"Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends, come in side, come inside, come inside..."

This is a "Operation Flashpoint After Action Review", using the newly released FFUR 2006 modification, playing one of my favorite default missions, "Heavy Metal". Hope you enjoy it, and learn from it, good or bad.

Fade In... Mission brief...

The overall objective for this mission is to reach and destroy any enemy units along the way and/or in the town of "Lamentin". This will be accomplished with a platoon of America's finest M1A1 Abrams tanks. There is no other support for some reason, including no infantry units or Bradley fighting vehicles which would be better suited to take over a populated town. Good job you mission planners. I am just a pee on driver for the number 4 tank in the armor platoon.

The detailed mission list is as follows:
1. Collect your fellow tank crew members back at base.
2. Repair, rearm, and refuel your Abrams.
3. Join the rest of the armor platoon.
4. Seize the town of Lamentin.

Mission brief...


I was in the local friendly town spending 20 bucks, not going to tell you on what because some of you might know my wife. (I do wonder why the US Army would allow me to take my M1A1 tank out for a spin without the rest of my crew, during a war.)

My ride, pimped by the US Army and it's American tax payers...


A short ride back to base, I meet up with my posse, Keg my gunner, (he asks to smell my finger, I don't know why?) and Soul our TC (Tank Commander).

The posse mounts...


We repair, rearm, and fill er up...


and we are on our way... Soul yells at me for being late, we were suppose to meet the rest of the platoon at the staging area about 5 miles away...


There they are... opps platoon leader don't look to happy... I'm thinking Article 15 coming down the pipe soon... oh well, it was good and worth it, at least if I die, I'll die with a smile.

We meet up with the platoon...


On the road again... We take the trail end, slew our turret to the rear for proper rear coverage... lol he said rear...


My view (the driver) it usually sucks, sitting in a hull down looking at a mound of dirt...


We move down the trail, were still quite a distance away from the objective.. column formation...


Oh ****, contact left... were ordered to open fire...


We started out in a column, but once contact is made we turn left and ordered in a line formation for maximum firepower. As the driver, this is really all I ever see in a firefight...


Still engaging, I learned it was a truck convoy with a small armor escort... we destroy all without incident, injury, or death to any of us...


Were in a hull down position, enemy tank destroyed on the ridge line, while our platoon leader bounds forward for a looksie...


Sweet... we got secondary explosions, and even third, forth, and fifth explosions... we got ammo cooking off, giving us a beautiful fireworks show, and of course the smell of burning flesh, oil, and metal...


We arrive in a near by town, but not the objective... we clear out what we can, theres a couple of armor units, Looks like T72's and a handful of infantry to engage, destroy, then leave...


After a little more riding, we enter the outskirts of Lamentin.

The platoon leader orders us to find a hull down and overwatch there advance. We get 2 T72 kills and a few infantry, but not before lead takes a couple of rounds from an AT infantry soldier...




Were ordered to flank right, around the town and destroy a T72 and a Shilka on the rear side...


The turret flys high in the air and lands with a crash...

We started to get overwhelmed, by not clearing an area on our far right down by the beach where another T72 is waiting in ambush, we reverse quickly out of the town to re-group, and re-engage others that we had missed...




The battle rages on, we tried to go to fast to hard... lesson learned, clear the flanks before entering the town...

OK, lets try this again, flanks are cleared, we re-enter the town with a little resistance but not much more...


We start the bounding overwatch.. I cover while the PL's tank moves up, engaging into a nice hull down cover position, then I bound over engaging to a nice cover area... back and forth, back and forth...


(a birds eye view, and video instead of pics, would show and explain this much better.)

The town is smoking, we drive around like headless chickens clearing out the last infantry resistance, this is when a Bradley fighting vehicle with a squad of infantry would of comed in handy...


We've reach the shoreline, opposite side of Lamentin, victory is in our grasp...


I then realize that I'm glad it's over, I really have to pee and theres a new burning sensation in my pants...




Just finishing up some last minute clean ups...


Mission complete...


My stats...


I dismount, find a bush, and realize as I let out a scream, first thing I need to do back at camp is go see the doc... Fade Out...