Republic of Folk

Disclaimer
I don't care for mil-sperg - the fail is just as hilarious as the win is awesome. But I do like learning things. I don't plan on critiquing other people's plans, just my own, because when I screw up, I wanna learn from it. And if you want to learn from it, then sit down and listen to my tale!
End Disclaimer

So... I had my first (and second) official platoon commands today. The first one (Unreachable) went terribly, but we succeeded in spite of my complete misread of the map. The second (Internecine) was a fantastic success because our fire teams liked to coordinate, and only nearly fell apart because I decided to clear a compound all by my lonesome.

Pull up a map of Chernarus. Heck, use a DayZ map if you want, they're nice and simple for plebians to use! Focus on the Northeastern Airfield. What's the commanding geographical feature in the area? If you said Hill 211, aka "Hill Olsha," then you'd probably be correct. How far is it from our target, the hangers? Nearly a klick. Probably beyond effective range of anything we might be carrying short of the sniper team.

The infantry, meanwhile, were tasked with approaching the airfield from the north, where two fingers of forest reach out and provide decent cover and concealment to within 200 meters of the airstrip. My plan was to have Alpha / Bravo and Charlie / Delta alternatively bound out of the trees, across the plains, and down the hill into the airfield.

I'm sure you have questions, and the first answer is, "Yes, I completely mis-read the map." The second answer is, "Yes, I brazenly broke the first rule of combat by diluting my forces beyond their ability to provide mutual support, opening them up to the very real possibility of defeat-in-detail."

What happened instead of a steady advance on the airfield with heavy cover fire singing their song from our East, was that our infantry waltzed through the forest and up by defilade to, basically, the edge of the airstrip. With two shilkas on the top side. In other words, I had my men in close contact with enemy armor and infantry within 50 meters, and no cover besides the gentle slope of the hill and the occasional blade of grass. My fire teams couldn't provide mutual support, and my support element was far out of effective range. Worse, my support element had attracted massive amounts of hostile attention, and was under concerted assault, with my infantry far out of position to support. Charlie, through individual initiative, was able to jockey left far enough to take some heat off of Bodge and his alphabet soup, but the support element was cut up far more than they should have been. I honestly thought they were all going to die.

Thankfully, my FTLs had good individual initiative, especially after I stopped coordinating their actions Alpha made a daring dash across the runway, permitting a Bravo dude to get in an AT shot on the western shilka while they were distracted. Delta was able to take out the last shilka while Charlie linked back up with the remnants of our support element, and we managed to swarm all over the airfield, despite some friendly-fire. What's funny is that in a way, my plan worked perfectly... if my plan had been to draw the enemy away from the airfield to let us overwhelm the remaining defenders, destroy the choppers, and then dash off to the other side. Which it totally was(n't).

So, two lessons to take away from my derpitude:
1) Read the map correctly. D'oh.
2) Don't split your forces. Make sure that all your units are within about 400 meters of another one of your units so they can support one another.

We still succeeded though, 'cuz we're flippin' awesome

~ Ferrard

By the way... I didn't mention it before, but if something sticks out to you, if it seems like I've missed something or haven't given enough thought to something I did or didn't do, then please respond, please let me know so that I can know what I should work on. Self-critique is good, but it has certain limitations.

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For the purposes of today's Commander's Critique, we'll use footage of me commanding Alpha Squad during Arrival SE this past Sunday. Look for the analysis after the jump.



There's a small cut during which Bodge tasks our squads relatively simply - Bravo holds the Airfield's Western perimeter, Charlie secures Loy Manara with Alpha's Support-by-Fire, and Alpha supports Charlie, then independently moves to clear both western and Eastern Jaza. Bravo takes two exposed SOV humvees, while Alpha gets the third. HAT's Javalin deploys to Bravo's blocking position, MAAWS and the M240 are integrated into Alpha, and the chopper provides gun-runs and anti-armor support at the behest of any squad or platoon level command element or on its own initiative.

So to the attentive, I've got three fire teams, two attachments, a vehicle-mounted Mk19 and M240 (front arc), and platoon-level CAS to use. All in all, fairly formidable. What are my first steps?

Well, I task Alpha 3 with babysitting the humvee - in my mind, I'm designating them as one of the go-to support elements, something I neglect to share with the squad. An asset as big as a Mk19 ought to be given a little more TL&C from the squad leader. The same goes for my treatment of MAT and MMG - to be honest, I'm still not used to working with attachments, and for most of the mission, both medium teams were acting largely on their own initiative with minimal guidance from me. Also, notice how many times I talked to CAS? Zip, Zero, Zilch. That's one hell of an asset I completely neglected, especially given that Alpha nearly bore the brunt of an armored counterattack.

In terms of the plan, the start really brooks no complexity - we just have to get everyone organized in cover ASAP. What happens afterwards really depends on how intact we are at the compound and from where Command wants us to support Charlie's efforts. A quick look at the map suggests two possible key terrain features for Alpha to use for that purpose - a ridgeline to the west of Loy Manera and a low hill to the South, labeled Alpha BOF 2 and 1 respectively by yours truly. The western ridge provides a higher vantage, but is very inconvenient for a push on Jaza, as well as leaving the Southeast relatively uncovered, something that becomes a bad idea to do as the mission develops. I end up favoring Alpha BOF 1, as things turn out.

The mission starts. Our boots are on the ground. We start taking sporadic fire from Loy Manara, so I designate one element and the attachments to suppress while the other two elements move forward. Already, I'd half-forgotten what I had originally tasked each element with, so I started giving subtly contradictory orders - Alpha 3 was to both grab the humvee and clear the compound with Alpha 2, while Alpha 1 and attachments suppressed far off targets with little to no cover. And then I told "everyone" to get to the compound. Confusing.

Once at the compound, everyone basically went firm without me telling them to, a result of us not deviating at all from the original plan in the briefing. What mistake did I make here? Well, what am I not doing? I'm not positioning assets well, specifically the Mk19 humvee. Alpha 3 pays the price for that negligence by being a glaring target for a tank. I should have told the humvee to nestle into defilade along the eastern wall or duck behind the buildings and out of the line of fire. I could probably have been more proactive in positioning MMG and MAT, but I feel delegating to their judgment worked well enough - MMG did cut down a lot of enemies, and MAT was able to get a direct hit on the T-55 before Waffly finished it off.

Now what am I doing right? I'm keeping Command appraised of Alpha's general condition, especially in regards to the eastern approach to the airfield. Alpha is oriented correctly to greet the majority of incoming hostiles, I've reminded people to stay spread the f*** out, and I'm listening to contact reports coming in from command net. I'm fast to pass along orders (fast enough that I got some out to Alpha before Command rescinded them), and I'm giving clear acknowledgements when I hear something directed at me.

I did get questions about why we were holding position, which means I needed to better explain my reasons for my orders, which means I needed to better understand what was going on with Charlie (they had comms / CC problems, I guess?)

One significant error in my thought processes: Throughout the entire mission, it never really registered to me just how many casualties Alpha 3 had taken. I acted as though two of them were up, simply due to the marker still moving about. In reality, I think Alpha 3 should have been folded into Alpha 2. Once the chopper crew joined us in Western Jaza, I should have used them to reconstitute Alpha 3.

I think I demonstrated disciplined squad-level initiative when I judged that incoming enemies were slackening and passed along Draakon's proposal that Alpha advance to Alpha BOF 1, a request Command approved. Upon achieving position, one of our elements received fire. I didn't get any contact report from my FTLs, so I presumed that Loy Manara was filled with EI until the incoming fire died just as quickly as it started.

I denied a proposal to cross the street and get in closer to Loy Manara - it would have been a good idea had we been the assault element, but Charlie had been tasked with that, and we had a fairly commanding view of the town from our hill. For once, my map-reading skills had not failed me.

Next was an about-face and advance across what I termed "flat-open dinner-plate." The field really was rather frightening to cross due to the utter lack of cover that had enabled us to mow down so many foot-mobiles earlier. I'll be honest, I admit that I didn't have a contingency plan worked out in case we came under fire while crossing the field. I probably would have told everyone to assault through it, and we probably would have lost half our numbers at least.

Western Jaza's clearing was very haphazard - I tried to array the fire teams to clear straight south on their lanes, but we ended up looping around and then clearing from West to East instead, bunching up on corners all over the place. This tells me I needed to task the fire teams more specifically with areas of the town to clear. A better sequence of orders would have been: "Alpha 1, clear the eastern buildings, Alpha 2, clear the western, Alpha 3, head up the middle and clear the center of town. Attachments and medic, stay on me and watch north and east for more enemies."

After clearing Western Jaza, I waited for a minute or two to let a potential situation develop - I didn't want to assault up a hill towards reported enemies, so I wanted them to crest and then be ambushed on the near side, out of cover, if they were indeed coming. They never materialized though.

At this point, another mistake, but minor. Platoon Command had disconnected at this point, leaving me in overall command of the platoon. I took command and, without bothering to check on the situation of Charlie and Bravo, told them to continue doing whatever they were doing, with the implicit message of "Do what you think is best for your situation given our mission objectives." I should have taken the time to figure out what their tactical situation looked like and what their next steps should ideally be (though it would still have turned out to be "Keep doing what you're doing.")

And then the triumph of this mission - Alpha's alpha-strike on an oversized fire-team of Takistanis. My fireteam leaders and squad members showed true initiative and forethought by reporting the presence of enemies without firing upon them. At 400 meters, I spotted the enemies they were talking about, emerging from defilade. I didn't want them to be able to simply dive to the ground and be in cover, so I told everyone to wait and hold fire. And then at the perfect time, we all opened up in unison, and all was good.

I still made minor mistakes - I didn't clearly identify our targets until about two sentences into my ambush orders, and I didn't prep everyone for our next steps after the ambush was concluded, but the awesomeness of that perfect hasty ambush kind of overshadows all the nitpicks.

And that about concludes the analysis of my run through of Arrival SE as Alpha Squad Leader. There's stuff went right, stuff went wrong, and stuff to improve on. Some of it I may even learn before next Sunday

~ Ferrard

Nice read, once again, Ferrard. Now, seeing that you ask for answers, I'll give you a short one.

First it's usually a pleasure to play under your orders (happened to me a couple times, be it at a squad or fireteam level). You're kinda hard on yourself, cause i guess nobody here expects perfect command, even in the folk sessions, and those "errors" you point out, are far from being a fun-killer for your mission subordinates.

Second, I would be happy to see those posts cross-posted to the ARPS forums, as they might be a refreshing read over there too (I mean, for people reading more those than that one).

And then, there is one point on which i disagree with you.

Ferrard Carson wrote:I did get questions about why we were holding position, which means I needed to better explain my reasons for my orders, which means I needed to better understand what was going on with Charlie (they had comms / CC problems, I guess?)

There were obviously comms issue during that mission (I'm talking technical issues here). I can tell cause I myself had a lot of lost connections on TS, and at some point my VON went overboard. I was only a grunt here, and did my best to keep my FTL posted by typing in the chat, but it wasn't helping (He did a great job there, though).

Yet i don't think you, as a squad leader, even in a non-milsim environment, have to explain your orders to your subordinates further than what they absolutely need to know. Not because there's some kind of stupid hierarchy people need to respect, or else they gon get whipped on a public square, but just because you don't have time for it.
You have three fireteams, possible attachments, one medic to handle, while you move yourself, have to watch out for the other squad and follow a plan that might be flawed. That's already enough for one man, without having to run a democracy in there.
Actually i think that applies to every level of command. Now that doesn't mean your subordinates don't have any right of speaking, alright. Suggestions might come in handy, if and only if they have a better understanding of the situation. Other than that, they need to execute, and ask questions when things are calm if they feel the need.

Black Mamba, I'm glad you generally enjoy playing in squads / otherwise that I'm commanding! And yeah, if it seems I'm being hard on myself, it's because I really want to do the best I can for my own personal edification. Making sure everyone else is having fun, obviously, comes first, and that plays a major role in why I want to keep my squad as informed as possible when I'm not paying attention to all that myriad of other stuff you noted. Obviously squad leading can't be a democracy - this is a socialist agrarian revolution! We brook no less than total totalitarianism!

And sure, I'll go ahead and cross-post - thanks for that notion; I hadn't realized how much activity the RPS forums have around ArmA.

Also, to anyone reading this, if you want to do the same self-critique on some of your own actions, feel free to post it here - this thread isn't intended to be a monopoly by me, and you can indicate whether or not you're okay with comments from the peanut gallery. Dun worry, I'm not going to pick apart your command decisions. The way I've been doing this is I pull up my video and have it run in the background to remind me what I did, and I have Dslyecxi's TTP2 open in another tab to the Communication, Leadership, and Tactics sections. Then I basically just compare everything to the ideal of the TTP2. I usually end up short of the ideal at just about any given moment, but that's because the ideal is extremely comprehensive. Not every mistake is a game-changer either. In fact, very few of them are, simply because most everyone is on a similar team-work page.

~ Ferrard

This is from my AAR as CO

The first stage of the plan was for all squads to Secure their corner of the airfield and eliminate any hostile contacts. Charlie were then to move off and clear Loy Manara with Alpha covering their initial advance before moving SE to clear Jaza. The AH64 at our disposal was to assist Bravo in their rear guard defense and responding to CAS missions.

This is effectively as it happened, the chopper strayed a bit too far North and was crippled by HMG fire but was still able to use it's turret to lay down fire from the hill where it resided. Bravo were under constant engagement and took a few casualties including SL. Charlie's push was slowed by trouble with comms and Alpha was assaulted from Jaza so was unable to provide a base of fire.

Charlie moved off onto the ridge West of town and reconned the settlement before moving and securing it. Alpha swept the Western half of Jaza and Bravo was pulled back to the main airfield compound to secure the Southern end of Loy Manara. I then DC'd *Over to Carson!*

The main thinking was:
1) We only had to push East from the airfield - Go Alpha and Charlie.
2) We needed the airfield so would have to defend against attack from the West - Go Bravo.
3) There was a strip of open ground between Loy Manara and it is likely that the enemy would attack across it - Alpha's support fire and Charlie's FUP.
4) A strong push into the town would secure our North East and and objective - Go Charlie, Alpha would help them get momentum started.
5) With the airfield compound empty Bravo would need to pull in to occupy it.
6) With Charlie's assault underway Alpha was now free to move South.
7) No more contacts for Bravo meant they were free to assist, with chopper recon saying Jaza was pretty clear they were sent to speed up the clearance of Loy Manara.
8) RED CHAIN!

I think the main thing that would have helped me would have been a quick update between engagements on what Alpha had accomplished and were planning next. It would have meant that I could assess who needs support and where the enemy forces are better. The acknowledgements were great thanks.

Comments welcome.

Just so we're clear here, when i said "a plan that might be flawed", i was absolutely not talking about your plan here, Bodge. Nor any commander's plan whatsoever, by the way.
What i meant is, let's say, we're playing, see, one of Wolf's missions, the plan has every chance to go right upside down tits at any moment, and as a commander or squad leader, you have to react to that, and quick.

For today's installment, let's reference Special Tactics Charlie Squad from this past Sunday's Rolling Matryoshka. Specifically, I want to focus on Initiative Based Tactics on a Squad and Platoon level.



Charlie was two Fire Teams and an MMG team, assigned to Bravo's southern flank. Basically, our initial assignment was to be cannon-fodder to shield Bravo from vicious AI bullets to the south for as long as possible. Originally, I was under the impression that Charlie was to be a support-by-fire element, but the terrain belied that assumption. Not really content with waiting on the downslope of a ridge for enemies to crest and engage us from above, I pushed Charlie forward and west into contact. Through fire-and-maneuver, partly deliberate and partly accidental, we achieved lodgement in the forests to the south of the factory complex. From there, we could (and did) intercept enemies attempting to flank Bravo's assault from the south, as well as engage enemies to the west of the factory before they could either engage the assaulting elements or reinforce the factory garrison.

At several points, my Fire Team Leaders and MMG gunner proposed courses of action, seeing that there was an opportunity of sorts for improving their tactical situation. MMG wanted to take up position at a pair of trees overlooking much of the field. Charlie 2 wanted to assault the factory complex while MMG provided fire support. Charlie 1 shifted southeast to investigate a potential flanking maneuver. I approved some of these requests or statements of intent, and I refused some of them. Charlie 1 was doing what I was about to tell them to do anyways. MMG had a good idea of the terrain and was extremely effective due to SuperU's guidance. Charlie 2's notion of assaulting with support was redundant due to Bravo's tasking to take the factory, but it was a good Plan B that I kept in mind in case Bravo got cut up before they reached the walls.

This isn't to say I was a passive Squad Lead, though. Shortly after that, as Charlie 2 went firm in the treeline after I told them to stop advancing beyond Charlie 1's ability to support, Charlie 1 and MMG's base-of-fire position came under accurate enemy fire (including GPs - nice to see the ASR_AI knows how to use smoke and underbarrel grenades). When incoming fire didn't let up, I ordered both Charlie 1 and MMG to disengage and displace closer to Charlie 2, since Charlie 2 was already in position and could transition into being the Support-by-Fire element until Charlie 1 found a better position away from the rocks.

Platoon Command also reined me in every now and then, always at appropriate times. The advance into the treeline was slowed and turned into a lodgement because Alpha and Bravo were having trouble clearing the factory, meaning that if we proceeded further, Charlie would have been dangerously overextended.

On that same measure, I outright refused an order from the Platoon Commander to pull back, because at that point, Charlie was engaged, with Charlie 2 advancing while Charlie 1 and MMG provided cover. At that point, my squad was already committed, and I felt that disengaging at that point would have resulted in Charlie 2 getting cut down. Basically, we had momentum going, and the Follow-Through is as important as the Finish. Thankfully, Joseph-Sulphur trusted my understanding of what was happening to my front and let Charlie continue forward, since we weren't going to be overextended, and to our rear, Bravo was ready to be tasked with something.

That something ended up being the taking of Malinovka, an idea that Charlie 2 was putting forth as well. Since Bravo was already on its way up by the time I prepared Charlie 2 to assault, I instead ordered all of Charlie Squad to lay down fire at the top of the hill. I wasn't sure if there were enemies there or not, but the chief consideration was that if there were any, then they should be focused on "Not getting shot" instead of "Shooting Bravo."

After the taking of Malinovka and the consolidation of Bravo and Charlie at the hilltop, things fell apart because neither Charlie 1 or 2 could establish a good base-of-fire anywhere due to the peculiar slope of the hill. The rest is history. Hilarious, hilarious history.

So, to more succinctly sum up what I think are the salient points to take away from this:

• Initiative Based Tactics should be practiced at all levels of command, not just the individual level.
  Lower leaders taking the initiative and proposing courses of action when one is not currently being executed takes some of the pressure off of the next tier of leaders.
  If time is of the essence, then committing to a course of action and then informing the next tier is preferable to sitting still.
  Do not be afraid to let your element leaders come up with ideas.
  Do not be afraid to tell your element leaders no. If you can give them a reason, great. If not, don't sweat it.

For those interested in what exactly I'm modeling this after, go ahead and google "Auftragstaktik."

~ Ferrard

Ferrard Carson wrote:After the taking of Malinovka and the consolidation of Bravo and Charlie at the hilltop, things fell apart because neither Charlie 1 or 2 could establish a good base-of-fire anywhere due to the peculiar slope of the hill. The rest is history. Hilarious, hilarious history.

One thing I think is worth noting here:
I don't believe the hill itself is to blame. BOF positions can surely be found on it. From what I can remember (this is starting to be ancient history now), the main problem came from the fact that we somehow rushed ourselves into assaulting the town almost immediately after taking the hill.
I'm not really sure what assets we still had when it came to that, but what I'm sure about is we didn't take any or enough time to plan that assault.
We were tasked with covering moving elements which were already moving in at the time we received that order. Bullets started flying, and we took fire before even getting to a firing position. So we had to provide cover from unsuitable locations, and ended up being forced to move in without any kind of cover to limit casualties.
I strongly believe the assault should have been delayed until all supporting elements were in position, to result in a more cohesive movement.

This can be seen on Ferrard's video around 32 minutes in.
Alpha squad is moving onto their assaulting position from the east, while Charlie is engaging residual resistance behind them, and Bravo's still regrouping after the take of the hill. Five minutes after that, the area is finally cleared, the assault is immediately launched and Charlie 1 (us) is ordered to find a firing position at the exact same moment C2 is ordered to assault. Alpha is already engaging and taking casualties, Bravo is in no position to provide cover.
What happens next: C2 is cut and needs medical assistance. C1 is ordered to keep moving up, and thus abandons its covering role. Alpha is cut off from the two other squads and takes heavy casualties. Bravo's fate is more unclear to me, but it looks like they're engaged pretty quickly and take casualties as well on the left flank.
At that point, our right flank is butchered and cannot get any support. Our centre (Charlie) is combat ineffective, due to being assaulting at a moment notice in open ground without any kind of support but MMG. Our left flank is taking fire and cannot effectively assault nor cover Charlie.
Charlie ends up being the main assault element (although it was initially tasked with a supporting by fire role) and makes it to the barn with quite a lot of casualties, and taking a lot of fire. Alpha is annihilated. Parts of Bravo make it to the road west of the town, but seems stuck there. Any kind of cooperation between the two remaing squads is now impossible, due to too heavy incoming fire on Charlie's position (probably the same for Bravo's) and the presence of enemies between the squads. That's only three minutes after the assault was launched. At that point the Mortar team is still moving and cannot provide support.
One minute after that, about 7 dudes from Charlie are still alive. The mortar team gets into position, but it's too late.

I raise that point because in my opinion, this is something that happens quite a lot. We get kinda "sucked" into our own momentum, which in the end leaves the platoon commander/squad leaders with very little time to assess the situation and decide on the course of actions to be taken next. That results in an increasing chaos over the course of the mission, and while the beginning of the mission is usually very well structured, the commander gradually loses control over his troops after a few firefights.
Now, don't get me wrong:
- in most cases, keeping the general momentum forward is a good thing. Though general forward momentum shouldn't be understood as keep running towards the next objective at all times.
- as the saying goes, no plan ever survives first contact. So it's inevitable that chaos increases during the mission.

But the commander's (and all commanding assets') role is to prevent this inevitable chaos to turn into a huge clusterfuck. This can't be done, imho:
- by adding/insisting on a post-firefight phase during which all elements assess their casualties, regroup, rearm (this is at a FT/squad level)
- this can be facilitated at a squad/platoon level by having elements providing security while others regroup, then switching roles. It needs a temporary halt to the forward momentum.
- Every major move at a platoon scale should be preceded by a careful positioning of all elements, and shouldn't be initiated until full confirmation that all assets are in position. Elements getting into contact prior to the platoon's move, should pull out as quickly as possible, regroup to a safe location, and seek other elements support. This should then be taken into account at the platoon level, and the assaulting force needs to be reorganized again, delaying the main move.

I'm sorry if I'm a bit out of line here: I'm criticizing command decisions which were not mine, as I was just a grunt in this mission.
I'm not saying me commanding would have solved that either. I majorly suck at leading. This is just one example I find interesting to illustrate one particular tactical issue, as I see it.
I'll gladly take any comments/explanations/corrections about this, to compare our perceptions of this particular assault.

BlackMamba, you raised some very good points about our decision making in Rolling Matryoshka lo those many weeks ago. Your point about needing to take time and consolidate after an assault is very well taken - I think we were all feeling a little rushed by the session having run that long already, but we could certainly have paused for a minute or two and ensured that everyone was in place to begin the next phase. I was certainly at fault - I'll readily admit that I was hasty to declare that we couldn't get a good BOF on the town, and I messed up my cues, first telling Charlie 1 to be a BOF, then telling everyone to just get to the barn ASAP. I may or may not have been acting like we were part of a company-sized force, where wounded assault element troops could be tended to by the follow-on forces.

Personally (and take special note that this only applies to me, since I can't give permission for anyone else) I will never consider anyone at fault for pointing out an error I made, or asking for a more detailed explanation for a command decision I made. I'm here to have fun the same as the rest of you, but part of what makes this fun for me is applying the stuff I read about to our tactical simulation, and learning what works and what doesn't.

Meanwhile - I was not in any meaningful squad-level or platoon-level command yesterday, so I, sadly, will not have any Commander's Critique for this week. However, I was planning on writing up a Commander's Critique for last week's playthrough of UNecessary Violence as Alpha Squad Leader. I'm going to toot my own horn here: I made mistakes (took too long to cross the river, lost the M113, took my squad into a knife-fight with a KORD), but overall I think I set a decent example of squad leadership that the lot of us (including myself in my worse cases) can emulate and come out with a modicum of success.

I was planning to do a more detailed write-up, but some brilliant man got a lovely idea: The video itself has plenty of teachable moments, but is otherwise boring... so why not spice it up with captions that explain what is going through my head when I make decisions? Seriously. Like, 40+ minutes of intermittent captions.



~ Ferrard

Great video Ferrard.

Some comments:
at ca minute 9: The moving BSL marker could be the medic.
at ca minute 27: I misunderstood that had spotted a hostile compound to the NE and were able to suppress towards there. I think this lead to a lot of follow up confusion because I couldnt figure out where this compound should be.
at ca minute 31: you want EVEN more stuff on CC?
at ca minute 56: There was so little left of Bravo and iirc none of them having CC that I didn't see any other option. On hindsight I might have taken command of them myself.

Also I told you to push towards the hangars, not the gate because of the bunker (I didnt event know of the one close to you, right at the exit btw). That's your own damn fault getting good men killed! (Well and their own for turning that corner one after the other like lemmings) My idea was to push closer to the bunker over the northern exit, covered by the building site.