[Sun] 20 Apr 2014 (Burn baby BURN)

How we died (in the future)
Post Reply
User avatar
Tigershark
Posts: 410
Joined: Wed Jun 09, 2010 5:56 am

[Sun] 20 Apr 2014 (Burn baby BURN)

Post by Tigershark »

Thanks to the 33 odd players that turned up last night. I was pretty happy with how the session turned out.

Playlist was:
  • Burn (with a kind of false start. Called early)
  • Surfin
  • On the Back Foot (Noon attack version)
  • Burn (second attempt at the mission)
  • Cratesistance
Image
Sticking feathers up your ass does not make you a chicken.

User avatar
Rook
Posts: 29
Joined: Thu Dec 26, 2013 6:01 pm

Re: [Sun] 20 April (Burn baby BURN)

Post by Rook »

I missed a few and some others were a little slow, so I'll just summarise Cratesistance, for which I was A2 FTL.

Commanded by Draith, our AAF force was outnumbered by cache-defending FIA guerillas who were commanded by the mighty and cunning Ferrard. So naturally I didn't have high hopes for our chances of victory.

Nevertheless, our main force moved out in a transport truck with Super/SixOne at the wheel and Draith's Strider alongside. We dismounted close to the first target cache, and I moved my fireteam into an overwatch position so that Super's team could move in and eliminate the cache. There was absolutely no resistance at the cache, which was suspicious, and I figured F(errard)IA was up to something. We began to advance on another two caches further north and closer to Pyrgos, A1 splitting away from the main force. Soon enough we were taking potshots from guerillas, and my team moved ahead of the main force as a scouting element. However, soon enough the main AAF force was surrounded by guerillas and wiped out from behind us as A2 hid in a ruined building. After losing comms with A1, CO and A3 I figured it was up to A2 to advance alone and detonate the last cache not far up ahead.

A2 being only three men, and with an unknown amount of FIA guarding the cache I had doubts whether we could pull it off for our team and snatch victory right from under FIA's noses. Hoping they had been drawn to the firefight behind us, I led Dabbo and philFlame (the two other members of the team) cautiously toward the cache. It soon became clear it was still guarded by a small team of 4-5, both AI and player-controlled. I set Dabbo up on a small crest and told him to suppress the team with all he's got - to go full Winchester and use all his belts of ammo while myself and philFlame moved up. This proved to be very effective, as both me and Phil managed to get right up on the cache and pick off the last one or two guards there that Dabbo had missed. I planted the charge and hightailed it out of there before any FIA returned from the previous firefight and detonated the charge - AAF victory and a glorious one at that.

A2 were great, both Dabbo and philFlame were excellent team-mates and they as much as anyone else secured the win, and Draith's commanding and leadership was pretty faultless too. Overall one of the most intense and entertaining missions with A3 so far, I can't wait to do it again! :D

User avatar
Dogface
Posts: 163
Joined: Wed Jan 23, 2013 1:13 am

Re: [Sun] 20 April (Burn baby BURN)

Post by Dogface »

A cracking and bustling session! Hurrah!

Burn - Goose 2(?) Crew Chief

Herpaderp! Well, both helos came in rather close to Airstation Mike, hovering just below the ridgeline. We started to come under fire from the slope, I returned fire at the tracers, the engine got hit, we crashed, people yelled at me. Soon, the other chopper also went down, and with so many dead and Bravo stranded at base, the mission was called. Apparently bullets are bad, who knew! :D


Surfin - ASL

Time to regain my slandered honour through excessive bravado, I thought (and said), and what a mission for it! The aim was to clear several HVTs, from officers to IFVs, from a FIA-occupied town on the coast, surrounded by the beach on one side and hills on the other. We inserted by helicopter in the northwest; Alpha had 3 fireteams and I think Bravo did as well. The initial plan was to capture a couple of hills overlooking the town from the west, then have Bravo provide a Base of Fire while Alpha stormed down into the western edge of the town.

Well, the hill-capturing part went well enough, as there were several crenellations of large rocks on the edge of the hilltop for us to make use of as cover. Bravo, likewise, took up a good position on their hill, and together we started engaging targets in town, albeit at the limit of our effective range. Eventually, it seemed like a good idea for us to start advancing, but that turned out to be a misjudgement as we soon started to come under very heavy fire including the bomsh-bomsh-bomsh of an IFVs AGL (or cannon?). Taking several casualties, we eventually managed to crawl our way back through smoke and explosions to the safety of the rocks -- except for A1, who could not be coaxed out of the house they were stuck in no matter how I tried!

By this point Bravo had already started sweeping down their hill, which was somewhat closer to town; after a little dithering I had us move over to the clusters of rocks they'd just vacated. All during this time, both squads were coming under a storm of shot and shell, and I believe it was around now that it became clear that HQ had been blown up in their entirety. Not only that, but Bravo had been completely penned into a house in the middle of town, next to the beach, and had no idea what to do.

The time had truly arrived for the time to be GLORY TIME.

First, I gathered Alpha up at the south end of the hill. Then, I removed all extraneous items of clothing that would be likely to aerodynamically slow my mighty running. Then I took out my pistol, the most motivational of all the weapons. Finally, I started pelting my way downhill amidst a maelstrom of ordinance from the troops and armor in the town, exhorting my comrades to follow me. :hist101:

It took a lot of running to find more cover but eventually I fell into a little inlet next to the beach, a welcome pocket of defilade. Within about a minute, all the sufficiently worthy/indestructible members of Alpha who survived the gauntlet made it to me. We then set out onto the beach, luckily only getting shot at to a medium extent this time. Slowly but steadily, we advanced towards the house Bravo was in, able to hear that it was constantly getting pelted with fire from all directions. When we got there I ushered everyone inside and we assessed the situation, pausing occasionally to unload a pistol mag or two at incoming attackers.

The situation was that everything was fucked forevever, with Bravo and Alpha both at roughly 40-50% strength with most leaders having been killed and replaced. What's more, us getting fired at from all sides was still a thing that was happening. However, there was still hope of victory and success: a little circle-caret marker to our south indicated the presence of some kind of target. I had no idea what it might be at this point but I did know that I wanted to kill it. :argh: Casting my mind back I recalled that the beach had so far been our least bullet-filled operating environment, so (after a couple of false starts that lost us a couple more casualties) I bundled us back out onto the sand and had us work our way south.

Bullets were still occurring everywhere and people were proving a little slow-footed. Eventually I declared that everyone near me would rush across the road to clear out the compound of bombed-out buildings that the elusive marker was at, while everyone still lagging behind us would shoot at everything. A2 stepped up to the plate to join me, and we dashed across with pocks of bullet-impacts peppering the compound wall. Quickly clearing the buildings, we encountered a couple of desperate enemy grunts but nothing else in particular of note.

Once everyone had caught up with us I reassessed the situation. It had only become more FUBAR. I saw another circle-caret a couple of hundred meters to the north. Perhaps that one would finally grant me death. I gathered up my hardy fellow-survivors and prodded us out of the bombed-out compound to the north wall. To our east we saw some half-constructed buildings as well as a lot of angry fellows with guns, and shockingly, they started to shoot at us! Enraged, I began pelting them with a barrage of GPs. The ghost/PTSD-hallucination of Tigershark briefly appeared over my shoulder and whispered in my ear to charge east towards them. I did and unleashed furious vengeance upon everything there that lived.

Even High Command and their suggestions were not able to kill us! Surrendering myself fully to the blood-rage, I leapt off the building and started running north, towards that last target. Suddenly, explosions surrounded me and lifted me up to heaven. A static AGL nestled among some rocks up on the hill had done what everything up to that point had not been able to. I had been vanquished. Our hope had been extinguished.

Rawr! :zoidberg:


On the Back Foot - ASL

An adversarial! We started in the northeast, with a long area between us and the NATO HQ. Bravo (1 FT) took the southern side while us in ALpha took the more northern approach. We found a nice gully that led alll the way to the HQ, so we took that, moving all tactically through the reeds and scrub. About halfway down we started getting shot at from a small compound, taking a few casualties and pulling back while Bravo got eyes on the targets and started pouring some heavy fire on them.

Alpha moved further north into the next gully to flank. However with Tigershark's Bravo keeping the attackers occupied, I realised we had a straight run right to the HQ, and got us moving that way. We managed to get within about 100m of it before coming under fire from it. I broke off and flanked even further around, getting within about 30m before getting gunned down by a man in the window. In spectator I saw my compatriots group up into an angry swarm and storm the building, but they got mercilessly whittled down by BLU forces on the hill beyond the HQ. Finally BLU ruffian Wolfenswan(?) snuck up behind them and finished them off.


Burn - BSL

Staying well clear of the chopper slots this time, I instead took squad-lead for this second attempt. This time around Wolf had us make a more cautious approach from the North, with CO and Charlie landing first in the furthest-away LZ, with A and B due to land further in once the approach was determined to be clear.

It turns out the approach wasn't clear as the first chopper got damaged during the insertion, just managing to limp out of there. A and B landed at some hastily re-arranged LZs, and cleared south to some radio antennas. Alpha, in the west, was starting to take contact from the outposts defending the air station; Bravo was sent into the low ground to the southeast. From the safety of some ruined buildings we pushed on up the hill, clearing and securing a small outpost in the east that was mostly empty.

From here we could see clear across a large valley to the base of the air station; there were lots of contacts on the far slope. Alpha were closer, on our right, and were unloading a storm of lazors and tracors onto them, which was very pretty. We joined in for a while, before offering to advance on the enemies. It was a rather hairy advance, sprinting a couple of hundred meters downhill across open ground, but we eventually made it into defilade at the base of the hill with few casualties. Alpha kept up the covering fire, while we climbed about halfway up the hill.

At this point HQ as well as ASL was dead, so I took over and asked Alpha to come and join us while we pushed uphill to try and engage/distract the enemies. During this push I got shot, and shortly thereafter, everyone else did too. Defeat! But fun defeat.


Cratesistance - IND A1(?) AR

This time we had to blow up some weapons caches being held by the filthy fools of FIA, followers of the ferocious Ferrard. We piled into some vehicles and headed north along the roads, with A1+2 breaking off to assault the southernmost cache while A3 in their frogmobile went zooming off into the hills. Other than the guard AI, this first cache was undefended and we easily took and blew it up. This ease engendered worry in the leadership.

Still split up, we pushed north to the next two caches. SixOne spotted a well-covered approach to one cache, through some ruined houses and then a gully. We slowly approached, seeing AI and possible humans ahead of us but sneakily flanking around them. Soon enough we approached a small bridge over a dried-out rill. As we crept through the reeds towards it we suddenly came under close fire. I put on my Rambo face and unloaded a full box of LMG ammo into the foliage and trees (and damn, those boxes last a loooong time!) without hitting squat, and was then shot as I tried to rush forward, soon followed by the rest of my FT.

However, I did get to watch the few survivors of our team move up to their cache, jinking around the defenses so Rook could plant a satchel, salute, run away, blow it up, and win.

User avatar
Bodge
Posts: 242
Joined: Wed May 04, 2011 6:36 pm

Re: [Sun] 20 April (Burn baby BURN)

Post by Bodge »

Surfin.
Bravo 1 FTL
We were tasked with staying on the southern end of the formation as we were attacking the town, with MMG for company. I found a nice spot that would allow us to pop in and out of view of the town pretty easily so told MMG about this position as it allowed great views along the beach. We were asked to move off the hill down towards some buildings at the end of the beach. Seemed doable and we regrouped at a position just out of sight of the town before moving on to secure the buildings. We did this and them came under a barrage of fire, Alpha opened up to our North and the fire seemed to subside especially when we took out a couple of targets down the beach as well.

Next we had another cresting order to advance on the town. After cresting I realised someone was shooting at us from behind and I turned to see a prone hostile pinging rounds at Grizzly so I paused to get rid of him. We were quite open at this time so I ordered our men to push forwards to some harder cover when the world started exploding. My legs went and I staggered around the immediate area with grenade fire all around. I knew my time was short so my last order to the men was to get to the beach where they would be out of sight when a split second later I was exploded back to spectator.

On the back foot.
Alpha SL
On the Northern end of the formation we had a couple of buildings to defend. I saw these buildings and started laughing as they stuck out from the terrain like sore thumbs and anyone holed up in them would be blindingly obvious to the approaching hostiles. With the men spread out and fall back positions set we kept our eyes out and soon saw men moving towards us through the trees, had this been Arma 2 I might have hit a few moving between the trees but seeing as this is The Future I haven't got round to controlling the guns properly so hozed an entire area with a mag on full auto before ordering a grenade barrage and a pull back.

We retreated while pausing to put fire on the last know positions of the hostiles when CO and A2 seemed to buy it. I ordered my men back to the main base and told bravo to do the same while dodging the rounds that were coming in. I eventually got to the HQ and made the mistake of going inside to get some time to think. This resulting in the building being suppressed to buggery and the doors being shot at by MG fire, thankfully this gave me a pretty good position of the enemy but before I could relay it I exploded. Which was unfortunate.

Burn
CSL
First in, under a barrage of mg fire from the hill opposite our LZ, we dropped down as soon as we disembarked and made our way to the valley bottom out of harm's way. We slowly pushed up the valley with no contacts to close with the outposts as Alpha did the same to the North. We got right up to the ridge near some enemy positions and prepared to crest, apparently the AI didn't like this much and charged down on us almost wiping out myself and Charlie 1. We took care of the bad mens and cleared up the ridge near C2s position, cresting to see hostiles to the North, C2 requested to engage but we had to focus on the nearby outpost. Turns out they were focussing on us so with a quick "On me!" I dashed over the road to the south to find a route in cover.

Unfortunately we were already taking losses and by the time we had closed to the outpost buildings we were down to about 4 of us. I started room clearing with Christoph and discovered a few AI camping out in a house next to the main building. Turns out they are REALLY resistant to bullets, so I emptied half a mag into each. Then their friends turned up, killed a bunch of them but I think we lost another man at this point as we turned to clear the main building. Pund and Christoph went into the main building at the ground floor so I went to the upper floor, meeting a few more AI inside. At this point I was not at all sure who was alive or if it was just me and I was getting massively confused as to what we looked like compared to the enemy. This caused me to hesitate far too much and eventually get killed while kicking myself as more and more hostile infantry poured into the outpost.

Cratesistance
A3 FTL
There was a bit of logistics that got a bit faffy due to my connection issues and a break down in communication but while we were pratting about (Striders are much fun to drive about!) A1 & 2 cleared the first cache, good job guys! We drove on over to 1) distract the enemy from A1 and 2) provide an attacking force South of the target. We succeed in both these objectives when we got to the drop off point we came under fire almost as soon as we had formed up. The fire was coming from the fields to the North and enemy infantry could be seen moving in. A2 at this point was given the task of moving in on the target and I saw them disappear of amongst the buildings. I was separated from my team and pretty much pinned against a building, I took out one guy moving in close and pushed up across the road to press the enemy but got ordered back by CO and that was pretty much the last I heard of him.

On my way back I saw a EI right at my old position and took him out. I could hear hostiles about too and was pretty sure I was the only one left up in the area with A2 closing on the cache I knew I had to at least keep these guys busy while they moved up. I decided to check the corpse of the just dead guy to get some more grenades but Arma was being arma and wouldn't let me look at anything useful, I eventually got the bag open and stuffed a couple of nades in my pocket when I heard footsteps. I closed the inventory asap and sung my view up straight into the eyes of Tigershark. We shared a glorious moment but I couldn't hold it in any more ended him. I then heard the voice of his team mate so ran to the building to see if I could locate him, turns out he wasn't in the building but rather outside I put what was left of my mag into the window frame in a vain attempt to take him down. Turns out he had a much larger mag than I did and just kept firing till I hit the dirt. Was a really intense firefight and rather satisfying to see that A2 had made enough distance to finish off the mission.

Had some nice missions tonight with tense atmospheric fire fights, reminded me of what A3 can deliver. A couple of things I would like people to note or focus on:

1) Please communicate, use in game von to let people know if you are up or if you received the order.

2) Please try not to go AFK for extended periods, I appreciate that it can be a bit of a wait at times but keep checking in to see if we are near to a new mission so slotting can happen quickly.

3) If you are not familiar with channel commander go and get it sorted FTL/SL/COing has provided some of my greatest experiences in Arma over the years. Get CC sorted and you can take these roles and try something different. It isn't particularly hard and there isn't a crushing weight of responsibility, be sensible on comms and just make a decision.

User avatar
Mamuto
Posts: 74
Joined: Mon Sep 17, 2012 2:24 pm

Re: [Sun] 20 April (Burn baby BURN)

Post by Mamuto »

Burn
Alpha 1 FTL
I rode shotgun in the first helo with the rest of A1, A2, ASL, and Dabbo as pilot. I noticed we were swinging way far south and too close to enemy positions but before I could say anything we were badly damaged and falling like a rock outta the sky. Thankfully we landed, hard, but on a slope. I yelled at my fireteam to stay inside the chopper because we slid another 50 meters downhill at a solid speed. Once stopped, we jumped out and took cover, returning fire in pretty much every direction. I quickly realized ASL and CO were dead, so I hopped on channel commander and got in touch with Bravo. They were stuck back at base, with no transportation available other than the helos parked there. Dabbo valiantly tried to take off in the other ghosthawk but was quickly downed again. I told Alpha to move uphill to the north east as there was a building to take cover in but the mission was abruptly called.

Note:
I really wish this mission wasn't called prematurely. Yes, it was a clusterfuck, but I would rather play through a clusterfuck than a more boring "shooting gallery" co-op. Yes, we done goofed, but to me that's when it's the most exciting. I may be alone with this sentiment, but I wanted to put it out there.
At the very least, mission makers should leave alternate means of transportation (like trucks) in case something like this happens. It would have been doubly as epic if Alpha was stranded, barely holding their position, as Bravo rushes to help.
Anyway. Sliding in a crashed helicopter with bullets hitting the windshield was awesome.

Surfin
Alpha 1 FTL
We took up position on the hill fairly effortlessly, and started calling out contacts. Took a few out, and the order came down to move forward to a half destroyed building about 50 meters up. Alpha 1 charged in, I almost accidentally shot a friendly, and then all hell broke loose. The vehicle or mounted GMG or whatever it was started pelting the building with explosives. I lost my entire fireteam within seconds. Most of Alpha at the building was eradicated as well. It was just down to me and Comrade Roe, holding out for our lives. Dogface, ASL, kept trying to get us to fall back but I kept telling him we were pretty much pinned down. At one point, we tried to make it back, but were immediately hit by the GMG and Comrade Roe went down. I miraculously managed to stay alive, and huddled in a corner, shellshocked and horrified.
If I say we're pinned, that means we're pinned, Dogface! :argh:
Anyway, I managed to pick off a few more enemies, ran out of ammo, picked up a rocket launcher, found the vehicle, took very careful aim and.... managed to blow myself up because the window I was aiming through wasn't wide enough. GG.

On the Back Foot (Noon attack version)
B1 FTL (defending)
We were tasked with defending the eastern flank with a one fireteam Bravo. I posted Issus a bit more north of us to cover our left flank and the rest of us were hiding in the trees. At one point, we pushed out to the next copse of trees where we ran into enemies not even 50 meters out. I killed one, and we retreated back to our previous position. Eventually one of my guys called out contact not even 100 meters out, and we engaged in another firefight. I grabbed one guy and we flanked to the right, where we scored another kill. With this push neutralized, we double timed it back to the HQ, where things were sounding pretty dire. Once we came within range of the building, we saw 3-4 guys around the backside of it and lit them up. Mission ended immediately after.
No casualties and at least 4 kills for Bravo. Good job guys!

Fun night guys, see ya next time!
Mamuto

Post Reply