[Tue] 26 Feb 2013 (It was Tuesday)

[lwlooz]

Belanus
B or C 2 FTL

This mission pitted us against the British Forces. It also took place on that small desert map , the name of which eludes me.
What does not elude me is that we get frequently killed fast on this map. This happened again.
This time we experienced getting killed by IFVs, whos complete lack of dying to our RPGs made them cocky enough to drive up to us and taunt us from inside their vehicles.
It is incidences like this which make we wonder if BIS games wouldn't make a great medieval combat sim if you only replaced the tanks with knights on horseback.

Two Days to retirement
PoliceMan - MP5

Lots of fog. If there is a lesson to be learned for me here is that a situation with low visibility if you remain stationary the enemy will eventually find a way to shoot you in the back.

Black Folk Down
CO

The mission was to capture (or kill.. ) two warlords in the vicinity of Zargabad. I had 2 Squads and a elite Force Recon Delta SF Team to achieve this. On the logistical side we had two Blackhawks(MH-60), one LittleBird(MH-6) and one LittleBird-Attack-Heli(AH-6) in our inventory.
We may or we may not have achieved the objectives. We at least established two warlord vacancies. If they quit themselves or we killed them seems to be a point of dispute.
I don't know what lesson is to be learned from this mission. I tried to play it safe and have the 2 squads bound all the way to both objectives, but in the end people died just the same as with a more risky plan. It might be more helpful to try more risky plans to lessen the time dead people spend in spectator mode.
As I expected, Light-Attack-Gun-Platforms such as the AH-6 and improvised ones like the MH-60 don't survive long in a CAS capacity. On the other hand, having pilots sit back due to the lack of suitable targets or due to safety is an unfortunate situation as well. It might be a interesting idea to have inserting pilots at least take on another role after they done their pilot job.
Its a shame the recon mission of Delta Force took a bad turn. I would like to see more Recon in Arma, but this might be more suited to TvT missions. And I guess it might be suited to larger operations . So if there ever will be missions with Battalions and stuff in Arma24 , I hope Recon is a suitable and fun occupation to have in a mission.

[Cuddlefish]

It is incidences like this which make we wonder if BIS games wouldn't make a great medieval combat sim if you only replaced the tanks with knights on horseback.

In principle, this would be the coolest thing. Especially if they somehow had a good representation of the effectiveness of medieval armor and good implementation of the myriad, dirty ways you got around it. In practice, I think the comparatively-low player:combatant ratio would be felt much more than in a modern / WW2 setting [see also just about anything in the ACW or earlier], unfortunately. The other, even more damning thing is - just imagine for a moment how awkward mechanically a melee system made by BIS would be. Oi. I'd love to race for a Halberdier or Doppelsoldner slot, but I don't think they could pull it off.

I really, really want to be proven wrong someday on this one though.

[Dogface]

I don't know what lesson is to be learned from this mission. I tried to play it safe and have the 2 squads bound all the way to both objectives, but in the end people died just the same as with a more risky plan. It might be more helpful to try more risky plans to lessen the time dead people spend in spectator mode.

As a squad-leader in that mission, I thought the commanding was great! The two squads were close enough to support each other but separate enough to not be stepping on each other's targets. Sure, people still died, but personally I don't mind that as long as there's some good soldiering to spectate. A riskier plan would definitely have resulted in more people dying, and the only part of the mission it would have cut short would be the victorious ending, which was the best part.

Random thought: I think it adds a lot to the game, and especially spectating, when you can hear people talking in local -- it's half of what makes ShackTac's videos so fun for me. I know it's impractical to use ACRE for regular sessions, but.. well, I don't know what I'm suggesting, really. More use of VON? I presume there's not really any kind of server-side way to make the radio system conform properly to our ORBAT so you'd have something like a squad channel and an opt-in comm channel... either that or some kind of ACRE-lite that would make all transmissions echo on local. Or maybe even just forced mic-mute (gentleman's agreement?) when dead so you can still sit in channel?

Also I really like that we're experimenting with different setups and loadouts -- the stripped down low-tech Folk style is definitely a great base to work from, but I definitely enjoy it when things are spiced up with interesting extra assets, as long as we can learn to use them effectively-but-not-too-effectively.

[Black Mamba]

Black Folk Down
CO

The mission was to capture (or kill.. ) two warlords in the vicinity of Zargabad. I had 2 Squads and a elite Force Recon Delta SF Team to achieve this. On the logistical side we had two Blackhawks(MH-60), one LittleBird(MH-6) and one LittleBird-Attack-Heli(AH-6) in our inventory.
We may or we may not have achieved the objectives. We at least established two warlord vacancies. If they quit themselves or we killed them seems to be a point of dispute.
I don't know what lesson is to be learned from this mission. I tried to play it safe and have the 2 squads bound all the way to both objectives, but in the end people died just the same as with a more risky plan. It might be more helpful to try more risky plans to lessen the time dead people spend in spectator mode.
As I expected, Light-Attack-Gun-Platforms such as the AH-6 and improvised ones like the MH-60 don't survive long in a CAS capacity. On the other hand, having pilots sit back due to the lack of suitable targets or due to safety is an unfortunate situation as well. It might be a interesting idea to have inserting pilots at least take on another role after they done their pilot job.
Its a shame the recon mission of Delta Force took a bad turn. I would like to see more Recon in Arma, but this might be more suited to TvT missions. And I guess it might be suited to larger operations . So if there ever will be missions with Battalions and stuff in Arma24 , I hope Recon is a suitable and fun occupation to have in a mission.

I think I'll take some time to totally revamp this mission soon.
One thing I note, everytime, though: even though the briefing does say (in capital letters) your orders are not to clear the city, every single run of this mission turned out to be that way. Which in turn led me to up the difficulty a tad, cause it was not really fun, and it ends up being a way too long mission during which the real objectives are lost from sight (Yeah, seriously, them dudes were here for sure, it's just most of the people had forgotten about them due to being shot at from everywhere for too long). It is currently designed in a way that a standard FA platoon CANNOT clear the city in less than at leat two hours, and probably cannot do it at all (when the mission was called, the AI count was still quite high).
I'll try a new approach at the AI handling on this, so that it can be completed way faster, but still turn to hell if the plan goes wrong.

And it's a shame it turned out that way, because the first approach on Yarum was nothing short of awesome, at least from Alpha POV. And it's also a shame I died to some unknown shooter through a wall, inside a clear house.

[Tigershark]

Why did the Delta recon mission go FUBAR?

[Draakon]

Why did the Delta recon mission go FUBAR?

Because the enemy spawning script didn't work in our favor. Once I (being at the head of everyone else) reached the area where R1 marker was, I took out my binos to scan the area. I didn't see nothing. Not in the airfield, not in the same small village we were at. And then literally, couple of seconds after that, EI started to pop up everywhere "BOOF"! Yes, I could had taken the approach with a more caution, but all signs indicated that the area was clear.

[audiox]

Belanus
B2 Something

Blue dots, ohmygod the blue dots! I must say i have a weak spot for these engagements where we are heavily outnumbered, outgunned, and pinned down. Figuring out how to actually move in a mush of enemy fire can be really really engaging. (And hiding behind boxes seems safer than hiding behind trees.)
All dead = All Good......

Two Days to Retirement
Bravo 1 Copper Something (Shotgun Weeeee!)

This was apparently tryteykers first as FTL. Congrats on getting us all into the city. The getting dead part we aptly managed on our own due no fault of yours!
These SUVs sure do drive fast. Us in Bravo took a detour to come into the city from the south, and encountered a whole lot of nothing before we all got to the buildi...mass grave in the centre of town. I think we all got shot. All i recall being fired upon by was friendly AI. (The machine knows!!! Aaaaaaagh!)
One tip to tryteyker. Be specific, don't say "somebody do that", just grab one of us by the collar and throw us to the wolves. Other than that all good.

Blackfolk Down
Alpha 2 FTL

This was a lot of fun. It was my first time with Fer as SL, and he got us moving and mowing in quite a nice fashion. I even learned the difference between a thrown smoke grenade and one shot from my rifle.
He had a clearly lined out plan for us and gave good instructions along the way. Through some horrible mishap A2 managed to stay a full fireteam until Geronimo Edwards died an excruciating death due to Arma collision handling during revive actions. Staircase of DOOM, i name thee! Sorry about that Geronimo.
There were plenty of AI contacts and lotsa buildings to clear, so we had tons of fun. The fireteam was tight and i hope they felt in the loop as the mission progressed.

As for the discussion above. Yeah, it turned into a clear the city and move mission. It really would've been interesting to put a timer on it forcing us to get dirty and nab the warlords quickly. That is sorta the point with such a mission. Get in, nab, run the fuck back out. I like clearing cities, by all means, but perhaps the focus is too much on taking out EI and not enough on just pinning them down whilst we grab what we want.