GinSoakedBoy

The Tags thing didn't work for me, so I couldn't tell who was who, also the positional audio of the VON seemed a little off so sometimes I could only narrow down the speaker to one of two people.

I agree about the lack of a grunt briefing, we knew little of what we were doing in second squad. Also, can anyone tell me what a 'staggered wedge' is? No-one seemed to know and we ended up just forming a normal wedge we were in previously anyway.

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"I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, sweat and tears"

Jetheren

Yeah the diamonds helped me stay with my squad which was good, but for some reason the chevron symbol only showed once on my SL. I guess it was because I was a certain distance away. Except for that time all the diamonds looked exactly the same.

I also read about the custom name tags as well, but I could barely read them and the ones I could read were never my SL. *shrug* Again, I guess it is just something to get used to.

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"...Two roads diverged in a wood and I-
I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference." Excerpt from The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

Bilferty

As my first sunday event, it was really fun! But I agree, the squad I was in was confused and often times given bad orders(such as to move through an open field) but thankfully my Squad leader and ft leader were able to adapt. I think it was fun being disorganized though, it was like total chaos when that arty came down on us. I'm looking forward to playing again! Hopefully next sunday.

Fer

Interesting experience with some really lovely atmospheric periods: distant artillery hits and the glow of far-off trip flares gave the sense of a large and active battlespace, whilst the slow-rolling smoke midway through the mission was eerily calm as we crouched amongst the silouhetted trees of a copse. Certainly some nice moments.

As the last rifleman in 1SecFT2 it's hard to comment on how the command element issued orders, but to the extent I can I'd back Sc[ + ]pe's observations on the micro-management of formations, which was a challenge keenly felt at ground level. I'd hazard that our PltCo's style (in that mission) could have been adapted to make more use of the human SLs, better exploiting their ability to adapt and innovate within a common plan. The irony was that despite the focus on formations squads frequently collided or crossed lanes of fire; thanks to some alert junior leaders several blue-on-blues were averted, but during the earlier (moonlit) phases of the mission it was touch-and-go at times.

With regard to leaders, I was really impressed with Sc[ + ]pe's handling of 1SecFT2, as well as the way in which he worked with our SL, HOTMACHINA, to relay orders and questions from/to command after a breakdown with our SL's comms set-up. Comms itself was a mixed bag: having to share the GROUP channel for squad and FT-level chatter was made easier by our FTL's request that his subordinates use only DIRECT. However, as a Euro player it's sometimes hard to have total faith in VON's effectiveness. I know comms/ORBAT is a wider discussion here at TG, so I'll avoid hi-jacking the thread.

A few small technical issues for beta's development log:

- Respawn counter: Every second indicated on the counter appeared to take 3 RL seconds to update, despite the counter iteself clearly 'pulsing' once per RL second.

- Nametag issues: After respawn (I died once) I found that nametags only worked for some people in my FT/Squad; can't be certain, but I suspect there may be a relationship with the sequence in which squad-mates were killed/respawned.

- Invisible placed structures: Many of the placed structures (bunkers, trenches, the OPFOR HQ tent at the very end) were invisible to me; I could see OPFOR troops in them, and the physical effects of their presence (i.e. BLUFOR troops running 'over' trenches would rise up into the air). Strangely, some structures were visible to me, and I could discern no obvious pattern. Could be ArmA2 strangeness, naturally.

Many thanks to the organisers, and to beta, for putting this all together.

Dreadlee

The whole encounter left me a little dissatisfied and bad taste.From my assessment of the whole operation does not qualify for succesfull.My I say that the success was announced, however, at what cost - about 70% suffered losses including the first attack, and support which was supplemented.First, one i could see no use of fire procedures and lack of tactical organization. A delay of our artillery fire caused huge loses side.First time I saw that light infantry stormed head on heavily armed position (which the CO knew-but he forgot to mention the briefing in this way for example, went on 2 x KM with its heavy section in the open field without cover) without the support of artillery and armored forces.Good thing was the Commander chanel TS support good here good communication with the Co and rest of the FTL.
I know the CO had to sweat leading and coordinating the attack and all the sections it was seen at the time when one of the sections fell under fire and the attack fell.
And here I must bow our heads before Co to pick up his personal conduct and personal attacks was the only output in this situation.Dont know what had caused confusion in the branches of the attackers, however, set us without coordination between different sections (and this was no different between the FTL). The mixture and the mess created by this always happens because u cant see much on night missions so often hold on to this section to which you go up to the possibility of rearrangement does not fly as stuffed turkey on the field and try to communicate using direct chat.Bad short briefing giving more confusion than clearing things(maybe if we got our orders 1 day before the event we can see what tactics we can use).
We can discuss about the rest of the TS.
Forgot to take the pictures but some of them u can see here:


As commander of incomplete section FOXTROT: Legs-LMG, Lq.Snake, Pawn33ge.Seeing scattering and chaos reigned at the collections and the distance which divided me from my objective took immediate decisions to move out in the direction of elevation.When we support and shelter the heavy sections of a Socom. In the course of his division have divided into 2 parts each protective of the 1 regular 1 new guy.Under cover of darkness we slip to designated place.Secured our position we spotted some close patrols that position we radioed to Co.And here I lost 1 man who stumbled on not tied shoelaces (remember to always check the laces).
We waiting on weapons section when one of patrol get close to 100m of our position the firefight that we give to them wiped out whole patrol.Under mortar fire we break off in the direction of east.Seemed quite comical: Lq.Snake shields me carrying one of my wounded man.Still man does what needs to save the remnants of his section.Waiting on medic we secured our positions a confirmation from the SOCOM that his section got on the right flank.
Then we heard a order to attack.What a view.U died running in glory.
Under the losses of imped the Co give a order to regroup and attack from another direction.
We got relived from our position and the order was to attack on left flank.So my guys moved to our position searching for any cover on the open field.And then when from the night in front of my face i see like 20m a 2 mg nest firefight what opened up secured this position.I died there firing to my last bullet.The command of Foxtrot went under Lq.Snake. So thats was it form me.
And the word to all in Foxtrot:Good job!And Thanks for taking part.

Have a nice day
Dread

HOTMACHINA

I had fun as a player, my in game digital version maybe not so

As 1Sec Lead I would have been completely overwhelmed if Scope (FT2) had not intervened to rationalize comms and tactical procedure, amongst the main issues:

A failure on my part to give a complete briefing to 1Sec.

Receiving orders to perform frankly suicidal advances across open terrain into mortar fire (I would have refused these orders in real life)

Continually encountering other squads either placing themselves in our path or "panic" firing on our position.

"Squashing" of critical comms.

Micromanagement of squad assets from command level.

Despite these issues I actually enjoyed the map very much, it was well paced and fairly forgiving and also had a good sense of atmosphere whilst offering fairly decent equipment.

Thanks to all involved.

ThePieSpy

Despite the casualties we took, i think our squad fared pretty well in that attack all thing considered. If i recall me and cheese were the only KIA in the squad (took a direct mortar hit while trying to carry cheese out of the mortars :P) The main factor in the squad getting split up was that barbed wire i think.

Our squad maintained damn good communication throughout, especially spotting enemies and you making sure everyone was ready before we engaged, nobody just opened up as soon as they spotted an enemy.

Jetheren

Well the idea behind it is pretty simple, at least what I understood of it. Say that _ represents one soldier and - represents another. I think the staggered wedge should have looked like this _-_-_-_

Our problem was that no point men were designated, no one knew who were supposed to be front and who were supposed to be behind. So confusion ensued. It didn't help that our SL was having VON issues, which he made clear he would have. But before we loaded up I was able to hear him pretty clearly over VON (and I'm positive he was speaking over it), so I guess it is in-game that is giving him trouble.

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"...Two roads diverged in a wood and I-
I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference." Excerpt from The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

KJGJ

This was my first Sunday event in TG and I have to say I was left largely disappointed. I've had nothing but wonderful experiences playing regular missions on the server, but after crashing a little after halfway through the mission, I felt no desire to try and reconnect to the server. I really have to echo everyone's statements here about the squad leaders not being allowed to lead lead their squads as I felt there were several moments that could have been handled far better without the micromanagement.

GinSoakedBoy

I think that are lot of these issues could be helped with a training session, or at least a summary of comms procedures (which has already had a training) in a stickied thread.

Perhaps a re/read of Dslyecsi's TTP could help too: Link

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"I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, sweat and tears"

Falcon_262

Just a couple more notes from my end. As most have you have rather bluntly stated and I will be the first to admit this was a rather poorly executed mission and as PTL it is my responsibility to take full and personal responsibility for this failure. However there are a few things I would like to mention I’m not trying to make excuses just hopefully providing a little perspective.

First is the fact that this mission had never been played by anyone not even tested before this event so a few of the issues like the friendly artillery working only after we attacked the enemy position were going to happen regardless. Secondly is the fact that I had an extremely limited time to plan, I was told I was leading about 10 mins before the event now for some missions that would be fine but for an infantry offensive against an entrenched enemy position coordinating more than a platoons worth of assets over unfavorable terrain balanced with the 50+ people waiting to play means that the plan was rudimentary at best however I felt and still feel it was militarily sound.

In terms of execution I feel that the accusations of micromanagement are much inflated from what actually transpired, while I will fully admit that the beginning formation debacle was terribly handled on my part and was way too micromanaged I think the majority of my command and control was direct and gave tactical flexibility to the squad leaders while it’s true that I did tell the squad leaders where I wanted them to maneuver somehow “3 section flank right to alpha cover the western flank, 2section move up the left side of the north-south dirt road 1 section take the right” has become me saying “1SEC organize into a wedge formation with 3 meter spacing and head 500 meters at 190 degrees to the tan building north of the town; 2SEC organize in line formation and proceed east 300 meters until town is to your 170 degrees and provide overwatch” which as I’m sure anyone on command channel would tell you didn’t happen not even close not once.

As for command level comms I felt there were some good things and some very bad things that happened. First the good, individual radio calls were short, used brevity and conveyed the information that was needed. Before I go to the bad I will say that people have faulted me in particular for saying to much I feel that there is defiantly truth behind that but only to the extent that when I’m on the command net as the overall leader and no ones talking I’ll usually use it to get information from squads, relay orders or confer with other leaders however all of these are LOW PRIORITY therefore I am more than happy to get out of the way of people especially intersquad comms. Which leads me to my next point, one thing that was done extreamly well last event was intersquad communication, Alpha Bravo and Charlie squads were in constant communication with messages like “Charlie this is alpha we have you on our left flank 50m were going to advance up the hill we’ll take the left side of the wall you take the right” or “Bravo this is Charlie your crossing our fire line, shift left”. These comms are vital however I heard almost zero intersquad comms this time which I believe was a major contributor to all the confusion. Finally my last point about comms is the most serious people need to give conformation or receipt of orders and update the commander about the feasibility of those to be executed, often I had to repeat myself numerous times before I got any response from a squad which lead to a dramatic increase in communications. Also if you feel that the command is unfeasible say something if you feel you can not or will not execute it SAY SO and suggest an alternative if you have one in mind. Please do not say you are going to do something and then do something completely different, this happened at least once and for sure got at least an entire section killed. If you don’t like what someone is asking you to do, that’s fine we can regroup and try something else but don’t make other people count on you to do something then not show up. Also if you going to miss your timeframe say something especially in offensive operations timing is a HUDGE part of coordination and the overall commander needs to know so he can coordinate all of his elements.

Again I’m not try to implicate anyone or pass off the blame to anyone instead I admit that I bear much responsibility for what happened however I think there needs to be a learning experience in all of this, at least in my mind we should always strive for perfection and while the main objective here is to have a good time I think most people here would agree that doing it well and doing it right goes a long way towards making their experience more enjoyable.

In conclusion I would like to personally apologize for what transpired none of this any way changes the actions that were taken however I think in this like in every failure some inherit flaws are highlighted and it gives us a nice opportunity to reflect on ways we can improve those.

Sincerely,
Falcon

MarineSeaknight

Don't sweat it Falcon; You stepped up to the call, good job.

This is what AARs are for, discuss what happened, what we can improve on, etc.

From hopping in and out of the Command channel on TS and listening to socom's comments, I'd say there was almost non-stop chatter, most of it coming from PLTCO. I can't help but feel this really impeded on some squad leaders' ability to lead their troops, having to constantly listen to too much radio chatter.

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|TG-X|MarineSeaknight - --->Are YOU Tech Savvy? Help Marine Out!<---

Falcon_262

Yea I understand that, I have my TS and in game volume set to the same level so TS comms don't drown out VOIP for me. I do quite a bit of flying in real life so I'm used to hearing and partaking in several conversations at once while doing other things and I probably forget how difficult that is if you don't do that on at least a semi-regular basis. I want to thank everyone again for putting up with me this is my first time leading such a big group and it defiantly is a set up from even just a few squads. I'd be more than happy to give it another shot some time hopefully with more time to brief leaders and develop a plan.

Seiler

Overall for me, I thought it was an OK mission. I thank Falcon for stepping up to lead. It's a game and not the end of the world if things don't go as planned-there are plenty of other Sundays. I had a good time. Although then again, I wasn't in the middle of the carnage occuring in the town-I was up on the hill with the weapons team.

I was however there for the formation mustering at the begining of the mission. While I think that platoon formation should be coherent, I do not think lining up like it's 1776 is a very efficient way to go about maneuvering. Mainly, because the formation I saw involved the micromanaging right down to the individual soldier. I think more trust must be placed in individual squad leaders. COs don't need to run around inspecting where each soldiers is standing. It seemed like the 30 minutes spent setting that up was for naught; as soon as the attack began, everything went to hell. In all fairness to Falcon though, the first attack did not have the arty it needed. I believe there were explosive and smoke rounds fired, but they didn't drop until the attack was finally called off.

Soupy_Norman

Could i just make a quick point on the direct chat function also?

HOT's section and anothers were all behind a wall at one point after the first assault. I havnt really played with HOT that much so am not familiar with his voice. The other section leader frantically called over direct chat, "Allright guys enemy mortars inbound lets get the hell outta here on the double to those woods, MOVE MOVE MOVE!!", i, and 2 others from my section, began legging it towards the tree line. Then HOT gets on the group radio, "Where the hell are ye going!? I gave no order to move, get back here!". Not giving out to HOT but it was confusing, so maybe, especially when surrounded by friendlys not in your group, SL's should use group chat?
No harm came from it, i started giggling as i ran back in fact

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