Write your own AAR

I just finished CO'ing on Basrah, and it was pretty epic. We (US) got creamed, but not without taking some MEC dirtbags with us. I didn't catch the names of all my SL's, but I sure hope they'll chime in and get recognised. They were fantastic, and did everything I asked of them. Sloppy managed the helos for me, and then switched his squad to ground pounding around the 150 ticket mark.

Dawolf was my main man on the ground, taking and retaking the facility for me. Everyone else piled in to help. We had an APC squad, that was providing a mobile spawn point, and a couple of infantry squads getting dead with regularity.

I grounded the A10's from start to finish. Only one team member asked why, and in case he missed it....

A10's do a fantastic job of wiping out infantry and vehicles on Basrah, but I find that that's pointless without well drilled squads on the ground. When an airstrike hits, you HAVE to have a couple of squads ready to RUN to wherever the strike was, and finish off any OpFor. This is particularly true of flag areas.

What A10's don't do, ever, is cap flags. The US loses through flags not being capped, so I took the decision to rely on cobras and black hawks for air power. They fly lower and slower than an A10, so can be more precise with their targetting. Sure, we did lose some troops to 20mm tonight, but I'm confident the body count is normally higher with the A10's in the mix. I personally believe that the A10's are a red herring on this map, and my CO strategy will always be to leave them at the airbase, at least in the near future.

One thing I found a bit frustrating, was that squads weren't keeping rally points near the city. Most were definitely trying, and you certainly can't account for the OpFor being inconsiderate and blowing up your beautiful collection of bags. Rally points are a must. With a CO on deck, you don't need anyone at the main base, with the exception of helo crews. The other exceptions would be if the CO needs all the APC's brought down to act as RP's, or because a particular squad has taken a real mauling and needs a chance to regroup and try a fresh attack. The other big frustration, was one-man tank squads. Tanks have 3 crew positions for a reason, and it's not so that one guy can keep switching between them.

I think Basrah is a lot like Muttrah, in that good SL's and a good CO aren't enough. The need to be brilliant. You also need squad members that can shoot, and who don't need to be told to follow orders. I won't speak for the standard of CO'ing tonight, but I'd sure love to have most of my SL's serve under me again. We had a lot of the right stuff tonight, and what we really lacked more than anything, was a lucky break. I've already identified a lot of different approaches we could have taken, and I'll be looking to CO the US a lot more on this map in order to try some alternatives.

A 6-man helo squad is a real help. Having both cobras operational AND both black hawks available for recon / transport / gunship roles could be a lot better than having a 4-man squad like tonight. That's no slur, Sloppy didn't have 6 guys, so he had to keep reconfiguring the air support, and did a top job of it. I'd like to get a single airborne sniper in a very slow moving chopper, probably on the west side, next time. DB and I established today that this is something the 160th can provide. A black hawk is a rather stable gunnery platform for a sniper, but you do need a top class marksman to have any worthwhile effect.

On the ground, employing all of the available APC's is the way to go. Get them arrayed around the city, and just use them as spawn points. Combine that with rally points and all targets being painted, and SL's will have a huge variety of places to spawn in, while minimising the immediate danger to their squad. Getting squads placed for the domino effect is tricky, but I'm confident that we'll get this nailed. I hope SL's will increasingly have the patience to sit around doing nothing for extended periods of time. This can be a sign that you're in the right place, ready to cap the next flag at a seconds notice. Something I'm always begging for squads to do, and tonight I saw delivered in style, was dropping whatever you're doing, and running to the waypoint. So often I see flags lost because players were just clearing one more bad guy. There's times when running away is the smartest thing to do, and tonight when I really needed it, my SL's delivered.

The MEC did a great job of beating us tonight. Next time they might not be so lucky. It was a great game all round, and again, my thanks to the US team. Brilliant job guys.