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9 days of simulated combat with an M151a1 (Operation East Wind)

Aswayze

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Not really a road trip per say but certainly a trip.

Earlier this month we ran the 6[SUP]th[/SUP] annual Operation East Wind event down at D-Day Adventure Park in Wyandotte, Oklahoma. For those of you who do not know what East Wind is, the short answer is that East Wind is a 9 day long 24/7 tactical reenactment set in the closing days of the Cold War pitting NATO against Warsaw Pact forces in a “what if” scenario.

You can read more about East Wind here: www.operationeastwind.com

I was on the NATO side where we have for many years been far behind the Warpac guys on the small vehicle front. We’ve always had plenty of transport assets but aside from one year, we’ve never really have any little stuff to skitter around in. With a 1000 acre playing field laced with many miles of roads and trails, small vehicles are wildly useful. It’s hard, for instance, to do useful motor recon in a deuce and it’s even harder still to take a deuce or 5 ton down a footpath to avoid getting ambushed on the main roads.

This year, we had 2 M151s out, my A1 and another A2 owned by a fellow East Winder.

Dylans A2 literally JUST got running right before the event. We’d spent the better part of the winter uncrushing it and welding parts of it together so his was a little on the unrefined side. Mine was in decent shape and as such was fitted with such niceties as a speedometer and odometer.

I’ll spare you the long version and just hit the high points.

9 days

350 miles

About 1/4[SUP]th[/SUP] or so of it traveling cross country (not on roads or trails)

Survived 3 movement to contacts with Warsaw Pact infantry in less than an hour

Never hit.

On the first day, when we were using the M151 to transport guys and gear up from the Admin area a little red TSA “security device” had ended up left in the back. We joked that this would surely keep the Mutt safe from all the PKM, RPG, and AK toting Warsaw pact baddies for the week.

It apparently did…. Never doubt the power of the TSA Security Device! M151A1.jpgMutt jaegers.jpgM151A2.jpg
 

MWMULES

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Glad to hear the A2 stayed in one piece. I watched it get hammered, pried, pushed, pounded and pulled back into shape over at davesgmc and for it to make it through a week+ of Okie hill country says a lot on how well you guys got it back in shape. Allan you need to put up a before pic of it. Any update on June?
 
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TMNT

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That sounds like a great experience. I never heard of it before. I'm definitely checking out the website.
 

Aswayze

Member
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Location
Martinsburg Wv
We don’t really do WW2 stuff at all. Just late Cold War unless we are stuck having to substitute something to make up for an actual shortage of period correct stuff.

Good example of that is we use a vismod hard cab 404 unimog with winch to substitute for an East German Robur truck since those (and really most medium to large Warpac trucks) are hard to get and even harder to keep operational. We have enough work keeping the UAZ-469s, GAZ-69s and the BTRs running without having to add trucks that don’t really travel well on US roads or take collectable tires into the mix.

And ya, we’ve gotten a lot of our gear from Dave, Dave, and other people named Dave.

Pictures from this year are slowly trickling in now that most of us have began to catch up on sleep a bit. Hopefully, I’ll have more to add after a while!
 

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Ferroequinologist

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Great, just great. Something else that has caught my fancy that takes time and money... Now I'm really comtemplating participating one year.

Great job on the A2, getting it going and keeping it that way.
 

bikeman

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I think there were a few members of the MN Airsoft Association, or members of the board who went there. always heard good things. Definetly a unique opportunity in terms of airsoft and reenacting.
 
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