Mike's Rant of the Month: The Gran Torino Lineup

I’m generally a pretty Zen, relaxed guy. But every once in a while, with no warning, I come across something that makes me angry...VERY angry. This conveniently happens around once a month...so why not turn it into a monthly feature on Grey Ops?

The following opinions are mine alone, and don’t necessarily represent the views of Connor or any other writer on the Grey Ops team. Please direct all wrath, angry comments, law suits, and profanity towards myself (Mike), and spare all innocent parties.
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During this month of love and bliss, I'll be toning down my rant somewhat. Instead of ranting against one particular injustice or travesty with a vengeance, I'll be focusing on some things in Milsim Paintball that I don't exactly hate, but really don't like either. Do you remember the way Clint Eastwood's character in Gran Torino would see something and growl disdainfully? Well that's what we're talking about here.


The following things in Milsim Paintball make me spontaneously growl in anger:

Milsim Awesomeness: Special Ops Mission

If you haven't yet heard of the "reality" show Special Ops Mission, which aired through 2009-2010 on The Military Channel, you're in for a lot of fun!

The reality series "stars" Wil Willis, a Special Operations veteran with 15 years of experience between the US Army Rangers and Air Force Para-Rescue. Equipped with an infra-red camcorder on his M4 carbine, you'll literally get to see what he sees when he sights down the barrel.

LEGO Black Ops

Keshen8 over on YouTube has animated a battle royale of elite LEGO-men warriors shooting it out with all sorts of hardware. If you haven't seen it yet, check it out above. There's even a nod to Paintball in his video!

Thanks to Darren for bringing this to my attention!

Modern Warfare Tribute Video #2

Back in April, Connor posted a Modern Warfare tribute video called "Frozen Crossing". Part 2 came out in June, with the budget for it being slightly higher this time (at just over $600).

You're in for a real treat (especially with the helicopters at the end)! Enjoy.

CANSEC 2010 Report

CANSEC is a national defence and security industry trade show held yearly in Ottawa, Ontario. Representatives from over 200 electronics, aerospace, and technology firms converge to present their products to potential buyers from government and private industry. The show isn't open to members of the general public, and a strict registration process has to be followed to attend. This year, CANSEC was held June 2nd and 3rd at Lansdowne Park, South of downtown Ottawa.

Trijicon Controversy

As one of the most popular sights in use by various militaries today, it comes as a surprise to learn that every Trijicon Reflex Sight and ACOG comes with a biblical reference. The full story, as reported by BBC, reveals that Trijicon has been doing this for over two decades, but it has only become an issue now. Lines are already being drawn, with some saying that the merchandise used is too useful to worry about the political ramifications of the inscriptions, while others believe that the references send a potentially destabilizing message.

New Camo Pattern A-TACS

Developed by Digital Concealment Systems, the new A-TACS (Advance Tactical Concealment System) was recently featured on Tactical-Life.com. Clearly a result of the abundant complaints and recent articles concerning the current Army Combat Uniform, it has been touted as a revolutionary camoflage designed for an arid environment.

Although it might not look it, it is in fact a digital pattern, and utilizes “organic pixels”. This method of pixellation is designed to eliminate right angles visible in traditional digital patterns, and to keep the pattern from forming blobs when seen at a distance.

The official unveiling for A-TACS will take place at SHOT Show 2010, but as of this month some A-TACS product will already be on the market.

Update (Nov. 18th 2009): Found a new picture that wasn't in the Tactical Life article. Shown below.

Further update (Nov. 18th 2009): Found a few new pictures, but I can't be sure of their veracity.

The End of ACU?

Ugly sofas and sodium vapour lamps aside, operators overseas have lodged innumerable complaints about the effectiveness of UCP. While it is still in use in both the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Photosimulation Camouflage Detection Test conducted by the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center has shown that it is hardly the optimal camo for the job. 

To sum up the findings of the test, I'll quote one of the conclusive statements,

"2. If Army leadership desires, for any number of reasons, to maintain a single, multi-environment camouflage pattern for combat missions, then one must first consider all possible environments that a soldier can encounter during a mission set.  For instance, in present day theaters, soldiers can manuever from desert mountainous terrain to oasis to urban terrain during a single mission. 

MultiCam® provides a readily available alternative with good overall performance across all three environments.

a. It provides a significant reduction in target detectability in all three environments as compared to the UCP. MultiCam® performed better in the woodland environment than the Desert MARPAT and Desert Brush patterns, while those two patterns performed better in the desert environment than MultiCam®. 

b. Specific woodland environment missions may still need to be supplemented with a woodland pattern."

As a result of this test and other factors, one U.S. battalion will be wearing a new pattern dubbed UCP Delta this fall, while another will be wearing Multicam.

Multicam pictured above.

UCP Delta pictured above (if it looks like UCP but with brown added, that's because that is exactly what it is).

David Guttenfelder

If you're in the mood for some truly meaningful and jaw dropping pictures of the war in Afghanistan, look no further than David Guttenfelder.

He's covered a multitude of wars, as seen in his profile linked above, and some of his recent pictures were featured on the Denver Post's MediaCenter. One picture that really stood out for me was a shot of an Afghan helicopter crashing.