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History and facts about Paintball
Paintball is a
sport[1]
in which players eliminate opponents from play by hitting them
with paint filled, breakable, gelatin
paintballs shot from a carbon dioxide or compressed air
powered
"paintball marker".
Paintball draws a wide array of people, and the Sporting
Goods Manufacturer's Association estimates that over 10 million
people play the game in the United States annually, with 1.9
million playing at least 15 times a year.[2][3][4]
Insurance statistics show that paintball is one of the safest
sports, with fewer injuries per exposure than sports like
tennis, golf, and bowling.[5]
Games can be also played either indoors or outdoors and take
various forms, of which some of the most popular are
woodsball,
scenario, X-Ball and
speedball. Rules for playing paintball vary widely, with
most designed to ensure that participants enjoy the sport in a
safe environment. The sport requires a significant amount of
equipment.
A game of paintball usually involves two opposing teams
seeking to eliminate all of the other team's players or to
complete some other objective, such as retrieving a flag,
eliminating a specific player, or other
paintball variations. Depending on the style of paintball
played, a paintball game can last from seconds to days, although
typical woodsball games are five to thirty minutes long.
History
The first paintballs were created in the 1970s by Charles
Nelson of the Nelson Paint Company of MI, Inc. in Kingsford, MI
for use by foresters in marking trees from a distance, and also
for use by cattlemen to mark cows. The earliest versions of
paintballs were made from wax, but they were not sufficiently
durable, and soon softgel encapsulation was identified as the
best method of containing the paint in a projectile that would
survive being rapidly accelerated when fired, yet break on the
intended target.[6]
In 1976, Hayes Noel, a stock trader, Bob Gurnsey, and his
friends Mark Chapin, a S.W.A.T. officer, and Alex Rieger, a
Green Beret were walking home and chatting about Gaines' recent
trip to Africa and his experiences hunting buffalo. Eager to
recreate the adrenaline rush that came with the thrill of the
hunt, and inspired by Richard Connell's
The Most Dangerous Game, the two friends came up with
the idea to create a game where they could stalk and hunt each
other.[7]
In the ensuing months, the friends talked about what sorts of
qualities and characteristics made for a good hunter and
survivalist. They were stumped, however, on how to devise a test
of those skills. It wasn't until a year and a half later that
George Butler, a friend of theirs, showed them a paintball gun
in an agricultural catalog. The gun was a Nelspot 007 marker
manufactured by the Nelson Paint Company.[8]
Twelve players competed against each other with Nelspot 007s
pistols in the first paintball game on
June 27,
1980.
They were: Bob Jones, a novelist and staff writer for
Sports Illustrated and an experienced hunter; Ronnie
Simpkins, a farmer from Alabama and a master rhino hunter;
Jerome Gary, a New York film producer; Carl Sandquist, a New
Hampshire contracting estimator; Ritchie White, the New
Hampshire forester; Ken Barrett, a New York venturer and hunter;
Joe Drinon, a stock-broker and former
Golden Gloves boxer from New Hampshire; Mark Chapin, a
trauma surgeon and hunter from Alabama; Lionel Atwill, a writer
for
Sports Afield, a hunter and a Vietnam veteran; Charles
Gaines; Bob Gurnsey and Hayes Noel. The game was
capture the flag on an 80 acre wooded cross-country ski
area.
Thereafter, the friends devised basic rules for the game
fashioned along the lines of capture the flag, and invited
friends and a writer from Sports Illustrated to play. They
called their game "Survival," and an article about the game was
published in the June 1980 issue of Sports Illustrated.[9]
As national interest in the game steadily built, Bob Gurnsey
formed a company, National Survival Game, and entered a contract
with Nelson Paint Company to be the sole distributor of their
paintball equipment.[10]
Thereafter, they licensed to franchisees in other states the
right to sell their guns, paint, and goggles. As a result of
their monopoly on equipment, they turned a profit in only six
months.[11]
The first games of paintball were very different from modern
paintball games; they often threw the paintballs at each other,
and Nelspot pistols were the only gun available. They used
12-gram
CO2 cartridges, held at most 10 rounds, and had
to be tilted to roll the ball into the chamber and then recocked
after each shot. Dedicated paintball masks had not yet been
created, so players wore shop glasses that left the rest of
their faces exposed. The first paintballs were oil-based and
thus not water soluble; "turpentine
parties" were common after a day of play.[12]
Games often lasted for hours as players stalked each other, and
since each player had only a limited number of rounds, shooting
was rare.[13]
Between 1981 and 1983, rival manufacturers such as PMI began
to create competing products, and it was during those years that
the sport took off.[14]
Paintball technology gradually developed as manufacturers added
a front-mounted pump in order to make recocking easier, then
replaced the 12-gram cartridges with larger air tanks, commonly
referred to as "constant air".[15]
These basic innovations were later followed by gravity feed
hoppers and 45-degree elbows to facilitate loading from the
hopper.[16]
The Nelspot pistols began to lose popularity as
semi-automatic markers began to dominate the growing sport.
Nelspot pistols are now considered to be a collector's item.
Later, Nelson Paint Company of MI, Inc. spun off into two
separate companies: Nelson Paint Company, which is still focused
on paints; and Nelson Technologies, Inc., commonly referred to
as Nelson Paintballs, which still produces paintballs today.
Oil-based paintballs are still available through the Nelson
Paint Company and are still used for tree marking and for
veterinary purposes. Nelson's oil-based paintballs have been
used to mark animals on every continent of the world, including
Antarctica.
Common Rules of Play
The following are the most basic and common paintball rules.
While there is little variation in safety rules, variation in
other game rules is quite common, and players should ask about
the specific rules where they are playing.
Safety rules
A typical paintball mask with a
MARPAT cover.
Like many sports, safe participation in paintball requires
observance of proper safety procedure. When safety rules are
followed, paintball is extremely safe with an injury rate of
only 0.2 injuries per 1,000 exposures.[17]
Tennis, on the other hand, has 2.3 injuries per 1,000 hours of
play.[18]
Goggle system
The most important rule in paintball is that all players must
wear a protective
goggle system or mask at all times when they are playing or
near other people who are playing. While paintballs will not
cause permanent injury to most areas of the body, the eyes, and
to a lesser extent the ears, are vulnerable to serious injury if
hit by a paintball. Paintball masks are specifically designed
for the sport, and the goggles are capable of withstanding a
direct hit from a paintball traveling at well over 300
feet per second (90
m/s), the safety limit adopted by paintball marker
manufacturers. The lenses of the goggles are composed of either
single sheets of tough plastic, or thermal lenses, which cut
down on fogging. Most masks have flaps that protect the ears,
and some include a visor to shade the player from sunlight. Some
players use masks that cover the entire head for maximum
protection, while the majority of tournament-level players
choose smaller masks that offer a wider
field of view, better hearing, vocal communication and more
venting. Recently, small timers were created to fit in the
goggle, alerting the user to a certain time in the game.
Paintball
velocity
In addition to the mandatory use of masks, paintball markers
must not fire paintballs that exceed a certain velocity. The
industry standard maximum velocity for safe play is 300 FPS
(feet per second), about 90 meters per second.
Many commercial paintball facilities mandate a lower
velocity, usually around 280 feet per second (85 m/s, 300 km/h
or 190 mph), with a muzzle energy of approximately 11 joules, in
order to create an extra margin of safety. Due to the closer
proximity of players to each other, indoor paintball facilities
cap marker velocities at an even lower level, between 220-230
FPS.
Paintball velocity is measured using a
chronograph. Chronographs are standard equipment at
commercial paintball facilities, but should be purchased if not
playing at a commercial location. Players who play without first
using a chronograph put themselves and other players at risk.
Changes in temperature greatly affect a paintball's velocity
when propelled by compressed gases that undergo
phase change, such as compressed carbon dioxide, the most
commonly used propellant. Markers should be chronographed
several times throughout the day. Paintball markers should also
be chronographed after any adjustment, replacement of parts,
such as the barrel, or paint as these changes generally affect
the paintball's velocity.
Compressed air is rapidly replacing CO2 as the most commonly
used propellant. This is because it provides a constant and
stable pressure that isn't subject to changes in outside
temperature and is also easier to refill and more
environmentially friendly.
Player eliminations
Players eliminate each other from the game by hitting their
opponents with a paintball that breaks upon impact and leaves
them visibly marked with paint. Rules on how big a paint mark
must be to count as a hit vary, but a paint mark from a
paintball that breaks on some other object before striking a
player, referred to as splatter, does not count as a hit. Once a
player has been marked, they are eliminated from the game.
Most rules consider hits on any body part, clothing, gear, or
object the player is carrying or wearing as an elimination. This
includes the marker, backpack or an object picked up from the
field, such as a flag or a pod. Some rules do not count hits on
the marker or head or both, or other areas of the body as an
elimination, such as anywhere but the torso, or require more
than one hit in certain areas for elimination. These special
rules are usually found in
scenario paintball games. Wearing baggy clothing helps
reduce the chance that a paintball will break on you.
Eliminated players walking off the field
If a player is uncertain whether a mark they have received is
a valid hit or not, possibly because the mark is from the spray
of a paintball breaking on another nearby object, they cannot
see the part of the body where they have been struck by a
paintball, or because the paintball may have been shot by a
player who had already been eliminated, the player should ask a
referee or a nearby teammate to determine whether or not the
player has a valid hit. This request is commonly referred to as
a 'paint check', and is most often requested by the player
yelling the words 'paint check' to a nearby referee. Some game
rules allow a referee to call a player 'neutral' during a paint
check so that the referee can more closely inspect a player. If
a player is called neutral, they must discontinue play while
being checked and opponents may also not fire or advance on the
neutral player.
Players may also be eliminated from the game for reasons
other than being hit by a paintball, including calling
themselves out by saying "I'm hit!" or "I'm out!", from paint
marks from
paint grenades or
paint mines in games where such equipment is allowed, or due
to a penalty, such as stepping out-of-bounds or leaving the
starting station prior to the beginning of the game. Because
players who call themselves out are eliminated even if they are
not actually hit, players should always check to see if a
paintball that has hit them has indeed left a mark. A paintball
may simply bounce off a players body without breaking, which
does not count as a hit. Players may also call for a paint check
on another player if they believe they have marked an opponent
to ensure the player is promptly eliminated from the game,
especially if the opposing player may not be aware they are hit
or may be attempting to hide or remove a hit. Removing a hit and
continuing to play is a severe form of cheating commonly known
as 'wiping' and can result in severe penalties, including being
permanently banned from the playing location at a recreational
or commercial facility. In tournaments, a "3 for 1" penalty may
be called, where the offending player and an additional three
teammates are eliminated from play.
Surrender rule
Recreational rules often suggest a player within a certain
distance of an unaware opponent, usually 10 to 15 feet, should
offer the unaware player's
surrender by yelling "Surrender!" (or Point Blank) before
they may open fire. If the opponent complies, either verbally or
by raising their hand or marker, they are considered marked and
are out of the match. However, if they refuse or attempt any
hostile action, such as turning to fire, the challenging player
may fire upon them. Getting hit by a paintball from close range
can be painful, and it is considered polite and good
sportsmanship to offer an opponent the opportunity to surrender
when possible instead of unnecessarily shooting at close
range.It is also good policy to fire at their foot so as not to
cause pain because of their boots.
This "rule" is subject to great interpretation between
fields, and even between players, for a variety of reasons. A
common field interpretation of the surrender rule is not to
prevent two players in a heated exchange from shooting each
other close range, but rather from having an experienced player
mowing down a first-timer who is in shock and hiding in a
bunker. Interpretation at the other end of the debate often
stipulates an automatic elimination for any move where a
surrender would be offered, such as surprise or bunkering. This
strict variant is often called a "bunker tap rule," to
differentiate it from a more lax interpretation.
New players can become packed with adrenaline in such
situations, and often attempt to fire out of reflex. Thus,
experienced players often decide to offer a surrender only in
situations where the opponent is completely off guard, and will
be too shocked to make any reflex action. For these reasons,
when a bunkering move is executed, even in recreational play, a
surrender is rarely offered unless field rules absolutely
require it.
In tournament play there is no enforcement of a surrender
rule. When a player catches an opponent off guard, they will
fire until they see that the paint breaks, or until a referee
calls the opponent out. Moves such as a 'run through', where a
player runs down the field shooting opponents as he passes them
and continuing on, have developed over time and are now
important plays. Another popular move is "bunkering", where a
player charges up to the bunker or barricade that an opposing
player is behind and shoots them from over the top or around the
side of the bunker. Players also sometimes call themselves out
if they are the last player, just in plain fear of getting hit.
Some players use the term 'mercy kill' rather than
'surrender', though the terms are mostly interchangeable.
Overshooting
Paintball players, mid-game
To overshoot (also called bonus balling, overkilling) is to
repeatedly shoot a player after they are eliminated. Generally,
it's considered a few extra shots after a successful break. This
practice is frowned upon by most recreational players, but is
the accepted form of play by tournament players. There is no set
rule as to what constitutes overshooting. It varies in
recreational play, with each field having its own individual set
of rules. However, in tournament play, it is generally up to the
head referee's discretion. The penalty for overshooting in
tournaments is usually a 1-for-1, the elimination of the guilty
player as well as another player from his or her own team, but
each tournament has its own set of rules. Overshooting is more
commonly also referred to as bonusballing, especially by
tournament players.
Blind firing
To blind fire is to discharge a marker around a corner or
over an object with your head still behind that object or
corner, making you unable to see where you shoot. Blind firing
is discouraged on many fields, for potential safety
implications. As the shooter cannot see where their shots are
landing, they could accidentally fire at somebody point blank,
hit a referee, hit a person that had removed their mask (also a
major safety violation), or otherwise cause damage or injury
through indiscriminately firing paint at an unseen target,
although many players use the arc of a paintball to shoot at
someone they cant see over low bunkers.
Field paint
Most modern paintball fields enforce a 'field paint' rule; as
the name of the rule implies, the participants are not allowed
to use their own paint and must purchase what paint they require
from the field operators. The 'field' rules are presented as
safety precautions: it's common practice in commercial venues
charge more for field paint than a case may cost somewhere else.
However, many fields will allow BYOP (bring your own paint). The
rules for paint vary by field, and players should check with the
field operator before planning their outing.
Types of games
Basic variations
-
-
Capture the Flag - A team must take the flag from
the designated flag station, often either at the opponents'
flag station at the opposite side of the field, or in the
center of the field. The flag must then be 'hung' at one's
own flag station or the enemy flag station, respectively.
- Elimination - A team or individual player must
eliminate all of the opposing team members.
- "King of the Hill" - two or more teams attempt to
capture and hold one or more bases. The game is won by the
team that holds the base(s) for the longest net amount of
time.
Woodsball
-
A woodsball player lying in wait.
Paintball started out as a recreational game in wooded areas,
with capture the flag and elimination being the
most common formats. Woodsball can involve any range of players
with a variety of bunker types. The size and terrain of
woodsball fields make it unlikely that a player can observe more
than a small subsection of the field at any given time. This
limited field awareness coupled with the usually larger number
of players causes woodsball games to generally last for an
extended period of time. Many playing locations often have their
own custom variations. Woodsball gives players the freedom to
engage in any number of typical and atypical scenarios such as
ambushes, assaults on fortified positions and protecting VIPs.
Woodsball can be played throughout the year, although cold
weather play often hinders the use of CO2 because
lower temperatures don't allow the gas to expand properly.
Playing woodsball in varying weather conditions further adds
challenges and advantages for the players.
Woodsball is sometimes played in
National Forest areas, although the same rules that apply to
the discharge of firearms are applicable to paintball players.
Speedball
-
Speedball is a type of paintball characterized by a small
field filled with
bunkers. While a woodsball field may cover several acres,
speedball fields are usually less than half the size of a
football field, and located on level, treeless terrain. Bunkers
on a speedball field are man-made, and have evolved from wooden
spools and crates to corrugated sewer piping to the customized
inflatable obstacles in various shapes that are common today.
Because of the small field size, and the lack of foliage or
any other objects aside from the artificial obstacles on the
field, players can see from one end of the field to the other,
and games are usually much shorter than those played in the
woods. Since players can see each other and start the game
within range of each other, action between opponents is
immediate and lasts the entire game. Due to the smaller field
size, there are usually fewer players per team than in
woodsball, commonly from three to ten players.
While speedball is presently used in tournament play far more
often than woodsball, many casual recreational players also
enjoy speedball outside an organized, competitive setting,
especially at indoor playing facilities where a woodsball field
is not an option.
Speedball is the only format of paintball that is played
professionally in the three major professional leagues, the
NPPL, NXL, and Millenium series.
Stock class
-
Stock paintball play has specific rules regarding the
configuration of the marker, restricting the technology
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