StrikeFear

Last night, the 1stMIP made great use of air strike requests. Having joined the 531st in their first practice, they already had their keys set up. So when I logged in and noticed them, I made sure right away that they knew I was available.

From that moment on, they had tight air support.

This was the second implementation of the system in a full-combat environment, but the first time it was used extensively.
I knew the protocol and the technical issues of using TS were going to be fine. The important thing for me was to see how useful it would be, how often strikes would be available, how quickly they could be on target, even under enemy jet pursuit, and how often they would be useful to the squad.

On all counts, I'd say it worked very well. Much more work needs to be done, and adherence to protocol is CRUCIAL (so we don't clutter comms). In most cases, air strike ETA was inside 10 seconds.

I'm hoping some of the players from the 1stMIP will post here with their ground-level experience of it.

__________________
"You live and learn. Or you don't live long."
- Lazarus Long

MeanDrLily

Was this when I was the CO? Around 11:30PM Central time on Tuesday night?

I'm guessing not, as there was just one plane during that round.

DrunkenSoul

air strikes were very helpful. some things i noticed as a squad member:

1. Air Strikes almost always came quickly.
2. Squad Leader was quick to inform us when the air strike was coming so we would get out of the way and try to avoid getting TKed (nice coordination). But sometimes I was in the middle of a firefight and couldnt get out of Strike's bombs
3. Majority of the time they were very effective, but sometimes I think we just wasted Strikefear's time as during those 30 seconds he could have done something more productive than help us kill 1 apc.
4. we need to test how this works with multiple squads requesting air strikes
5. nice initial message when you entered Teamspeak btw
6. too bad you didnt have the su-34...would have been twice as effective (for us at least).

overall it was a big help to 1stMIP and we hope to use it again.

Im sure John can comment more as he was more involved with Strikefear

__________________
|TG-1stMIP|DrunknSoul
1st Mechanized Infantry Platoon (C-Team)


[medic][conduct][combat][defense]
[tog-c1][ma-c1][tpf-c1][ma-c2]

StrikeFear

3. Nah. I'm gonna be bombing either way. If I didn't have a request, I would've been bombing some other APC that wasn't even really in the fight yet, likely. Better that I had a target which was a priority.

4. No doubt.

It absolutely was. That pilot was me. 1 jet or 2, an airstrike is still an airstrike. Ask the victim ...

__________________
"You live and learn. Or you don't live long."
- Lazarus Long

MeanDrLily

WITH ALL DUE RESPECT (I totally get that you're the pros and I'm a noob!) --

As the CO, I feel that should have been informed that this was going on. Unless maybe you told me and I missed it? All I remember hearing from you was 'Negative' to my orders (which I was fine with, as I basically told you to go nuts on whatever you wanted).

Awesome that it worked, but please let the CO know when there's inter-squad communications. It would help them understand what's going on out there.

Thanks!
Dr. Lily

StrikeFear

MeanDrLily - That's totally cool, man. I appreciate the respect, and I give it right back. Sorry I didn't tell you ... here's the deal:

I didn't recognize your name (you have 3 posts), and didn't see you on TS, so I figured you for someone who just walked off the street. Nothing negative, but it seemed like it was gonna be too complicated to explain, and you wouldn't have any idea what I was talking about.
If I had known - I would have informed you, of course.

I think I remember the one time giving you a negative on your orders - that's cuz I was in a dogfight, I believe.
Don't worry - it was NOT because some squad had called in an air strike. It has always been explicit throughout all my posts concerning this that the CO is boss. Period.
There are only two reasons for a jet pilot to negative a COs order:
1. Jet is down
2. Jet is in a dogfight

__________________
"You live and learn. Or you don't live long."
- Lazarus Long

AntiVisual

From my experiences, this worked excellent and I loved it. There were a few times that we didn't have a lot of AT etc and were getting hammered. Called in an airstrike and the APC/Tank threat was gone and we just had to deal with infantry.

In regards to letting the CO know, I think this is very important to let the CO know that the Air squad may be taking quick air strike requests from squads, but the CO still has final say. At the same time, the Air squad is very fast moving and can do multiple strikes a minute and the CO may order air support at one area, but once that threat has been taken out, they should be able to take air strike requests. Maybe let the CO know you are currently taking air strike requests from squads until otherwise notified.

Also, the squads can be denied requests. This could be the case if the CO ordered air support in one area. I just think communication between the 2 will be best. Anyway, I think it works very well as we aren't ordering air strikes every 5 seconds, but only when really needed. Maybe every few minutes if that.

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[age-c1][gchq-c1][support]
TG-1st MIP(Currently Retired)

John CANavar

Yep Strike, Drunk and AV pretty much summed it up. It was not only efficient but also lots of fun. As for any procedure which increases the level of connection between players, this system adds up to the the immersion factor a lot...

We all agree on the involvement of CO.

Now we have another tactically-minded good player, Dr.Lily, among us who knows about the procedure.

Ragged

We have begun to reguarly integrate practice with the 531 into our 42nd practice nights. I can vouch for it's effectiveness. I strongly encourage other outfits to try to get the 531 involved, if only for a night to get the protocols worked out and keybindings squared away. Coodinated air strikes could be the difference between keeping a CP and losing it.

The only problem I could possibly see is folks becoming too overdependent on them and the whisper chatter to the 531 becoming a negative factor.

As for not obeying a commander's order, I really can't imagine SF doing that on purpose, or for any other reason than personal security.

__________________
Never lock the dogs when the wolf is in the darkness.
[age-c1][conduct]

MeanDrLily

For clarification -- SF never disobeyed an order! He promptly responded to an order with "negative", which I simply took to mean that he was otherwise occupied, or saw something on the battlefield that I wasn't aware of. I was fine with that!

Since I'm new-ish to the community, I totally understand why I wasn't informed about what was going on. I get that, and there's no hard feelings.

From what I saw on the CO interface, it worked great. I'll be picking up TS and learning how to communication properly with the 531st.

And for the record, I'm not a good player -- just tactics minded (and learning).