Alot of people who play Milsim are actual veterans though and there's plenty of units that play that pretty much only consist of people who have served, they crave that extra bit of brotherhood and more serious play. To be fair alot of gear they have isn't expensive, multi-cam is one of the cheapest patterns to buy. 30 for a shirt maybe, 30 for combat pants. Vest can be pretty cheap, overall NATO gear is cheap as fuck. However, if you want realistic Russian gear it's gonna cost you a bit more since it actually has to come out of factories of Russia since it's produced there.
Also there's not enough actual Dutch situations to make the Dutch Milsim loadout viable, usually it's NATO v Opfor or RAF vs Rebels or such, depending on the country and the mission they currently want to play but NATO vs Russia is probably the most normal one.
Even though it's probably not the most realistic, it's still one of the closest experiences you can get to being in action considering if you fuck up in a squad full of veterans you are gonna get shouted at, they will tell you what to do and the environment is harsher, that's why alot of people don't like it.
I have been lucky to participate in a game of Milsim actually and I absolutely loved it, having vehicles and everything attached to it is amazing for both immersion and gameplay since you actually have something to either hold or attack with.
People are afraid to die but it's genuinly something that's iffy, like if you get shot by blanks there's a rule that you don't have to take the hit but it's pretty much a gentleman's thing to do, you do however instantly have to go to cover and pretend you were being shot at with BBs, but most just take the hit since it's more realistic.
And trust me, dying sucks there since people can loot your shit usually and you have to wait for a fucking medic to pick you up which can take ages since there's not really respawn zones.
Also the guy who was talking to the younger recruit was just talking outside out the game for second since the kid wanted to be a ranger and the guy talking was actually a ranger, so he was explaining what it was like since the kid wanted to sign up.
