General Notes on IR Combat Compatibility

[Mithras]

Disregard. Double post. Again.

[Mithras]

I don’t know if any group that BB battles. You’ll shoot your eye out kid.

IR battles are few and far between. If you read into what people do and want, it’s mainly to drive around a scale village.

We did timed circuits around our scale villages and that was more fun that battling.

That's a bit depressing.

[Tiger6]

I was told that BB combat was uncommon in the UK. In part because of local laws. Should I be looking at BB based tanks instead?

It has nothing to do with laws! If a club wants to meet outside of somebodies backyard, they will need to have public liability insurance. It is the insurance companies that say 'no projectiles', for obvious reasons.
(and you do meet in somebody's backyard, and something bad happens, don't expect their home owners insurance to cover that either!)

[Kaczor]

Alright, then, please enlighten me. I was told that BB combat was uncommon in the UK. In part because of local laws. Should I be looking at BB based tanks instead? When I asked about who's actually doing the combat part of the hobby, I didn't get many responses from airsoft/bb tankers.

Nobody battles with BBs. No one would want to deliberately damage someone else's tank, the owner of which sometimes spent thousands of pounds on. BBs are for babies. It's the first thing most of us remove when upgrading a tank. Most often, people avoid buying the BB version altogether to avoid modifying the model.

IR preference is common beacuse most of the time in IR tank is realistic recoil and barrel flash. Europe (especially Germany) focus more on realistic finish, driving and sounds.

Our shows mainly serve as a meeting of friends and a review of what new colleagues have built. There are no fights at public shows, but rather a demonstration of our hobby to encourage others.

[Son of a gun-ner]

BBs are for babies.

Hey hey hey, mind who you're calling a baby, I rather enjoy target shooting in my back yard

[Kaczor]

For BIG manly babies

[Son of a gun-ner]

For BIG manly babies

You bet

[Mithras]

I was told that BB combat was uncommon in the UK. In part because of local laws. Should I be looking at BB based tanks instead?

It has nothing to do with laws! If a club wants to meet outside of somebodies backyard, they will need to have public liability insurance. It is the insurance companies that say 'no projectiles', for obvious reasons.
(and you do meet in somebody's backyard, and something bad happens, don't expect their home owners insurance to cover that either!)

I didn’t expect it was, but lots of Americans elsewhere seem to think so! Safety makes sense.

Edit:

This is the reason, we were emphatically told, that “nobody does RC ship battles in the UK.” I realize it’s almost certainly untrue.

[Panzermechaniker]

It does seem that RC tank IR battling is a small niche even in a hobby that is a tiny niche in the RC world. We are extremely lucky that our club has a great permanent battlefield and an active core of members who enjoy the battles. Seems like there are very few clubs in North America that do. Maybe 10 or less that are really active? I have to admit battling on a featureless grass field or in a hall with a few buildings or boxes set up would get very old very quickly. But battling is far from the only thing that the club does

[Tiger6]

lots of Americans elsewhere seem to think so! Safety makes sense

Well this here is your fundamental problem. Just as nobody in the UK (other than me) has ever been involved in a US club that did IR battling, but many seem to think they are qualified to talk utter rubbish about it, people in the US should probably not be listened to when they try to tell you why things are the way they are over here in the UK...