[Sun] 17 June 2012 (Zeus comes to tea)

[fer]

Missions:

• Into the sea
• Shilkas of Nur
• Crateresistance

Again, our numbers were ~45 and the session lasted looong past the official 2 hours - so, many thanks for everyone who came along tonight! Particular thanks to our comrades from Zeus, who decided to join us for a spot of Sunday night killing. Great to see some new faces (Danny) and returning faces (Car00ke) too.

It was a shame the server died an hour or so into Bodge's new mission, Into the sea, so I apologise to everyone for the way that (successful) combined arms mission was cut short after we had cleared Berezino. In nearly 2 years I think we've had less than a handful of server crashes, but we'll investigate and see if there's anything we can learn from the logs etc.



As always, the hosts hope you enjoyed the session and ask that you share your thoughts / experiences here if you can. We hope to see you again next week, and also in our sister session, ARPS's Tactical Tuesday.

[Mike [MDS]]

Hey guys

I checked for a sticky saying "DO NOT SPAM LOTS OF IMAGES" and didn't find one so I'm going to post a lot of images from tonight... if it's not welcome I'm sorry & I won't do it again.

Mission 1 and Bravo 1 led by Strang bundle into the Warrior


We spend ages sitting there with SL Gustav waiting for the last seat to be filled.


Then it's out into the beautiful (and exposed) Chernarussian countryside


I'm running through long grass in formation with my team when I see.. what's that... is that a bunker?

PTCHOW


This is now the story of Strang and lordhughes, the two who survived the bunker incident...





Strang and Gustav are both staring into the distance...


When some joker opens up on them from the side and they all get pinned! Then the server hung up


----

Mission 2 in the now equally beautiful Takistani hills


After a while my team are ordered into a humvee and find the distressing site of a total massacre!


Unfortunately Nullikan is a better leader than driver and he quickly wrecks our Humvee.


We twiddle our thumbs for ages whilst Engineers are dropped off about 300 metres away and have to jog the rest.


Then we roll out!


We get pinned in a wood and I go down.


Hands up if you recognise yourself in this photo


Nullkigan is determined to finish off the last Shilka


Unfortunately his driving skills come out again and he runs a friendly over!



Null goes gung-ho, trying to flank the Shilka on a totally exposed hillside.



Sadly he misses narrowly and attracts the Shilka's attention


His buddy bravely heroically tries to carry him to safety but the Shilka hasn't given up


A shilka round catapults them both into the air... a heroic end.


Someone finally takes the last Shilka out.


---------

Toppomeister gives us our plan. I have nothing else to do while we wait so check what he looks like.


In the woods an unseen NAPA hits me, and I resign myself to bleeding out as Nullkigan and my squad would be suicidal to come and rescue me.


Wait... some one has come to my aid... is that you boss? It's Toppomeister himself


It soon becomes apparent my team didn't survive the firefight. I attach myself to Toppo and decide I owe him a life debt! We move up by this wall but don't realise Unaco & co are hiding in the distance. They take us down, and kill Toppo.


Again I'm hit, and the medic calmly helps me whilst under fire. I thought his name was Zeus but I guess that was a tag.


The NAPA guys rain grenades on us, and soon I'm dead and Zeus is dying alone...


Both teams are whittled down until the only survivors are Calculon (BLU) and InqWiper (OP)



Everyone watches the incredibly tense situation as Calculon crawls up to the last cache...


Sets his charges, runs,


and blows it!


Victory for BLUFOR!

[Black Mamba]

I gotta correct you: the second "driving skillz" incident was mine, not Nullkigan's.
Sorry to the brave comrade who gave his life so i could finally find the brake pedal (damn automatics).

That photo of Null and myself going together up to the seventh Heaven is pure magic. What happened after that, some strange anatomic mix-ups involving my head and his bottom, will of course be forgotten immediately.

Nice session alltogether.

Didn't see much of a fight with Charlie 1 in the first mission, as the russians, seeing their imminent defeat, cowardly decided to go Chernobyl on Chernarus at the very moment we started our assault.

The second involved a lot of witnessing firefights from the middle, without ever seeing the contacts, then some crazy drunken driving contest, then some firefights with five contacts where we end up losing everybody around us (I really don't know what happened at that time when you died Mike, we were happily running in the woods with Nullkigan, and when we came back, everybody was dead), and finally trying to outrun 23mm rounds while carrying an obese cookie-fed non-commanding officer. I said trying.

The last one. Well. Worst reaction to a firefight ever. After being a bit lost at the beginning and actually never finding our place in the assaulting line, we're tasked to go support our right flank which was treacherously ambushed. We took fire, went prone, and then our FTL ordered us to try and sneak to the enemy lines. Of course we should have returned fire instead, and the second i got out of cover i swallowed some fast-flying lead. I got to watch our comrade Calculon become a true hero, and InqViper set up the best ambush.

Recipe for the best ambush:
- choose a spot from where you can't see anything, preferably looking towards the wrong way.
- Make sure there's absolutely no chance the enemy's ever going to come around your spot.
- Wait for ages but don't move.
- When nothing happens, keep waiting.
- When you're really really bored, just go and do the same thing a little bit further.

Great fun, see you all next week!

[Toppometer]

Into the Sea
-Alpha Squad Medic
Started out a little slow as we waited for the convoy to unfudge itself (always seems to happen with vehicular missions). After a brief “good old fashioned Warrior IFV singsong”™ we moved out.

Pushing forward we made contact with the enemy and flanked into the the woods above Berizino to support the IFV’s. After a sporadic firefight we pushed on to the outskirts of town where, after a brief stop to pick up stragglers we engaged enemy patrols around the strong hold.

It was all going so well until <CENSORED> the Russian nuked us.

Shilkas of Nur
- Engineer Squad
Drakkon and I rode with Command up to our planned RV with Alpha and Bravo. Somehow Bravo overshot the marker and was heavily engaged by OPFOR.

From that point on we did a lot of running, a little fixing, some more running and just a tiny bit of blue-on-blue trying to grab some trucks so that we could avoid running some more…

Best moment for me was watching Drakkon chasing a BRDM up a hill trying to knock it out with a GL whilst laughing manically.

Apparently we won (thanks Delta!).

Crateresistance
-Commander Blufor
After being, very politely, volunteered into command (Thanks Fer!) I figured that, as we always split forces to take on caches, we would advance as a platoon on a single cache and overwhelm them.

The concept was sound (Indy had no idea what hit them and resistance at the first cache was minimal) but my execution was pants (I failed to keep the outlying Delta, Echo and Fox in line).

The first cache fell quickly and I sent Alpha up to scout the Indy positions on route to B cache. When they were compromised I attempted to push the remaining forces forward to try and relieve them, giving us a chance to fall back to the treeline, but was hit.

This gave me a grandstand seat for the ensuing cat and mouse game where Calculon became my new hero by blowing the final cache.

Most certainly a win despite, rather than due to, my leadership.

[wolfenswan]

Into the Sea
-Bravo Squad Medic

Followed Gustav around for a while until the first IFV managed to get blown up and i heroically rescued the crew. Later the third IFV got blown up too and I rescued them as well. Even later i heroically patched ConcreteOtter up while under fire when suddenly a burst of lightning blinded me. That was the last thing I saw.

Shilkas of Nur
- BSL
Bravo took the ridge shortly after the Alpha and Charlie in their vehicles to watch them get blown to smithereens. We secured the area to the West and Northwest, got rid of the Shilka and moved on to the next staging position. While pressuring on, I lost half of my squad to the Shilka (later I found out that we were sacrificed so whoever took the shot wouldn't be engaged by the Shilka!). We pressured on but were cut down one by one in the trees by an unknown assailant. I was lying wounded on the floor when my team left me. As I inquired them to return and fix me ("Oh? We thought you were dead!") I bled out.

Poor Nullkigan:



Crateresistance
- Alpha Squad Lead - Independent

As Bravo got engaged we moved into a flanking position where we effectively cut down at least four of the enemy. I got shot promptly afterwards but we managed to stall BLUFOR's assault rather effectively. Here's how it looked from spectator mode:



Comments on Vehicles:
Overall it was a very enjoyable session but the delays we experienced because of transports/vehicles were (and always are) a bit annoying. Imho we should focus more on doing what we've done best so far, and that's Infantry-focused engagements with IFVs (and the occasional heavier vehicle/helicopter) used (if at all) as attached weapon-platforms, not transports. Maybe a few ground-rules like "AT drives, AAR guns" on armed light vehicles might help as well but generally I prefer if the majority of the players start in walking distance of angry bullets.