One of the most awaited events in the Philippine airsoft scene is back. Megaball is an annual event in which Philippine-based airsoft players just loosen up and have plain fun. This is not a usual airsoft event in which it is not only about skirmishes and gears, but it's also where players get together exchange stories, meet the faces behind those avatars and callsigns in airsoft fora online. It's much much more!

During the Cold War military strategists of NATO and Warsaw Pact understood the strategic importance of the Fulda Gap. Fulda Gap is a flatland of the German town Fulda, which straddles East Germany and West Germany. It is a perfect place for mounting massive armored battles which means that when the Warsaw Pact attacked, they will pour all armored units into this area and make a breakthrough that will allow them to steamroll all over Western Europe. It was massively defended by NATO and the Warsaw Pact planned its point of attack there.

Hyperdouraku bring us some good news as they cover the 50th Japan Model Hobby Show which is recently ongoing and will end on the 17th of October. They saw the unveiling of Tokyo Marui's latest products: the SCAR-L Electric Blowback and Recoil AEG, and the Beretta Px4 Storm gas blowback pistol. But these are not the only items that Tokyo Marui revealed during the show:

Tokyo Marui SCAR-L with Blowback and Recoil

It's a tool of oppressors, of freedom fighters, and now of terrorists, the AK-47 is the most influential rifle in the second half of the 20th Century, and still its influence is felt in the early parts of the 21st Century. It is a rifle that has gotten the respect of its users, and scorn by those who were at frunt of its muzzle. While bad guys in movies use AK-47 and good guys the M-16, in world history the AK-47 has given the M-16 user a really good spanking.

Philippine Airsoft Players really are having a bad year. They are prevented carrying airsoft guns to their game sites during the last national elections, now the ongoing campaign for the village and youth council elections, and soon they will have to face the prospect of not being able to play airsoft at all with a law being proposed by people's organisations in that country.

It's a bummer, when everybody wants to be the good guy and no one wants to be the bad guy, you get an imbalanced game. So you'll have to cajole everyone until someone steps forward to volunteer as OPFOR, and some hesitant feet will then follow. Tough being a game organiser sometimes.

Universal Display Corporation has submitted to the US Army for testing its wrist mounted display that promises better information display for soldiers on the ground with the flexible displays that it has been developing for years now.

Mass shooting incidents in the United States always happen in schools. Perpetrators can be anyone, from that lonely geek to a disgruntled employee. Efforts to secure campuses range from stricter measures at allowing people to get inside the school, or an ongoing campaign to allow students to carry concealed weapons while going to class. Such actions to minimize such incidents is subject to debate between gun control and anti-gun control advocates. But while the debate goes on, it's up to the local police to develop plans in order to respond quickly to school shootings.

It's autumn and it will be getting colder and colder, with fewer of us venturing outside to play airsoft, especially when it gets freezing out in the woodlands. We either try to find the nearest indoor airsoft games, or stay at home and play first person shooter games. Activision and Treyarch, the developer that took over from Infinity Ward the development of the Call of Duty Series, plan to exploit this by timing the release of the next installment of Call of Duty.

For me there are three things that I always think of Japan: airsoft, manga, and robots. The Japanese have a fascination with robots since way way back and they have some of the most advanced robotics research in the world. These three are always connected: mecha for manga (and think of Mazinger Z and Voltes V), and now airsoft for mecha --- airsoft gun-carrying robots ready to battle it out in the arena.