We need to work on our communication topology when operating multi-crew vehicles. Currently, it's hard to distinguish when the vehicle commander is talking on the LR net or to his crew because of the introduction of ACRE intercom.
We can go by strict com curtesy procedures "1, this is 2, permission to fire" but I'm afraid this change will be too hard to implement. So I suggest the following:
Have all crewmen, including leaders disconnect themselves from the vehicle intercom and from LR racks. Have leaders issue orders to their crew on the SR net, and communicate between leaders and command regularly on the LR net. This way, if hearing an order on voice only (i.e not on the earpiece) the crewmen will know that the communication is not addressing them. What do you think?
I tend to just refer to people by their role before telling them to do something, it tends to avoid that confusion. So "driver, head 210, gunner face 020".
I do that too but sometimes you have one guy in a vehicle along with an AI, like I had yesterday, feels weird to address him by the role.
I believe it would be better in the long run to standardize radio coms. So before sending a message you state who the message is for. That way others can ignore it and whoever it is for knows to listen. The misunderstandings have also happened when we had only infantry teams.
If it feels weird calling someone by the played role, you can also always use his nickname instead.
The sooner we start encouraging people to do it the better.
I tend to agree with what was said. I usually prefix the commands with the player role ("Driver, turn 90 and forward") so that there is no confusion with when I am talking on the long range.
I do think we should start using a more formal radio protocol. Not necessarily "Over" and "Out" but at least use callsigns.
I also think it makes more sense to standardize radio coms. I had no idea in the mission that the order was not for me (possibly because I was also too tired...). It may be easier to implement the change first on LR
I would say as an immediate measure, dropping the connection to the intercom and speaking over short-range to the crew is a good idea and will stop a lot of misunderstandings.
In the long run, I also think that we should refine the radio protocol in such a way proposed by MJ and Verstanden. At least for the initial call, we should use the callsign, and maybe if there is a danger of getting mixed up, end the conversation with out
The only way to avoid misunderstandings (like I've always said) is to enforce proper radio etiquette. Everything else is just a band-aid. And as it is people talk too much anyway, especially on SR. We need less traffic on SR and more listening and usage of Local PTT. I still die a little inside every time someone talks to me over SR while standing next to me -_-