Airsoft Action - December 2023

THE CAGE
AOR
AS WE CONTINUE TO DELVE INTO THE LOADOUT AND CAMO OPTIONS USED BY THE GUYS OF
THE AA LEGION THERE’S ONE THAT IS SOUGHT AFTER BY MANY, BUT SOMETIMES HARD TO FIND
IN “BIG BOI” SIZES, AND THAT’S AOR! BILL AND STEWBACCA DIG INTO THEIR PERSONAL GEAR
LOCKERS TO LOOK AND THE 1 AND 2 VARIANTS AND FIND THAT WHEN IT COMES TO FINDING
“SEAL” CAMO DAYS ARE IN FACT GETTING EASIER…
In 2012 “Act of Valour (AoV)”
brought us a story of USN SEALs
racing around the world to combat
the bad guys; real operators starring in
their very own movie with some seriously
righteous kit to play with. Roll on to “Zero Dark
Thirty” where the AOR1 clad “Team 6” finally took
down Bin Laden; this brought things fully up to date
with the first view for many of us of the GPNVG18,
along with Ops Core helmets, FN SCARs and MK18
Mod 1s.
SEALTEAM and SIX moved things on in 2017 and
both featured some righteous kit for the geardos
among us; sadly SIX only lasted a couple of seasons
(allegedly due to an “overcrowded marketplace for
military shows”) but SEAL TEAM continues to delight
as it heads for Series 7 which will hopefully be starting
to air by the time you read this! Whilst SIX portrayed
the SEALs in largely multicam gear, SEAL TEAM really
moved things forward with some properly cool “mixymatchy”
kit, MC and MCBLK, and of course AOR…
and long may it continue!
One of the best things though is because of the
popularity of this loadout numerous manufacturers
have released both real deal and reproduction items
in both AOR1 and AOR2. Basically “AOR” stands for
“Area of Responsibility” with AOR1 being for desert
or arid regions and AOR2 for temperate/forested
areas. Initially many thought it was just an updated
version of MARPAT, and indeed it does share some of
the pixellated patterns of the USMC uniform pattern,
although the tonality of the AOR patterns in quite
uniquely different if viewed side by side to it.
There are also numerous websites dedicated to
the SEAL teams, and one of our personal favourites
is “Silent Professional” although this sadly doesn’t
appear to have been updated for some time; if you
have an interest in anything SEAL though and you
haven’t yet found it then get yourself onto www.
silentpro.wordpress.com without wasting any time!
“Silent Pro” was, and still is a repository of literally
everything and anything that is pertinent to “The
Teams”, and it looks in the most minute detail at
every single bit of kit used from boots to bandanas
and everything in between. The library of reference
pictures is absolutely stunning, and there are links to
manufacturers both real and repro.
BILL: I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit that like
many I got seriously caught up in the whole AOR1
“thing” after AoV!
Luckily for me a number of manufacturers - both
real and repro - were getting on board to ride this
particular train so even going back a while I was able
to start putting my updated loadout together. For the
basis of the loadout I needed to find a CRYE combat
shirt and pant in AOR1; searching online I found a
number of genuine articles but a) I’m a tall lad and
finding them in my size was a challenge, and b) what I
did find required a bank loan to finance the purchase!
A number of friends were also pursuing similar
loadout ideas and had bought reproduction sets from
the likes of Emerson and TMC but the colours of the
“ONE OF THE BEST THINGS THOUGH IS BECAUSE OF THE POPULARITY OF THIS LOAD-
OUT NUMEROUS MANUFACTURERS HAVE RELEASED BOTH REAL DEAL AND REPRO-
DUCTION ITEMS IN BOTH AOR1 AND AOR2. BASICALLY “AOR” STANDS FOR “AREA OF
RESPONSIBILITY” WITH AOR1 BEING FOR DESERT OR ARID REGIONS AND AOR2 FOR
TEMPERATE/FORESTED AREAS.”
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