The Moldistan Chronicles by Okto Eight Milsim

Milsim organiser Okto Eight Milsim launched their Moldistan series in September 2014.

The story began with a massive seam of high grade Titanium-yielding ore being discovered in the former soviet republic of Moldistan, a sleepy woodland country wedged between Europe and Russia.

Ruled by the autocratic President Aleksandr Gretsky, Moldistan existed largely out of sight from the rest of the world. What was originally a poor backwater country of woodcutters and farmers, existing on the edge of poverty, suddenly became a wealthy industrialist nation almost overnight.

Usually wherever you find money, you find corruption and Moldistan was no exception. It wasn't long before Gretsky was floating amidst allegations of corruption and was suppressing the will of the people and keeping them in a middle ages-style serfdom whilst accruing great personal wealth.


Operation Skylight 

The Operation opened with the Minister of Trade, Artem Novik being kidnapped by insurgents on his way to inspect the Gorazh National Mine, which was being hastily constructed to extract the ore.

The Peoples Front of Moldistan (or MPF) , an anti-Gretsky political body of former governmental soldiers and radicals, accepted responsibility for the kidnap, but a botched rescue attempt by the Moldistan Defence Force (MDF) - the government army (and it was rumoured, special forces from the west), left Novik dead.

President Gretsky arrived to perform the official opening of the Mine and the MPF made various attempts to assassinate him. The attempts all failed and Gretsky was whisked to safety by his bodyguard and personal MDF guard troop.

Gretsky and Bodyguard Making Their Escape

Throughout the weekend, there were continued firefights between the MDF, the MPF and western Special Forces, who were allegedly in-country to "advise the president on tactical matters".


Operation Tailspin

This occurred in the spring of 2015.  The "unrest" in Moldistan had stilled somewhat over the harsh Moldistan winter, but Gretsky, arrogant and confident at his ability to survive multiple concentrated attempts on his life, had not been idle. Irritated by US attempts to interfere in his country, lured by the promise of Titanium for their defence industries, he petulantly signed a counter Titanium trade agreement to supply the Russians instead, effectively shunning the US.

Moscow, encouraged by Gretsky's public shunning of the USA and also eager to obtain Titanium supplies to produce key lightweight components in their own armaments industries, encouraged him to expel all US forces from Moldistan as a sign of good faith.

In Operation Tailspin, a black ops NATO reconnaissance flight crashed in Moldistan and there was a race to reach its pilot and the sensitive equipment on board. US Special Forces formed a rescue mission and entered the country secretly. They joined forces with the rebels, supplying them with arms and managed to extract the pilot with their help. Unfortunately for the west, a flight recorder was recovered from the wreckage by government troops. It contained incriminating flight logs providing irrefutable proof of NATO spying, which did nothing to improve relations with the West.

Donating Weapons to the MPF

The operation also saw the neutralisation of a defence radar AA site to provide a "hole in the fence" and a mission to assault the Moldistan Special Research Facility (MSRF) by a combined NATO SF/MPF force. The government's chief scientist, Professor Gagarsky, an expert specialising in liquid explosives and insect-sized surveillance drones, was being forcibly held at the MSRF. The assault force were able to rescue him and transport him to Europe where he was offered a new life working for Uncle Sam.

The MSRF

Operation Firestorm

By the summer of 2015, Gretsky had quarrelled with Moscow. Their repeated attempts to force him to increase production had prompted him to accept a better offer from Washington and sell his Titanium to the U.S. 

Gretsky was losing the popularity war in his own country and he needed to wage a public relations offensive. Disillusioned with the leadership and poorly paid, some of his beloved MDF had defected to the rebels. With the influx of US Dollars, he was able to buy his own well trained private army in the form of battle-hardened Private Military Contractors from the shadowy US based organisation Mercury. 

In order to lift the morale of his troops and citizens, the president despatched his Prime Minister to make a rousing motivational speech in the frontier village of Tsiara.

Prime Minister Borodin was instantly mobbed by the protesting villagers, who had been agitated by the rebels in anticipation of the VIP visit. The PM was struck by a cabbage from a protesting woman, but the MDF managed to rescue him from further harm and get him on the presidential helicopter back to Krasvin..

Furthermore, the Gorazh Mine was attacked by the MPF rebels and in the last few hours of the operation, was captured by the insurgents.

The PM is Mobbed

Operation Claw Hammer

The closing months of 2015 saw the Mine being operated by the rebels, technically assisted by Russian supplied engineers. Titanium was once again being exported to Russia, but at a fraction of the price they had paid Gretsky before !!

Gretsky was out of favour with Washington. Their Titanium supply had been diverted to their arch rivals in Moscow and Gretsky was chastised for his inability to control insurgency in his country.

Cornered like a rat and at his lowest ebb, Gretsky requested boots on the ground from NATO to help him fight the Russian-backed rebels and free his country (and revenue earning mine) from their clutches.

Once again set in Tsiara, this operation saw Russian Special Forces active for the first time, training the rebels and conducting clandestine surveillance operations to support their espionage network in Moldistan.

NATO and the Moldistan Defence Force made a joint attack on the Gorazh Mine and after a hard fight, managed to re-capture it. The MPF leader, Nikolay Jakov, was reported killed in a US airstrike after being lured into the open by the promise of a pay-off from village elders.

Russian SPETSNAZ in Tsiara Village

Operation Gate Guard

Forced to abandon all thoughts of the mine for now, the MPF rebels regrouped in their forest hideout in the "Badlands" and plotted to attack the two airports in the capital, Krasvin. Hoping to make a tactical strike to surgically separate Gretsky from his incoming foreign reinforcements, the rebels made a simultaneous two-pronged attack on both the civil and military airports.

This operation followed the fortunes of the attack on the military airbase. Government forces were stretched to defend such a large airfield, but they managed to rescue their billeted pilots from being captured as the rebels swept in. The rebels soon had the airfield under their control and managed to severely damage the runway with demolition charges. Fortunately, the government command had the foresight to protect all their aircraft in hardened bunkers and try as they might; the insurgents were unable to breach them. The Moldistan Air Force was therefore largely unaffected.

Eventually, having achieved their objective and made their point, the MPF retreated, allowing the government to take back their critically damaged airfield.

The raid on the civil airport was less successful as the rebels were unable to penetrate the outer perimeter and were quickly driven off.

 

Rebel Mortar Attack on the Airbase

Clashes on the Runway

Operation Serpents Nest

After the bloody battle at the airfield, the rebels retreated to the village of Stariye Kverno-Korsevi, nestling on the edge of the "Badlands", the forest home of the MPF.

Using an old insurgent’s trick, the MPF began hiding in plain sight, sheltering among the villages' civilian population where they licked their wounds and regained their strength.

Realising that it’s only a matter of time before they rose up again, Gretsky considered the MPF situation a "ticking time bomb" and he decided that something had to be done (and soon).

Although no stranger to genocide and tempted as he was to raze the village to the ground with an artillery barrage, he was conscious that his government was being watched by western human rights organisations. Foreign aid workers and UN observers were everywhere in the district.

Gretsky needed rid of the Serpent which is the MPF, but was wise enough to know that he needed to wield a tactical scalpel on this one. He needed troops who would go in to the Serpents Nest and cut off its head. He needed troops that could separate rebels from innocent villagers and avoid war crime accusations from the West.

When the MPF started hijacking UN aid convoys, it gave him the excuse he needed.

He ordered a Forward Observation Base (FOB) to be constructed just outside the village, in order to protect the convoys. Fort Gretsky, as it was known, was the ideal location to observe all village movements and send out recon units.

However, the rebels started to make fools out of the Joint Task Force (JTF) stationed there. Although the JTF was made up of Moldistan Defence Force (MDF), NATO and United Nations personnel; experienced and credible forces, they were soon out of their depth.

Firstly, key members of the MPF were spotted, but the JTF were unable to capture them. Then the FOB was attacked by the rebels and was over-run several times with little resistance.

Confusion and chaos reigned as the fighting raged in and around the village and there were civilian casualties caused by both sides. The JTF were filmed shooting down a villager when inexperienced soldiers thought his mobile phone was a firearm. The MPF threw a grenade into a house killing a young baby and its parents. These were just singular examples of atrocities caused by both sides in the conflict. Neither the UN or the Red Cross could stop the bloodshed. All they could do was to evacuate the villagers in an attempt to reduce the civilian casualties.

The JTF tried three times to systematically search the village for weapons and each time met fierce resistance from embedded insurgents. Eventually, the MPF decided to withdraw to their hideout in the Badlands, before the village became nothing more than a smoking ruin, something not in their best interest.

This enabled the JTF to seize control of Stariye Kverno-Korsevi and the villagers to return to their homes. As a parting gift, the MPF left anti-personnel mines planted in the village, another contravention of international agreements.

The media ran the killing of the man holding nothing but a mobile phone as front page news for a day or two and the soldiers responsible were returned to Europe to face criminal charges.

JTF War Crimes

Fort Gretsky

Operation Nutcracker

The Moldistan Chronicles by Okto Eight Milsim

Milsim organiser Okto Eight Milsim launched their Moldistan series in September 2014.

The series is a dynamic, living story where the players decide the direction that the milsim takes, depending on their own decisions and actions. 

The story began that summer with a massive seam of high grade Titanium-yielding ore being discovered in the former soviet republic of Moldistan, a sleepy woodland country wedged between Europe and Russia.

Ruled by the autocratic President Aleksandr Gretsky, Moldistan existed largely out of sight from the rest of the world. What was originally a poor backwater country of woodcutters and farmers, existing on the edge of poverty, suddenly became a wealthy industrialist nation, almost overnight.

Usually wherever you find money, you will find corruption and Moldistan was no exception.
It wasn't long before Gretsky was surrounded by allegations of corruption and was suppressing the will of the people, keeping them in a middle ages-style serfdom whilst accruing great personal wealth.


Operation Skylight 

The Operation opened with the Minister of Trade, Artem Novik being kidnapped by insurgents on his way to inspect the Gorazh National Mine, which was being hastily constructed to extract the ore.

The Peoples Front of Moldistan (or MPF) , an anti-Gretsky political body of former governmental soldiers and radicals, accepted responsibility for the kidnap. However, a botched rescue attempt by the Moldistan Defence Force or MDF (the government army) and it was rumoured, Special Forces from the west, left Novik dead.

President Gretsky arrived to perform the official opening of the Mine and despite the MPF making several attempts to assassinate him, the attempts were foiled and Gretsky was whisked to safety by his bodyguard and MDF personal guard.

Gretsky and Bodyguard Making Their Escape

Throughout the weekend, there were continued fire-fights between the MDF, the MPF and western Special Forces, who were allegedly in-country to "advise the President on tactical matters".


Operation Tailspin

This occured in the spring of 2015.  The "unrest" in Moldistan had stilled somewhat over the harsh Moldistan winter, but Gretsky, arrogant and confident at his ability to survive multiple concentrated attempts on his life, had not been idle. Irritated by US attempts to interfere in the running of his country in pursuit of Titanium, he petulantly signed a counter Titanium trade agreement to supply the Russians instead, effectively shunning the US.

Moscow, encouraged by Gretsky's public shunning of the USA and also eager to obtain Titanium supplies to produce key lightweight components in their own armaments industries, encouraged him to expel all US forces from Moldistan as a sign of good faith.

In Operation Tailspin, a black ops NATO reconnaisance flight crashed in Moldistan and there was a race to reach its pilot and the sensitive equipment on board. US Special Forces quickly formed a rescue mission and entered the country secretly. They joined forces with the rebels, supplied them with arms to ingratiate them and managed to jointly extract the pilot. Unfortunately for the West, a flight recorder recovered from the wreckage by government troops, contained incriminating evidence of NATO spying in Moldistan. This did nothing to improve relationships between Gretsky and Washington.

Donating Weapons to the MPF

The operation also saw the neutralisation of a defence radar AA site which provided a "hole in the fence" and a mission to assault the Moldistan Special Research Facility (MSRF) by a combined NATO SF/MPF force. The Moldistan Chief Scientist Professor Gagarsky, an expert specialising in liquid explosives and insect-sized surveillance drones, was being forcibly held at the MSRF. The assault force were able to perform a successful rescue and when Gagarsky requested political asylum, he was offered a new life working for "Uncle Sam" in US Defense Research.

The MSRF

Operation Firestorm

By the summer of 2015, Gretsky had quarrelled with Moscow. Their repeated attempts to force him to increase production had prompted him to accept a better offer from Washington and sell his Titanium to the U.S. 

Meanwhile, Gretsky was losing the popularity war in his own country and he needed to wage a public relations offensive to win his people back. Furthermore, some of his beloved MDF, dispirited and underpaid had defected to the rebels. With the renewed influx of US Dollars, he was able to buy his own experienced private army in the form of battle-hardened Private Military Contractors from the shadowy US based organisation Mercury. 

In order to lift the morale of his troops and citizens, the President despatched his Prime Minister to make a rousing motivational speech in the frontier village of Tsiara.

When he arrived, Prime Minister Borodin was mobbed by the protesting villagers, who had been agitated by the rebels beforehand. The PM was struck by a cabbage from a protesting woman, but the MDF managed to rescue him from further harm and get him back to Krasvin in the Presidential helicopter.

Strategically, just before the close of the operation, the Gorazh Mine was attacked by the MPF rebels and finally overrun.

The PM is Mobbed

Operation Claw Hammer

The end of the year saw the Mine being operated by the rebels, technically assisted by Russian engineers supplied by Moscow. Titanium was once again being exported to Russia, but at a fraction of the price they had paid to Gretsky before !!

Gretsky was out of favour with Washington. Their Titanium supply had been diverted to their arch rivals in Moscow and Gretsky was chastised by the US President for his inability to control insurgency in his country.

Cornered like a rat and at his lowest ebb, Gretsky requested "boots on the ground" from NATO to help him fight the Russian-backed rebels and free his country from their clutches.

Once again set in Tsiara, this operation saw Russian Special Forces active for the first time in the game, training the rebels and conducting clandestine surveillance operations to support their espionage network in Moldistan.

NATO and the Moldistan Defence Force made a joint attack on the Gorazh Mine and after a hard fight, managed to re-capture it. The MPF leader, Nikolay Jakov, was killed in a US airstrike after being lured into the open by the promise of a pay-off from village elders.

Russian SPETSNAZ in Tsiara Village

Operation Gate Guard

Forced to abandon thoughts of the mine for now, the MPF rebels regrouped in their forest hideout in the "Badlands" and plotted to attack the two airports just outside Krasvin, the nation's capital.
Hoping to make a tactical strike to separate Gretsky from his incoming foreign reinforcements, the rebels made a simultaneous two-pronged attack on both the civil and military airports.

Gate Guard followed the fortunes of the attack on the military airport. Government forces were stretched to defend such a large airfield, but they managed to rescue their billoted pilots from being captured by the rebels as they swept in. The MPF soon had the airfield under their control and managed to severely damage the runway with demolition charges. Fortunately, the government command had the foresight to protect all their aircraft in hardened bunkers and the insurgents were unable to breach them, thus preserving the Moldistan Air Force.

Eventually, having achieved their objective, the MPF retreated allowing the government to take back their critically damaged airfield.

The raid on the civil airport was less successful and the rebels were unable to penetrate the outer perimeter before being driven back.

 

Rebel Mortar Attack on the Airbase

Clashes on the Runway

 Operation Serpents Nest

After the bloody battle at the airfield, the rebels retreated back to the village of Stariye Kverno-Korsevi, nestling on the edge of the "Badlands", the forest home of the MPF.

Using an old insurgent’s trick, the MPF began hiding in plain sight, sheltering amongst the loyalist village's civilian population, where they licked their wounds and regained their strength.

Realising that it’s only a matter of time before they rise up again, Gretsky considered the MPF situation a "ticking time bomb" and decided something had to be done (and soon).

Although no stranger to genocide and tempted to raze the village to the ground with an artillery barrage, he was conscious that his government was being watched by western human rights organisations. Foreign aid workers and UN observers were everywhere in the district.

Gretsky needed rid of the Serpent which is the MPF, but was wise enough to know that he needed to wield a tactical scalpel on this one. He needed troops who would go in to the Serpents Nest and cut off its head. He needed experienced troops that could separate rebels from innocent villagers and avoid war crime accusations from the West.


When the MPF started hijacking unarmed UN aid convoys, it gave him the excuse he needed...
  

DAO - Isn't That a Religion ?

                                                                                                                    Photo reproduced courtesy of Tokyo Marui Japan

Pistols are big business in the military these days. At one time, only officers carried them. Now, most service people in a combat zone are trained in their use and have access to a sidearm.

Last year, the US government announced a plan to replace their M9 and it is estimated that they will buy nearly half a million pistols in the replacement program.

Many of us see written reference to the terms SAO or DAO but how many of us know what it actually means to the shooter ?




SAO = Single Action Only

The pistol must be physically cocked (i.e. the hammer cocked or the slide racked back) before the first shot.

DAO = Double Action Only

A long trigger pull is needed to cock the pistol.

DA/SA = Double Action/Single Action

A long trigger pull for the first shot and then shorter SA style pulls for subsequent shots.  


The Benefits and Merits

SAO pistols offer a lighter, crisper trigger action, but having to manually cock the pistol can make you slow to respond to an emerging threat.
"Contact" - wait, just let me rack this sucker to return fire.

It's also noisy, making stealth approaches more difficult.

This has caused shooters to carry them cocked with the safety on, which for obvious reasons has become less popular in modern times.

The long trigger pull of the DAO is seen as a safety feature to avoid negligent discharges and it's certainly quicker to respond than the SAO, but that pull can often detrimentally affect accuracy, especially for the more inexperienced user. 
DA/SA pistols offer a compromise with that long pull on the first shot, offering safety against ND's but potentially with less initial accuracy, followed by shorter triggered, more accurate rapid shots thereafter.

Other Considerations

Hammer or Striker ? -  Hammers can be a pain as they protrude. They can get caught up and straps or clothing can get in the way and stop their action just when you need it.  Strikers are internal so don't have the same hang ups, although you can't always see whether the pistol is cocked or not (unless there is a striker indicator pin at the rear).

Just to stir up the mix a little, another consideration is safety features. At one time, having a thumbed safety switch was considered ample precaution. However, it takes time to operate (crucial milliseconds perhaps) and it's easy to forget and leave it on in a stressful situation.
Pointing a loaded gun and squeezing the trigger only to find the safety is still on, is an experience you don't forget. Luckily in the airsoft world, it just means a long walk to the regen.
As a result, many makers offer indirect safety devices like a split trigger which means both parts of the hinged trigger have to be squeezed for the pistol to be operated.

Decockers are designed to allow SAO and DA/SA type pistols to de-cock and be made safe without the user having to try to squeeze the trigger and arrest the hammer, allowing it to return slowly - something that can have a mixed rate of success, especially when tired or when fingers are wet.

So, like many things in 21st century life, we are spoilt for choice. Although airsoft choice is more limited than real steel in the real world, it's still food for thought and in milsim-land where we strive for as much reality as possible, buying an airsoft pistol certainly merits some pondering before parting with cash.