[Tue] 06 May 2014 (Our Little Secret)

[Bodge]

• Thorn
• The Back Foot
• Bay 2
• Holy Stones Fire Team Edition

We had 30 mens who performed admirably under pretty much constant fire in most situations. Thanks for playing and post your thoughts and reports below!

[Grizzly]

Thorn:
Bravo 2 AAR?
Getting up the hill was easy, spotting enemies from the hill too. Relaying those enemies was rather hard (I am still baffled by that I could see one guy (whom I later shot) and the rest of the fireteam could not, but luckily he was dead before Alpha walked into his view.

Then we got under fire from several sides - I hastily ran behind a hill, and ran to take cover inside a shack, only to see enemies popping out of that shack to shoot me, so I fired and CHAAAAARGEEEED down the hill instead, which was exhilirating. Still taking fire from several sides, I then charged down the hill some more to link up with my FTL. I got shot, and promptly charged in the other direction screaming like a frightened cub. I then once again charged down whilst under heavy fire, which was exhilirating, and made it to the end. Then we cleared some houses.

In one of those houses, we took very heavy fire. I went upstairds and promtply shot a guy who I thought was harassing our friendlies. However, it turned out that I had overlooked two vital things:
1) He was most certainly not the guy shooting at our particular fireteam.
2) Arma 3 has very extensive bullet penetration and ricochet mechanics.

The Back Foot

Zirtron had the misfortune to accidently execute our CO, and I called him an idiot for that - That was not intended to be harsh, but it was. I apologize. I'm a dolt.

Regardless, WE WON! And I may have been a bit up on combat high as it was such an awesome victory (My manners have not improved when I was away), with just one guy achieving the victory mere milliseconds before enemy bullets reached him. Major kudos to the MMG team for... I think eliminating quite a few enemies, although I did not see the efforts of Alpha 2 and 3 on my end, who also fought quite a bit.

I am not sure if I made a mistake - I let my own fireteam, which was supposed to gaurd the HQ itself, position themselves all around the compound with the express intent to maximize visibility (as per my instructions), but it may have been better to keep them hiding in the compound all the time. Due to the heat of combat, I actually lost track of what my fireteam did after I ordered them to fall back to the compound, so I am not even sure if they obeyed that order or not - I tried to assist the MMG team and promptly got shot.

Bay 2

Mission went quite well, but rather I would just say that this mission was very athmospheric (as was the one that came before), and the music and morning mood worked really really well with the "Arma/FOLKARPS athmosphere". Great fun.

[fer]

For comrade Grizzly:

[PhilFlame]

Bay 2
B1 FTL

Right around when Bravo decides to move in on the airfield control tower, with Alpha on the right flank, my game client begins to freeze for several seconds from time to time during the rest of my part of the mission. Wonderful.

Oh well, into the fray. B1 moves through a prolonged ditch of reeds towards the tower, trying to be very sneaky about it. Somehow ninjaing fails and bullets are suddenly coming our way. Between game freezes I desperately try to get my bearings, while ordering my team to disengage and press forward. Nevertheless, short while after we stumple upon an MRAP vehicle parked on the road crossing our tunnel of reeds. Next thing I know, we're pinned down under heavy fire.

Confusion commences. More freezing. Sounds like rest of Bravo is engaging targets too. Squad radio is on fire. More freezing. I look around, half my team is down. Trying to make up for my lack of tactical leader skills and urged on by still standing fireteam member FidelDonson , I proactively grab a rocket launcher from one of my dead comrades and tries to move out of the reeds for a heroic altruistic potshot on the MRAP. Sadly the vehicle has my number

(note to oneself: this isn't an arcady Rambo shooter)


Holy Stones Fire Team Edition
Az(i/o?)z FTL

Embarrassing lack of tactical skills. Sorry guys.

[Grizzly]

Right around when Bravo decides to move in on the airfield control tower, with Alpha on the right flank, my game client begins to freeze for several seconds from time to time during the rest of my part of the mission. Wonderful.

This occured to me as well - server side issue?

[gamma_gandalph]

I had no such issues in Bay 2.

I joined the party late and only played in the last two missions.

In Bay 2 I was B2 FTL. We moved into our first waypoint without any contact, where we then held out waiting for Alpha to get into position, while we kept looking at a squad of enemies all bunched up in the control tower. B1 then moved to flank the enemy but they came under fire so we engaged the tower, although in hindsight, they probably were not much of a danger to anyone at that point. After we dealt with most contacts up there, we moved out to engage a Ifrit that was pinning down B1. With that out of the way we proceeded to the tower, which Alpha was already securing. Bravo oriented towards the airstrip and we again were engaged by an Ifrit. Although we had no more AT left, we flanked around the thread, thankfully, as the Ifrit came into our sight (and we into his) some merciful AT gunner took it out. After that we cleared down the airstrip until the mission ended. In all a very succesful mission, I think B2 didn't loose a single man. Bravo 2 best Bravo!

In Holy Stones I was on the side wearing superiour hats, but don't ask me for the name of our glorious leader... After we didn't call ready for a good five minutes, the enemy assumed, we had made sneaky sneaky plans. So, naturally, we stormed down the main street towards the objective. On the market I exchanged fire and life with someone, in the end, naturally, we won. Down with the Bandana!

[Halop]

Thorn
Alpha 1 AR

What a small town, but so densely packed with buildings, and it seemed like there was an enemy in every single one of them. Killed my first enemy point blank while securing the first big compound, I was shocked and stared at the body for 1 minute debating was it a friendly or not, the "user left your channel" that came shortly didn't help either but it was our AAR who got killed. The three of us crouched on a small hill and looked at bravo for a few minutes while they were climbing up to their BOF.

The assault itself was painful, and we lost our SL. Kefirz, my FTL took over alpha and I was given the 2 man A1 fireteam, yay for battlefield promotions!
Then tragedy struck, and my comrade fireteam member was shot while clearing a building. Kefirz then ordered me to regroup with A2 and join them.

Running through the enemy-packed city, confused and lost I was shot from an unknown direction.

Holosights are terrible.


The Back Foot
BLUFOR (Defenders)
A2 Rifleman

We were on the far western edge of the zone, in position. The FTL was 100 meters east, because he was concerned that the enemy might sneak past our 2 teams through the forest. Turns out, that was exactly what happened. One second it's all quiet, then all of a sudden the FTL is dead, and I see 6 enemies running all around me. I try to hide, to wait for the perfect position to strike, but I got shot.


Bay 2
Bravo 2 AT

Followed my FTL through a lot of tall grass and muddy water, then we sat for 10 minutes staring at 6 enemies on the air control tower. Orders came through for B1 to advance while B2 provided cover for them. B1 disappeared out of our vision and came under fire, B2 returned with suppressive fire on the ATC, killing all of them in the process.

We advanced forward, I fired my first RPG shot in Arma3, killing the pesky Irfit that murdered B1. After that it was smooth sailing, only close call was the second Irfit, the bullets were hitting so close that my screen was shaking. We advanced down the airfield, killing some infantry and in the end I didn't get shot!


Holy Stones
Bandanna team leader (Azoz?)

My perfect plan was to navigate the city maze and get to the bunker faster than they do. I split the fireteam into 2 squads of 2 people. We got to the bunker faster, I took cover behind some sandbags just outside the bunker, saw a muzzle flash from a building, let loose a volley of bullets then died. One kill.

[Aqarius]

Thorn
INDFOR Alpha 2 FTL
Stormed the minor compound on the southeastern edge of the AO, and took up an overwatch position on the neighbouring hill, with no casualties. From there, the fireteam got snuck up on by a group of EI, who we dealt with in brutal, tense, melee combat. Medic somehow got killed in the meantime, so we made do with looted FAKs. From the position, we got to cover troops cresting to attack Bravo, Bravo taking it's position, and more troops cresting to hit bravo in the back.
Dealing with those, we descended back on the road and bounded towards the town. Seeing how Bravo was having trouble with the aproach, I split my fireteam, half going along the main road, the rest going along the north road. Something got lost in translation, as I was the only one south . Still, we kept the momentum up until team A2-2 started taking casualties. I rejoined the group, linked up with Penney, and kept pushing. Somewhere here, Halop was assigned to me, but died before we could consolidate. A2 survivors were gunned down while clearing buildings shortly after.

The Back Foot
NATO CO/ASL
Set up a plan of limited defense, with A3 serving as bait/maneuver element, supposed to engage first and draw fire. Imagine my surprise when A2 started reporting contacts between A2 and A3! Ordering A3 to consolidate and move in to attack, I ran back towards the supposed enemy, and imagine my surprise when I got my head blown off out of nowhere. This was followed by a distraught voice saying "I think I shot CO". Ya think?. From there on the battle descended into complete chaos, with BLUFOR somehow coming out on top by a matter of seconds.
The really sad part (I mean, other than getting TKed again. As CO. Again.) is that it was a really nice well placed remarkable hit. It was a one bullet headshot on a moving target running through undergrowth. It would've been rather impressive marksmanship if not... you know...

[Kefirz]

OPFOR CO on The Back Foot here,
The initial plan was to move the whole force southeast along the border of the AO. Set up observational posts, and from those posts I was hoping to spot a few anxious and impatient enemies lurking around, and if that wouldn't work out, I thought we could do some recon by fire (haven't seen it done here before, or maybe I was on the receiving end).
It was pointed out that my map skills are terribad and Bravo OP is actually lower then the objective, so all that time spent wandering around in single player didn't improve my map reading by a bit. So I split up the team, because there were suitable hills on the other side also.
From there I pretty much controlled Alpha and let Homer do his thing with Bravo (Kudos to you Homer, your valiant actions have been included in the report), all I wanted him to do is to get on that hill and get eyes on the enemy HQ.

Then we got contact reports from Bravo, it sounded pretty rough out there, so Alpha moved out with haste and some defilade to cover our initial approach, but we were still running across an open field, with a few stone walls here and there. We got into contact, but we were just too many for them and we took the compound.
While inside, something heavy on the opposite team got angry and bullets were flying through the walls and hitting us, the fire was coming in somewhere from the Western side, so I ran out and told everyone else to do it, and hide behind the house on the other side, my reasoning was that 2 walls are better than 1 at stopping bullets.

When we ran out the trigger deactivated and that meant we had to stay in the house for 5 f-ing minutes and be doomed basically. I had no choice, but to get back in the house, so I thought I would take out that angry machine gunner (who is, by the way, still pinning us down quite good). So I went to the corner, switched to my binocs and got shot.... well executed really, there was an enemy tag in the spectator script about 20-30m away in the bush)


At the mission end there were 4 OPFOR dudes left and 1 BLUFOR guy, and the casualty cap kicked in at 80%... Homer didn't shoot that last guy in time and we lost, the only recommendation you are getting now is for the coal mines on the northern frontier.

Conclusion?
If I would CO that mission again I would not focus on the enemy HQ, despite what the objective is.
With some bigger calibers in the play and the penetration system, staying in that house is a nightmare, and if one has to do it for 5 minutes with that strict trigger, that deactivates the second you leave the house, it's basically a death sentence.
I would consolidate our force and root out bad guys one by one, sector by sector, because that's how you realistically can beat that mission at the current stage.


On an unrelated note:
I fixed the issue I had with CC (apologies to all, because the issue was with me the whole session), basically what happened is that my hotkey for toggling on/off CC is interfering with other hotkeys

[zitron]

The Back Foot
Bluefor CO Slayer

As part of A3 I was going towards A2's position to support. Since we were the scouting team I thought we were alone. Imagine my surprise when I turned around and saw a shadow moving in the trees towards HQ or A2! Sorry Aqarius