Re: [Sun] 19 May 2013 (Methodicalism)
Posted: Tue May 21, 2013 1:02 am
This was indeed a methodical session for me - I methodically picked Automatic Rifleman every single time we hit the slotting screen! Biggest Gun + Non-Comms-Burdened Mind often meant that I was providing effective and unspoken overwatch (via tsunami's of bullets) for the entire session.
Workshop
Today's workshop was entirely comprised of practicing heliborne ops. A series of three drop-offs and dust-offs allowed the 12 awesome workshop participants to learn what does and doesn't work well with LZs, and some basic rules of thumb regarding calling in chopper support. Namely:
Deployed as IndFor Alpha 1 AR
We began with this goodie, but with an interesting twist - instead of settling in for a traditional attack / defend, IndFor was to press forward to our safe haven in Shukurkalay. In between us was a Takistani motorized blocking force. Alpha swept through to the edge of our "safe zone" at which point we were pinned by an infuriating PKM to our East and a DShKM jeep to our North. After getting wounded and patched back up, I said "fuck it!" and dove out into the middle of the courtyard where we were pinned. Three bursts of machine-gun fire later, and the PKM gunner was dead. The DShKM jeep decided that stupidity was the better part of valor and decided to charge us after the death of his fellow machine-gunner.
We obliterated the guys, then dashed forwards towards the enemy controlled town with almost no overwatch. I would wait until my comrades had made it to another big rock or piece of cover before I moved up, and I was able to take out another PKM gunner with counter-fire, but not before he blew GreyEric's head to pulp with a burst of fire that was chasing Black Mamba's sprinting ass. Finally, we made it into the next town to find that the rest of the platoon had met similar fates, and Alpha 1 with its three men was one of the more intact elements on IndFor. And then we tried to advance Northwards without securing our Eastern flank. Where there were three enemy dudes.
Cacheola
Deployed as IndFor Alpha 1 AR
So... we need to work on our defensive skills some more.
IndFor was scattered four ways to the wind across the suburbs of Zargabad. Each fireteam holed up around a cache, with Alpha leaving one dude up in the minaret next to our cache, and the other three of us in a 2-story building across the road, one on the roof, one on the second floor, and me on the ground. Neither of our guys up high came down when the enemy rolled into town, which led to the predictable "BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG-- KABOOOOOOM!" of their skylined forms getting blown up and riddled with holes. Finally, I was ordered up and into the second floor through the only entrance and exit, and that movement must have caught BluFor's eyes, because we got fuckin' lit up. Since there's only one entrance and exit to the second floor of those types of buildings, and that entrance is an exposed staircase, I decided that the second floor was not a healthy place to be.
The building was subsequently rocketed, but I was already in the courtyard on the other side. Following brave Wafflynumber as he maneuvered through the city streets, I ducked into a corner building, only to realize very belatedly that the side door had perfect enfilade fire down the left side of a road. Upon which there were two guys in ACU's. Looking right at me.
I freaked, dove to the ground, and aligned my sights. A moment's indecision seemed to hit them, and I took the chance to clamp down on the trigger and not let go. The bullets flew, I swear some of the lead we were trading smacked each other in mid-air, and by the end of it, I greeted Wilson as we both simultaneously lined up at the gates of Hell.
That's not to say that IndFor was a complete failure, though!
UNnecessary Violence
Deployed as Charlie 1 AR
What is this magickery? An imperialist weapon? And then Ferrard was the Imperialists!
I'm fair certain that all the way up until we entered Zargabad proper, I was the only dude in Charlie with any kills at all, by dint of me being the guy who cleared out the first barracks in the first military base. One of them was on the crapper. He didn't shit gold.
Other than that, though, the most exciting things that happened were: 1) Daf being a deer to Draakon's deuce-and-a-half, 2) a T-55 eating rocket after rocket like so much candy, and 3) what seemed like the entire squad crossing my line of fire right after I told them not to. We were so lucky that AI was glitched. Other than that, this mission seemed more like an exercise in maneuver logistics.
Foxhound
Deployed as OpFor Bravo 2 AR
Comrade murderer once more with an RPK, I was sent down into the valley with the rest of Bravo 2. We wandered the green, wooded valley floor with visibility of perhaps 20 meters due to the frequent lines of bushes. Many, many times I went off-axis without specific instructions, seeking to instead get angles around the vegetation such that the entire element wouldn't get blindsided by one guy. It wasn't Bravo 2 that had to worry though - 1 was lit up by a PKM from some 500 meters away twice in quick succession. My return fire was ineffective at first, but I shifted my profligate expenditure of ammunition to the left a little bit (in the process, ruining the day of many a bird nesting in a bunch of trees), and suddenly the PKM fell silent as its operator must have been cowering from the deluge of bullets pinging his area.
A similar dry mag helped to spell the end to a Lee-Enfield harasser in the rocks to the left of our valley sweep, and then I dashed forward to take the heat off of my FTL as he hid behind a truck. Behind a truck was quaint to me. I hid under it and looked forward only to see a skylined dude in a turban pointing a gun in our general direction. One extended burst to his face settled his hash. I looked back up at the rocks where that PKM gunner had been, and saw another dude crawling out from behind a boulder. More bullets wounded him, and as he desperately crawled back to cover, I shattered his femoral artery and could see the poor bastard roll over dead. Tigershark managed to confirm the guy's death right before the last of the six were killed.
Mission Testing: Grozovoy Treehuggers!
Not much to say on this one, except that I started as a medic with an anemic little AK-74, and I ended as a fire-breathing dragon with charged RPK and loaded Stinger-missile launcher. I blew away a barnful of EI with that RPK, and used the Stinger missile to obliterate one of the ZU-23's that had stopped our tank cold. The other one returned the favor to our tank, and I charged ahead to medic the crew's constituent atoms back together (that works, right?). In a display of the paucity of enemies in this mission, I had run halfway to the smouldering tank before anyone even started shooting at me, and was 2/3'rds of the way there when they finally hit me and ended my dash for glory.
More seriously... this mission just needs more enemies.
In conclusion:
Mute vengeful Americans with automatic weapons and full magazines are terrors of the night!
~ Ferrard
Workshop
Today's workshop was entirely comprised of practicing heliborne ops. A series of three drop-offs and dust-offs allowed the 12 awesome workshop participants to learn what does and doesn't work well with LZs, and some basic rules of thumb regarding calling in chopper support. Namely:
- 1) Place the LZ far enough away or behind appropriate cover such that it probably won't be fired upon by defenders. Any closer than 400 meters is likely to lead to a dead chopper.
2) Place LZ's so that the ingress is free of obstacles. Having to pop up above a ridgeline or forest or city makes flaring properly much more difficult than necessary.
3) Ground clutter near the LZ provides cover for the troops on the ground, but requires greater pilot skill to land and lift. Find a good balance between the two.
Deployed as IndFor Alpha 1 AR
We began with this goodie, but with an interesting twist - instead of settling in for a traditional attack / defend, IndFor was to press forward to our safe haven in Shukurkalay. In between us was a Takistani motorized blocking force. Alpha swept through to the edge of our "safe zone" at which point we were pinned by an infuriating PKM to our East and a DShKM jeep to our North. After getting wounded and patched back up, I said "fuck it!" and dove out into the middle of the courtyard where we were pinned. Three bursts of machine-gun fire later, and the PKM gunner was dead. The DShKM jeep decided that stupidity was the better part of valor and decided to charge us after the death of his fellow machine-gunner.
We obliterated the guys, then dashed forwards towards the enemy controlled town with almost no overwatch. I would wait until my comrades had made it to another big rock or piece of cover before I moved up, and I was able to take out another PKM gunner with counter-fire, but not before he blew GreyEric's head to pulp with a burst of fire that was chasing Black Mamba's sprinting ass. Finally, we made it into the next town to find that the rest of the platoon had met similar fates, and Alpha 1 with its three men was one of the more intact elements on IndFor. And then we tried to advance Northwards without securing our Eastern flank. Where there were three enemy dudes.
Cacheola
Deployed as IndFor Alpha 1 AR
So... we need to work on our defensive skills some more.
IndFor was scattered four ways to the wind across the suburbs of Zargabad. Each fireteam holed up around a cache, with Alpha leaving one dude up in the minaret next to our cache, and the other three of us in a 2-story building across the road, one on the roof, one on the second floor, and me on the ground. Neither of our guys up high came down when the enemy rolled into town, which led to the predictable "BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG-- KABOOOOOOM!" of their skylined forms getting blown up and riddled with holes. Finally, I was ordered up and into the second floor through the only entrance and exit, and that movement must have caught BluFor's eyes, because we got fuckin' lit up. Since there's only one entrance and exit to the second floor of those types of buildings, and that entrance is an exposed staircase, I decided that the second floor was not a healthy place to be.
The building was subsequently rocketed, but I was already in the courtyard on the other side. Following brave Wafflynumber as he maneuvered through the city streets, I ducked into a corner building, only to realize very belatedly that the side door had perfect enfilade fire down the left side of a road. Upon which there were two guys in ACU's. Looking right at me.
I freaked, dove to the ground, and aligned my sights. A moment's indecision seemed to hit them, and I took the chance to clamp down on the trigger and not let go. The bullets flew, I swear some of the lead we were trading smacked each other in mid-air, and by the end of it, I greeted Wilson as we both simultaneously lined up at the gates of Hell.
That's not to say that IndFor was a complete failure, though!
UNnecessary Violence
Deployed as Charlie 1 AR
What is this magickery? An imperialist weapon? And then Ferrard was the Imperialists!
I'm fair certain that all the way up until we entered Zargabad proper, I was the only dude in Charlie with any kills at all, by dint of me being the guy who cleared out the first barracks in the first military base. One of them was on the crapper. He didn't shit gold.
Other than that, though, the most exciting things that happened were: 1) Daf being a deer to Draakon's deuce-and-a-half, 2) a T-55 eating rocket after rocket like so much candy, and 3) what seemed like the entire squad crossing my line of fire right after I told them not to. We were so lucky that AI was glitched. Other than that, this mission seemed more like an exercise in maneuver logistics.
Foxhound
Deployed as OpFor Bravo 2 AR
Comrade murderer once more with an RPK, I was sent down into the valley with the rest of Bravo 2. We wandered the green, wooded valley floor with visibility of perhaps 20 meters due to the frequent lines of bushes. Many, many times I went off-axis without specific instructions, seeking to instead get angles around the vegetation such that the entire element wouldn't get blindsided by one guy. It wasn't Bravo 2 that had to worry though - 1 was lit up by a PKM from some 500 meters away twice in quick succession. My return fire was ineffective at first, but I shifted my profligate expenditure of ammunition to the left a little bit (in the process, ruining the day of many a bird nesting in a bunch of trees), and suddenly the PKM fell silent as its operator must have been cowering from the deluge of bullets pinging his area.
A similar dry mag helped to spell the end to a Lee-Enfield harasser in the rocks to the left of our valley sweep, and then I dashed forward to take the heat off of my FTL as he hid behind a truck. Behind a truck was quaint to me. I hid under it and looked forward only to see a skylined dude in a turban pointing a gun in our general direction. One extended burst to his face settled his hash. I looked back up at the rocks where that PKM gunner had been, and saw another dude crawling out from behind a boulder. More bullets wounded him, and as he desperately crawled back to cover, I shattered his femoral artery and could see the poor bastard roll over dead. Tigershark managed to confirm the guy's death right before the last of the six were killed.
Mission Testing: Grozovoy Treehuggers!
Not much to say on this one, except that I started as a medic with an anemic little AK-74, and I ended as a fire-breathing dragon with charged RPK and loaded Stinger-missile launcher. I blew away a barnful of EI with that RPK, and used the Stinger missile to obliterate one of the ZU-23's that had stopped our tank cold. The other one returned the favor to our tank, and I charged ahead to medic the crew's constituent atoms back together (that works, right?). In a display of the paucity of enemies in this mission, I had run halfway to the smouldering tank before anyone even started shooting at me, and was 2/3'rds of the way there when they finally hit me and ended my dash for glory.
More seriously... this mission just needs more enemies.
In conclusion:
Mute vengeful Americans with automatic weapons and full magazines are terrors of the night!
~ Ferrard