[Sun] 19 Jan 2014 (SuperÜ is not a super pilot)

[audiox]

Seeking feedback on the plan for Kale's new mission last night (under my command).

Can do.
ASL

The plan as it was at the outset was nice. A decent fire and maneuver exercise with three squads in a lightly forested area should be something we survive. Also, that you were really clear on where we were to end up -after- the assault was nice, as such situations are a recipe for confusion and loitering unless such things are sketched out in advance. I would've liked to have the choppers closer to us though, but i do recall messages about them taking fire.
I know we're manly men and such, but occasionally i think it'd be nice if choppers and such got to be close support with their machine guns.

Dunno what more to say, the taskings and markings were clear and concise. A-RP could've benefited from being behind the slight slope NE of the road (ie. slightly further south), but that was something i should've corrected for as the terrain became more clear.

Alpha RP - > Alpha Assault
We were tasked to move from RP to the Assault marker. Being told to withdraw when we started taking fire made little sense to me at the time, since we were more than halfway to the forest edge (our nearest possible cover), and to withdraw in open terrain would've given us even less ability to deal with the hostiles in the forest.
Side note to everybody : Somebody goes down and you're in the middle of open terrain, please keep moving and deal with the threat first. He'll usually live. We also have medics on standby for just such occasions.
Side note two : Can we stop requesting medics in TS before we've marked the location of whomever is injured on map pretty please with sugar on top?

Anyway, back to you Tiger.
Alpha assault - > Camp
I didn't really see the point in moving Alpha all the way to the edge of the forest, since that made us completely exposed to the north, but i budged on that. We had good eyes on the camp from where we were, and had not indicated otherwise. You probably had a reason. Be glad to hear it.
Also, when i'm told to assault a camp and i'm told that Bravo will provide fire support then i assume that my task is to get my teams in to the camp as fast as possible, and to leave the "fire" part to Bravo. From your sardonic comments in CC that was apparently not the case. (But from BSL's comments below it seems i might have missed some comms related to Bravo's role as fire support.)

Then i managed to make it to the camp, and was promptly shot by something. I didn't even get to try the bike....

[fer]

Seeking gentle, sensitive man for companionship and perhaps more.

Not here, Tigershark.

[Tigershark]

Good feedback. Thanks gentlemen!

[Dogface]

When our powers combine, we produce multi-perspective videos for great justice. Thanks to AkKind's footage I was able to put together this little number for FInale XL.

More footage is always welcome so check the link in my signature!

[Black Mamba]

Side note to everybody : Somebody goes down and you're in the middle of open terrain, please keep moving and deal with the threat first. He'll usually live. We also have medics on standby for just such occasions.

Amen.

Also, when i'm told to assault a camp and i'm told that Bravo will provide fire support then i assume that my task is to get my teams in to the camp as fast as possible, and to leave the "fire" part to Bravo. From your sardonic comments in CC that was apparently not the case. (But from BSL's comments below it seems i might have missed some comms related to Bravo's role as fire support.)

I was A2 lead on this one, thought I could give some impressions as to how the plan translated to the grunts. For the first part anyway, as I died just before reaching the camp.
We were holding the left flank of the squad, and doing a rather good job at it I might add, being the only fireteam that didn't get bogged down at the first fired shots.

So after a bit of confusion, Alpha regrouped at the Alpha AP in a nice line ready to assault. At this point, my understanding was indeed that Bravo would provide support by fire and that we would move up to the camp to clean it up. I was quite struggling already to find a decent position as Bravo was marching on our position from our left (remember, we're the left flank of Alpha), and the rest of our squad just went static immediately to our right, waiting for the assault.

Things went quite messed up as soon as the assault started. In short, too many people in a too small area. We had Bravo crossing our line of fire and our line of advance to the front, and all of Alpha converging to the exact same spot, the center of the camp.

I took a bullet to the face in the process, in the middle of a big blob of friendlies, and was unsure whether it was friendly fire or not (it wasn't). Point is, could have been, and happened shortly after anyway.

As I wasn't on CC, I couldn't tell where it went wrong (CO, SL, or us FTLs, or all of us, most likely), but to me, it felt once again like this assault was being rushed, when we had the time to take a short pause to assess the situation and redeploy correctly before moving in.

I should have yelled more at my FTL's to stop looting and start shooting! Although putting boxes of toys down as part of the objective probably didn't help either...

It's a shame when mission makers have to take those things into account, really. It should be pretty obvious that if the Party gave you an iron-sighted assault rifle, you should stick to that, and the only weapons you're supposed to pick up, unless directed otherwise in the briefing, are those of your fallen comrades. The amount of work required to enforce such a rule from the mission-maker's perspective is ridiculously important, and shouldn't have to even be considered outside of a public server.

[audiox]

Things went quite messed up as soon as the assault started. In short, too many people in a too small area. We had Bravo crossing our line of fire and our line of advance to the front, and all of Alpha converging to the exact same spot, the center of the camp.
As I wasn't on CC, I couldn't tell where it went wrong (CO, SL, or us FTLs, or all of us, most likely), but to me, it felt once again like this assault was being rushed, when we had the time to take a short pause to assess the situation and redeploy correctly before moving in.

One thing i did as SL which didn't help too much was put myself up front. With that general level of confusion about i should have been slightly back from the fireteams to better observe their actual positions and move them about. I went gung-ho and got a bullet as a present for it.


Two things i started thinking about, planning-wise.
1. The basic premise of the plan was that we would not be engaged before our assault on the camp. I guess we really should have had a contingency for that eventuality. (Tho that is to an extent the SL's responsibility? A bit unsure there...)
2. With three squads, would it be better to use two of them as front and the third as reserves, so as not to spread us out over even more potentially hostile terrain? Then C could be a really effective support element once A or B got themselves into the trouble we luckily never experience due to our infinite awesomeness. ?