Looting or, My eternal desire to not shout bang at the enemy

[Macaco]

I'd like to have a discussion about looting. I see a lot of people (read: hosts) who seem to think it is analogue to genocide, and I'm curious what type of responses you'd have to my thoughts about it, and my responses to some of the common complaints I've seen about it.

In no particular order:
Shooting friendlies who have picked up enemy weapons: If you are killing people without making sure they are the enemy, you shouldn't be issued a gun . ESPECIALLY when those people are in an area populated by friendlies. I have never had an incident where the sound of an M4 versus an AK was the difference between shooting or not. The only friendly fire incidents I've caused was due to them coming out an ally half a km down the road, an area which I knew we hadn't cleared yet, or when both sides have very similar outfits and they where pointing a gun at me.

If god wanted you to have an M4, you'd have an M4: While I don't support dropping your AK and 6 mags for an M4 of a dead capitalist pig, dropping your RPK and half mag you have left for a 249 with 4 full boxes isn't such a big deal. Also we are talking going from a rifle, to a rifle. This isn't someone dropping their makarov for an RPG, it's not a massive change in their role, though if you are completely and the only thing around you is an M60, by all means.

Anything regarding realism: Clearly you never heard of the US general in WWII that captured a bunch of panzerfausts and issued them to his men . But seriously, if your gun is out of ammo/fubar/whatever you won't get court martialed for using an AK for the remainder of the fight.(We don't regroup after each firefight so issuing another M4 is kinda out of the question). Also we play more often as indy/gue, and I don't think your insurgent cell leader Abdul is gonna mind if you took up an M4 against the infidels .

Mission maker gave you an AK because he wanted the mission to play out a certain way: I'm not sure missions are designed with such close tolerances that the difference between a FAL and an AK107 will make or break it.

Fairness: same as above, upgrading from rifle to HMG just because it's better is still something I'm against.

What about if we paint it with yellow and black tiger strips before using it?

[wolfenswan]

I don't know why it's suddenly "the hosts", mind pointing me to the official statement regarding looting? Anyway, here's my personal stance on it:

Sound is a vital element of combat in A2. If I'm BLUFOR and hear an AK going off next to me I'll duck for cover or turn to suppress, depending on situation. Similar for tracers: If I see tracers that aren't the same color as ours coming from a building or concealment I'll return fire if the situation is critical.

There's no reason not to pick up a gun if you're empty (and no one has spare mags) or in peril. But relay the information to your peers.

The only real gripe I'd have with looting is people picking up significant upgrades for their weapons (e.g. scoped stuff) or everyone running around with a RPG or similar (which usually forces them drop either grenades or spare ammo, leading to other problems).

As said, the next release of F2 will cater to that specific problem. All units will have more ammo (and backpacks with more ammo) to make looting less interesting.

tl;dr: looting is in fact worse than genocide but not yet quite as bad as the the plague

[Macaco]

I never said there was an official statement, it's just every time I see someone complaining about looting, it's hosts.

Sound is a vital element, but again I'm a proponent of knowing what you are shooting before you shoot it, specially if it's coming from an area that is inhabited by friendlies.

regarding 2.7.0, unless there is a quick and easy way to upgrade all missions to 2.7.0 that doesn't seem like that will apply for a while. Atleast not till it's A out, and B enough missions are made for it that it's what we play most often

[StrangLove]

I'll just briefly cover my stance on the matter (I'm sorry if this reply is a little short or curt, I'm rather tied up in other arrangements)

I'm not in favour of looting weapons unless it is the only option. Once you're out of ammo (I'll take the US AR here as an example, as it has some rather interesting mechanics which apply to all ARs but not other members), you should start asking around your FT for some more boxes (I'm not really in favour of trying to get the rest of the squad to resupply your weapon - it's a bit of a communications hangup at what is likely to be a pretty heated moment). If the AAR is out of rounds for you, check to see if your pals have any spare STANAGs. They don't have to merit you with these, especially if the mags would be coming from their personal cache rather than any backpack space, but it's always worth a shot. If this doesn't give you anything, then it is time to resort to looting.

In my opinion (I'd like to stress that it is opinion and not session doctrine), when looting it is best to resort to a rule of regression - don't use something which is a special-role weapon in the FA sessions; MMGs, HAT/MAT launchers or sniper rifles. If you can't find an AR, resort to an assault rifle. This is really due to maximising the role of people who chose those special roles, rather than having a kill-all Rambo teem armed to the teeth with PKMs and RPGs - a situation which could really ruin other people's fun. Sitting on a rock 800m away from some hostiles your friends are mowing down with impunity and knowing you can't hit out that far is a crappy situation.

The 'enemy sounds' argument is very much a valid one. For starters, it may be the case that checking your targets will show that the outgoing PKM fire is friendly, but it takes precious time away from the potential FF-er, which could be vital (just as much as it could not be). Furthermore, if the source of fire is not visible but the fire is (the case of the PKM on sunday comes to mind), it can be very disruptive over CC - my shouting 'Is that friendly?!' over CC on sunday almost certainly did little to help anyone. You need to ask whether your element lead is okay with grabbing a weapon with such a distinct report or tracer colour, and then it is the responsibility of the element leader to call it in over CC so other elements don't get scared. On sunday I almost defiled my trouser seat when I heard that dreaded 'Rat-tat-tat', and my dry-cleaners has told me to ask you to inform other friendlies before any fire starts. He doesn't come cheap, but his tactical advice is second to none.

So, the long and short of it.

Strang's opinions and guidelines on looting

• Check for more ammo
  Check for compatible ammo
  Grab a new weapon - one of the same 'class', or a simple Assault rifle - call this in with FTL
  FTL should then inform SQL and SQL inform other elements via CC - this seems bureaucratic but is a great help for coherency

Thanks for reading, and remember these are very much my opinions.

[harakka]

Just have a reason beyond personal preference when switching weapons and inform your element lead, and everything is fine. No-one's said that switching from one rifle to another will break the mission, it is just to keep the hassle to a minimum. We all have our gun preferences but the mission makers preference gets to overrule ours for the duration.

To give some context about my crusade on people switching their god-emperor-missionmaker-issued AKs to FALs: there have been times in the glorious past of ARPS where people used to enthusiastically run over to fresh bodies to grab their lovely preferred rifles instead of whatever it was they started out with. This has resulted in people dying. Kneeling at crates (back when they were regularly available) was also a popular hobby for the same reason, which took a lot of time.

[Black Mamba]

Also remember the vehicles. They are usually forgotten as soon as we're finished inserting and bullets starts flying, but if we take the example of Rebound, we did come with a few humvees that contains 15 stanag mags each, and MTVRs that contains 30 plus 5 200rnds boxes.
That's already a lot of ammo and will probably, adding to that what can be found on the casualties, enough to resupply without switching to enemy weapons.
At which point nobody ever said that it was totally stupid to pick an enemy weapon. As others have very well said, just do it when you don't have any other choice, and check with your element leader first.
Now, maybe two or three people in a squad would really have no other choice during the mission. What we observed was total abuse. I myself found an M4 with a 203, all its grenades and a lot of ammo on an enemy dead... wait for it... machinegunner. That means somewhere there was a dude running around with a PKM. I'm not talking about those fireteams carrying more than one RPG, making us MAT totally useless. This is what I'd call ruining the mission maker's intent, and also part of the fun of the two man team whose only goal is to kill enemy armor or provide mid-range support as they don't have the firepower to engage in most of the firefights.

Finally, your argument about sound, which I guess is based on my post in another thread, is partly irrelevant. Checking your targets is necessary, but when you don't see them, the only way to check is to listen. The area I was talking about was not occupied by friendlies, for what we knew, when we started moving to it to establish a firebase there. There was russian weapons sounds coming out of it, so we ducked and I put a grenade on it. At which point I realized those were friendlies be cause we finally got eyes. I'm not saying this was the good reaction, I'm saying that by firing an enemy weapon when nobody knows you looted it, you're basically asking to be shot at.

I actually tend to think you made this sound as if somebody had told looting any weapon was the devil, when the only thing I heard was please do not loot weapons more powerful than what you were given, and please don't do it unless you have no choice.

[Ferrard Carson]

When referring to sound, "Vital" is a bit of an understatement.


I knew friendlies were in the area. I saw the tracers outgoing. It still freaked the fuck out of me.

inb4 someone criticizes me for stopping when I heard enemy fire.

~ Ferrard

[Macaco]

I actually tend to think you made this sound as if somebody had told looting any weapon was the devil, when the only thing I heard was please do not loot weapons more powerful than what you were given, and please don't do it unless you have no choice.

That's very possible. I sometimes lack perspective when I get around to bitching about things on the internet. I just know I've heard people being upset about looting quite often lately.

[Cuddlefish]

Ferrard, it looks like from your clip that I was the shooter in that instance, and it's quite possible that Stranglove and Black Mamba were also hearing me. I was an Automatic Rifleman; and at that point I had just acquired that PKM after my SAW was at ~85 rounds remaining between my supply of STANAGs. I was also at the time unaware [though I quickly discovered it once I put it into use] of the large effectiveness gap between the two aforementioned weapons - not sure what I'd have done if I'd been more informed. I certainly wouldn't have grabbed an RPG or whatnot. While I did communicate this to my acting FTL who relayed it to our Squad level; it was a bit of a misguided/shortsighted move in that regard. I was almost out of ammo and it seemed better to grab an enemy gun now than be completely ineffective in a few minutes, but I can certainly avoid making that decision again if you guys prefer. Sorry for any trouble or dry-cleaning bills caused.

[Macaco]

Cuddlefish's scenario is what I was most thinking about when I made this thread. He was, as near as makes no difference, out of ammo. Deciding a PKM is better than an empty SAW, he swapped. The almost exact thing everyone is saying is alright, if an enemy weapon is the difference between being combat ineffective or not, go for it. And still I heard at least two people being upset about it.

That's kinda what made me upset about it was this was last ditch survival efforts, and people still complained about it. Perhaps it was just a lack of communication on everyone's parts. When my AR man in rebound needed to pick up a PKM which I shot up the chain of command, greeted by a bit of grumbling.