Dirty Dog Airsoft Detailed Review – Fantastic CQB Village!

Although rain had set in from the early hours in the morning, Dirty Dog Airsoft has provided a fantastic game day with a comfortable safezone. A fireplace kept us warm in one of the safezone rooms and hot tea and coffee were available throughout the day.  An absolute must on a day like this! 

Thanks to the innovative minds of the owners, what used to be a field of dirt tracks from motocross bikes, has now been turned into one of the best outdoor CQB villages I have so far experienced. To best describe it, the arrangement reminded me of popular CQB sites in USA. 

On top of that, the professional and friendly attitudes of the Dirty Dog team had made all of our team feel very welcome! 

Key Highlights

• A huge CQB village built with a variety of containers, ladders, stairs, bridges, windows and wrecked cars
• Fast paced, outdoor CQB with non-stop firefights; which also included good spots for snipers overlooking the village
• Fireplace in one of the rooms – can’t even describe how helpful that was during a wet cold autumn day
• Great value for money – good price for an amazing site; also very cheap food and refreshments 
• Very friendly owners and marshalls

Is there a car park?

The car park is a huge field intertwined with the safezone. There are also more spaces to park as you drive into the Dirty Dog Airsoft field before the official car park. Overall it’s more than sufficient so no worries about having no space for your vehicle.

What is the safe zone like?

The safe zone is made of four small buildings/sheds. One of them contains an incredibly convenient fireplace and tabletops all around the sides to put your gear down.

However, that room also had puddles across half of the floor; this is something that could be looked at in terms of weather protection, but all in all, the weather was relentless that day and the room still gave us a place to be warm and comfortable! 

The other building for players had proper flooring and also included tabletops, benches, chairs etc. to store players’ equipment. Generally, these two buildings weren’t huge – but there should be enough space for most. Otherwise, some might have to utilise their cars to prep their equipment – so don’t be last minute and get yourself a good spot!

What is the cost of Game Day?

• £10 for Members
• £20 for Non-Members
• £35 (including game fee) for rental

Also Dirty Dog provide an annual membership of £40 which will give you access to the discounted price of games for members.

Can I book on as a rental?

Dirt Dog Airsoft provide hire packages including Tippman, Valken and G&G M4 rᎥfle replicas with 2 high capacity magazines and a bottle of bbs. The package also includes eye and face protection and is available for £35 for the whole game day.

On-site shop

Shop is available on site and can be found in the second building of the safezone. They stock a selection of BBs, Pyros and Gas plus other airsoft gear, equipment and second hand replicas.

Is food available on site?

Hot food is available at lunch – incredibly cheap hotdogs and soups at £0.50 each! The food shop also offers refreshments such as snacks and drinks; also tea and coffee was available for free all day long.

Toilets

There are portable toilets in good condition available at the back of the safe zone.

Briefing and Limits

Briefing was humorous, professional and straight to the point, didn’t take too long and we were quickly in and out for the games. I was very pleased to see that no “bang” rule was used throughout the games, as this can create a lot of conflicts especially in CQB situations. If you play airsoft, prepare to get shot! Simple as. Good on you Dirty Dog!

Anything Full Auto: 350FPS on 0.20g/ 1.14 Joules (No min. engagement distance or bang rule)

DMRs: 425FPS on 0.20g/ 1.68 Joules (10m minimum engagement distance)

Sniper RᎥfles: 2.32 Joules (20m minimum engagement distance) 

Dirty Dog Airsoft offers a phenomenal CQB village created from a load of containers, stairs, ladders and car wrecks scattered around the field. It has clearly been designed with intense firefights in mind.

The gameplay is incredibly dynamic due to many routes a player can take: there is a second floor which you can use to go above your enemies; there are some containers on the map which can be used as “tunnels” to flank around your enemies; the village is surrounded by ridges and hills which you can use to your advantage – perfect hiding spots for ghillie suit snipers.

Choices are limitless and that’s what makes this CQB village so great – there are no stale moments here!

On the other hand, the rest of the site surrounding the village felt quite simple in comparison; potentially due the huge impression the village has made on our team. Here’s what Ryan and Sebastian had to say about the site:

“The woodland area was okay, but I would suggest building more cover in most parts with tyre walls or wooden planks. This would help teams to coordinate their attacks and defences better. I still enjoyed it but just not as much as the CQB village which is clearly where a lot of the work goes into. A few regular players mentioned that the owners even move the containers around every few months to keep the site fresh – that is a massive plus!” (Ryan Gee – @airsoft_gi.gee)

“I agree with Ryan about more covers being a good idea. On the other hand, we came during a really wet day and only had an opportunity to play one game in the woods. If you didn’t want to jump in the trenches filled with water, you had to take the main routes where there wasn’t much cover. A dry day might provide many other more hidden routes. Either way, I enjoyed the bunker, lake surroundings, trenches and mostly the prison on top of the hill. It’d be great to see a fall back or capture the hill with an all around attack and defence there!” (Sebastian Wozniak – @vega7hc)

The games were well catered and thought out for the site and its dynamics – our first major game was to defend against the attackers who were looking to escort a fallen pilot (a dummy on stretchers) to their respawn and then detonate a bomb in the middle of the village. Yes, there was an actual pyro that a team got to detonate; always a plus! This game was very fast paced and intense as we experienced oncoming waves of enemies every minute of the game! It was great! After the prolonged fight, we naturally swapped sides.

A similar type of game, but with a twist, was conducted later on during that day where the battle took place over the top floor. This forced players to get into the buildings and containers in order to achieve the objective; great CQB action!

Similarly, an incredibly entertaining game took place which revolved around respawning on the hills around the village. This produced many hilarious situations and flanking opportunities where you could follow the ridge around the village and spawn back in behind enemy lines – it kept everyone on their toes and was generally simply fun to play! 

Finally, we also had the chance to play one game outside of the village with attack and defend scenarios. A straightforward game where one team would hold a position whilst the others would attack; once the defence was eliminated, the attacking team moved onto the next position and so on till the end. Straightforward and fun!

First of all, I’d like to praise the village build again – the village alone is a gigantic reason to experience the site in the first place. However, our suggestion would be to build and create more covers/sheds/buildings around the outskirts of the village. Potentially build more defences around the prison on top of the hill as that would create interesting gameplay for capture the flag scenarios. 

Otherwise, I’d also suggest looking into ensuring full weather protection for the safezone sheds; simply to make sure that the floors don’t get flooded.

Overall, Dirty Dog is an absolute blast and I thoroughly recommend any airsofter to visit the site at least once. The safezone facilities might not be perfect for heavy rain or extreme weather but don’t let that put you off and miss out on absolutely epic gameplay in the village.

In general, the site is really well organised and run by great folks who are friendly and happy to help out; on top of that, Dirty Dog also has that local site atmosphere where many regulars come to play and are very keen to involve new players. Simply put – get your butt down to Dirty Dog asap and experience it for yourself!

Book a game on their official website by clicking here!

Alternatively, do it through their Facebook Page by click here!