Thanks to Kezi for great PL Commanding. As always effective command is key when working with a group of 20-30 players.
I served as Bravo SQ Squad Leader and at times had up to 13 members in my squad. For the most we were tasked with infantry assault in conjunction with another similarly outfitted squad led by
TG-22nd Eugene.
Kudos to my squad, we had a large group and they peformed almost flawlessly the entire missioni (3 hrs) Inner squad comms were efficient and at critical times un hindered by needless chatter. At several points during the op I gave both simple and complex movement and engagement orders and they were followed to the letter. This effort was greatly helped by some old hands helping new comers and this worked wonders. Command kept all units on the same page including CAS who's effort helped the ground units punch through considerable resistance at times.
The most dramatic part of the mission saw my squad pinned down at a coastal hamlet outside of Electrovogordorsk (sp?). The team was dug in tight and returning fire effectively against a mechanized infantry trying to push us into the sea. The tide was turning in our favor when a friendly air strike ebbed back into our position and wiped out most of our squad leaving just |
TG| B and myself (and one other?) in a very precarious position. We kept our heads down and eventually reinforcements made it back but the enemy push by this time was just too much and my team was wiped out before I could order a withdrawal. My poor medic was healing me just as I was about to give the fallback order when a BMP-3 found us and placed murderous fire in and around our position. Though we weren't hit directly the splash damage wiped most of us out, rendering us combat ineffective for the time being. By the time we had assembled at base for transport back to the battle CAS had swept in and eliminated resistance and turned the tide for good.
Near the end of the mission I was lucky to have a volunteer for radio operator. This freed up comms and enabled me to focus much more on the battle at hand.
I said almost flawlessly right? The one serious gaffe we made came during our c130 jump. We had 15-20 minutes to prep and I had laid out a specific jump plan for our 12 man assault team. I grouped the squad into 4 groups of three and each group was to go on my command. Group 1 jump beat beat group two jump beat beat...etc until group 4 is down. It was Fubar from the start. The C130 followed the flight path but in the wrong direction. We were supposed to come in from the S and jump on the town but we approached from the N. I began to unwrangle this at command level when my troops jumped !? out without getting my order. ...Needless to say our prebattle plan was a wash as we had to adjust on the fly due to our altered landing zone.
This is not in anyway a knock on the pilot or command but an excellent example of real life complexity mirrored in our gaming world. I loved landing on the ground having to drop the original plan and adapt and overcome. Thankfully CAS had worked the town over quite well and we rolled over the objective with only token resistance and no casualties.
In subsequent a subsequent op the other infantry squad mis dropped as well and altered our movement and attack plans on the final objective. This tells me we have some work to do on airborne assault ops and I'd love to play a mission that helps us practice air drops form the C130.
Cheers mates--this is great stuff.
ARMA 2 is panning out quite nicely. Can't wait for the next op!!
