An excellent session, I hope you'll agree. Due to the Bodgist faction mounting an attack on the Swiss gold reserves that Tiger's castle is constructed of, he had to take an early hiatus from the session, but we loyal FAsheviks pushed on with the counter attack in the post-match testing session. We started with Sakheola (Hello darkness, my old f..*BOOM*), and after a very closely fought battle in the pitch blackness of the Takistani winter we decided to brighten things up with some cooperation, in the form of Buffet (Hail to the bus driver!). ASR_AI turned up to evict us from hasty positions on the Takistani foothills we'd lost so many men for, and we retreated to the mountains for Skyline ("Do you think they see us?" *BZZZZRRRRT* "Yup"). We again got absolutely wiped by the incredible tenacity of ASR_AI. At this point we thought we'd go a little experimental; Crash site (AN2s are crap Kamikaze) was a maelstrom of parachutes and bullets. I don't really know who won that one, there was so much shooting! Finally (for me, at least) came Save the Saviors (LZ Bo-selecta is compromised!). A crash early on meant that the Delta force was down to 1/3 strength - not good. They then proceeded to get interdicted by several RPG rounds upon attempting to make a rooftop landing - even worse! After that, I've heard that The Colonels (A major hazard as far as I'm concerned) was played. I'm sure Azoz murdered Aziz. Or is it the other way around?
And now, things have gotten a little fuzzy. I see men, men in brown coats. They're pointing guns, so many guns...
(Thanks to everyone for coming along! Please give mission feedback and your AARs below)
Sakheola
Alpha 2 Grenadier Fer - A2 FTL Lord Penny- A2 AR IceRaiser - A2 AAR
I was awaken in my small bed in the middle of the night. "They are coming!". I asked who? "The infidels of course!". Grabbing my old trusty Ak-47 under the bed and a bag containing ammo for it and a GP-25 from the table, attaching it to my rifle, I walked down from the stairs, out of the building and into the cold night of Takistan. Even if our great country was still a waging battleground, basic necessities such as lighting still existed. Still it was too dark even with the few lampposts riddled scarcely around the town that the locals decided to put some campfires around the town and lend some vehicles for more lighting purposes.
Meeting up with my team at the crossroads nearby the gas station, a plan was formed: A2 was guarding the eastern cache, A3 the southern cache, A1 somewhere due north and B1 in the middle of it all...that's what I still remember. Anyway, my group leader really had some funky cat eyes it seems, because he managed to maneuver us with no problems towards the compound where the cache was which we were supposed to be defending. A bit poking around, everyone got assigned their small places to defend. Me at the western side, our RPK wielding muscle man at the NE side, in a small hut, our cool guy with shades at the biggest house due SE corner and my lead next door. Although that old man decided to shoot out the lamp post and put out the light at the fireplace, making us sit in total darkness and not able to see anything. At least I managed to find the fireplace again and have some warmth back again (and most importantly, LIGHTING!)
We sat at our small huts and houses for good five minutes. Then it began. Them infidels with their big green ego flying devices came swooping down from the top of the mountains and landing some few pesky warriors around town. I nor anyone in the group didn't see any action for another minute or two, besides a random explosion (probably from their small puny grenades) or two occurring around us.
Then it happened. As if Allah stroked from heavens and rain fired from the skies, their so called helicopter was raining down accurate fire at the black jeep we were using as a lighting source towards an hill. Once it was done with that, I heard it was fireing at the center of town, before it guns were aimed at me and our group leader. Even as thick as the these sandy walls were, it didn't stop a bullet going trough it and wounding me. Fer died though. Lucky for me, the cool guy swede came and rescued me.
A few moments after that, their warriors decided to come inside the compound. Iceraiser was first to engage them, but got mortally wounded.
I heard them talk....I took my AK to my shoulder and started aiming down the sights....A dark figure appeared!....I shot a whole magazine towards that direction followed by a GP-25 or two....and then more 7.62×39mm bullets were zipping at that direction...Then it was all quiet.
I listened. I heard them talk. Lord Penny decided to shoot at them as well from a small window. Them bastards got ever the smarter and tried to flank us! And they almost succeeded, because of my accident. I had my finger on the rifles grenade launcher, but due to short distance, the round didn't explode and I got wounded again. Luckily, Lord Penny decided to flank them from behind and kill two of them. He then hurried into my house, helped me up and we though for a further plan of act...."GUY TO THE EAST! SHOO"
Buffet
Bravo 3 AT under Zitron's command, Kefirz as AR and daf as his assistant.
Nothing much do tell about this one. I think nobody expected the AI do have a field day with us. Since the last time we completed it successfully and flawlessly was without the ASR AI addition to the server, everybody thought (at least I did) it was gonna be an easy one. Oh the irony...
Our glorious CO decided that Bravo squad should go east then north and take the valley. As soon as we crested, we were greeted upon a dozen or so AI. Seeing so good accurate fire from the AI as well as their mobility, taking cover skills and technical having a field day, I took no changes and shot a M2 technical with a RPG-7 round. Even though some would say I shouldn't had, it was a life and death decision between him and my fellow comrades.
Then SPG round after round came towards us. Taking cover behind the hill, tending to our wounded, I heard Fer say (our Bravo Squadleader) "Crest the hill! Crest the hill and shoot anyone you see!". Knowing fully that this was a suicide, I decided to get on my belly like everyone else and crawled a bit further. I then saw a enemy HMG and a few soldiers in-front of me. Kefirz was already spooking them off which meant that I had to start shooting as well. Sighting in and taking a deep brea....
Skyline
Bravo FTL with Echo fireteam and MMG under my command
Murder mountain. That's what that dam place should be called from now on! About 50% (including me) were killed at the first bunker or two. As you can imagine, nobody survived. NOBODY!
Hey, at least I know that Danny, our lonesome Mortar gunner had a depression and ate a grenade.
Crash Site
A1 FTL
Mike - AT
IceRaiser - AAR
Lord Penny - AR
I think I might have accidentally shot our CO. And I was apparently under the influence of drugs because I saw the plane moving around from its crash site because a small shootout I had with a CDF guy.
Mission notes: More AN2s! And a gentlemen's rule not to ram paratroopers with said planes.
Save the Saviors
Special Forces AR
What happens when you give a bunch of delta forces guys 3 Littlebirds and a hot LZ in the middle of the AO? A) Two of the said littlebirds crash at base B) Third littlebird crashing on landing C) Ebass running into gunfire with mission critical equipment.
Mission notes: Increase the invulnerability of special forces guys by 5 seconds. I got wounded because my PC was crappy (thus resulting in 8 FPS for the entire mission) and before I was even properly in-game.
The Colonels
A1 FTL
Aziz (the coward was hiding under a bus!) was killed! All hail the glorious Azoz! And apparently somebody got shamed for being mortally wounded by a crazy policeman with a makarov!
Last edited by Draakon on Wed Jan 30, 2013 3:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
StrangLove wrote:They then proceeded to get interdicted by several RPG rounds upon attempting to make a rooftop landing - even worse!
Whuuut? Worse? That chopper landed perfectly! Well, granted, two of the dudes decided to bail out one second before touchdown and died, and the two others got killed in the two seconds after getting out. Granted, that chopper had no chance of ever taking off again, and the pilot was badly wounded. Still. It landed on the rooftop.
Draakon wrote:Taking cover behind the hill, tending to our wounded, I heard Fer say (our Bravo Squadleader) "Crest the hill! Crest the hill and shoot anyone you see!". Knowing fully that this was a suicide, I decided to get on my belly like everyone else and crawled a bit further.
I asked the squad to crest en masse (so we would have maximum firepower, simultaneously), but with everyone prone (so we would present the smallest possible targets). It was still not a winning tactic (not least because co-ordinating the movement proved far harder than one might imagine); in retrospect I should have had the squad disengage sooner.
The Blufor ORBAT consisted of 3 full fireteams, a pilot and two gunners. The plan was to land the chopper on the north-western side of the village and systematically sweep the supposed caches. A1 would stay on the western hills in a spot so that they could cover A2 and A3 as they swept in. I had A2 and A3 bound from cache to cache among themselves, all under A1's continuous overwatch. We spotted a few enemies beforehand so we had some knowledge where they were.
Our path forward was blocked by some vehicle lights, I assumed that the insurgents parked them there to act as makeshift searchlights. Not wanting to expose our fireteams yet, I ordered the chopper to destroy that vehicle with it's miniguns. After that was done, A2 and A3 went into the compound where we spotted the enemies earlier. With support from A1 we occupied it and killed some badguys while at it. Chopper shot up some dudes with the minigun too, but unfortunately due to a design defect the miniguns melted and were unusable after firing for so long.
At this point, I have split up A2 and A3, with A2 going after the compound Draakon's team was hiding. As soon as A2 left, an IED explodarised A3 - no survivors. That's 1/4 of the Bluforce force gone with a well placed bomb . The next thing was a costly mistake on my part as I ordered A3 to assault a compound that had enemies for certain, and it was too far for A1 to support from the hills. A3 got into trouble, and took 2 casualties and retreated, I wanted to send A1 to support them but they ran into some enemies on the hills to the west. Indies were blind in this pitch black and A1 killed them with no trouble at all, the problem were the guys who were holed up in buildings.
Thinking that the Chinook had done it's job, I ordered it to land and reinforce the beaten up A2. With the new reinforcements A2 assaulted the compound again, to no success again - I really need to learn from my mistakes. But A1 arrived a few minutes later and killed all the enemies. Victory against blind enemies, great success! Personal tally is 4 Insurgents.
Mission notes: I think the darkness should be adjusted in this mission. An interesting thing to have I think is to make it early dusk like in Red Snow - so that Blufor is on a ticking timer to get the mission done quicker, because they will lose their biggest equipment advantage if they let the mission drag on for too long. Perhaps it will also encourage some delaying action for Indies, and tactical withdrawals.
Had a fun session, and took some great footage.
There are highlights in the descriptions.
Sakheola
Was in IND, because we had no NVG's we were restricted to campfires and lamps, it was pitch black in there. Nothing much happened really.
Buffet
Saw quite a lot of action here and had some fierce firefights, it has some nice footage in there.
Crash Site
I was a medic, but I didn't heal anyone or did I kill anyone... but I got some good footage with the remaining forces advancing one by one and dying, and the end where Danny bit the grenade.
Save the Saviors
Umm.. sorry
''I am not going against tanks'' - Tryteyker, MAT gunner.
''Downboated so much, it's an u-boat now.'' - Boberro.
''Sorry, I meant hon hon hon baguette baguette Eiffel Tower'' - Mabbott
INDFOR Alpha 2 FTL: Fer
|- AR: Lord Penny
|- AAR: IceRaiser
|- G: Draakon
When my five-year-old tells me she's scared of the dark I point out that the Party does not permit monsters and has, anyway, already issued her with an AKS-47. After this mission, I'm considering a revision to this line of thinking.
Alpha 2 was tasked with defending a cache located inside a three-sided compound to the north-east of the AO. A small mud shed made up the north-western corner of the compound, and in it I placed comrade Lord Penny, his RPK pointed back at the courtyard through an open doorway. The north-eastern corner was a small house with roof access via a covered stairwell; I put comrade IceRaiser in there, knowing he'd make good use of the space and multiple firing points.
To the east of the compound, the ground rose steadily up a slope, and despite the relative lack of cover I was convinced this would be an avenue of assault in the darkness. The resourceful comrade Draakon drew my attention to an SUV parked nearby, and then carefully positioned it so its headlights illuminated much of the slope. To be completely honest, none of our positions would have allowed us to fire effectively on the hillside (except for IceRaiser, had he gone onto the roof and become dangerously exposed), but the enemy wouldn't have known that.
The northern and eastern walls both had narrow doorways in their centres - the kind the enemy would stack up on prior to entering the compound; so I planted IEDs next to each, in the grass outside the walls. Then Draakon and I took our places in a low double shed that made up the southern wall of the compound. Having put out the fire, I now shot out the streetlight and we were plunged into complete darkness.
This was a problem.
The nature of our compound meant we had no real outward-facing firing positions. Our only hope was to lure the enemy right into our yard and kill him at close quarters. With no illumination, we couldn't see our own hands, let alone the other side of the yard; with their NVGs the enemy could waltz into our position and the first we'd know about it was when the cache exploded. Draakon very kindly re-lit the fire, and we all crept further into our buildings, watching the orange glow of our newly re-illuminated yard. And then we waited.
The first contact we had was the enemy helo, which eventually came to hover 50m north-east of us. With permission from our CO, I'd gone out to put up the first of several flares, and seen the bulk of a Chinook hanging tantalising close in the sky above. Before we could move to engage the helo, it moved off towards the centre of the AO, so we sat tight. When it returned to our area it was moving and firing its miniguns, and the sound of impacts told me and Draakon that the enemy gunners were attempted to destroy our parked SUV.
Alpha 1, to our north-west, was the first to be contacted by ground troops. Soon afterwards Draakon took fire from the same direction, and almost at once we appeared to be under fire from the miniguns of the orbiting helo. The mud walls and roof of our little shed proved insufficient protection against the enemy's volley from above, and I was killed where I stood.
Afterwards, in the spectator script, I enjoyed watching as successive teams of BLUFOR troops managed to eschew the open side of our compound in favour of the - deadly - doorway facing Draakon's position, even when the dead bodies should have signposted a different approach. Here's some low-res video of the two-man team that eventually took Draakon out of the fight (temporarily), and their demise at the hands of Lord Penny:
I'd like to see two changes to this mission in future run-throughs: tweaked lighting conditions so INDFOR is not plunged into complete darkness, and strict ROE for the helicopter that precludes the use of miniguns against structures, even when presence of INDFOR troops is confirmed (because there might also be civilians in the same house). We've used such ROE successfully before, notably in Arrival, to ensure the helo doesn't become a win-button.
Buffet
Bravo SL: Fer
|- M: IceRaiser
Oh dear, I didn't do very well here. Sorry, Bravo.
Whilst it's true that comrade CO Kaleovil had asked Bravo to occupy positions on the eastern ridge, several hundred metres from the start line, it had been my own idea to make the squad's FUP a point to the east of our starting position, on a portion of the same ridge that appeared to be outside the AO. My rationale was to ensure that Bravo entered the AO already on the ridge, in formation. What happened next was a classic illustration of why becoming fixated upon the map, and making assumptions based on the briefing, is such a danger.
We moved to the FUP at speed, and without expecting to encounter the enemy. I wasn't even in the vanguard at this stage, but glancing at my map and exhorting comrade EBass' Bravo 1 to reach the marker, so the rest of the squad could form up on them. Unfortunately, as our fastest runners arrived at the FUP, it became apparent that the valley on the other side of the ridge contained enemies. Enemies with automatic weapons, technicals and - we realised a little later - an SPG-9.
Instead of the anticipated squad wedge waiting to advance north-west along the ridge, I suddenly found myself in charge of a hastily arranged squad line perched on the apex and engaging targets in the valley to our north-east.
Despite some pretty brave efforts, the enemy fire was beating us back, so instead of committing to the firefight, I pulled all fireteams back into the dead ground. With reports of enemy foot-mobiles danger close I wanted them to crest and walk onto our guns. Not everyone was great at disengaging, but IMO that's one of the hardest things to do in this game (especially in coops), so in retrospect it doesn't surprise me that it took a while before I felt we were properly in cover.
The enemy obliged us with some attacking infantry, but it was hardly the human wave (and decisive massacre) I sought. Meanwhile, the CO was keen for us to get back into the fight, so - like Grand Old Duke of York - I prepared to march Bravo over the hill again. Only, I didn't want my folks on their feet at all - I wanted the squad to move en masse (to maximise our firepower), but to adopt prone firing positions (to minimise our silhouettes, seeing as we were going to be horribly skylined). Again, dressing the line and getting everyone over in Napoleonic fashion was a frustrating and, also in retrospect, an unrealistic prospect. We killed a few more enemies, and I believe both a technical and the SPG-9 were knocked out, but the fire beat us back and our casualties were significant. We weren't even in the AO and I'd lost several men and the MAT team's ammo bearer (and recovering his ammo was too risky).
Eventually, the CO called for Bravo to make for its original ridge-top objectives, some two hundred metres to our north. Shifting from line to column, we snaked our way along the contour, staying in the lea of the ridge with the apex to our right. Again, assumptions I made about the safety of the valley we were moving in proved costly to Bravo. Alpha was up ahead, but a handful of enemy infantrymen were out to our left (west) in the valley itself, whilst further up ahead on higher ground more infantry and heavy weapons were pouring fire upon the whole platoon.
Caught on the open hillside, we again took casualties. One of my guys was bleeding out and in my bid to find him I blundered too far forward and was shot. Bleeding, I crawled back towards the remnants of the squad, but by now we had lost over half our number as well as our escorting MAT team. Amongst the survivors, my original Bravo 1 FTL, EBass, was still up, so I ordered the others to join his element and reconstitute that fireteam. With comrade IceRaiser and myself as the other element, Bravo would attempt to bound up to Alpha's last position.
Though we took out some enemies and a charging technical, not everyone reached the M113 we'd been heading for, which itself turned out to be a charred wreck. It was looking bloody desperate, but before we could launch a final suicide charge, the bus exploded.
. The next thing was a costly mistake on my part as I ordered A3 to assault a compound that had enemies for certain, and it was too far for A1 to support from the hills. A3 got into trouble, and took 2 casualties and retreated, I wanted to send A1 to support them but they ran into some enemies on the hills to the west. Indies were blind in this pitch black and A1 killed them with no trouble at all, the problem were the guys who were holed up in buildings.
