Originally Posted by ChiefBoatsRet

First thing, I apoligize for my first blue on blue shooting.My squad leader Hotmachina and ftl Scope did a great job. I felt very disjointed in this game, we would take a firing poistion, looking for enemy troops and a group of friendlies would swoop in over the top us. We would be sent to flank and a group of friendlies would greet us. Once in the city we were walking all over each other in mass confusion, for me this was not one of our stellar performance missions. I felt no victory, just glad the game was finally over.

As the Platoon commander I would have to concur with Chiefs analysis and take personal responsibility for the failure of the platoon to act in a coordinated mutually sportive manner. Although from my vantage point the actions of individual squads were executed well enough and with good coordination between Fire Teams however I felt the movement and coordination between squads was sloppy and rarely mutually sportive.

A few things I noticed that particularly influenced this:

-When a squad takes casualties moving into the attack the squad has to keep moving regardless, dealing with casualties is the job of the 2IC and medics. If a squad stops every time one of their members is hit it leaves them 45s-2mins out of position leading to other squads not being supported and the attack failing.

-Avoid mixing squads, something that was done extremely well last event but something that was a problem today. When squads get mixed together the ability for SL and FTL's to assert command presence in their squads is greatly reduced and confusion is becomes the norm rather than the exception

- Intersquad contact, while it is also important that squads stay off the top of one another it is also important that they be mutually supportive which means, knowing where the other squads are relative to your position and also for most of the time staying within visual range of the other squads. This was especially important in an operation like today's where we were attacking an entrenched enemy position and concentration of mass was a major factor in our attack. For example at one point during the first attack 2nd squad forced a breach in the enemy line which we were unable to support because no other squads were nearby. 2nd squad held the breach for several minuets until enemy mortars drove them from their position.

All in all I felt today was an interesting exercise in modern high intensity warfare, the artillery barrage that much of our plan hinged on was 15 minuets late and as such we were pulled into attack a fortified position with little outside support, things became chaotic squads were separated and the attack failed with high casualties, we regrouped and pressed on again and the second time were successful. Casualties were about 75%. Sometimes thats the way it goes.

Personally I would consider this a failure our casualty ratio was much higher that is should have been and I take a great personal responsibility in this. This was far from my best leadership and I acknowledge that mistakes were made. However I think there were some good points as well. As I mentioned before as far as I can tell for the most part the squad and fireteam level cooperation and leadership was good. In the end we were faced with a bad military position but one that needed to be done and in the end we completed the objective be it at a high cost. I hope this will prompt some good discussion and we can all take away things to learn from this, I certainly have.