May Update

Operation Thunderstrike was a rousing success. Two companies of airsofters duked it out over control points at Splat Action in Molalla. In the end Alpha company (MARPAT) was victorious.

Many players with Alpha company owed the success to the good organization. Platoons and squads stayed together and reacted well to the chain of command.

"I haven't seen such a well oiled machine on the battlefield in years" - MRowell, Alpha Company C.O.

At OP: Thunderstrike we got to welcome Ric Raddue (Nightshade) back to the active roster from a short hiatus.

In June two members, Matt Rowell and Tyler Lewis, are getting married. Congrats to them.

Saturday June 12th Catch22 is organizing "Pacifica Wars" in Scappoose. It is a milsim game based around parts of the Northwest seceding from the Union.

Recent recruiting activity:
Cody Patterson joins us as a recruit. Cody has been playing airsoft since 2007, and tourney paintball before that.
Mitch David joins us as a recruit. Mitch started airsoft as an Actor in CQC7 (remember the crime boss?). He brings with him years of experience shooting fools.
Zach Dacid joins us as a recruit. Zach is always eager to get into the thick of things and shoot fools.
Tom Bechtol finished his recruiting period and joins as a member. Tom is a 30+ year Navy veteran and brings his experience to the team.
Ray Beran joins as a recruit.

New Blood!

This has been an exciting Month for APST. We would like to announce the newest additions to our team:

Dick Daigle - Returns to APST to be our lawn gnome of death once again.

Kevin Barry - Return to APST to keep Dick from sexually harassing DQ waitresses.


Vaughn Becthol - Is recruited to APST and brings with him his experience as police officer.

Michael Burns - Is recruited to APST because he loves airsoft and wants to kill fools with fools, and film us being drunk and disorderly.

You can find APST and our new teammates at Faction Wars 3.0 on Feb 27th!

New members, recruiting, and other updates

Our team activity level suffered somewhat near the end of 2009, but we've started 2010 right! Here's a quick recap:

In October about a third of the team showed for the glorified skirmish "Faction Wars 2.1" at the T1T field in Keizer. It was good times and of course we rolled the enemy hard wherever we went.

In December a couple of us played at OP: End of Lies at the St. Paul field. For the most part the game was a disorganized clusterfuck with a large portion of cheaters. By noon the Op had completely fallen apart and we hung around until 3pm when the 'copter finally showed up (3 hours late). At this point Amos got to ride around in the R44 shooting at the people on the ground skirmishing with his M249.

January 2010 brought us Conflict Europe part 4. Due to the event promoter banning alcohol (but not goats apparently) at the campout, we elected to hold our campout at a set of suites in a nearby hotel. APST Rifleman "Variable" colluded with other NATO based teams for the NATO Indoor Campout which was a huge success.

At the game the next day APST played the role of NATO Special Forces, and Kevin "Top" H. played the role of NATO commander. Our first set of objectives was to locate a geocache with intel on an Axis double agent, then locate the agent. We completed these objectives without any trouble, located the agent and received intel directing us to a point behind enemy lines that need to be destroyed. The intel proved to be wrong, but we got the correct location from another source, penetrated the enemy lines and destroyed the objective.

Our next objective involved a snatch of the Axis leader. Due to an intelligence foulup, the snatch turned into a "kill everyone at the enemy CP" mission. After that, lacking any new objectives from the game Admins, APST defaulted to general order number one; kill everything in sight.

By days end NATO had won the battle, and the Axis had learned that well organized mature players will always defeat numerically superior hoards of meatshields.

With the impetus of a victory under our belts we came to the decision that in order to maintain a strong showing at games (even though we all have non-airsoft responsibilities) we need to increase our numbers. We've contacted several mature players in the community and added them as recruits, welcomed back two players that had gone inactive, and opened up a general channel for players interested in recruitment.

Any player 18+ interested in APST should contact Gunny.

Christmas Tree Farm of Doom

Our newest recruit John M. invited us out to skirmish with a small group in Canby, Oregon.

Six of us from APST showed up and we got to it.

The group that was hosting the skirmish was armed with Aftermath, dboys, and a mix of other lower end AEGs. They numbered at 10 initially.

We played a mix of attack/defend and CTF type games with varying respawn rules.

The field is a 3 acre piece of overgrown Christmas tree farm. Because of the rows of trees you can see a long distance in certain directions, and even take shots, although the overgrowth had the tendency to deflect BBs. Heavy BBs, high RoF, and High FPS work well for mowing down the twigs.

Some of the players there hadn’t yet heard of Airsoft Pacific or the events in the Northwest. We hope to see them out soon.

Thanks to Bruce and family for hosting some good old fashioned fun on their land.

CQC7

We just finished putting on the latest CQC competition installment at PDX CAGE. All the teams showed a great level of competitiveness and skill.

The story behind the operation is that this is the culmination of a three year FBI investigation into a crime family with three simultaneous takedowns against different mob targets.

CQC7 was hosted by Airsoft Pacific and APST. We did not compete in this event because all available APST members were either Acting or Administering (as FBI special agents).

The Drug Scenario

The CI Nicky Gallo has given the FBI the location of mob boss Rialto’s cocaine processing facility in a warehouse. Rialto himself is on location with his accountant and bodyguard. The entry team must: 1. secure drug lab 2. detain all workers 3. extract CI 4. detain Rialto and his accountant.

One of the doors before the office has an alarm on it, which nearly every team tripped. Then the teams must (fight) move up a narrow staircase to where Rialto is. Most teams bogged down at the stairway which allowed Rialto to escape.

The Kidnapping Scenario

ADA Diane Young has been kidnapped. Info from the CI tells us that she is being held by a professional (ex-military) kidnapping group and being interrogated for information on her case against the Rialto crime family. She is being held in a basement that has two stairway entrances.

Upon entry to the upstairs, the teams meet (and must eliminate) an armed guard, then hit the basement. Once down the stairs there is a claymore mine (which killed large numbers of teams). The last surprise is that the interrogator will kill the ADA if the teams take too long to make entry to the final room.

The Club Scenario

The Rialto crime family launders much of its money through an underground nightclub. Under-boss Salvatore is at this club and must be detained. Designed drug dealer Nathan Taylor is also reported to be there and must be detained.

The twist on this scenario is 1. the loud noise 2. the strobe lights and 3. lots of bar patrons (some of which are armed) and 4. the scantily clad go-go dancer.

Most teams did well with the crowd control aspect of this mission, but detaining Salvatore successfully proved difficult because of the armed men in his office with him (playing poker).

With the success of CQC7 we can’t wait for CQC8.

see http://pdxcage.com/, http://airsoftpacific.com/viewtopic.php?t=24821 for more details

Busy Couple of Months

APST has been pretty busy. In March TOP took point on hosting OP: Steel Talon at the Splat Action park.
In April Nocte hosted OP: Project Nephilim 3 at CAGE PDX.
In May APST and AP are hosting CQC: 7 at CAGE PDX.

Putting together all these great events cuts into our field time as a team, but in June we should be hitting Coffee Angels II in St. Paul, Oregon.

Tornado Flashbang

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPf0WvMn8uw
The folks at AI are producing a kit that will turn your tornado from a "frag" into a "bang". It replaces the valve cover safety plug with a Mylar burst disk and a part that forces the gas into the burst disk instead of into the BB channels.
$15 for 50 refills. We will have some shortly and give them a whirl.