Thursday 05-17-07 Evolution (Public Server 1.07 Beta)

[Shiner]

Great games. We didn't have quite the large numbers from previous nights, but everyone was a TG regular and highly proficient. Most of us ran individual squads to supply enough AI to man repair/ammo/refuel convoys and with some nice stinger support we were able to keep the same convoy alive through 3 town clearings. We had a striker running, plus a HMMV Mk2 and a HMMV TOW.

The big surprise for the night was how successful the TOW is at clearing armor, especially with the other vehicles to provide anti-infantry support. The TOW was able to clear 90% of the Cayo armor while the MK2 cleared the infantry squads counter-attacking.

What I learned is that even with just 5-7 players and relatively weak ranks, we were able to mount a pretty impressive ground assault!

[gunjunkie]

Later that evening, some fun in the north part of the island. Sloppy and I infiltrated behind enemy lines, between Eponia and Bagango near Benoma, to destroy some armor assets, and that ended up being quite an epic mission. We threaded the needle, inserting into the heart of enemy territory whilst fyling low in a UH-60 to avoid enemy AAA. After insertion, we decided that our intial setup wouldn't cut it, due to the fact we were facing a couple of T-72s with frontal shots, and fog was rapidly moving in, obscuring the view. After carefully moving to scout the firing angle from another ridge, I set up and Sloppy decided to move the chopper closer to where we were operating.

Something tagged him during this maneuver and the UH-60 started losing fuel and had to set down in a hurry. Still, we attacked our mission objective scoring two quick kills on a T-72 and BRDM, but the second T-72 managed to move oner a ridge and we had no shot at it. We mopped up the crew that had bailed out, and started discussing what to do. Suddenly, the T-72 broke cover and hauled ass down into the valley and headed up the raod to Bagango. There goes our mission objective, heading straight into an enemy held area. We gave chase on foot, and eventually caught up to it near the radio tower. The crew had obviously panicked and sought friends, because it was now sitting right next to a BMP. We had a total of 1 M-136 round on us, so we had to make this shot count.

We moved carefully through some trees to with 120m of the tank, with an almost perfect rear shot. The same fog that had messed with us earlier began to settle over the tank and we were rapidly losing sight of the target. I fired, and thankfully, the hit was good. With no other choises available, we decided to make for the FARP at Carmen and go and get the UH-60 fixed.

One long walk later, we secured the repair and fuel trucks at Carmen and got the to the UH-50 in short order. We few out low, happy that we had pulled off such a dangerous mission so far behind enemy lines, only to be shot down by an SU-34 as we broke out of the Carmen valley...

Bastards.

Later still, after some others (Zoot, tinfoilPhoenix) had joined the server. We decided to take a Cobra up and provide CAS for their assault on Eponia. We had a lot of fun in the Cobra. Got two Kamov kills, hit a Shilka through the fog @ 2000 m and rained a FFAR death barrage into a forest hiding a squad of enemy infantry. It was the first time I've gunned in the Cobra, and I believe Sloppy's first time flying it. Its a great machine and an awesome weapons platform. It's CAS abilities are exceptional and I look forward to flying them again. I guess the most important rule with them is don't accidently expose them to Shilka fire whilst over the water. Makes them hard to repair

[peardog]

Greal AAR gunjunkie... Takes care of my "withdrawal" from not playing at all yesterday...and makes me anxious for tonight!.. (my Wife is going out ..heheh.. so I can have some fun.. (god I'm getting old..)

peardog

[tHa_KhAn]

Good points Shiner, it was really interesting to see the light vehicles cause the devastation they did. We cleared the town without a big infantry sweep on foot. I can't wait for another Hummer column to get setup and roll out.

[Strag]

Excellent AAR, gunjunkie. You point out a whole other aspect of Evolution -- small-unit infiltration missions into enemy held towns. Sounds like a lot of fun! For those times when there are only a few people on the server, these sorts of missions could make for some great game play while providing a useful service to larger groups that join later.

[gunjunkie]

Thats exactly right Strag. One of the big things Arma has over other teamplay based FPS is the fact that 2 of us can have fun on the server, and still contribute to the team, even when the rest of the team is offline. 2 players on a BF2 server would be a very boring experience...