KGB Airsoft was my first site, and the most noticeable thing is how cohesive the teamplay is compared to most sites around the UK. Low numbers, a regular player base and staff often player-marshalling from command roles means that your team always switched on and sticking to a big plan.
At a glance
- Website: https://www.facebook.com/KGBAirsoft
- Address: Porkellis, Helston TR13 0JU
- Price: £20 for a full-day walk on, membership reduces this.
- Rental gear: Guns and full-face protection can be provided, but need pre-booking
- Lunch: No food available on site. This site doesn’t take a break.
- Frequency: Sunday every two weeks.
- How to book: https://www.facebook.com/KGBAirsoft
- Toilets: None located on-site.
- Car Park: Grass covered, lots of free space
- Safe zone: From cars.
- Shop: No
- Card accepted: Yes, through Paypal. No card machine on site.
What to Expect
The key thing to bear in mind is that KGB Airsoft doesn’t stop for the day once they kick-off. There are no breaks to bomb up, no lunch break, and no chance to amble back to the car to have a chinwag.
As a result, the most important thing is that players arrive on time. Show up at 9:15, get geared up, and the safety brief and first game of the day starts at 10 with a quick warm-up to make sure everyone’s gear is behaving. After that, there are a series of games or one long game that takes you a long way from the safe zone and into the woods itself. There’s a mix of open space and dank woodlands, but most of the time the best cover at this site is concealment.
This focus on concealment means sneakier players will have an easier time, and most of the site’s regulars can be terrifying, vanishing into the site and only striking once you’ve moved past them. Regularly, games will include long sections of patrolling broken up by enemy ambush.
If this all sounds a bit like hard work, it is. KGB Airsoft can often feel less like a fun day shooting your mates and more like a training exercise, bringing your skills up and making sure you’re proficient. As a starting-out site, this was great for teaching me controlled aggression and keeping my eyes open. Even if you’re a more casual player, if you’re looking to improve, I’d recommend giving this place a visit.
Generally, the end of the day will have some up-close matches to let off some steam and get bragging rights. Although this would typically mark the point at which to grab a stack of hi-caps from the car, actually prolonged engagements here are fairly rare, with many firefights ending decisively after a few seconds.
If you’re only engaging targets you can see, you can probably get through a day at KGB with 4-5 mid-cap mags and a smoke grenade.
What to bring
Remember how I said the best cover at KGB was concealment? That means you need to put a little more thought into your loadout. While most sites you can get away with whatever, here you’ll be easy pickings for the other players if you’re trotting about in your PMC outfit. The order of the day here is green camouflage or drab colours. Flecktarn was something I swore by whenever I played the site, but you can get as Gucci as you want.
Chatting to the staff at KGB, their number one tip is gear preparation: bring water and snacks with you and put them in your rig. You’ll be fighting foliage and if rain kicks in play won’t stop, so make sure to pack appropriately. With no stops, it’s on you to make sure you’ve got a Snickers to hand.
Don’t forget about boots, either. The ground here is treacherous.