ReBlog: SBTactical – iCombat

Here’s a piece I thought might be of interest to some, that I wrote for Breach Bang & Clear. Training is a key element both for honing existing skills, but also good training requires you to try out new situations and learn new skills sets. You really want to practice as realistically as you can, but no one wants to damage their training partners. When that happens you get a lot less volunteers, and since we don’t have a Running Man style “volunteer” program and want reproducible scenarios, we turn to simulation. But we wish we could use prisoners like in the movies.

AirSoft type equipment, paintball and MILES gear have all brought different tools to the table, as have the minds behind the iCOMBAT technology and training systems. My contacts recently put me in touch with SBTactical, a veteran owned and operated business out of Santa Barbara, California. As the National Law Enforcement and Professional distributors of iCOMBAT equipment, they are 100% committed to serving those who serve.

“With over 40+ combined years of planning, resourcing, and conducting training, we are confident that we are the right team to meet your needs,” SBTactical says. SBT’s experience plus iCOMBAT’s technology leave no training question unanswered. “With SBTactical you will replicate, not simulate, the situations your officers will encounter. Every day we strive to advance your organizations training to the next level. SBTactical’s mission is to Replicate real world scenarios, reduce training costs, and maximize training time,” SBT says.

So how do they deliver?

The iCOMBAT technology is a weapon, sensor and control system. It currently offers an M4 style weapon and a Glock style weapon, to better replicate weapons common among police and military units.

Red the full article on Breach Bang & Clear, here...







and have a laugh at me getting zapped by the pain-belt here:

Events: Battle Apocalypse lasertag

I previously offered my review of the Oz Apocalypse : Zombie Apocalypse lasertag event as a topic near and dear to my heart, but they also offered to take me and some friends along for one of their Battle Apocalypse events too.

This wasn't a scripted "make it through the maze" event, but rather a totally open-plan player- verses -player event. The connecting walls, closed by hurricane fencing for the Zombie Apocalypse event to make for a pretty linear dungeon-bash were opened up, such that all the areas were available, including the previously hidden "staff-access" areas, in between sets.

I've played a number of lazer-tag type games, and paintball, as well as the NERF-based LRP events, such as "After the Fall" but the realistic weapons, both in size and weight and in operation and action were a step ahead than anything I'd done previously.

We combined two times slots of teams, and got double-time in-game as a result (thanks everyone) and broke into two pretty evenly numbered teams. Initially we had a couple of people opt to wear the pain-belts (myself being one) but it turned out that an unfortunate glitch in the system would have seen me getting a shock not only anytime _I_ took a hit, but also anytime someone used the re-spawn transmitter in my line of sight, which also operated over IR much like the guns and targeting belts. We all opted out after a few false-shocks.

Given the frequency of deaths in every game, that was a wise move. We were all initially set up as a two-hit kill, with approximately 150 shots per magazine, with unlimited refills available, but back at the re-spawn site. I opted to go semi-auto for much of the first few bouts, gaugeing how effective I was with the taggers. I flipped over to 3-round burst later on, to be more effective.

It was a good example of seeing how different people act under pressure. The broken light, noise and tension was quite effective, and some people, communicated well, others didn't at all. We all suffered from "dead-men-tell-no-tales" violations, myself included, but I like to think I also backed up, and notified my team pretty well.

We were set up NOT to have friendly-fire count, which was a two-edged sword, but it meant for "safer" gameplay. I had adjusted my rig from the previous event slightly, and I also wore my Propper Multicam and Platatac CUS Punisher shirt combo, which kept me cool and pretty dry, though I did work up a sweat from stress and the activity in my plate-carrier and pads.

I had a blast, again, and we had a good time, as well as dong "better" than our opponents. My three friends and I worked pretty well together,
in so much as that we all had done this kind of thing before, some more professionally than others, I must say, be we certainly benefited from -his- experience, I would have to say.

Unfortunately the Oz Apocalypse season is over, I hope some of you managed to get a go in, and if not, get to have a similar experience soon, because it was a lot of fun.

Events: OzApocalypse - Zombie Apocalypse

I had the opportunity to go and run through the Oz Apocalypse Zombie Experience over the weekend, and wanted to give you my thoughts on it.

There has been quite a bit of controversy around the event, primarily as it changed hands very late in the piece and there was quite a disparity between what the original promoters/organisers (IRL Shooter, who ran Patient 0 in 2013) and the Zombie Apocalypse Survival Experience: LAZARUS event being put on by OzApocalypse and Horror Corp Entertainment. This mostly stems from OzApocalypse "buying up" the Pozible Campaign that for whatever reason IRL Shooter found itself unable to present.

This was NOT the sequel that IRL Shooter had promised, this was an event put on by OzApocalypse that drew on that event, its fanbase, and premise. I think that in several aspects it was not as impressive as IRL Shooter's Patient 0 (it wasn't nearly as large or sprawling, and didn't have the embedded story).

However, it was also superior in several ways. The technology for one, I felt was significantly better.

The irM4's from iCombat sync wirelessly to the smart bandoleer we all wore, which recorded shot data, accuracy, and more.  The irM4's were fitted with a 150 round SmartMag and additional magazine kits can be purchased. If a player is eliminated, their gun shuts off for a period of time preventing cheating! The best thing about the new weapons were that they had CO2 powered sound and recoil. you could feel every shot, hear every rapport.

I knew if my teammates were firing, even over the din of the event space, and that was  a crucial improvement in the experience.

The bandoleers were tied to our irM4's wirelessly, and reported back to a central computer, and more importantly, they tied into the headbands worn by the Zombies, these were similar to the bandoleers we wore, and acted as emitters to make proximity to the zombies damaging. Get too close, and they "bite".

Shoot the sensors and they flash and go solid with a kill, and the actors dropped. All this data was fed back through to the behind-the scenes control and scored were generated, and passed against the membership cards we were given at registration, giving you reciprocal rights at other iCombat sites, and the ability to accrue rank in the network.

The OzApocalypse website made mention that there was the ability to customise your irM4, but this is a bit of a misnomer, in that there were a second set of weapons, the short barreled, and Picatinny rail mounted short barreled "Commando" irM4's in their armory, fitted with vertical grips, there wasn't really the facility during the Zombie Apocalypse event to do any customization other than adjusting the buttstock and in my case, fitting my own sling, the trusty 215Gear sling.

Other than this it replicates one of the most known assault rifles in the world, the M16/M4, and is used by law enforcement and militaries all over the world.


It has the same form, fit, and function as the real thing and brings the word realism up to a whole new level. I really enjoyed the "Tap, Rack, Bang" functionality. Removable clips, internal sensors and fully functional parts, from mag-release to selector switches . The weapons and sensors made the event for me. No more reload button or hard to hear electronic sounds. You hear and feel every round, in a longer engagement, if you were kitted out with spare mags you could drop your mag and slam a new one home. They bypassed this by assigning everyone a cylume glowstick, and had a reloading station where we were restocked by a technician, but you can see how it could be easily enough facilitated in a more longterm event.

And that's all before we even get to set dressing, gameplay and the actors! I was really happy with what we faced when we passed through the containment doorways.

 When OzApocalypse took the event over, they brought on Horror Corp Entertainment from the US, engineers who specialized in Haunted House and Zombie Apocalypse Experience "in real life" gaming environments. They have three decades of experience in visual, sound, event and multimedia production, creating theatrically-based, interactive horror and genre projects. The event at the Melbourne Showgrounds takes place in a blackened-out, light-controlled battle zone, it doesn’t matter what time of day it is,  – players will step into an ominous world to fight ravenous zombies. The Prop and Set Designers as well as Makeup Artists create a film set style environment that immerses players in the Zombie Apocalypse survival experience.

Combinations of lighting, (and lack of lighting), selected use of smoke, as well as a really harrowing and oppressive sound-scape really put pressure on the player as they navigate a maze or debris and horrific scenes.

I had the good fortune to get to go backstage and saw the interconnected passageways the actors could take to move from area to area, where they would emerge and lay in wait for the passing players, in and around the sets. The hospital area bugged me the most, as I work in them, and have done the graveyard shift...

The maze was a CQB nightmare, with blind corners, concealed alcoves and all manner of cover for the zombies to lurch from and come at us. Importantly though, for all its twists and turns, it was a "safe" environment, from an OH&S perspective and you could easily cope with the 6-8 person teams recommended. We ran it in a team of three, and were like a well oiled machine. I didn't have to worry about anyone actually getting hurt for real during even an intense simulated combat.

We weren't rushed along as we had been in the Patient 0 event, and even though the maze was relatively small, much more in line with a Haunted House event rather than the sprawling warehouse/factory sit utilised for Patient 0, and we went through the maze twice, as a part of the gameplay, I certainly didn't feel any less fearful of my life when zombies came at us from dark corners, or rattled on us from behind chainlink walls as we faced more direct threats.

Back in the registration area, the stark lighting, clean floors and all too living other players was a more jarring experience. I wanted back in to my comforting darkness, screaming and sirens. The one upside of the "real-world" was that I got to fool around with both the Glock training weapons. The Glocks had the same "real features" as the irM4's, removable clips, wireless targeting and scoring, and ammo-counts. Unfortunately due to limited battery capacity, and high accuracy, they weren't really suited to the spray-and-pray zombie hoard threats the game presented with.


A regrettable technical difficulty, but one the organisers preferred to keep it out of the game, but available for range use! I also got to use the notorious pain-belt! It was a really, really unpleasant experience and I heartily recommend it for all gamers. Again, it apparently was not suited to use in the zombie game, but us perfect for PvP shooting. I tried it on the low setting, which was startling and also all the way up at high, which was curse-making, but didn't hamper me as soon as it stopped. Incentive not to get shot, for sure.

So, all in all I was really pleased with the OzApocalypse Zombie Apocalypse event. I was a Pozible campaign ticket holder, and I feel it was pretty amazing that they would offer to honour the IRL Shooter LAZARUS ticket holders at all, which was super generous. It certainly is NOT a sequel to the Patient 0 game, and its really hard to compare the two events as apples and apples. I really enjoyed it, and really look forwards to going back for more.

The Zombie Apocalypse Experience is running for two more weekends, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays while weekdays and weeknights give those who love games like Call of Duty the chance to combat team vs team combat in the BATTLE APOCALYPSE arena, which is the same area as the Zombie Apocalypse event, but with the connecting areas opened up, some walls opened up, and more personal threats, with pain belts available on request, I believe. I'd really recommend you get along and enjoy it, in either its Zombie Apocalypse, Battle Apocalypse or even the kid-friendly FAMILY versions, before it finishes.

AND, thanks to the organisers, I can offer all my readers a whopping 35% discount with the code "COYOTE0415" (thats charlie-oscar-yankee-oscar-tango-echo-zero-four-one-five).

TICKETS: Lazarus www.flavorus.com/ozapocalypse
Battle Apocalypse www.flavorus.com/battleapocalypse
Group Bookings (minimum of eight players) email tickets@ozapocalypse.com

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