This really isn't an AAR as much as it is a commentary on gameplay.

So last night I hopped on at about 8:15 CST into a happening round of Fool's Road. I loaded into the Russian side with 200 tickets to go to see that we had been pushed back to hill 210 (just NW of the hill by Dylam Village) and that flag was white while most of our team were around the area. There were a few infantry squads, an APC squad with a tank and a TANK squad with an APC run by Wookie that had some room so I hopped in. Wookie drove an APC and I gunned, we moved up to Village from main and set into a hull down position.

We successfully defended with the help of some infantry and I killed one Spandrel coming from the north that killed our other squad's vehicle, then a second Spandrel that tried to crest the hill to the west of Village when we were able to hear its approach. A hit from an AT sent us scrambling back to base for repairs. Every other vehicle that passed through village (APCs, Supply Trucks...) from Russian main was killed in short order so we held tight. We returned for some more action, then another AT sent us back to main to find a respawned tank.

During this time the other infantry squads had lost their hold on 210 and fell back for a little while. In the tank we were able to hold off some infantry advances for some time and a FOB was built in Dylam. The Chechyns started a very well organized assault on Dylam and the first multi infantry AT barrage made me think that there was a Spandrel in that hill until I witnessed the group firing (that was simply awesome). It was clear that the squads assaulting were working together as there were multiple spotters, rockets and infantry movement including a very aggressive engineer who snuck up on our tank. At one point I was tracked and we tried for about 20 minutes to get a repair station up for repairs, and several assaults were held off while I ran through my ammo supply. Eventually we were able to repair and witnessed our second tank get hosed while we made our way back for repairs.

When we arrived back at main to reload and finish repairs I noticed that a large amount of our infantry was trying to push on 210 while leaving Village empty. We moved back up to the front and advised the other squads that pushing 210 (which was firmly in Chechyn hands) was not worth it as we had a solid lead in tickets (or at least it appeared to be) yet they continued to push away. Since I was part of the two squads that were attempting to hold Village we moved back and held for a while and had a tracked and turreted tank for a long perioed of time that we attempted to rescue multiple times to no avail. Eventually we were destroyed, at which point there was a single member of our squad on Dylam and at least 15+ infantry pushing on 210 with no success. Had they fallen back earlier we would have had a solid defense as the flag was taken right after our tank was destroyed.

The infantry squads were not lead by incompetent squad leaders, they just chose to push. On reflection I or a member of our squad should have hopped in the chair and ordered a defense on Village but we were so focused on defending that by the time we realized there was absolutely no support at Village it was too late an the flag was quickly turned. Chechyns won by around 30 tickets as we bled out our last 50.

Commentary:
The Chechyn team did a great job of assaulting the flag although since PR rewards defense they would have most likely lost, barring an effective artillery barrage to eliminate defenses and quick capping which was possible with their coordination. Wookie's squad was able to show that armor can be very effective when used defensively with some infantry support (two of our guys were on foot at all times) and that the unguided AT rockets are much harder to kill armor with than the guided ones (we took a lot of shots but also had a lot strike near us). The group shots of AT rockets may not have been successful on the one tank but they were very effective in keeping us on our toes and killed many vehicles that passed Village. The infantry that moved in was very difficult to handle as they could use the terrain effectively to make rooting them out very difficult.

While winning really isn't that important the stupidity of the squads that were assaulting a non-relevant flag really, really bothered me. I know it can be fun to assault all the time and there's great satisfaction but it seemed very illogical to ignore the actual goals of the game. While Chechyn may have won ( and did deserve their win that they got!) the poor strategy of the infantry squads was what snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

I would like to thank Wookie and my squad mates, and the few squads that did defend for at least some time for the wonderful teamwork and the Chechyn side for the great fight.