I should really get back to writing some debriefing stuff. For today, though, I will restrict myself to something that I noticed yesterday in an alarming volume.
I am talking about friendly fire. During Town Sweep, we had at least one case of a player getting shot by another player and SEVERAL cases of friendly AI getting shot by players, sometimes with deadly consequences. This is not acceptable. In the future more and more missions are bound to have civilian presence (since the next patch will introduce the civilian behavior module). It is mandatory that you PID your targets BEFORE engaging. There is always the chance of a friendly fire incident, but in one case I observed, the player in question first missed the friendly AI and then even pursued them and shot them again.
As I said, the volume of friendly fire in that mission was alarming, which is why I bring it up here.
I was guilty of this yesterday. I was rounding the corner and my AI popped out in front with barrel pointed at me. I shot him in a panic, and immediately realized my mistake right after. The first shot didn't kill him. It was the shot from my teammate soon after that did him away. I should have called out FRIENDLY FIRE as soon as I realized my mistake.
There was another incident where I shot Stag in the hip. Luckily, it wasn't fatal. This was last week.
I will work on this as I know, it is bad form and not in good taste.
Sorry, no debriefing from me, I was practically dead in every mission after about a maximum of ten minutes.
One thing, though, is that I would like to remind everyone of our
Standard Operating Procedures. Specifically, contact reports. The lack of following this has cost my virtual life yesterday on one occasion since I was assuming the enemy came from the front, thus choosing ppor cover that left me completely open to the actual direction of the enemy.
A contact report is not "Contact", nor "Enemies". AT THE VERY LEAST, include a general direction. Either major directions (Front, left right, rear) or clock positions (12 o'clock, 5 o'clock etc). Front resp 12 o'clock is usually the direction of movement. In cases where the terrain needs it, also include a direction like "high", if the enemy is on top of a building or a steep incline.
Initially, this coarse direction is all you need to worry about, and you can ALWAYS get that from just using your eyes and head, you don't need any additional instruments for this (like a compass).
Thank you.
Demolition Team (coop16) Takistan
8 Aug 18
Objectives: Destroy 3x ammo caches in three villages.
General Scheme of Maneuver
Phase 1
Insertion to Objective 1 (northern village) by 4x Humvee
Phase 2
Break in and clearance of Village 1 and blow Cache 1
Phase 3
Break in and clearance of Village 2 and blow Cache 2
Phase 4
Break in and clearance of Village 3 and blow Cache 3
Phase 5
Extraction back to airfield.
ORBAT
Command (Alpha) x4
Bravo x4 + .50 Cal
Charlie x4
Delta x1 + AI + .50 Cal
(designated initial Fire support and overwatch)
Execution
Phase 1
Heading W Delta peeled off north to high ground. Main force encountered enemy outpost, halted and engaged and mostly neutralised the position. Main force then flanked north around outpost to Objective 1.
Good: Good speedy movement of convoy without wasting time. Good navigation from squad leaders and drivers. Halted at a ridgeline to engaged outpost provided good cover.
Improves: I prob shoud have given an "action on" contact in vehicles in the orders, eg if contact front to fan out into wedge or line rater than stay in single file.
Phase 2
Break into Village 1 from E under covering fire from Delta on high ground to the N. Drove right up to buildings at edge of village. Insertion point (IP) was still hot from a few stragglers from outpost to the rear. Bravo tasked to clear northern buildings and Charlie tasked to clear southern buildings using main road as a control line. Bravo insertion position was a bit exposed so they pulled back to Charlie under smoke to then move into village. Alpha remained at IP to deal with rear oupost position and act as a reserve.
I think a couple died here. Bravo and Charlie successfully cleared house to house, blew the cache and returned to IP. Delta ran out of .50 cal ammo here, then moved to high ground to the N of Objective 2.
Good: Good speedy house to house clearing.
Improves: We didn't totally clear the Outpost so we still were receiving fire from there. But I didn't want to waste more time and ammo on it. Also the break-in was a bit gung-ho, and especially Bravo was exposed. We should pick and designate specific buildings to drive to for best cover.
Phase 3
Main force flanked N around Objective 1 to high ground N of Objective 2 and regrouped there with Delta. All callsigns engaged and attrited enemy at Objective 2 from high ground for a while. Bravo tasked to move down to village and start clearing/looking for cache. They received fire from remaining enemy in bunkers on the road etween the objectives 1 and 2. Alpha engaged right bunker with M136 and Charlie engaged right bunker with 84mm HE and HEDP, neutralising both.Enemy flanked our overwatch position to the right and we had close contact from dead ground to our right. Bravo found cache and blew it.
Good: Good use of HE (M136 and Carl Gustav) to neutralise bunkers. Good coord between teams and reporting in of targets/enemy squads.
Improves: We need to watch our flanks and rear, as enemy flanked us right close. Squad leaders ensure to designate tasks to certain individuals to watch L and R flanks and rear, and not all get focussed on front target.
Phase 3.5
Charlie + Delta moved to new position W of Objective 3 on high ground and commenced engagement of Obj 3. Alpha extracted Bravo by vehicle. My crappy driving and navigation led us between Charlie and the Enemy position so we were in a bit of crossfire and I think I heard some RPGs whistling overhead...
Good: Good comms by Charlie to inform us to get out of that area.
Improves: Pick a better route... and again "actions on contact" in vehicles would have helped to get us to safety quicker and avoid confusion...
Phase 4
Charlie + Delta + Alpha remain in loc engaging enemy in Objective 3. Bravo tasked to move E to occupy high ground N of Objective 3. Charlie identified large squad moving along road into Objective 3 from E. Bravo ambushed enemy squad but I think were contacted themselves from a different direction and moved into the village without notifying anyone else and thus copped some friendly fire. Charlie tasked to move to village and clear W buildings (Delta absorbed into Charlie) and Bravo to clear E buildings, Alpha in overwatch.. Enemy Mi-8 then paradropped reinforcements right on top of Charlie in the village. Charlie grabbed OPFOR weapons and some vests. All paratroops neutralised, cache found and blown.
Good: Good volume of fire and quick neutralisation of paratroops. Good notification that some friendlies were using OPFOR weapons to others.
Improves: Blue on blue: moving callsign needs to inform command and/or other callsigns when moving into an engagement area. Individuals beware if you pick up enemy vest or clothing you look like the enemy! Sputnik requires retraining on lawnmower vs chopper ID.
Phase 5
Bravo extracted back to their high ground. Charlie abandoned humvee and comandeered 2x UAZs and regrouped with Alpha, then mainforce regrouped with Bravo on their hill and then everyone rolled back to RTB successfully for mission success.
Good: Quick smooth extraction rolling through RVs without having to stop.
Improves: I didn't like abandoning the humvee and .50 cal - we should have blown it at least but it was end of mission...
General observations:
We should have redistributed some demolitions so both teams had some. Good comms between teams generally, but please ensure to keep giving very short sitreps (number of men, ammo state if you're low) and locstats (position) of your team - it saves the commander having to ask all the time. Good clearance of airwaves when there was contact and good reporting of targets. We should also consistently mark cleared buildings like Bravo did on the map. I think the report lines and RV worked ok except my drawing skills are a bit crap... and finally again sorry to Alpha I should have tasked you guys more into some more action, eg probably the last objective I could have sent you instead of Charlie in or split you guys up to reinforce the other teams. So we should be aware of more and use the ACE split/join teams functions. Thanks to everyone and the mission maker Dalken, I had fun and think I gained a few more battlescars to my face...
Please feel free to add to or correct the above, like to hear from others.
So It's time to revive this old beast.
During the first mission last night I was in Charlie. Approximately 15-20 min into the mission we had noticed Alpha going uphill to the north east to assist Delta who seemed to be in trouble and did not respond on LR. Shortly after we went in the same direction and came under fire with several close encounters of AAF that came trough the smoke. At this point we had no more comms with the other teams and proceeded to clear the rest of the buildings to the north east.
After this the mission ended and we became aware that there had been a rather large friendly fire incident, it seemed that Charlie had wiped out the rest of the other teams, most likely due to lack of comms and big explosions. Even though the area was covered with thick smoke much of the time and we had confirmed close encounters with AAF it highlights the importance of checking and identifying targets before engaging. Sometimes how ever accidents happen.
I think this is a good idea.
I was the Teamleader in Charlie in that mission. There were 2 situations I wanna lay out for everyone to take something away from.
1) When we moved towards the town of Goissé to assist Delta we halted at a barn in the outskirts. That is where we met 1 member of Bravo who told me that there was another Bravo member still in the area. I stayed at the barn and tried to integrate the Bravo members into our team, especially get them on our shortwave channel and getting that last Bravo member to regroup with us.
At that point I also made the decision to split my team and have a few guys move up to the town. Unfortunately more teammembers followed them. So my team was divided and I could not confirm targets myself but had to rely on their information. In all the chaos with Bravo I probably also missed to relay some information to my team in the town that was sent on the command channel. Ultimately this is what lead to the fatal AT shot wiping out I believe Alpha.
So the problem here was trying to do to much at the same time or overestimating what I could deal with at the same time. Or my team ran off and I just did not hold them back properly.
2) second situation happened at the bridge when we were around the vehicle. We had enemies honing in on us from all directions. I tried to place my team in good defensive positions and had a part of the force clearing the graveyard. Also the last Bravo member just regrouped with us in the town. In all that I spotted infantry across the bridge and took the shot. I can't say with 100% certainty but it could have been Varanon. From the coms I expected them to be further away but there is no real excuse for not PIDing your targets. As soon as I realized this mistake after the mission I apologized to him in private and he accpeted.
CSAR Red RU - Charlie Lead
We spawned, 2 groups together, one a couple of hundred meters down the road, and Alpha roughly 1km away. Bravo, Charlie and Delta rapidly regrouped next to a barn, but then there was some confusion as to location and location of Alpha. Seeing a walled compound to the north, I immediately took my squad towards it to clear it out, with the intention of using it for the whole regrouped team to defend from. This seemed to get lost in the communications, as shortly after Charlie occupied the location, a firefight began. We lent what aid we could from where we were, and shortly after communication was lost with the other 2 teams. We then proceeded to defend the location, with McGregor going down unconscious and the only medic 1km away he stayed down the rest of the mission. Working out that Bravo and Delta were unresponsive, I got in contact with Air and gave them my best guess location, and we continued to defend until the MI-6 came in sight. I picked up McGregor and prepared to board when 4 or 5 missiles hit the MI-6 in quick succession and it went down. The attack helicopter RTBd to get a transport helicopter. I went to investigate the potential for survivors from Bravo and Delta, and immediately got shot. Turns out there weren't any anyway.
So, the reason I'm writing this is up we had 2 key failures here. First was a complete lack of chain of command with Alpha elsewhere. I should have just taken control of the large group, but I assumed Bravo lead would and we know what they say about assuming. Maybe in future we can assign a 2ic and even a 3Ic so we know whos in charge when the leader dies. The second, was the MI-6, a pig of a helicopter, coming in to land without the gunship being there. Realistically, the gunship should do a sweep of the area to work out whats about before the transport comes in and absorb fire once the transport decides to land.
Another lesser failing is the leadership of Bravo and Delta. I'm guessing that because they had no direction, they basically stayed in place and died, despite there being a clearly better position less than 100m down the road. Sometimes you just need to use your initiative.
Lost in the bush
obviously I did not think about it in the briefing or while we were playing. But since TLs have 343s we could assign FTs. That would help with securing sectors and that way the TLs are responsible for their teams making it out.
We didn't have one of those in quite a while, and to be quite honest, I miss those, they were always good reads. I would really encourage everyone to write one of those now and then, doesn't need to be a tactical discussion (which is difficult if you weren't a team leader), just a first-hand report on how you experienced the mission.
Lost in the Bush
(Door Gunner)
There's not much to say regarding tactics in "Lost Squad" type missions. Either the chopper finds you, or not, and you just keep shooting things until you are either dead or rescued (which makes this kind of mission great for beginning an evening)
The Hussars
("Bravo" TL)
First of all, great mission, Revenant, really enjoyed it.
Phantom was mission lead, and in discord he basically claimed his approach wasn't too good. I beg to differ. The approach to the objective town was good, there was no way this could have done substantially better. We knew of mine fields on the opposite side, which makes approaching from any other direction than the one we did basically impossible.
The only thing about the approach was something I remarked during the mission: The teams moved too independently. This lead to a situation where an enemy technical was approaching from the east. Variable called it out, I looked east, and saw (from about 100 degrees from my position) a technical approaching that was manned by us, so I called out to hold fire. Then I saw at about 80 degrees from where I stood another technical, the one Variable called out. It opened up on us, Variable returned fire, and got the gunner (but the gunner got me first) and only Benchmarks gentle touch brought me back to life. This misunderstanding could have been avoided had the teams moved as a unit.
We approached the town, but at that moment, I think the biggest mistake was not trying to find the GRADs immediately. That is a trap we often fall into: We approach a target and think we have to kill everything in order to kill the actual objective "safely". However, this isn't the case. Had we known where the GRADs were, we could have conducted a concentrated assault on them, and only them. Clearing the town wasn't an objective.
Upon entering the town, we were quickly overrun, which lead to a pretty epic last stand that finally claimed the live of Rund, me, Variable and Kamchatka, but was a pretty awesome experience and IMHO one of the cornerstones of playing Arma.
Bottom line, the only real mistake was not trying to find out where our objectives were before entering the town. Once in the town, we were up against impossible odds.
Proper Colors
(APC gunner)
As the gunner, I did not see much of the actual strategy unfold. The APC was pretty welll used, although we always are basically too timid regarding APC use. However, the mission went pretty well and ended in victory.
Lost in the Bush
(Door Gunner)
I enjoyed this, quick missions and quick to action missions are always a great way to warm up for ARMA evenings.
The PUMA was hilariously loud so it was entertaining trying to shout over the noise to talk to Varanon and Alwarren.
The Hussars
(Vehicle Commander/Gunner)
This was a really enjoyable mission, simple task, straight forward plan.
The comms were good throughout.
Considering the limitations of views (no ability to turn out) we (Sputnik and I) applied ourselves pretty well.
We were effective without being overpowered and therefore ruining the mission for the boots on the ground.
Things got really interesting when our BTR80 was destroyed. We had to bail and fight for our lives. When searching for supplies to keep Sputnik alive he literally died just after we found what we needed. I lamented his loss and then geared up from some fallen enemies.
Then of course, while being cheeky and bemoaning about our infantries lack of skill (for those spectating) and finding out I was the last man standing the very first enemy encountered ended me much to the amusement of those watching I think.
Nevertheless, I had a great time.
Lost in the Bush
(Rifleman)
As this mission does not use radio's the communication when things go down is hard, and you end up in small groups. When we had contact, I managed to cross the field to a small house with Phantom and Stick. We held up pretty good and managed to take out 2 technicals from inside. Then stick got injured, but our medic was not near (problably dead already). When Sputnik came in landing, I sprinted to it, and wondered what kept Phantom so long. Then Sputnik had to take off, and I was the only survivor. On the route we communicated to the other chopper that Phantom and stick might still be there, not realizing Phantom had crashed.
In hindsight I should have carried Stick, but I always forget about the fancy ACE functions ;
The Hussars
Grenadier
Great mission, and the random encounters in the forest on our way in already caught us by more surprise than it should. After some confusion about the uniforms and the incomming UAZ, we were warmed up for the main attack. We were at the south of the main road, and there wasn't much cover. A Vodnik went by dangerously close, but didn't see us. We should have taken some rpg with us! Then the advance on the town went well, but it was hard to see where the friendly teams were located. Then we garrisoned in a ruin, where we were being attacked from all sides. I got exposed due to a hole in the ruin, and went down quite soon. The AI keeps amazing me with the last few tweaks. Amazing!
Proper Colors
Heavy gunner
Again Stag amazed me with the atmosphere in this mission, the random bursts of tracers in the distance, the burning wrecks everywhere, all kinds of details, even sound effects were just amazing.
The fighting didn't go well for me, I got wounded too many times, but could survive every time and I felt that I slowed down my team all the time. We had some nice distant firefights when we engaged the train station and harbour. Then we climbed a high-rise building, first I got hit by the back-blast of Variables AT4 (we were still evacuating that room) and I fell down the ladder twice. I got frustrated and had too log out, was too tired to continue fixing my errors. Would play this mission again!
There's definitely a lesson to be learned from yesterday's coop.
I am talking about the Hussars mission and how my team was basically thrown into the meat grinder. I did not understand the reasoning for this, but it, to me, shows an underlying issue that we need to work out.
Namely, focusing on the mission.
Some time ago when I zeus'ed my own mission I listened in on the chat and I heard people complain "how are we going to kill all of these", referring to an overwhelming enemy force. The thing is, "killing all of these" wasn't the mission. The mission was to blow up a radio tower and get out. But to me it seems we make every mission these days into "killing all of these". Yesterday's exercise was no different, and I am quite annoyed that such a poor strategy and execution got rewarded with a more or less accidental win - namely because after the demise of our team, the other team realized that just storming in yelling "Banzai" doesn't work when the enemy has overwhelming force.
The result was that for half of the players the mission was over five minutes after start.
Now, everybody has their own style of leading. Some people prefer to take it slow, others want to go and get right into CQB range. But a major consideration is that there are around 15 other people that are playing too. And a mission maker that has spent hours on making a mission. There is no need to go ballistic on a mission like this.
If this had been a real-life situation, we wouldn't have known what to expect in the town. As it were, we DID know what to expect in the town, so charging in like this was, mildly put, a suicide run from the very beginning. And to celebrate this as a success is, mildly put, a kick in everyone's face who got killed in the first five minutes. We knew there were AT LEAST three Vodnik's, one BMP-2, and a couple of technicals. Storming the place was never going to work.
But to loop back to what I said in the beginning. there is NO POINT in trying to kill everyone if the mission DOES NOT ASK FOR IT. "Killing all of these" was not supposed to work, yet again and again this is the approach that mission leaders or team leaders take.
For once, can we please try something else?
T-34
(Tank commander)
The mission itself was straightforward, at least the beginning. Get into the vehicle depot, and get the tank while the rest of the bunch takes trucks and UAZs.
We reached it, my team got into the tank, and we waited. We spent ten minutes at that barn, doing I don't know what. At one point I decided that the tank was too valuable to be killed in the first few minutes by an RPG and moved it behind the barn. Just in time, because a second later an RPG hit the barn itself.
Listening to the chatter on the long range, I noticed that some teams were not really doing their job. From what I understood, one team had advanced way beyond the barn and was already close to the city. The rest was debating whether to take the UAZ, or the truck, or the UAZ with the Strela on it etc. This was taking far too long.
From there on out, we moved south, stopping once on an open field. After a bit of fighting, and another about ten minutes of trying to get people up, we moved on. This was again a problem since the long wait for tending for the wounded produced more wounded (due to encounters with numerous vehicles moving along the main road directly next to us). In this case, it's best to load the wounded onto the truck and have the medics deal with them while we are moving to a save place. Mind, not putting the blame on the leadership, this was a situation where, when you are leading, things like that don't really enter your mind (I know that I never think of those "easy" solutions when leading).
Before we reached the tower, we were severely crippled, with only the tank and a handful of infantry remaining. Nonetheless, we managed to get the objectives and moved in on the friendly town. Identifying targets was hell in this, the snow basically makes every uniform look black, and it's hard to discern Russians from CDF. In the end, technical problems killed the mission and a T-72 killed our tank.
The T-34 is a piece of shit, really, no visibility, no optics, and a hand-cranked turret that takes a minute to fully traverse.
Overall, the problem was us staying in one place for far too long. But that is a problem we always have.
Again, not trying to bash the leader here, it is hard to lead such a mission, and I'm sure I would have done worse.
I agree with the staying in place too long, it's a reoccurring issue. The mission lead was killed at the barn battle, I ended up dropping from Phantom's team and taking command as I wanted to get us all moving again. In my opinion we were just sitting there taking on all comers and would soon be out of ammo, medical supplies, and men.
To be fair the mission lead was killed at the barn and loss of command does throw a monkey wrench into everything, that's why cutting the head off the snake is always an encouraged move, just a shame it happened to us in this case. I'm not sure how long the mission lead was out, but we had been there at the barn for quite a while when I finally pipped up, "What are we doing? What's the word from the top?" some one said "mission lead isn't responding." I ran along the barn back by a UAZ and saw the commander was dead. I felt I knew what needed to be done so I asked Phantom if I could drop from his team and that I was going to take the long range and assume command.
I should have responded to this thread earlier, (it's been a few days since the mission and I've forgotten all the details), I do recall that getting the survivors mounted up into vehicles and moving again was a bit of a cat herding operation. There was a lot of confusion and I think a few groups got split up into different vehicles.
I do think we need to continue to focus on breaking contact in a faster and more orderly fashion in the future. I've been noticing more attempts to do so lately, Alwarren or Varanon ordered a contact break and withdrawal the previous week on a mission on Altis that went perfectly. Way too often however a contact with firefight occurs and we go all in, even when the fight does not advance the mission goal or objective, it becomes a complete waste of resources and leads to mission failure.
Too often we let the enemy (the AI) choose the point of battle and then we stick there and fight to the death. You never let the enemy dictate the time or location of a battle. As a rule of thumb I'd say, if you didn't initiate the fire fight, withdraw as soon as possible. Once contact is broken, then evaluate to either re initiate contact at your discretion from an advantageous position or bypass if further engagement with that enemy does not advance the mission goal.
I suggest moving the debrieding thread to discord:
- make a seperate channel called e.g. #debriefing
- contents are feedback for mission makers, leadership, players
- discussion about tactics?
- keep most discussions in that channel -> more playtime on coop nights
- having it on discord means more people will participate
- copy very important stuff to this thread for archiving purposes
what do you guys think?