and most reported the paint to be excellent for both days, whereas I experienced a flurry of in-barrel ball breaks on the second day. It must have been something to do with my equipment. On the second day I was getting poor accuracy and barrel breaks about every 15-20 rounds. I was using a barrel squeegee and cleaning each time. I started carrying the squeegee in my left hand instead of putting it away. I seem to be the only one I know of that had any problem with paint during the weekend. On day one, I only had one barrel break and accuracy was decent.

One notable skirmish on day two was when myself, Mariol and two others made our way to the north west corner of the map by the shoreline, and started making our way up the hill, along the North tape, to the American HQ. There was already a major attack on the HQ from the East by, I believe, the Red Raiders. I think it was the Skulls who were advancing up and along the ridge from the south. And here we were coming from the west. We were doing OK trying to maximize our angles and not let any Opfor past us about a ¼ up the hill we lost a man and another was out of paint. About ½ way up, I was out of paint. Moving up, calling out enemy positions, working angles and dry firing, the Opfor was still retreating up the hill until we found ourselves at the ¾ mark! By then, the Skulls to our right had joined us as the perimeter of our forces tightened on their HQ. Reinforcements were sneaking up to the left and right of me as I tried to distract Opfor from the Skulls who were closing in from within the ridgeline. I was finally eliminated, but not before reinforcements were in place and we were closing in on ‘em. I felt as though this had been the most effective I’ve been without a lick of paint to shoot. Unforunately, I was also completely out of all the paint I had for the weekend with only an hour left of the game. Thanks to Capt. Malone for the few pods of paint keeping me in till the end of the game.

I thought it was clever that when we took the American re-spawn point, the Cadets gave the Americans our spawn point so that they would mass and attack us from behind. What the Americans didn’t realize is that from our new vantage point on the high ground, we were able to see them coming and radio in their position to our troops up close. Also when they tried to flank the troops that were close-in, we could rain down paint from above! The second day’s point total had the Americans leading, but their second day’s lead could in no way make up for day one’s massive deficit. I don’t remember the exact totals but it was something like 6000+ points for the Japanese and 1700-something points for the Americans. It was a great weekend to see and sling some paint at a bunch of friends and of course make a few new ones while you’re at it.

OH - how can I forget! I thought having a real M249 SAW firing blanks right behind you as you play was awesome until I heart the report of the 50 cal Machine Gun. First a TA-DA-DA-DA … DA-DA … TA-DA-DA-DA followed by a DUGG-DUGG-DUGG … DUGGA-DUGGA … DUGG-DUGG-DUGG. The Blackhawk was one sexy beast, and its fly-bys were a nice touch, too. Sign up for Fall early! Early word says the date is September 15 and the scenario will be of a cold war / Red Dawn type. Proceeds always go to the West Point Black Knights Paintball team.