One of the most important things of sniping is staying out of sight of your enemies. And that’s exactly where Ghillie suit comes in. Simply put, it’s a camouflage clothing that helps you to blend in with your surrounding making you more effective as a sniper. But just wearing a ghillie suit won’t be enough if you’re not careful and make some rookie mistake. So in today’s article, we’re bringing you airsoft ghillie suit tips that work and hope you’ll learn a thing or two how to blend in with your surrounding.
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What Is A Ghillie Suit?
A ghillie suit is one of the types of camouflage clothing that helps you to blend in with your surrounding and hide from enemies. It is designed to resemble environments such as sand, snow, or foliage and it is used by many different groups, from police and military to hunters, and even nature photographers. Of course, it is used in airsoft also – if you play as a sniper ghillie suit can give you serious advantage making you less visible so that you can easily take your opponents one by one from distance. Actually a good ghillie suit is pretty effective in camouflaging making you nearly impossible to detect visually, even at closer ranges.
Why Do They Call It A Ghillie Suit?
The word ghillie refers to Scottish folklore tale, Ghillie Dhu, an Earth spirit who had the ability to disguise itself in leaves and moss. The first recorded ghillie suit dates back to the 1800s and was made by shepherds. But the first time ghillie suits were used on the battlefield was at the beginning of the 20th century during the South African Second Boer War that took place between 1899 and 1902. It was used by Lovat Scouts, a Scottish army regiment formed by Lord Lovat and consisting of men from northern Scotland with a wilderness experience.
What Are Ghillie Suits Made Of?
There are several different ways of how ghillie suits can be made. To make an effective ghillie suit, you must use natural materials that are present in the environment in which a wearer will operate. Ghillie suit is usually garment covered in strips of twine, burlap, and cloth with scraps of foliage from the area. United States military for example uses a battle dress uniform (BDU) as the base. Some are making it by attaching burlap flaps or twine to a poncho. Then it can be customized with leaves and twigs and other local foliage.
Airsoft Ghillie Suit Tips: How to Blend In
As we already said it’s preferable that your ghillie suit match the colors and textures of your surrounding where you’re going to play – if you’re going to play in snowy conditions it doesn’t make sense to wear a green ghillie suit (in that case a good choice would be to wear white ghillie suit). Ghillie suit won’t help you much if you don’t know how to blend in with your environment. So we’re here to help you and give you a couple of tips on how to blend in and stay hidden from your opponents.
Blend In: Match Your Surroundings
The first tip is pretty obvious – to be effective you must blend in with your environment. There are different types of ghillie suits, like for example woodland, dessert, or snow-white ghillie suit – whichever you pick make sure that it suits your environment. If your opponents can’t see you then they can’t locate and shoot at you. Dark browns or grey ghillie suits will work for most situations. Also add local foliage like leaves, branches, or grass. This will help you to blend in more easily with your environment making it harder for your opponents to notice you.
Disguise Yourself To Look Less Like A Human
If your opponents can’t see you they will start observing their environment for human-shaped things. Even from larger distances humans can identify you by recognizing the shape of the head and the shoulders. So to blend in more easily with your surroundings you must disguise yourself to look less like a human and break up your shape. One of the ways is by padding up your shoulders and neck.
You will want to cover your face also. You can use sniper veils for this. And if you’re wearing a face mask or glasses only, cover them with a ghillie suit as well as they might reflect the light giving your position away.
Stay Still And Move Slowly
If you move a lot, your opponents will eventually spot you and your cover will be blown up. Be patient and stay still in the same position waiting for the right moment to take out your enemies. But this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t move at all. Of course, you will move and change your position. But try to make as few movements as possible. Whenever you move, move slow.
Camouflage Your Gear
Besides camouflaging yourself, you need to camouflage your equipment also as your opponents will try to spot things that stick out, be it your gun or your backpack. So make sure you cover your equipment as it won’t help you much if you spend a lot of time camouflaging yourself and then giving your position away because you didn’t conceal your gear.
Observe Your Surroundings
Before moving or changing your position observe your surroundings for things that make noise and can give away your position. Stay away from the bushes, dead leaves and twigs – leaves on the ground will rustle and twigs will crack and if you’re close to your enemies you will make them aware of your presence.
So like we said observe your surroundings and stay away from things that make noise. If you don’t have a choice then use other elements to your advantage – wind and other noises can help you cover up your movements.
Use Wind, Ambient Noises And Shadows To Your Advantage
As we said, wind and ambient noises can really help you if you need to move while wearing a ghillie suit. Also, try to use the shadows as much as possible – you’ll be less visible if you move through the shadow.
Relax And Don’t Panic
If you’re suddenly surrounded by enemies don’t panic because you’ll make a stupid move and give yourself away. If your enemies don’t know your position you still have a chance to take them out if you play smart. So don’t panic, stay low, and don’t make any sudden movements. You can also use a stick or pebble and throw it somewhere away from you to distract your opponents.
Pack Light And Bring Water
You shouldn’t take a lot of stuff with you or a large backpack as it will be harder for you to disguise everything or sneak around silently. One thing you shouldn’t forget is to take water with you as it can get pretty hot inside the Ghillie suit.
Avoid sunlight
Try to avoid direct sunlight as it can reflect from your gear, like glasses or sniper scope and if that happens you’ll be spotted event from greater distances.
What Are The Best Ghillie Suits For Airsoft?
There is a large choice of different ghillie suits, with some more and some less effective in camouflaging. If you don’t have a ghillie suit, or you own one but you’re not satisfied, we wrote a buying guide and reviews of the best ghillie suits for airsoft. We suggest that you check it out, we’re sure you’ll find a perfect option that will make you more effective as a sniper.
Summary
Is ghillie suit an essential piece of airsoft equipment? Do you need it to play as a sniper? No, but it is effective and really helps you to blend in with your surrounding making you less visible from your enemies. But, if you’re not careful enough you can be easily spotted by your opponents – knowing how to use a ghillie suit and blend in with your environment will give you a serious advantage over your opponents. We also suggest that you check our article How To Take Out Airsoft Sniper: Counter Sniping Techniques, where you can read about some counter-sniper techniques – if you get familiar with these techniques you will probably be even more effective as a sniper as you won’t be surprised by your opponents that easily.
We hope that these tips helped you and that you found all the necessary information. If you have any other questions feel free to contact us via the contact form or send us an email and we’ll be glad to help you.
