I would like to thank you and all admins for organizing this session, and allowing me to fly in Goose 3 as CiA pilot. I love piloting transport helos, it's my favorite part of the game, so a huge thank you for implementing those as part of our big missions and providing me the opportunity to enjoy the game to the fullest (boring role??? I had a constant view of the entire battlefield while providing recon support to the entire platoon! HOW AWESOME IS THAT!!!)fer wrote: I should have put this in the OP, but huge thanks to all transport helo pilots - it's a tough role for humans to play in a very long mission, but hugely beneficial to the wider platoon both in terms of movement/extraction options and immersion. Thank you for flying the air cows all evening, even when the enemy was throwing munitions in your direction!
Now that the gratitude bit is over, time for the AAR!
Rook Valley, Part 1
Goose 3 Pilot
I had the honor to be assigned to fly Charlie squad and WEP 3 as a last-minute stand in for a CiA pilot. The brief was very simple: Get everyone safely to the LZ, and then hover around providing support fire and recon, but prioritizing on keeping Goose 3 safe. My crewman, Terminal_Boy, was at my side, ready to rain some death on the Amerikanski. I could skip the Take-off and Landing bits, but actually they were executed so well I'd like to describe them. Coordination between CO and pilots was excellent, every bird took off one at a time with perfect timing, flying in tight formation. I was flying behind Goose 1 (Zitron/Nothun) at a safe 500m distance, and proceeded to hover around LZ Alpha while Goose 1 was touching down and disembarking. I made sure I wasn't in the way of their take-off when I started going down to drop off my cargo. After 2 very fast and well-executed landings that took less than a minute to complete, Alpha and Charlie and their WEP teams had been deployed on the South-Western part of the AO.
The rest of the mission saw me hovering around, looking for targets in the distance for Terminal_Boy to shoot. Due to some server desyncing, my crewman got ArmA'd and disembarked in mid-air, promptly falling to his death. Void of any firepower, I became a recon helo, awaiting orders for extraction and providing eyes for Charlie's flanks. One of the most useful tools as a recon helo is the radar, which allowed me to notify command of enemy fliers and fast movers long before they had reached our infantry.
Soon enough, I spotted an enemy squad (8 men) moving in behind Charlie as they were coming up to the town. They had been hidden to the South-East mountains, and I reported their existence to command. As Charlie were moving away from them and out of reach, command chose to ignore them. However, soon enough, they claimed Goose 1 who had forgotten/didn't know about their existence, and as the heli crash-landed on the southern hills, Tigershark had turned his helo around and took out the entire enemy squad.
Lesson of the day: Clear enemy squads behind you, they will be a pain in the ass sooner or later.
At this point, all squads were inside the city, and we helos provided information on friendly positions to minimize friendly fire incidents. After a while, the site was clear and the enemy cache was blown to bits, at which moment extraction was called and I performed my 6th safe landing for this mission, grabbing Charlie as they retreated away from the AO.
Rook Valley, Part 2
Goose 3 Pilot
Again, my task was the same. Fly CiA and WEP3 safely to our designated LZ. And yet again, landing order was executed perfectly, with a slight miss-orientation on my part where I started flying in the wrong direction straight into the enemy AA line. That was immediately solved however, and we proceeded.
After landing safely, I shot up and directly spotted the sniper that the infantry was reporting. In my zeal to spot more targets, however, I think I flew a bit too close to Chak Chak and something took out my gunner (but then again it was Tryteyker, who cares right?).
The rest of the time I just flew around in circles, keeping eyes on confirmed targets or spotting new ones and reporting them to command or Charlie. My proudest moment was spotting a Stryker that was cresting from around a hill that Charlie were not looking at, and as soon as I confirmed its position, Charlie and WEP3 rained fire on it and took it out without casualties (or at least, that's what I understood). I was so happy about my impact for the team that I started circling closer and closer to Chak Chak....and then my chopper decided to lose all altitude (even after re-watching my recording, I took no damage to the helo) and just crashed next to some EI. I got to watch the rest of the very very entertaining mission from the Spectator Script.
NOT EVEN MAD, BRO!
Good job to everyone, was an amazing night! I hope this happens again soon!