Airsoft Action 01 - Oct 2011 | Page 57

FEATURE BIG BOYZ TOYZ WAR & PEACE 2011 Those of you that know Ratty, from BadgerTac, will also know he is one of the few people to get a Challenger airborne, so who better to let loose on a series of articles entitled Big Boyz Toyz? S ome of you may be asking yourselves what relevance, if any, this series of articles has to airsoft? The answer, in reality, is fairly simple: we all love kit! Let’s face it, we all lust after equipment of all shapes and sizes, whether it be the latest airsoft rifle or pistol, a new camo pattern or even a new style of pouch. Big Boyz Toyz is essentially the next step in the procurement process. As a small boy I, like many others, was fixated with military hardware I had seen in films and on TV. Who can forget Oddball’s Shermans in Kelly’s Heroes, or the Hueys from Apocolypse Now? Some years later I was sat in the Army Careers Office watching a film of trades available. As soon as I saw a 60-tonne giant tearing up the battlefield, it was obvious that was where I wanted to end up. During many years’ service in a tank regiment I was, still am and forever will be fascinated by military machines, whether they be on land, in the air or on the sea. When I first got into airsoft, back in the mid-90s, with my then-business Airsoft Adventures, I managed to convince my business partner that what we really needed for our game site at Greenham Common was a military vehicle. We picked up our NI spec Humber Pig from a car dealer in Buckinghamshire. It was in a bit of a sorry state after being used in a film, but it ran and drove well. After www.airsoftactionmagazine.com 057