Comrades in Arms Discussion Board

Lots of notable mission executions on Thursday, so let me get started on the points I wanted to raise

Rescue Miller
Since it was the first mission of the night, I allowed myself to recklessly driving in a stolen truck in enemy territory. That gamble proved itself on the way to the radar station but no long after hehe, when we mistakenly designated the helicopter as the unarmed type lol. The battle on the radar station was great, one team sweeping in, and one team fending off the reinforcements. Great job everyone.

Pulsate Ion Conspiracies Episode 3
Great ob everyone! The BMD crew acted admirably, we managed to make the most out of the armor vehicle which saved us several times from BTR attacks. Good work both Red and Blue teams on keeping the enemy away on the way to the airbase. The battle was epic.
Note about suppression - You don't need to know where exactly the enemy is in order to suppress it. When suppression order is given, empty about one full mag in the enemy general direction, and in general direction I mean an arc of about 30 degrees is accurate enough. If you have no idea what is the general direction to the enemy when the suppression order is given - ask. The worst we can do is just not suppress the enemy and keep silent about it.

(10-09-2015, 02:01 PM)Stagwine link Wrote:RHS flares are already pretty good, and now we have serverside add-on to make 'em even better.

That's not a server side addon, it's clientside. Zeus KLS Flare Fix - make sure you have it (unless you have Blastcore which do the same, although buggy in several departments and not recommended).

Paratroopers
Great mission, great leading, great execution, good job all. Working with the Darter UAV gave us clear picture of the enemy defense and Misha put up a good plan with one team infiltrating the factory to secure the laptop while another fend off the QRF from the outpost. It was fun and yet stressing to hear the gunfight outside while we searched the factory. Notable moment - Stag, Outlawz and myself hunkering down in a poor wooden shed while an Ifrit HMG assaulted us, and Doveman's AT taking it out at the last moment - a true Arma moment right there!

Thanks to all who participated, keep the debriefing posts coming!

FHQ Bloodlines:

I liked this mission a lot. Lot of effort and thought is put into mission and it offers military flatbed truckload of tactical options for the leader. I also liked utilizing the cargo lifting/tactical logistics (as long as I don't have to fly myself).

I think SPhoenix's plan and leading was solid, but we ran into unexpected difficulties in our LZ. One third of team was mowed down before we even knew what hit us, and the Russian spetnaz team effectively decimated us. I had horrible situational awareness in the fight and I was eventually cut down while making a dash to revive Sphoenix.

When observing the action from the sky as usual, couple of notices. Russian tanks seemed tough. I am pretty sure A-10s hit the tanks with Mavericks, but it didn't even scratch them! (Or then it was damn near miss) Same thing as the magic Shilkas in previous coop night? I know RHS has its own armor penetration and I would understand it if it was vanilla A-164, but it was RHS aircraft vs RHS tank! I'm going to test this in editor when I get the chance.

I was thinking: Would it be entirely boring and against scenario spirit if we would make our stand near defensive line? Say, one team just west of Agios Dionysos ( I think that was the town), and one team SW near the defensive line. We would not have to deal with Spetnaz, we would have plenty of time to prepare minefields, ferry equipment, and have ample time to spot tanks from the distance.

We would use remote designators to find out which highway are the tanks coming from, maybe even sacrifice one light helo to recon role, and use our A-10s to attrit the approaching tanks at a distance and finish the job with javelins at max range.

FHQ Powerplant of Horror

Losing the vehicle support in the start hurt a lot. I think we did well despite the odds. Special thanks to brave remnants of Alpha (McG, Freeman, Alias) and ragtag band of infantry on a doomed open field assault to powerplant (As a final insult I found out after I died that we had only missed 3 surviving tanks in the target area).

I would definetely like to try this again. Outcome might have been quite different had our vehicle support survived.  Lot of thought and effort, like all FHQ missions. Perhaps scratch enemy gunship, or add extra AA launcher to cargo bay of vehicle?

Rolling Thunder II

Considering the theme of the evening, I don't think anyone was surprised that our APC got nuked (sic) at the start of the mission.  Great leading Den and good work everyone, especially in the end. I was barely awake and marked enemy LZ to wrong spot and it wasted mortar strike, but we made it.

The mission was a just a bit too vanilla for CiA, but originally the mission was intended for 'general public'. Highlight of the evening was watching someone fly 30m hollywood stunt arc after being banged by the surprise APC. I'm still surprised we survived that one.  Otherwise, it is deliciously perverse and embarassing to watch your own mission murder people. Hope you guys had fun.

(10-12-2015, 02:05 PM)Stagwine link Wrote:FHQ Bloodlines:

I liked this mission a lot. Lot of effort and thought is put into mission and it offers military flatbed truckload of tactical options for the leader. I also liked utilizing the cargo lifting/tactical logistics (as long as I don't have to fly myself).

It's one of my favorite missions. I almost glad it takes alwarren long to fine tune it and for us to complete it since it gives us more opportunities to enjoy it. This mission is Arma at its best, especially now with the air support.

(10-12-2015, 02:05 PM)Stagwine link Wrote:When observing the action from the sky as usual, couple of notices. Russian tanks seemed tough. I am pretty sure A-10s hit the tanks with Mavericks, but it didn't even scratch them! (Or then it was damn near miss) Same thing as the magic Shilkas in previous coop night? I know RHS has its own armor penetration and I would understand it if it was vanilla A-164, but it was RHS aircraft vs RHS tank! I'm going to test this in editor when I get the chance.

As a pilot, I noticed my Mavericks impacting the tanks and not doing much. Thanks for checking it out! I look forward to see what you find out.

(10-12-2015, 02:05 PM)Stagwine link Wrote:I was thinking: Would it be entirely boring and against scenario spirit if we would make our stand near defensive line? Say, one team just west of Agios Dionysos ( I think that was the town), and one team SW near the defensive line. We would not have to deal with Spetnaz, we would have plenty of time to prepare minefields, ferry equipment, and have ample time to spot tanks from the distance.

We would use remote designators to find out which highway are the tanks coming from, maybe even sacrifice one light helo to recon role, and use our A-10s to attrit the approaching tanks at a distance and finish the job with javelins at max range.

Remember that we have the Russian armor columns tracked by satellite and marked on our maps.

(10-12-2015, 02:05 PM)Stagwine link Wrote:Rolling Thunder II


Considering the theme of the evening, I don't think anyone was surprised that our APC got nuked (sic) at the start of the mission.  Great leading Den and good work everyone, especially in the end. I was barely awake and marked enemy LZ to wrong spot and it wasted mortar strike, but we made it.


The mission was a just a bit too vanilla for CiA, but originally the mission was intended for 'general public'. Highlight of the evening was watching someone fly 30m hollywood stunt arc after being banged by the surprise APC. I'm still surprised we survived that one.  Otherwise, it is deliciously perverse and embarassing to watch your own mission murder people. Hope you guys had fun.

TBH I didn't expect it to be blown up within 30 seconds of it being in the open (I was part of the master plan because it would've been too easy with APC  : . ). I can't believe we didn't see the APC next to us though. Good thing for the barbed wire otherwise it would've been GGWP.


Thanks, good work everyone following commands precisely and we still managed to complete it even without the APC.

There's a random chance for static Titan AT occupying one of the sandbag bunkers, but it is difficult to spot. It is very low profile target. It is also not supposed to shoot in that wide sector, but stuff happens. Evenings coops were destructive to vehicles anyway so it was a suitable ending.   

Bloodlines

A fundamental issue that, unfortunately, often plagues us is people taking a slot in spite of not knowing how to operate it. Case in point, my UAV operator. IF you have no clue how to operate a UAV, why did you take it in the first place? And even worse, when I asked who else would be capable, everyone stayed quiet. I literally lost minutes trying to organize ONE guy for a UAV terminal. In the meantime the armour was on the move and things evolved into a clusterfuck. I intended to organize a perimeter defense but due to the delays this proved to be impossible.

So PLEASE, is it really so hard to try and test this once to get the proficiency. Just place some units in the editor and try it, it's not complicated?

Incidents like this are a contributing factor why I sometimes don't want to lead.

So I had my CAS Pilot debut yesterday and I wanted to share some insights.


Actually only one really important thing: no matter what, keep your speed as high as possible. I know this has been said a lot, and I followed it for most of the mission, which worked out fine. At the end (it was the end for me anyways...) I slowed down to try and engage enemies one by one. Even though it was only small arms fire I (the pilot) got hit directly through the window almost emediatly... might have been a different story in a closed helicopter though


Another problem I had was technical problems with my throttle. As I found out later its scripting tool (used to map radio key commands to the throttle) crashed, causing the whole thing to just not work... Because it was late and I didn't want to delay too much I just switched to mouse/keyboard. Didn't hit shit like this. Later realized that the stick was still working, so I switched to stick/keyboard which made it much easier, should have thought of that earlier (again, it was late  : )
I kept spraying the area between the hotel and pool houses with bullets for the rest of the mission, no idea if it did much...

(10-16-2015, 04:06 PM)Manuel link Wrote:At the end (it was the end for me anyways...) I slowed down to try and engage enemies one by one. Even though it was only small arms fire I (the pilot) got hit directly through the window almost emediatly

Holy crap, that guy must've had some God aim :o


I don't think that ever happened to me.

(10-16-2015, 04:06 PM)Manuel link Wrote:Actually only one really important thing: no matter what, keep your speed as high as possible. I know this has been said a lot, and I followed it for most of the mission, which worked out fine. At the end (it was the end for me anyways...) I slowed down to try and engage enemies one by one. Even though it was only small arms fire I (the pilot) got hit directly through the window almost immediately... might have been a different story in a closed helicopter though

Yeah, I ordered you to do it knowingly that that might cost you your life and us our CAS because at that stage the enemy was scarce and I thought the threat to you is smaller and you could pick them off one by one. I was wrong :/

(10-16-2015, 04:06 PM)Manuel link Wrote:I kept spraying the area between the hotel and pool houses with bullets for the rest of the mission, no idea if it did much...

You did great. Even if you didn't hit much you suppressed them, and that kept more of them from getting into the hotel and that allowed us to focus more on shooting out from the hotel and first aiding guys who were hit. I saw several enemy smoke shells and they pop those only when they are heavily suppressed. Good job!

(10-16-2015, 04:06 PM)Manuel link Wrote:So I had my CAS Pilot debut yesterday and I wanted to share some insights.

Actually only one really important thing: no matter what, keep your speed as high as possible. I know this has been said a lot, and I followed it for most of the mission, which worked out fine. At the end (it was the end for me anyways...) I slowed down to try and engage enemies one by one. Even though it was only small arms fire I (the pilot) got hit directly through the window almost emediatly... might have been a different story in a closed helicopter though

A good tip is to have the zoom assigned to a rotary switch or something. I have mine mapped to one on my throttle. It allows me to "stop" but much further away from the enemy and pick off individual soldiers. I always try to have a slight sideways drift while doing this to avoid getting hit

(10-17-2015, 08:28 AM)Variable link Wrote:You did great. Even if you didn't hit much you suppressed them, and that kept more of them from getting into the hotel and that allowed us to focus more on shooting out from the hotel and first aiding guys who were hit. I saw several enemy smoke shells and they pop those only when they are heavily suppressed. Good job!

Good to know, something was causing smoke to be rendered wrong (smoke didn't spread, kept to a ~1.5*1.5*1.5 cube...) so I didn't see much off that. Got it fixed by now though...

(10-17-2015, 11:41 AM)McGregor link Wrote:A good tip is to have the zoom assigned to a rotary switch or something. I have mine mapped to one on my throttle. It allows me to "stop" but much further away from the enemy and pick off individual soldiers.

I use TrackIR when flying, so I just have to lean forward. I removed it though because my position was different when using the keyboard, I guess I was a little to close to the screen for it to work properly. But yeah, usually I do the zoom-thing too

(10-19-2015, 01:21 AM)Manuel link Wrote:Good to know, something was causing smoke to be rendered wrong (smoke didn't spread, kept to a ~1.5*1.5*1.5 cube...) so I didn't see much off that. Got it fixed by now though...

Make sure you are not running Blastcore.

(10-19-2015, 01:21 AM)Manuel link Wrote:I use TrackIR when flying, so I just have to lean forward. I removed it though because my position was different when using the keyboard, I guess I was a little to close to the screen for it to work properly. But yeah, usually I do the zoom-thing too

Same here, disabled it too

I want to make a reminder about speaking loud and articulating clearing on the radio because it is hard for teammates to guess what you are saying with the sound of gunfire over your head and explosions. Avoids confusion, smoother communication among everybody.

FHQ Mission of Murder

From a grunts viewpoint plan went smooth until we started taking out the AAAs. I was one of the unfortunate suspects. I couldn't get a lock on from the tower, nor from the ground. I saw it clearly in thermal behind the building, but the launcher refused to lock. Evans managed to take a shot, but the missile hit a building in front of the Tigris. I probably should have fired the missile without a lock a bit up to the sky, and then to just 'wire guide' it to target, but I learned that you can actually do that bit too late. Then I made a controversial decision to attempt a lock on from the radar dome, but fell through the stairs while climbing. Good night. I took a side respawn to APC commander, and one minute after it was nuked to particles unknown to human science. I brought ill luck to my team in that mission.

Lost Squad Chernarus

Everyone was moaning that it is dark, pitch black, but I loved it. Obviously I get my pleasures from perverse stuff. It had great atmosphere of panic when we started taking fire, had no idea where we were, and had to rely on Phantom's flares. Great fun!

Winters twilight.

It was surprisingly addictive to watch the action from the sky (not as a seagull). Obviously it was my own mission so I knew what to expect, and I think both teams did great job. Players approached the mission as I had in mind, and plotted sensible and sane search patterns.

Both teams reacted very well to fire when they clashed with first VDV maneuver teams. Mission worked pretty well as a stand alone and I had to do only subtle additions. At your second clash, when Outlawz's (I think) team was making a way across forest clearing you took a fire from your flank and RPG gunner missed your team with thermobaric RPG round. HAd that hit, it would have wiped half of the squad. You located very quickly the origin of fire and cleared the threat. At that point, I started to make small changes. You were doing way too well

I mostly tried to think how enemy commander would react. I share excerpt from war diary of 1st Razvedka platoon/3rd company/1st Battalion of 104th Air Assault Regiment on their Thirsk campaign.

"
Baltic Sea. Island of Thirsk. 4th day.

I've spent half a hour next to radio at my command post. I lost half of my company yesterday when we assaulted the church of the capital and now it's snowing like in Siberia. My teams reported sounds of turboprop engines in the Baltic darkness. GRU confirms enemy is attepting a resupply, and it seems they missed the drop zones. US teams are no doubt out there, but so are my elite recon teams!

One of my teams fails to check in with me. Radio? Weather is bad, and cold is eating our batteries. I wait 10 minutes. This isn't time for hasty decisions.

Then, I get a radio message. One my search teams has found a blinking blue light in woods some 200m away. I order them to move in slowly and carefully. Few minutes after this, they report of US team meeting at the crate. I tell them to move in and wipe them out. Flank the enemy, don't just to rush in! No one acknowledges the transmission and no more messages are received.  Damn.

I send forth the reserve squad of my best veterans with a helicopter despite the weather. Each one of them has combat experience from Georgia and Dagestan.  They can handle anything that capitalistic exploiters of the west can dish out. Helicopter reports LZ clear and proceeds to reconnoiter forests from air. Helicopter reports of a flare, but fails to spot anyone in the blizzard. I'm concerned of portable launchers, and I won't risk my last helicopters. I pull it back. I need it later. Squad on the ground is sent to investigate last known location of flare, and they find bodies of their comrades. Leader, veteran sergeant, plots a new search course.

(One of your teams made a short cut, or got lost, and adjusted their path to RV with another team which went to investigate the wreck of the plane. As a result, you avoided narrowly being ganged by a full VDV squad. They passed you DAMN close! I won't metagame, and if I hear you guys make plans on radio, I won't use the information 'out of context'. I might consider adding NVGs to AI in future missions. Most of the time they do well, but sometimes they are damn blind. It was lots of fun to watch it though : ) )

My VDV squad found faint set of tracks in the snow and 97 empty cans of Tactical Bacon! Ah! There were at least two teams! My maneuver team further east moving with UAZ was given order to carefully reconnoiter the US forces near coast and report what exactly we are dealing with. Sounds of gunfire and silence. Another team goes missing, but I now have a rough fix.Definetely somewhere near coastal road!

Damn. Had my battalion deployed in Gotland I would be enjoying Swedish vodka by now, but I am stranded on damn Thirsk, and dealing with what has to be at least a platoon of Delta Force operators. I send three maneuver teams from all directions at same time, and tell them to suppress, cover, and move together (herding AI in combat mode is a PITA even as Z). They report a visual of a beacon of a supply crate. I tell them to move in slowly. No risks. Suddenly edge of forest explodes and my teams are cut down with accurate fire. Efreitor on the ground is wounded, still thinking whiskey-tango-foxtrot hit us, and as a last act, grabs RPG from the ground and loads it with Frag warhead. There! 3-4 enemies prone. Sweet target, and they haven't noticed him! Hands shaking from battle stress and cursor is at target. Eat this Big Macs! Millisecond before he presses the trigger there is a muzzle flash, and it is good night. (I was playing opfor at that point, and I think it was Alpha team which made a juicy target, but was saved seriously at VERY last second! Great Zeus moment there!) 

More casualties. I radio HQ and request a Mi-24 gunship support. Some S8KOM's and they are fried Kiev chicken. Denied (d20 roll dice fail). Too risky and Americans might have received new Stingers. But my 2B14 mortar platoon is on stand by, and now I at least have a non moving enemy at my sights! Wounded sergeant on the ground is still alive, having witnessed destruction of his elite VDV team. He calls in fire, but blood loss and battle stress makes him read coordinates wrong. First round lands to coast, way off target! 'Vampir, 45-00. Left 250, add 100, fire!'. Next round lands closer, but not quite there yet! However the lucky round wounds two enemy soldiers! Their comrades rush to give first aid. Sweet non moving target! 'Vampir, left 50, add 50, fire!'.  Sound of shriek as 82mm HE round flies over my head. There! Close enough!

Call for 'fire for effect' is received at the mortar platoon. Tired crews are rushing new 82mm HE rounds to guns. Sergeant hears the muzzle sounds of the mortars at distance and  manages to spot a sleeve insignia patch through the binoculars. CiA! One of their elite units! Those guys wiped half of my company when they defended the church! (Mission Winters Chill. COOP night week ago) Trees falls and shrapnel and blast waves pelts the enemy! Impacts aren't quite on target, but I spot casualties, and they are pulling back!

No risks now. Enemy is a capable opponent. I better send the big guns. Mortars are firing smoke to conceal the move, but my BTR gets stuck in the snow. Same time my recon Mi-8 lands a squad to the coast. Damn pilot goes too close. I warned him of possible Stingers! My BTR reports of strange objects in snow and stops for a fateful second. Accurate M136 round, or hidden M19 AT mine blows it to sky high.

Helicopter pilot made one last error and reports of a missile hit and loss of hydraulic pressure. He manages to unload half of the squad to ground, but moment later it is destroyed on the ground with another AT4 (or Javelin). This is escalating into another debacle. My radio is pinging like symbals of Bolshoi's orchestra. I ignore it and order my last reserves to move forth (I noticed your pingings, but I decided odds were still 'good to go'). Americans are wounded, and maybe I can finish the job.

But it wasn't to be. My last BTR is destroyed and my squad is shattered and stuck in the snow. Leader is dead, and they are panicked (aka stuck/bugged/and it required my attention to micromanage them at this point). Sound of helicopter! American Cobra! (I got a soft heart and helped you but damn AI pilots didn't engage the Russians on ground :/ )My AA team readies the 9K34 and manages to shoot it! A hit! Enemy gunship retreats, but another is hovering somewhere close, but staying way off the missile range.

So be it. Valar Morghulis. With a heavy heart, and more Stolichnaya, I radio my last teams order to disengage. Panicked (aka stuck) forces finally follows my command, and CiA has won another day, but war isn't over. Before disappearing to snowy forest my razviedka sergeant reads name tags of the fallen Americans from their uniforms. MacGregor. Alwarren (must be a KSK operator), and at least two others. Well next time, we get them all!

(Despite speculation, I did not purposefully murder you with the mortar fire. Well, my script did, but I didn't do it as Zeus. There is 60m radius where rounds lands, and you had super bad luck to get the hit by bracketing round. Sorry. I don't know about you, but I had tons of fun ^^)