[Sun] 28 Oct 2012 (Chernarussian meadows)

[wolfenswan]

Missions:

• Rolling Matryoshka I
• The Takedown
• Rolling Matryoshka II
• The Takedown (again)
• Cholo (3 times)

It looks like Chernarussians don't like us too much. Rolling Matryoshka 1 was a slaughter right from the start. It looked as if the second part wouldn't go much better but we got our act together and managed to hit Gorka itself, where we got destroyed in proper fashion. The Takedown was won by both BLUFOR and OPFOR but each time the M2 HMMWs were the clear loosers. Cholo was Cholo with the notable addition of crashing a car into the police station and setting it ablaze.

by the way, that other post never happened

[fer]

Thank you to comrade Wolfenswan for taking over as host tonight - I got called away unexpectedly mid-session, so apologies to all for that.

Apologies to Elisium and Ghandi if I came across a little grumpy tonight over the issue of COs and plans, but it's something that really matters in the Folk sessions (nevertheless, if I was dick-ish in making the point, I apologise).

The issue is really simple: we aim to ensure guests spend as much time in-mission as possible, which means making the planning (map) phase as efficient as we can. It's why banter is restricted to side-chat, and COs are given complete control of TeamSpeak during that phase of the mission. Naturally, with such power comes responsibility, and by taking the role of CO you are, amongst other things, committing to provide the plan.

Importantly, it doesn't have to be a brilliant plan - a good plan now is better than a perfect plan in 10 minutes. Nevertheless, it's up to the CO to provide the plan, and this precludes planning by committee, or asking element leaders if they mind doing certain things (the reality is that for that mission, they are obligated to follow the CO's plan - they took a subordinate role out of choice).

None of this can happen without the cooperation of everyone else: if you are not the CO, it's crucial that you keep banter to chat. When the moment comes for questions, the senior element leaders (squad leaders, attachment leaders) should take priority on TeamSpeak. If, during slotting, you decided to take a junior role, it's not fair to suddenly attempt to dominate the discussion with your brilliant plan - instead, next mission, step up to a leadership position safe in the knowledge that you'll receive respect and support.

Anyway, I don't mean to detract from what was otherwise shaping up to be a fun session, even if I spent much of my time as a corpse on a Chernarussian hillside, after discovering that the scoped PK is an instrument of terrible frustration.

I remain very grateful to all comrades who came along tonight (we touched on 40, I believe). You are the sessions!

[Ferrard Carson]

Rolling Matryoshka I
Deployed as IFV 2 Commander
We return to the rolling fields and Deathbarns of Chernarus! When I heard Fer's dulcet tones ask for IFV commanders (with special emphasis on the fact that we were taking commanders) I knew my tireless lobbying had paid off! I quickly seized the reins of IFV-2, intent on showing the good folk of Folk just how effective increased situational awareness could be! Confident with the driving and gunning skills of Dogface and Draakon, we brave crewmen set out, ready to show those Chernarussian bosh'tets many a thing about combined arms!

A BMP-3 is a fearsome beast. It mounts, not one, not two, but five separate weapon systems firing just as many different types of bullets! From the bottom up are two bow-mounted machine-guns, used by two of the seven mountable infantry. Next is the coaxial machine-gun. Then the 30mm autocannon, loaded with both AP and HE rounds! Finally is a beast of a 100mm low-velocity smoothbore infantry-support cannon that, oh yeah, can fire ATGMs! Any three men, equipped with this vehicle, are like unto a god on the battlefield! There's something I'm forgetting though... Something...

*Tink, tink, tink*

Right. The armor. Or lack thereof.

No video, since all it shows is me skylining the BMP-3 on a flat open hillside, being distracted by trying to mark a KORD bunker, and thus not noticing the BMP-2 that looked sideways at us and blew us up.

The Takedown
Deployed as Alpha FTL
Thoroughly chastised by my terrible performance the previous mission, I tucked my tail between my legs and contented myself with being ferried to a southern blocking position by BlackMamba's awesome flying. We arrived, I ran up into the minaret for a good look at the southern approach while Bravo got shot to pieces, and then someone shot Aziz. Victory?

No video again, since all it shows is me and my fire-team hit the dirt in a courtyard, climb three flights of circular stairs, and then confront the deadliest of enemies: The "Mission Completed" screen!

Rolling Matryoshka II
Deployed as Tank Commander
Right. Attempt #2 to prove the worth of a commander. In the cupola of a much less glass-cannon-y T-72, I settled in, told the crew how I would give them directions, and set out to be a force-multiplier. We wandered down the roads as flying buses dropped off the crunchies we were assigned to protect. Eventually we caught up with them and gave the driver some serious conniptions due to the proximity of crunchies that we weren't allowed to crunch.

Slowly advancing behind Alpha, the tank didn't really encounter much in the way of resistance, except at the hands of our own soldiers who apparently find comfort in standing directly in front of our grinding treads. An entire fire team of Alpha got slaughtered in front of our eyes, and I wasn't able to move the tank to shield them or obliterate the enemy position because I couldn't move for fear of squishing folk.

Once we got out in front of Alpha, though, the carnage was palpable. The checkpoint that had obliterated most of an Alpha fire team melted before coaxial tracers. We zoned an entire area of Alpha's frontage such that enemies couldn't exist there without the express permission of myself or my gunner. When Bravo came under fire, our metal behemoth felled trees left and right, emerging from the woods to belch flame... and miss a skylined BDRM three times.

We erased another line of defense with more machine-gun fire, accidentally made a smokescreen for Bravo, and then canted East. Spying what I thought to be yet another mounted AGS-30 to our southeast, I ordered us around the forest and out of a depression. The gunner was to engage the position while I watched north to keep us from being smacked by something we couldn't see yet. Then a ZU-23 spooged all over us even as my gunner killed its crew, leaving our engine royally messed up, but the rest of the vehicle in the green. My driver couldn't back the tank up, but that was fine, because we had survived, most of our systems were up, and my scope was clear. What could possibly--

Note to self: ArmA 2 vehicles are even more finnicky about waiting a bit to blow up than you normally expect.

See below for a decent, but not stellar example of how to command a vehicle. My kingdom for a commander's view that can zoom in and out though



The Takedown II: Electric Boogaloo
Deployed as Wafflynumber's Faithful Manservant
So I figured that for this runthrough, I would content myself with something extremely non-vital, seeing as I had twice hogged pretty lucrative slots in the hopes of getting the above video. What could be less important than the faithful manservant of Colonel Aziz?

We clambered into two separate cars, pausing on our breakneck journey only to secure my jarl a less conspicuous form of transport than a UAZ marked with the colors of the Takistani Army. Unfortunately, when I attempted to cut the corner and catch up with my liege, radiator met rock, and my car screeched to a halt, spewing steam like a bad cartoon. I limped away from the crash, hid from the prowling Predator Drone and roaving Little Bird, and un-dislocated my shoulder, knee, hip, and lower spinal column. Ah the wonders of tribal medicine!

After spending a magazine on potshots at the circling Little Bird, I jacked liberated a UAZ from local farmers who will totally not need it anymore, and did the only thing I could in service to my master. I drew attention. Goodness knows DEAR LEADER AZIZ was right to have swapped out his car, because no sooner had I stomped on the accelerator when bullets started smashing the windows and putting holes into that rather fetching canvas cover. I swerved down street after street, barely ahead of the angry bees being lofted my way by HECU beekeepers. I crashed that car too (I swear I passed my driver's ed course >.>) and fled, looking to find another car to jack liberate, when Wafflynumber's voice echoed in my head. "Luke, the force will be with you... always... and I'm safe in the mosque." Thus reassured, I was given permission to slip into a blissful unconsciousness from the multitude of fractures, sprains, and re-dislocated pelvises sustained over my crash course in crashes.



Cholo
I got killed ejecting from a car as it rammed the police station at full speed.

Cholo 2
I got killed standing next to a car that went Ford Pinto on my ass.

Cholo 3
By avoiding our car like the plague, I managed to survive long enough to be ventilated by a shotgun from across the police-station through a 3-inch wide gap

All-in-all, yet another enjoyable session.

~ Ferrard

[Wilson]

As your gunner under your second command of a vehicle I can only apologise for my awful performance. Even hearing your orders was a struggle due to other chatter and a ridiculously loud turret lol. No excuses for missing the BDRM, poor judgement on my part and I then got disconnected shortly after, leaving you with an AI gunner for a few minutes - probably did more damage than I did in the entire mission!

[Mamuto]

I wish my Sunday Folk sessions weren't so sporadic, as I had a ton of fun and learned a lot yesterday.
To start off, I participated in the workshop, which was very useful. Definitely want to see more actual urban maneuvers, building clearing, and casualty management.

Rolling Matryoshka I (love the name btw):
I was an automatic rifleman with Alpha. We had no issues moving up to our base of fire on the hill overlooking the factory, but once there, all hell broke loose. We were taking fire from the north west and the south west. I got caught in mid reload and took a RPK round to the head.. Then some sneaky militia man managed to sneak up to the hill and kill a few comrades. Sneaky sneaky AI.. A few laughs were had by us spectators

The Takedown
So this was my first attempt at being a FTL. And it went awfully. First, the driver was having technical problems and didn't load in with the rest of us. So we're off to a late start. Great. He also says he sees no markers on the map so I have to guide him to our waypoint. That's fine, I can open the map and just tell him when to turn, easy right? Well, apparently not. We missed the turn and ended up driving straight into Zargabad. After lots of yelling and the fastest 180 I've seen in ArmA, we were on our way to our objective. Until we took an RPG to the face. Driver dead, the rest of us bleeding out... Amazingly the vehicle didn't blow up and the mission ended before I bled out. ..Success?

Rolling Matryoshka II:
Not satisfied AT ALL with my FTL performance the previous mission, I made the brilliant decision to try again. Running Bravo 2 this time around, we made our way down the road towards Gorka when we started getting hit from the north and the south. A lot of confusion happened here, including some FF from the Tunguska, and the death of Bravo Squad leader. As I reported it to Commander, Dogface, I suddenly found myself in charge of Bravo. I'm still relatively new to ArmA, let alone commanding, so this was more than a bit out of my comfort zone. However, adrenaline pumping, I did my best. I got Bravo to push west until we met resistance from an elevated position across the open field. I had Bravo 3 advance further north along the tree line to hopefully provide a better line of fire and told Bravo 1 to flank from the south (really hoping I wasn't sending them off on a suicide mission). I then called up the Tunguska to push directly at the enemy position with Bravo 2 (and myself) as support but got instagib headshotted right as I gave that command

Not sure what Alpha was doing that whole time...

But wait! There's more! The glorious party thought it fitting to give me a second chance at taking out the insurgents by having me take over the body of a lowly peasant errr I mean Platoon Medic. I joined Alpha at first, but they weren't doing ANYTHING whilst brave Bravo was busy taking Gorka all by themselves. And by that I mean horribly dying. I heard cries for medic so I bolted west to try and help but ended up getting myself shot on the hill overlooking Gorka. Medic Calculon ran to me and got me up right as he died. I avenged my brave comrade and ran further into town to the remainder of Bravo, at this point 4 strong, holed up in a barn. Little did we know, this was a death trap. Dirty peasants kept coming at us from the hill I was just on, taking us down one by one. I finally managed to get out and was ready to light them up but by this point Alpha was annihilated, CO dead, and only 3 of us up so the mission was called. Chernarussians keep kicking our ass.. I vote we play this mission again! I need some sweet sweet revenge.

The rest of the night wasn't very exciting for me.

Closing Remarks
Commanders, please... stop having us assaulting uphill. It's a suicide mission as AI sees us and we don't see them.

Thanks all for a great session and I hope to play again soon. If anyone (who remembers me commanding) can give me some pointers/advice/criticism, it would be greatly appreciated.



Mamuto

[Black Mamba]

Mamuto, if you're still curious about what happened in Alpha during Rolling Matryoshka part II, head towards the Commander's critique thread. I think you can find some answers there.
Regarding the assaulting uphill thing. I've been whining a few times about this myself, but you have to realize that defensive positions are usually located uphill for that exact reason. In which case assaulting uphill is the only way.

I myself had a pretty nice session at the beginning, but my computer's antivirus treacherously decided to launch a complete system check in the background mid-session (which I found out after ragequitting at the end of the first Cholo). So I played with a ridiculously low FPS rate after the first mission (I almost never managed to get inside the police station in cholo, let alone shoot people).
Apologies to the guys in Alpha in the first Takedown for a rather worrying landing. Hard to make with 2 FPS.

[audiox]

Folk Workshop
These are pretty great for utter imbeciles like meself. Erm, they're probably pretty good for non-imbeciles as well.... As i said, genius-level stuff. Guns were fired, grenade launchers were fired, helicopters were boarded and exited (oh how i wanted to liven up the exercise as helicopter gunner......), treacherous alleways were overcome (as long as we can retcon grenades out of existence then those alleways will be forever safe). Thanks for taking the time, those drills are a nice way to become more familiar with a fireteam and many aspects of the game which are difficult to really see in action in single player.

Rolling Matryoshka 1
Matryoshka Braaaaaaainz.
ConcreteOtter's FireTeam. AR
Synopsis. Sit on lorry, run through forest (where friendly russian security forces were put through a voluntary live fire drill from our forces, methinks ). Notice shiny metal object in vincinity of factory on other side of forest. Notify FTL of said shiny object, neglect to mention compass direction, causing ftl to believe i'm talking about -other- shiny metal object. Lesson learnt here, use the compass more efficiently.
(And coincidentally, does anybody have tips for compass-mods? The one in vanilla is horribly difficult to read...)
Hear dying FTL, assume command of FT, die gloriously. The plan was to lead a fireteam tonight, and i did, for at least thirty seconds. That will do for now!

The Takedown
Bravo 2 AR. FTL : ConcreteOtter
Yay, we got the Hummvee w/o a turret, lucky us. We drove to Bravo 2's designated area, parked our car in the middle of an intersection (which honestly didn't seem like a good idea.) From the side of my window i saw somebody in the second story of a building next to us, but found it difficult to relay it to my FTL, which is embarrassing enough. We get out, and the car spontaneously combusts right behind us. FTL is injured on the other side of the intersection, so i run across the street to his position, spend some time looking orund the other side of the house, and return to find him quite dead. Right afterwards Zitron tells us that there are incoming vehicles from the south-west. For some ludicrous reason they stop their cars in our intersection and we send them a friendly hail of bullets. Some of the passengers exits the vehicles and i die.
Learning later that it was the Azis-convoy. Just great. Congratulations to Zitron and the last member of B2 for their glorious, and indespensible new interpretation on the rights of assembly for the citizens of Zargabad.

Rolling Matryoshka II
Alpha 2 AT. FTL : Black Mamba
Mission Failure due to machine infiltration by elite team of Chernarussian hackers. How many times can a graphics driver crash during a mission?
Not only did my driver crash, it did so just as i was standing in front of Ferrard and Gang's T72, ooops. So, my driver crashed so that a driver could crash into me? Sounds like soviet russia alright.

The Takedown
???? ? AR FTL ???
"Hey, drive this car out to the airfield and look at the scenery." "Can do!"
At least i survived this one!

Cholo 1
I used to play Cholo for the drugs, but then we had a joint session with the CIA, and they sold our drugs to feed their power habit.
This one was odd, we actually spent time outside the police station....


And a sidenote to FTL's.
Thanks for doing the job, but i'd advise you to try to figure out your fireteam before bullets are firing. Unless you happen to command a team where you're familiar with everybody then it would be nice if we spent our lorry-rides on getting to know our skill levels and such. This helps out the rest of the team a lot. Who has sthud, who doesn't? I didn't for one or two sessions, and after i installed it i have to say that not having it was a lot like flying blind. FTL's who ask more questions get more questions, leading to earlier resolutions of certain problems. (Or to more distractions.)
(Of course, too much chatter is a nuisance to some, so if you don't wanna, then it is your call. You chose FTL, so you're entitled to run it your way.)


Thanks to everybody who participates, it's funny as hell sometimes.

[fer]

Rolling Matryoshka I

MMG : Fer
|- AMMG: Slappybag

I'm sure that in the hands of someone competent (by which I mean: anyone except me), the Pecheneg is a gloriously efficient long-distance instrument of death. Sadly, in my virtual hands, it's a tracer-firing shotgun with an ACOG stapled to the top. Sure, I can watch my rounds travel rapidly away from me towards the enemy. Travel quite some way, indeed. And then miss. A process that I can repeat many, many times, by dint of the large box magazine and helpful automatic action.

Shotgun.gif (7.18 KiB) Viewed 9986 times

MMG.jpg (11.42 KiB) Viewed 9986 times

Anyway, we were attached to comrade Wolfenswan's Alpha, which moved off on foot, travelling relatively quickly through the wooded slopes to a BOF fire position on a hilltop directly east of the factory. Along the way there was some unpleasantness with some locals in the trees, but a little coordinated fire-and-movement from Alpha's fireteams meant that we were soon overlooking the factory and able to bring effective fire down upon the enemy. To be fair, the Pecheneg was great here, making light work of the enemies on the factory rooftop and in the surrounding compound (200-300m distant?). However, I then found myself wasting rounds on infantry targets across the valley, of which there were many. Bravo was, I think, supposed to be attacking up the road, but as I succumbed to scope/target-fixation, enemy vehicles rolled in. I have no idea what killed me, but I'm sure I deserved it considering my lingering, exposed position on the downslope and general lack of situational awareness.



The Takedown

Protection Detail Leader: Waffly
|- Riflemen: Draakon
|- Riflemen: Fer

Riding shotgun in Waffly's car, I enjoyed watching the countryside roll past as we drove out to the gas station in the eastern desert (they do really nice coffees there), then swung north towards the little river crossing at the south-east outskirts of the city. We could see a billowing column of smoke up ahead and excited radio chatter suggested that our comrades in OPFOR had wasted an enemy vehicle. This looked great! Suddenly, a lot of shooting was happening at the tip of our little convoy, and it became apparent that we had driven into some form of ambush. I bailed out of the vehicle and ran for cover, then ran back to patch up my leader, who was tucked in behind a wall, bleeding everywhere. After which we began to clear the buildings in front of us, whilst attempting to make sense of the situation. Then Aziz died.

[Ferrard Carson]

Apologies to the guys in Alpha in the first Takedown for a rather worrying landing. Hard to make with 2 FPS.

Holy crap, that landing was done at 2 FPS? Very well done, in that case!

As your gunner under your second command of a vehicle I can only apologise for my awful performance. Even hearing your orders was a struggle due to other chatter and a ridiculously loud turret lol. No excuses for missing the BDRM, poor judgement on my part and I then got disconnected shortly after, leaving you with an AI gunner for a few minutes - probably did more damage than I did in the entire mission!

No worries, there wasn't much for our main-gun to shoot anyways, your PKM was murder on AI, and you've ample time to practice tank gunnery in the armory if you so wish!

~ Ferrard

[Black Mamba]

Apologies to the guys in Alpha in the first Takedown for a rather worrying landing. Hard to make with 2 FPS.

Holy crap, that landing was done at 2 FPS? Very well done, in that case!

I'll take your word on that, it was really confusing for me. I was in my final approach, about 60km/h speed, next frame I had almost stopped one compound too early.