Hot LZs & well-trained VCs: Helos, RPGs & doorguns

[fer]

Riding into a hot LZ and making it onto the deck alive is an awesome experience, especially if the bird's a Huey and your element fans out perfectly in the flattened grass and returns fire. On the other hand, watching the helo that was supposed to deliver you into the mission burn on the ground from the afterlife of the spectator script is horribly frustrating.

Trading fire with the door gunners in a swooping helo can be exhilarating, particularly when you see the sparks of your own bullets as they kiss the enemy airframe. Conversely, dying on your face in a building as the enemy demonstrates the adobe-penetrating prowess of its miniguns can be a frustrating thing, especially if the fire is speculative.

So, in adversarial and puppeteering missions that feature helibourne insertions, what are we going to do about RPGs and door guns?

There isn't an easy answer, comrades. Nor do we necessarily have to come up with some hard and fast rule - so much depends on the particular conditions of each mission; but we can probably come up with lots of ideas. Let's have an honest and constructive exchange of views! After which those comrades who have expressed views contrary to the selected Party line may experience harassment, periodic detention and aggressive investigation of their tax and business affairs leading to trial and long-term imprisonment.

[Black Mamba]

Here' my current take on this.
It seems to me that suppressing as heavily as possible your LZ is a basic in any Air Assault maneuver. Choppers are, after all, fragile beasts, and you can't really expect them to consistently survive any kind of hot LZ if the enemy is allowed a clear line of sight on them. There is also some unfairness in allowing the defenders to RPG (or just shoot at) the chopper, while those in the helicopter are denied the right to defend themselves.
Plus, all that makes for an even more cinematic experience.
So it would seem only natural that any chopper trying to insert people would be allowed to put its defensive weapons to use. That would maybe even promote the use of bold LZs. After that, if they still get shot down, they can only blame themselves.

The problem arise later in the mission. Three helicopters in vanilla arma (namely, the Chinooks, the BlackHawk and the Ka-60) dispose of very powerful mounted weapons: M134 Miniguns and Automatic grenade Launchers. Those will flatten any building in no time, making it pretty annoying for any defender on the ground (may I add, even more when those defenders don't have NVGs and it's pitch black *cough*). So allowing those choppers to be used as mobile weapons platforms in adversarials will usually result in a largely unbalanced mission, that can even turn out being annoying for some. (IMO, the other choppers, equipped with PKT or M240 don't present the same issue: the limited rate of fire and the very reduced accuracy don't make them angry flying gods. I don't recall this issue being raised in Goose Chase, for example)

In the light of all that, here is wot I suggest: In existing missions, the invaders are allowed to have gunners while they are inserting people: those gunners must then either disembark with the rest of the squad when hitting the LZ, or act as spotters/navigators/crew chiefs, but hold fire as long as the chopper is not in a final approach (in case the plan includes multiple landings). I think we can trust everyone to abide by those rules.
In future missions, I recommend the mision makers make use of the full potential of the sandbox game we play: less-armed choppers (Hueys, KnightHawks, Mi-8), reduced ammo on the turrets (a hundred rounds on each minigun doesn't make the chinook so much of a flying tank), unarmed troop transporters supported by light CAS (the AH-6 comes to mind, but any chopper with coaxial weapons can be used. Please remove the rockets if you're gonna use it in an adversarial), restrictive ROEs... The more the mission and the assets themselves make for a balanced (maybe not balanced. The right word is fair) gameplay, the less we need arbitrary rules from the host, which, in my opinion, makes for a more enjoyable game as you don't feel as limited in what you can do, even though you actually are.

Hope that wasn't too long.

Edit: Oh, and one last point. Even though we usually try to get in the fight as fast as possible and don't really strive for a "realistic" slow-paced combat, recon can still be useful at times. Landing in an unknown status LZ is prone to surprises. One or two passes to asses the situation can't be bad.

[Draakon]

In future missions, I recommend the mision makers make use of the full potential of the sandbox game we play: less-armed choppers (Hueys, KnightHawks, Mi-8), reduced ammo on the turrets (a hundred rounds on each minigun doesn't make the chinook so much of a flying tank), unarmed troop transporters supported by light CAS (the AH-6 comes to mind, but any chopper with coaxial weapons can be used. Please remove the rockets if you're gonna use it in an adversarial), restrictive ROEs

Or if the mission makers deems necessary to add a chinook, blackhawk or a ka-50, replace the ammo of those 3 with a less powerful ammo, so you can still keep the chopper and its guns, but it instead shoots, say PKT ammo (or even makarov ammo. YES! That is entirely possible!)

[Macaco]

I agree with Mamba on just about all points.

- Landing choppers are allowed to use defensive weapons, but only on actual targets, no spraying in the general direction of enemies; and once they are back in the air put the safeties back on.
- Use birds with 240s instead of miniguns.
- Maybe chopper gets AH-6 escort. You don't need Apocalypse Now levels of destruction on every landing, but as a deterrent/protection it would be nice. Also despite what the party says I've never seen a mission hurt in the least by having one or two more birds/pilots. If anything they are more fun and interesting. More eyes in the air means more tension on the ground.
- Only host imposed rule I can think is warranted is "Don't fire RPGs at landing choppers" as there is no deep voices that's going to scream "M-M-M-MONSTER KILL KILL KILL", you're just ruining a mission for 5-10 people. Jerk. Though if you have a chopper insert, there likely isn't going to any armor and thus no need for AT, so why does everyone still have RPGs?

[Kefirz]

People still have RPG's because it's the standard load-out for FA.

We all know that the incident regarding shooting the bird started all this debate. I just want to say that current way that things are going is just fine, that was just a once in a lifetime shot... to shoot a full Chinook, I mean how often does that happen? And honestly? If I had the chance to shoot it in that mission I would.

If I would be in a heli and it got shot... well of course I would be frustrated at first, but then I would be fine because it's just a game and in 10-15 mins I would be repaying them with my BOOLETS.

So to conclude:

*Current way is fine
*Adding special ROE might make it a bit unfair if Birds can shoot, but people on the ground can't
*Of course choppers are fragile and they should be, nobody expects them to last very long under fire, and that is very reasonable.

[Draakon]

- Only host imposed rule I can think is warranted is "Don't fire RPGs at landing choppers"

Yet they can use their special weapons against us in this case?

People still have RPG's because it's the standard load-out for FA.

Which use AT ammo, not that very effective against a group of people. And let's be honest, how many of you have actually shot an RPG at people and BE successful! And how many of deadly RPG's have been fired at helis on adv. missions over the last year and this year combined?

And to be honest, helis are fragile so if CO and the Pilots don't take that into consideration and thus get blown up, it's their fault. Better have a LZ outside the AO (not only safer, but also gives the added bonus of (that is, if any mountain or forest is on the way) hiding the LZ from the spying eyes from inside the LZ) then doing "fast-rope-distance-LZ".

[Wilson]

Agree with what Mamba says, if helis can't use their own defenses then ground shouldn't be able to fire a rocket at a landing chopper. If we were able to use our guns on board, the guy with the RPG may have been shot before he managed to fire, then again he may have gotten his rocket off in time but at least we would have had the ability to at least try to defend ourselves.

People still have RPG's because it's the standard load-out for FA.

We all know that the incident regarding shooting the bird started all this debate. I just want to say that current way that things are going is just fine, that was just a once in a lifetime shot... to shoot a full Chinook, I mean how often does that happen? And honestly? If I had the chance to shoot it in that mission I would.

If I would be in a heli and it got shot... well of course I would be frustrated at first, but then I would be fine because it's just a game and in 10-15 mins I would be repaying them with my BOOLETS.

So to conclude:

*Current way is fine
*Adding special ROE might make it a bit unfair if Birds can shoot, but people on the ground can't
*Of course choppers are fragile and they should be, nobody expects them to last very long under fire, and that is very reasonable.

It's standard loadout but it's a simple change in the units init line to change it to grenadier (btw I wouldn't be opposed to firing at a chopper). Plus whether it was the first time it's happened in a FA session (surely not), you weren't in the chopper. 8 of us were and we didn't even get to see the outside of it. The fact that it COULD happen again means it needs to be discussed as odds are, as soon as something happens once, it will be repeated. Imagine if it happened in a JO adversarial where by our own numbers could reach the 90s in the future and a blackhawk is taken out with 8 guys on board at the beginning. That's along time to be waiting out a game.

Just because it's rare a occasion, doesn't mean there can't be some basic rules set out to help avoid pissing people off like the other night.

To re-iterate my point. If the chopper had the ability to defend itself even if it's just on approach and landing, I'd be all for having an RPG fired at the chopper, at least that way it's the responsibility of the crew who should be identifying threats like that.

[Anvilfolk]

I think what really pisses people off is that the prohibition feels artificial. If it had somehow been said in the briefing that the new ammo hasn't been brought up because logistics was in disarray after a surprise attack, then it could've been taken into account by the CO. Then, the accountability of ruining the flight would've been on him rather than on some "arbitrary" rule which is just "ruining the fun".

I'm ok (even if frustrated) with sitting out a mission, as long as I know I'm out because of someone's (lack of) skill. As long as people are learning and getting better, it's all good.

And on an slightly unrelated note, I think we've all learnt a lot about exposed hillsides recently

[Kefirz]

Which use AT ammo, not that very effective against a group of people. And let's be honest, how many of you have actually shot an RPG at people and BE successful! And how many of deadly RPG's have been fired at helis on adv. missions over the last year and this year combined?

And to be honest, helis are fragile so if CO and the Pilots don't take that into consideration and thus get blown up, it's their fault. Better have a LZ outside the AO (not only safer, but also gives the added bonus of (that is, if any mountain or forest is on the way) hiding the LZ from the spying eyes from inside the LZ) then doing "fast-rope-distance-LZ".

I totally agree with you Draakon, that was a once in a lifetime shot. And that LZ.... it was sooo obvious, the last 3-4 times we played this a heli landed in that valley on a road.

And you have to treat the heli like a snowflake - very fragile, with a time-span probably less than yours.

Agree with what Mamba says, if helis can't use their own defenses then ground shouldn't be able to fire a rocket at a landing chopper. If we were able to use our guns on board, the guy with the RPG may have been shot before he managed to fire, then again he may have gotten his rocket off in time but at least we would have had the ability to at least try to defend ourselves.

Just because it's rare a occasion, doesn't mean there can't be some basic rules set out to help avoid pissing people off like the other night.

To re-iterate my point. If the chopper had the ability to defend itself even if it's just on approach and landing, I'd be all for having an RPG fired at the chopper, at least that way it's the responsibility of the crew who should be identifying threats like that.

The way I interpreted our chopper landings/crewing is that you can shoot a weapon at targets if your CO/SL/FTL agrees to that, but as soon as you touch the ground everyone gets out except the pilot, so the chinook, blackhawk or whatever can't be used as a gunship.

So you could shoot your weapons, but probably very early in the game while you are still in a heli, after the landing you go and do whatever stuff you need to do as a leader/attachment/grunt/medic, whatever really.

If you have a dedicated chopper crew it's a whole different story of course.

And on an slightly unrelated note, I think we've all learnt a lot about exposed hillsides recently

That we have.. that we have.

[Macaco]

People still have RPG's because it's the standard load-out for FA.

in 10-15 mins I would be repaying them with my BOOLETS.

It takes literally 2 lines to change it. Just because that's how F2 does it by default doesn't mean you should not even consider touching it.

This is arma. Think more around 30 minutes.

Yet they can use their special weapons against us in this case?

Stay away from the chopper and you won't have the problem. Also calling 240s "special weapons" is a bit absurd.