Comrades in Arms Discussion Board

This is my little anecdote about how the stars aligned to bring me max confusion during Stag's Missing in action last night.

We were flying in to get the ground team out (me and Misha in the hummingbird). Alwarren informed us that they were at an oil field with a big smoke column and had marked their location with red smoke.

Meanwhile Varanon and Alias was shot down and requesting our assistance. I had to break off since Varanon and Alias had taken fire from a vehicle on the ground. Finally we came across an oil field with a black smoke column and I was franticly looking for red smoke.

I couldn't see any and we circled for a while. Finally I realized that the black smoke at the oil field we were at was from the downed Pawnee and Varanon and Alias was stuck in it wondering why we wouldn't just land and rescue them  :o . After getting them up we proceeded to the other oil field to get the ground team.

As all this was going on I was communicating with both Alwarren and Varanon, both telling me they were in oil fields with black smoke columns. Wtf, did you guys orchestrate this on purpose? I can normally tell you guys apart but that was insanely confusing

LOL McGregor i can only imagine  ;D


We were crashed at Nagara oil field and Alwarren kept telling he is there but he was in a different oil field
The most absurd thing was the way we were shut down, we still not sure what got us, we had no enemies around at the time, all was well and Varanon piloted pretty nice.
Then friendlies decided to engage Varanon in airbase and that brought more confusion We were downed again by friendlies.
So yeah, i spent most of the mission crawling in pain thanks to the way ARMA rates you if you crash or destroy a vehicle with friendlies in it.


Anyways, thank you McGregor for saving and bringing us to the base that's what a comrade does.

(12-04-2015, 01:24 PM)alias link Wrote:We were crashed at Nagara oil field and Alwarren kept telling he is there but he was in a different oil field

There are two large oil fields in the north, Nagara-1 and the Par-e Siah field. I was convinced that Par-e Siah is flat, while Nagara-1 is pretty hilly. Turns out they both are. Doh.

I can be blamed for pointing McGregor to the downed Pawnee because I saw marking on the map, forgot what it said exactly, but was sure that this was the unit that we need to rescue. And then we saw the smoke from the chopper wreck which enforced our belief.


However, we mange to save the crew this way, so it's not so bad after all. 

Firebird

Losing the APC was my fault. I urged them to move forward, and a javelin gunner on the northern ridge got them. Very unfortunate, because up to that point the APC performed well, especially with the Bradley.

The Humvee in the barn that gunned us down was a real bummer. Not much we could do about that one. Had I known it, we might have had team red move around on the northern side of the town to get in its rear. But given that we did not have night vision and the barn was almost pitch black inside, there was no chance in hell we could have seen this one until it opened fire.

However, the .50 cal on the road was not an accident. I told Team Red to stay put, and tried to flank with my team on the southern side of the town in the MG's side. In such a case, team Red should really stay out of the line of fire (I assumed they would) until such time as Team Green was ready to attack. Only then would Team Red take a few shots to attract its attention while Team Green moves in for the kill.

Generally, there are too many cases of Ramboism. What I mean is that somebody on the team tries to get the kill and risks his life and that of others doing this. For example, trying to get a static weapon's gunner taken out in spite of knowing that the gun is pointed straight at you. That really needs to stop, especially when your team leader tells you otherwise.

Routine Patrol 13

I think the author has potential if he works a bit on the polish. No briefing and no tasks is a no-go for me and makes me preoccupied towards the mission. Also, I hate large groups, I really think that if your squad has more than six people it should be split up in fire teams. I am generally very much in favor of fire teams.

One thing I noticed again in this mission, and noticed increasingly over the last couple of weeks/months, is the seeming inability to keep a formation. Especially, I dislike when people overtake the leader, or, in a column, overtake the guy in front of them. This general problem with formations also causes some people to constantly run in front of others, and fire teams to get too close to other fire teams.

Missing in Action

Loved that one. Generally, I think I did a good job here as the ground team commander, but then, defending a position isn't a lot of commanding anyway. In absence of a real compass, I think we should make it a habit of denoting one landmark (the crashed chopper in this case) as North and give any bearing relative to that, as we did in that mission. It generally works quite well. Alternatively, you could denote a "forward" and then work with directions ("Behind", "Left of us" etc).

Black Gold

Not much happened in this mission from my point of view. Most of the time I was driving the BMP-3, except when assaulting the oil field. I had one moment of glory when I saved the BTR from an oncoming T-90 - I took out the T-90 with a 300 meter shot from the RPG-26. Other than that, I didn't really have much to do, but that is inherent with missions such as this.

Third Strike

Not a lot to say about the mission, other than that I do dislike each and every revive system that we tried so far except for Psycho's, which is really the only one that works as I would expect it to work.

(12-04-2015, 02:55 PM)Alwarren link Wrote:However, the .50 cal on the road was not an accident. I told Team Red to stay put, and tried to flank with my team on the southern side of the town in the MG's side. In such a case, team Red should really stay out of the line of fire (I assumed they would) until such time as Team Green was ready to attack. Only then would Team Red take a few shots to attract its attention while Team Green moves in for the kill.

Agree.
Except me and Suchy, team red was out of sight of road 50 cal. However despite me and Suchy we were on the main road the 50  cal didnt have a direct angle on us, it was a curve that kept us safe. Dunno about Suchy, he was behind me, but i think i was the only one taking shots on 50 cal trying to get his attention when i should've checked with team leader and coordinate with him... my bad.


At the end humvee was the one who got us, pretty nasty surprise

CSI:

Bread n butter. Good start to get to the mood. Hollywood stuntmen falling from tower due McGregors and Alwarrens accurate MG fire was fun.

Firebird

Despite full moon the night was dark and full of (t)errors. Joking. I think all teams did pretty well.

It is very easy to give debriefing when you are all seeing and all knowing eye on the sky : ) Situation on the ground must have looked quite different.  Sniper team had one casualty as they had skirmish with enemy recon team in the start of the mission. APC team did very well and managed to take out Bradley (with just a bit of divine intervention) which was the most serious threat in the scenario.

It was great to watch you trade shots with it. You scored 2 hits with ATGM which was real nice shot in those light conditions. Russian optics and all that. During their transit they ate a Javelin which meant good night. I don't think it was leaders fault. APC couldn't really do much from their initial position after eliminating Bradley and they had to move to be effective. It was a transit in open ground and only thing I can think of would have been to rush under smoke to cover by the big barn in western end of town or maybe clear the outpost and put fire to town from there. BMP driver can create continous unlimited smoke screen!  However infantry was on other side of a town and I don't know how well sniper team had managed to provide intel. Rush with a vehicle to spot of which you have no intel about it also a risky move. Overall vehicle crew did great under difficult conditions. There was no one right option, only tough choices.

Alwarren's plan was sensible and pretty much how I envisioned smart player would approach the scenario.
While I do heartily applaud  the command 'Stay out of the <adjective> crate' and got a chuckle out of it...if it is night mission and you have UBL, grab flares if available. Grab several and use them liberally. Thats why they are there. Night was darker than intended and many buildings in town were black. It was real tough to spot targets.

Infantry team did well and managed to avoid some perverse surprises in eastern end of town, but got to tough firefight at first buildings. I provided bit of extra help and commander on ground called fire accurately and neutralized lot of infantry with the mortar strike. I don't know if you saw them, or was it educated guess but coordinates Alwarren provided were spot on.

I thought you were actually going to make it until the .50 cal down the road butchered the other team. Not much to add to Alwarrens comments about that. If you really have to cross road and you know something is down there, put at least thick smokescreen and then make a rush. Happens. We learn. The other surprise was perhaps a bit too brutal but I feel also twisted perverse satisfaction that for once my mission wasn't a park walk for CiA. 

Again it is very easy to give perfect advice when you see it from sky. SItuation on the ground is quite different. 

I likely make minor adjustments to scenario and add automatic illumination firemission script for night operations.

Routine patrol

Yeah, pretty much what was said above. I understand 90% of Arma players don't bother about briefings but for me it is important immersion element and it just doesn't make sense that you have no idea what to do. Even a task with 'Go there. Patrol. Friendlies about' will do. Now you know your job and that there are friendlies about. That's it! I think reason is that most WS authors just don't understand that BIS modules have issues on dedicated servers.

Otherwise mission was atmospheric and I liked it. I look forward to try again if author polishes it a bit.

Missing in action

I suppose taking the curator slot is symptom of some kind of a god complex and deep underlying psychological issues (mission makers are perverse lot anyway) but I had fun. AI got stuck in oil pipes and I had to micromanage it more than usual. I was also on different LR channel for first half so I missed the radio chatter and didn't notice that helicopter is unusually later. Then I investigated and got a chuckle of rescue chopper being in wrong oilfield. I think you did quite well and I deny knowledge of any HE RPG fired at thick juicy cluster of targets.

I modify mission a bit and add some kind of buffer against turning hostile if crashing the chopper. I also add 'tech sergeant' as co-pilot who can do field repairs and check the end trigger.

Black Gold

It was nice mission, a bit 'different'. I sat most of the mission in vehicle. When we got to assault positions behind the crest I dismounted and observed the action with Manuel and Hellhammer from the ground. Not sure how it was for vehicle crews but was fun to watch you taking targets down. When we moved to oilfield we got bit of a surprise, lost our vehicle and got to use our RPGs. Was fun.

Third Strike


Reason we couldn't call mortar support is because the support module is broken in 1.54. Tried in local and it throws a script error.  :-\

Alwarren called mortar support in evenings 2nd mission just fine using vanilla module. Just tested on Utes. It seems that my older mission with arty support module is fine, but if I make new mission, module indeed throws following error

:/

Black Gold
I guess we surprised them from behind because the tanks at the oil field never knew what hit them. I tried to keep all teams involved, but It wasn't good enough. If we had some ATGMs it would have been easier to keep more guys in contact but all we had were the vehicles and some short range AT rockets.

Lessons learned: before cresting with a tank or an IFV, if possible make the gunners disembark, spot their assigned targets and get back to their vehicles. This will limit the time needed for the gunners to line up a shot right after exposing themselves.

co19 fhq plant your fields
I had command of the APC on this missions with SPhoenix as my driver and Stick as my gunner. In the beginning if the mission we went to the staging area to pick up Charlie squad which we were to transport to their objective. When we reached Charlie we spotted and killed a single enemy close by, and then scanned the area and spotted the first of two helicopters which unfortunately disappeared the same moment we got permission to open fire on it. when the chopper took off it was destroyed by one of the other units. Shortly after the first a second one appeared and Charlie got out again and shot it down. We then moved west towards Charlies objective spotting an AT soldier that took two unsuccessful shots at us before we disappeared from his view. Charlie squad disembarked and we started to move to not be a still target should the AT soldier show up again on the hill... unfortunately we ran over two of Charlies guys that were still standing behind the APC... so this time we told them where we were going to move and started driving circles under the hill trying to spot the AT gunner. While I was looking at the hill to spot the AT gunner Stick reported  heat signatures to our east. He was not able to ID the targets, because they were moving in the forrest so I told him to not engage  since it might have been one of the other squads ... I probably should have checked the map again to check the plan as this decision probably got us killed later.... especially since the tank had been killed already at this point and probably by the soldiers Stick had spotted. I disregarded the movement in the forrest and spotted the AT gunner whom Stick did take out quickly. We moved back to the point Charlie had disembarked only to hear them tell us they were all down, except for universal soldier who got into our APC at the same time, we moved up the hill, keeping the ridge between the city and us as much as possible and attacked the Radar station, we killed some infantry there and scanned on, when we didn't find any more enemys I told universal soldier to disembark and look for his team mates while we parked the APC in a way that the radar was hiding us from the city. I got out after some time to take a look around and immediately was fired upon which was the only reason we noticed two CSAT guys lying prone in the grass behind our APC. That was when I noticed I had sent Universal soldier to his death. Alfa then told us of an enemy APC coming up the hill to our 12 o'clock which they took out before it reached us. We then did another quick sweep of the area trying but failing to find Charlie squad. We parked in the cover of the Radar again and told Alfa that Charlie was most likely dead and we were holding in the cover of the Radar... short time later we were taught by an enemy rocket, that we were to high on the hill to be covered by the fence to the east by the Team Stick had spotted but I had unfortunately disregarded. Both of my men did great until we died.

Let me actually say this: I have never experienced this level of survivability in an armored vehicle and it's all thanks to you, Unnamed. I'll be your crewman anytime. Communication, coordination, trust, everything is there.

Thanks for report Unnamed. I probably should get a life but I love reading AARs. Another crew AAR (Kavala)

We've had couple of good discussions about vehicles and I want to reflect some experiences from a recent mission

http://ciahome.net/forum/mission-making/...i-crewman/
http://ciahome.net/forum/the-arma-game/i...ultiplier/

I was APC gunner for the Kavala nemesis mission. Manuel was commander, and Icecream Soldier took role of a driver in his first CiA coop night. Proper intro for new people : ) No bug hunts. It was hands down one of the better vehicle experiences for me. Comms-co-operation was good and every team member paid attention, responded to comms sharply.

As most readers knows, that mission involves (at least in our chosen approach) vehicle movement in urban grid in low light under poor visibility, fog, rain.

Mission started well and we spotted several threats from distance and were able to take them down. We neutralized Marid and armed Ifrit from long range before we moved to western end of Neri and started moving through the streets in short intervals and chopping down infantry on the way . I don't usually care if I get to shoot in mission or not but watching the sparkles from AP rounds hitting target is immensely satisfying.

This is where 3 human players as vehicle crew turned out to be invaluable. In urban grid angles of fire can be extremely narrow. Difference between half a meter can mean ability to take the shot / be shot. I can't imagine what a pain it would be to command AI driver. Now we had to several times manage vehicle with 1-2 meter micromoves so I was able to take the shot. Driver had to listen both commands from commander/gunner and Icecream did very well.

Relying on thermals in mission like this is mandatory but it also makes you 'blind' and switching to other viewmodes now and then helps. In this mission visual mode was less useful due light conditions 75% of a time, but with thermals (at least with our mods) I lost awareness if we are on open, between building, etc. In one phase I was engaging partial thermal signature infantry with 6.5 popgun MG and thought why on hell isn't he dropping. I was shooting stone fence instead. Quick switch to visual light revealed problem. Switch to HE solved the problem.

Also identifying target can be tough and had to rely on helmet profile to make ID and in some cases, educated guess/use the Force. I had my eyes glued to optics and I lost awareness of location of friendly infantry and was paranoid about engaging any targets to our east. I asked commander to confirm and Manual fortunately was sharp and on page with events and gave me clear orders to lit them up. All was going peachy until something blew us up. No surprise : P No idea where it came from. I noticed commander's optics spinning like maniac all the time and we were trying to maintain as good view of the battlefield as possible without getting tunnel vision but still something snuck up and nuked us.

In perfect world, our movement might have been even more slow, and moving from one building cover to another. Communicating precise movements with our difficulty settings is again, well..challenging. Usually team gets better in it during the process (assuming they survive) and improving/evolving team work was awesome. Eventually best teams reads others minds and reacts to commands from half a word. That evolving teamwork is really the best experience.

Summary:

- 3 human crew members hands down.
- Maneuvering to hull down position is tough. Turret elevation to negative angles is limited. If hill is very steep I no longer even try.  In such case better place is side of a hill, not a hill top.
- Vehicle work requires absolute shitload of comms even ab out menial tasks. Speech skills of Axel Foley doesn't harm. Example: Commander sees a building. He wants to maneuver vehicle to cover behind it. Isn't that hard? Well, surprisingly it takes a lot of work.
- Human driver with fast reflexes is invaluable. Driver needs clear orders from commander.  Very limited view, no GPS unless turned out, and turning out in some vehicles prevents turret movement and it exposes you to fire. Driver has to pay attention and react sharply.  'Driver, move course 220', 'Driver, back 1 meter', etc.
- Had tons of fun. Thanks Manuel and Icecream. Was a pleasure.

Good to hear your view of events Stag. I must agree that the crew as it was worked pretty well, Ice Cream Soldier turned out to be a very good driver, quick to react and great at maneuvering rough terrain. I had to do very little movement micro management. And Stag was a great gunner, good eyes and very quick.


We couldn't do much while we were up on the hill. I didn't want to expose the APC to the whole town so I only tried to get the turret over the ridge, but as Stag mentioned the gun doesn't slew down far enough. Since this was no help we drove to town.
Things got much more exciting for us down there. I was struggling a little to maintain situational awareness while navigating, looking out for targets, trying to keep in mind where friendlies where... there was a lot going on. I was turning in and out to get an occasional look on the gps. Stags work was invaluable here, I would have missed many of the infantry targets he called out.
Good to read what you thought about what happened down there Stag because I was actually wondering afterwards whether I handled that ok or not. More specifically I was wondering about my reactions to you calling out targets, which was basically just finding and identifying them to give the ok to shoot. I did that because often the targets where in the same general direction as friendly infantry. I was wondering afterwards whether this was just a waste of time.


We really should have moved slower, I pushed on too fast at the end. We should have coordinated better with the closeby infantry team, maybe then we wouldn't have run into that rocket...


In any case, I'd be happy to try again next time, maybe we'll get an inch further then

Yeah the full vehicle crew with Stag and Manuel was extremely fun and effective.  Having an infantry element walk us through town would have been ideal but I don't know if that was an option or not.  That was a great way to start things off but unfortunately for me things kind of went downhill after that.  I know it's been said that controlling AI is a pretty simple thing but I have to politely disagree 100% with that comment.  I personally hate relying on AI for anything accept soaking up bullets and my horrible experience in the tank in the following mission only served to cement that opinion.  Apologies to Universal Soldier for that sad attempt.


All-in-all for me I had a great time during the missions but my hatred for AI team mates will remain forever.  There is no substitute for having a knowledgeable human comrade by your side.