Airsoft vs. Paintball(just take time to read it)

airsoft* and paintball are two sports that should be able to coexist, but don't. The sports both serve different markets. Paintball seems to entertain the people that tend to play "extreme sports". It is characterized by fast paced, hard hitting, action. Airsoft serves the more tactical crowd, who prefer teamwork and strategy over speed of action. For some reason, the majority of paintball players with internet access find it nescessary to diss airsoft and its players. Although the debate over the internet are very heated, there are no known incidents of airsoft players and paintball players engaging in a physical confrontation, even though both groups have been at the same location at the same time.

Several common misconceptions about airsoft, used by the immature people who find it nescessary to diss airsoft:

1. Myth: Airsoft doesnt hurt. Its for pussies who are afraid to get dime sized bruises.
Fact: from personal experience, this is far from the truth. Airsoft guns are well capable of not only bruising, but also puncturing skin, causing blood blisters, and chipping teeth, especially in CQB. Eye protection is just as nescessary in airsoft as it is in paintball. Although the radius of damage per bb is much smaller, much more bbs are slung at a given time than paintballs.

2. Myth: Airsoft is just for kids to screw around in their back yard who can't afford/cant get their parents to buy paintball guns.
Fact: The cheap 5-30 dollar spring guns or "springers" as they are known by the majority of airsofters, were once the average airsoft guns, but were replaced by much higher quality gas and electric guns. The cheap springers still appeal to the kids that can't afford more expensive paintball or airsoft guns, but these kids are NOT part of the true airsoft community, and due to their poor safety considerations, threaten the legality of both airsoft AND paintball. The majority of airsoft guns cost just as much as paintball guns.

3. Myth: Airsoft is only for people who got rejected/are too young/too fat to join the military.
Fact: Not true at all. A large percentage of airsoft players are current/former military personnel, law enforcement personnel, and other people who serve our country in various ways. Citizen soldiers use airsoft as a way to hone their skills or simply relax after a hard tour of duty. The reason most airsoft players use tactical lingo such as "charlie team, flank the tangos at hill bravo" is because they actually know what they are doing, and have actual tactical training.

4. Myth: Airsoft guns all have orange tips, which makes them unrealistic.
Fact: The "orange tips" are only required for shipping airsoft guns to, from, and within the united states. Any suspected firearms with an unmarked tip or firearm trademarks will be seized and destroyed by US Customs or the US Postal Service, which is why all guns sold come with orange tips. The orange tips may serve as "reassurance" for parents, that their kids will not be shot by cops because of this, but this is a false reassurance. The orange tip is NOT required to be on in most states, and will not prevent you from being shot just because you have one. Because gunmen will sometimes spraypaint their gun barrel orange or spraypaint a fake gun black, law enforcement officers will ignore the color of the tip, and concentrate on the actions of the person. If you ever have an airsoft gun when confronted with police, stand still and comply 100% with the officer's orders. The majority of airsofters remove their orange tips and TREAT THEIR AIRSOFT GUN LIKE A REAL GUN, locking it up properly, carrying it pointed in a safe direction with the fire selector on "safe" and with the magazine out.

5. Myth: Airsoft requires no physical activity. Its just for fat lazy people who want to shoot eachother and aren't in shape enough for paintball.
Fact: Airsoft requires a large amount of physical activity, just in a different way than paintball. Most airsoft games are exponentially longer than paintball matches, and require heavy physical stamina to remain up and running. Sprints for cover and treks over rough terain are also demanding, and Close quarters battles (CQB) are just as fast paced as your average paintball game.

6. Myth: In airsoft, you can't tell if you shot a person, and people never call themselves out.

Fact: Although this is one of the major flaws of airsoft, it is not as problematic as concieved by outsiders. The primary factors to preventing this problem are honor and the airsoft community. While paintball guns do make it much more obvious as to who is hit, airsoft players often come to the field with enough honor and integrity to call themselves out. Some players even call themselves out when they hear a rain drop on their helmet (sniper rifles often loose a great amount of power over long distances). If players are not so honorable on their own, the community like environment that is airsoft prevents players from cheating. If they are caught cheating repeatedly, they will be banned from playing by most, if not all local areas, and will not be able to play unless they somehow redeem themselves or move to a new region. Sometimes players will think they are hitting the enemy, when in actuality their shots are just barely missing. Because of this, the firing player will often shout "call your hits!" to challenge the honor of the other player. Paintball is not without its cheaters either. In tournaments, some paintball players will continue firing after being hit until a referee actually calls them out. Other players carry moist towlettes in their pocket to wipe off paint when noone is looking.

Now, with all of these new facts, perhaps we can all stop dissing each other's sports and get back to playing the games we all love.
Airsoft vs Paintball: The usual confrontation:

Airsofter: Who here wants to play airsoft?

Paintballer: Ew.. Airsoft? That pussy sport? Airgay is for pussies. Paintball is for real men.

Airsofter: So is airsoft. We just prefer a more realistic, tactical game than you guys.

Paintballer: Whatever, pussy... I'm not talking to you anymore until you man up and get a paintball marker

This is a vid of airsoft vs. paintballhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSW-42l2u-k

Bravo!

We have Played against PB teams, them using their Markers, and us using our Airsoft Replicas,

The Honor System also applies to PB, tho not as much because Players of PB rely on the assumed fact that if a PB hits their opponent it will burst, and we all know sometimes that just isn´t true.

Back to our little fun matches with PB Players and Teams, after a few hours of getting absolutely smoked by AS, most agreed that the 2 Sports/Hobbies have their advantages and disadvantages, and respect was earned and given by all involved.

The next time you come across some angry PBérs, ask them,

When was the last time that they played a game 12, 24, 48, 96 hours straight ?

When was the last time that they participated in a game that had 100, 200, 500, 1000, 5000, players on the Playing field at the same time, and each Main Team attempting to accomplish its Goals at the same time ?

When was the last time that after a Game, they still maintained contact with their opponents, and congratulated them on a great game, and you can´t wait to get your tail kicked bye them again ( we all know that the Opposite is what happens ) ?

When was the last time that after a Game, all sides sat down together, pounded down a few, fired up the Grill, and partied into the wee hours of the morning ?

A lot of PBérs see AS as a threat to their Sport/Hobby, or they just don´t understand what it is all about.

well said well said my freind

Quote :

When was the last time that they played a game 12, 24, 48, 96 hours straight ?

When was the last time that they participated in a game that had 100, 200, 500, 1000, 5000, players on the Playing field at the same time, and each Main Team attempting to accomplish its Goals at the same time ?

When was the last time that after a Game, they still maintained contact with their opponents, and congratulated them on a great game, and you can´t wait to get your tail kicked bye them again ( we all know that the Opposite is what happens ) ?

When was the last time that after a Game, all sides sat down together, pounded down a few, fired up the Grill, and partied into the wee hours of the morning ?

A lot of PBérs see AS as a threat to their Sport/Hobby, or they just don´t understand what it is all about.

Boy i've never done that, sure hope i can get into something like that after college is over.

extremely well said.

I commend this post (hello, haven't said anything in a while but I am still always checking the forum). This post was well thought out, well presented, and contained good information. Warrior33, good job!

Honestly, I hate immature PB fanboys. I don't care about usual PBs because the place i go to, SC Village is usually paintballing, So I don't mind, but the stupid paint ball fan boys going around "AIRSOFT HURTS LESS YOUR A WUSS, AND YOUR FRIENDS ARE PAINTBALL IS MORE MANLY!"
when they never even been hit by a airsoft or a paintball. That really ticks me off.
Or another which is *YOUR TOO POOR TO GET PAINTBALL* that also ticks me off
Great post, I will definetly fight back to those obnoxious paintball fanboys.

slob212 wrote:

We have Played against PB teams, them using their Markers, and us using our Airsoft Replicas,

The Honor System also applies to PB, tho not as much because Players of PB rely on the assumed fact that if a PB hits their opponent it will burst, and we all know sometimes that just isn´t true.

Back to our little fun matches with PB Players and Teams, after a few hours of getting absolutely smoked by AS, most agreed that the 2 Sports/Hobbies have their advantages and disadvantages, and respect was earned and given by all involved.

The next time you come across some angry PBérs, ask them,

When was the last time that they played a game 12, 24, 48, 96 hours straight ?

When was the last time that they participated in a game that had 100, 200, 500, 1000, 5000, players on the Playing field at the same time, and each Main Team attempting to accomplish its Goals at the same time ?

When was the last time that after a Game, they still maintained contact with their opponents, and congratulated them on a great game, and you can´t wait to get your tail kicked bye them again ( we all know that the Opposite is what happens ) ?

When was the last time that after a Game, all sides sat down together, pounded down a few, fired up the Grill, and partied into the wee hours of the morning ?

A lot of PBérs see AS as a threat to their Sport/Hobby, or they just don´t understand what it is all about.

I love the way you say tht, some paintballers are just plain old stubborned jerks that just go out there to shoot people. Thanks.

P.S. to mike, I agree to whatyou said completely about pbers and how it hurts less than Pb, and about being poor.
first off, I can't afford pb, so thats agreed, second, I'd love to see them in an airsoft battle and getting owned by my M4 and then seeing them walk off the field crying. It would happen.

I found a video of Airsoft vs. Paintball and its actually a skirmish not a mish mosh of pictures.

Now I commend Warrior for the thread, and for the Mature and Respectful way that he has presented and argued his point, But.................................

I and others here have said it over and over, and until the Kiddies ( under as well as over 18yrs old ) in the AS community get it thru their Thick Skulls, `` The way you Present AS, is exactly the way it will Understood ! ´´. How we describe what we do amongst other AS Teams or Players is one thing, how you describe it to the non players, well that's a completely different animal.

If you are on an open playing fields talking about having made so and so many `` KILLS ´´, talk about doing `` Knife Attacks ´´, taking `` Hostages ´´ and on and on and on. Take a guess what the uninformed lay-person is going to be thinking about AirSoft ?

To make it worse, if you enter into a hotheaded heated argument, all you have done is confirmed their opinion about the Hobby/Sport.


There we were, in our Foxhole
Sticks and I,
The Last 2 from our Team,
Armpit Deep in empty magazines, and red gas bottles,
All AEG´s smoking hot, Batteries empty, Mosfetts Blown,
Motors burnt out, Gas seals Blown,
All we had left was a Cheap 0,8mm inner barrel and a handful of .12g Bio BB´s,
on the rise before us came the advancing 7th Mongolian Horde !!!
Talk about being Scared !!!
You bet your Tail End !!!!
Thought for sure one would get Away !!!!

How about a post for suggestions and your opinions on how to present airsoft to the public? A stick post.

A couple weeks ago at an airsoft event, my friends and I were at a table next to several paintballers. One of them, seeing my friends KWA m16, asks "can I hold it?". Being the nice airsofters that we are, my friend said yes. The paintballer was surprised at how real it felt. That was a good moment.

Quote :

How about a post for suggestions and your opinions on how to present airsoft to the public? A stick post.

I am working on it AFU , only for the reason that this happens to be one of my pet peeves.

I believe it was SPL Durkee that made a really fantastic post here about this Topic.

In the mean time I would invite you and all members here to try a little experiment, Go through the `` Battle Scars ´´ Topic, forget that you are an avid AS Player, try and put yourself in the shoes of somebody that has absolutly no clue about the Hobby/Sport, how would you think and react to somebody describing AS in such graphic terms . What kind of opinions, or feeling would you have about the person before you ?

slob212 wrote:

Quote :

How about a post for suggestions and your opinions on how to present airsoft to the public? A stick post.

I am working on it AFU , only for the reason that this happens to be one of my pet peeves.

I believe it was SPL Durkee that made a really fantastic post here about this Topic.

In the mean time I would invite you and all members here to try a little experiment, Go through the `` Battle Scars ´´ Topic, forget that you are an avid AS Player, try and put yourself in the shoes of somebody that has absolutly no clue about the Hobby/Sport, how would you think and react to somebody describing AS in such graphic terms . What kind of opinions, or feeling would you have about the person before you ?

There ya go, mate.
http://www.airsoftallies.com/general-airsoft-discussion-f3/airsoft-as-a-whole-defense-against-an-offense-t2432.htm