More about stealth and camouflage

Stealth and compuflage mostly count in outdoor paintball play, speed ball and tournaments are about speed and agility, element of surprise plays less of a role there (but it is still usefull a bit).

One of the most important things you have to remember is that : Camouflage does not make you invisible! it just makes you harder to see, of course given that you have the right cammo type for the right season (white/grey/black for winter, brown/beige/olive for fall, green/olive/black for summer ect.).

So if you see the people on the field with full custom cammo jacket, vest, pants, boots, mask, and custom cammo for the marker, I will promise you that you will see them during the game. The point is not to stand out, people who come for woods ball game dressed in speedball jersey in red and blue with matching pants and mask are just asking to be shot, sometimes it is intimidating seeing them tear and dirty a $500 get up, but you get over it when you can see them even through totally fogged goggles. So as long as you wear some khaki/olive green darb and black colors you are pretty much in the same league with people buying digital cammo from the army stores. You need to blend in, not stand out, when someone looks far away and you are crouched down on the ground behind a large tree he should have hard time telling if you are there or not. When you try to flank and are walking far away from the battle you should not attract attention.

Simple dress code rules for woods/outdoor game:

DO NOT, wear bright colors (red, yellow, pink, fluoresent ect...) the red bandana might make you look like Rambo but Rambo wasn't playing agains 15 guys with one thing on their mind - shooting you with paint. Keep the pro-turney gear at home wear it for indoor or tournament games. Breaking off branches and stuffing them behind your belt pack and goggles do not make you look like a tree, and you will get lit up by someone who sees a walking tree.

DO, wear bland colors, khaki is a safe bet, black is a safe bet most of the time, cammo good for most seasons is the standard forest green type with black patches, it covers in winter and in summer and anywhere in between. In winter time when you know that there is a lot of snow on the field, get a white coverall or even painters suit, or urban combat cammo, they all help you blend in and not stand out.

ALSO, your marker, if you happen to have a nice bright colored marker (like my red Pirahna) and I seen a lot of wild colors, especially with IONs and their iterchangable body covers, get a khaki/cammo bandana and tie it around the marker to cover it up at a woods ball game, a 10in by 10in splash of color is very much visible, same goes for your hopper, if you got a nice red/blue/yellow/green/neon color hopper like Halo or eVlution, get a hopper cover or wrap another bandana around it.

Learn to use the camo:

Simple rule of a cameleon, if you are wearing green colors, and have pattern on you clothing stay away from solid backgrounds - you are visible there, stay in the bushes, behind some barnches, between trees, its harder to see you there. Where as if you are wearing a white or winter cammo jumsuit and its winter time hide in the snow, lay flat near some object which could cover you, don't stand by a tree cause you stand out this way. Adjust your souroundings to the way you are dressed. Try to move when the enemy is not looking, and when you move either do it swiftly in small distances, or very slowly, sluggishly using as many objects to cover you. It is harder to see a slow moving objects because the eye catches movement, if you don't move or do it slowly you don't get noticed.