[Sun] 30 Aug 2015 (Special Forces)

[Sparks]

Ach peasant, we learned something and it didn't take long to learn it
(And Tubby, half of folk can't aim and identify, or can't do both at once, so if you've mastered that, you're ahead of the curve...)

[Soviet]

Sometimes, comrades, I worry about our reading comprehension and recollection skills.

Comrade Ralian writes:

Quds Radio Hour: MMG Gunner

Soon after, comrade Soviet writes of his experience leading Bravo 2 in the same mission:

... squad leadership from Ral ...

Which is incorrect, because I was BSL Later still, comrade Peasant, claiming to be part of Bravo, writes of the same mission:

Then we loaded up in the chopper and got shot down.

Err whoops! I knew it was you, but what can I say, over TS squad lead all I hear is a confident voice in my right ear, it's hard to remember the name behind it when it isn't lighting up the corner of my screen all game...

[Sparks]

Err whoops! I knew it was you, but what can I say, over TS squad lead all I hear is a confident voice in my right ear, it's hard to remember the name behind it when it isn't lighting up the corner of my screen all game...

Comrade! You should have said! Try this...

[ZeCatnip]

Err whoops! I knew it was you, but what can I say, over TS squad lead all I hear is a confident voice in my right ear, it's hard to remember the name behind it when it isn't lighting up the corner of my screen all game...

Comrade! You should have said! Try this...

I've been looking for something like this for a bit now, didn't know there was anything out there. Thanks Sparks!

[fer]

Fer bravely charged enemy fire and operated while under fire on myself and Soviet, got us both back up, shoved us towards the church and then took a round to the back from the cowardly enemy. They surely couldn't have shot you from the front brave Comrade Medic, they would have been paralysed with fear!

Let the records show that a) I was BSL (comrade Ferrard Carson was BM), and b) I was shot in the face. Seriously, what happened was that after getting Soviet (and you?) back up, I turned to dash back to the church. There was an alleyway heading off to the south and my first attempt at crossing was cut short by enemy fire. I popped my head out once again and saw 2-3 contacts further down the alleyway (at various distances), then - I think - called out the contacts to you guys. I know I managed to pop out again and drop one of the enemies before taking a round to the face. What I should have done is dropped smoke, or ordered you guys to, but I got carried away. Your video footage might show that, but I haven't had a chance to look yet.



Edit: Just watched your video, comrade Sparks, and you can see my death at around 11:45. Happened pretty much as I described above, but it sounds like I didn't call out the contacts properly, or at least clearly enough.

[Ferrard Carson]

A full night of medic'ing and back-seat roles for me as I paid attention to making the trains run on time. Without further ado:

Castle Crashers
Deployed as Bravo Medic
A fairly disorienting mission - NATO silenced weapon dudes swarmed over the ridgelines, firing line after firing line appearing as we poured it onto the hapless FIA and CSAT defenders. And then the IFVs arrived on the other side of town from MAT, and Bravo found itself split up and isolated, torn to shreds by the defenders and those roaming terrors on wheels.

Not much to say - I had my hands full healing soldiers, especially towards the end when I set up a medic station in a northern hut on the edge of town. A steady stream of Bravo troops cycled through for me to *ahem* lay on hands in my private antechamber. And then the mission was won! (Pay no attention to the Marid behind the curtain)

Quds Radio Hour
Deployed as Goose 2 Co-Pilot
"I have Goose 1 off our port quarter, same altitude," I say as we sally forth across the bay.

We turn at our ingress point, and out comes my litany. "Feet dry. Rock, front left. We're clear. LZ is clear ahead." The egress was uneventful.

The CAS call comes in and I check map. "Make sure you aim high - Bravo is right between us and the outpost, so we'll be shooting over their heads. Smoke marks Bravo's location. Passing over Bravo now. Good hits, good hits. Break left now. My god, you hit an entire squad as they were leaving the outpost. One rocket, they're all dead."

The pick-up comes at LZ Charlie. Again I say, "Low walls straight ahead. Clearing beyond them is good. We're clear."

Goose 1 slams into the ground a hundred meters away. "Oh man, we need to get out of here." But no one was loaded yet. "Oh man... We're loaded, go!"

We bounced high upon egress. "Stay low to the ground!" Sparks replies, "Now you tell me!" We make it out alive.

We loop out over the western sea. "LZ Delta is in full view of the outpost. Recommend you circle around north and approach the back side of the ridge, maybe do a pinnacle if the terrain permits." We circle around as described and the windmills emerge from the fog. "I have the windmills to our one o'clock. There's a break in the windmills, five right, three left, if you land between them you'll be good." I check map again. "Unless you land on that electrical station." Sparks doesn't. We move in for a pinnacle but then he straight up sets the bird down. The ground-pounders alight and we slink off and around to the south to join TH4 and ferry Bravo over.

"I have TH4 lifting off. If we head forward and left of where TH4 is, we can pick up Bravo that much quicker. Whoa, maybe that's not a good idea, enemy vehicle to our one-o'clock. We're masked by terrain right now."

"..." "..." "One second."

"GET THE BLOODY HELL ON BOARD! GET ON BOARD, LET'S GO!"

Neither of us can keep a straight face when I climb back in the co-pilot's seat. "We're loaded, take off, stay very, very low."

On approach to LZ Echo, it's a quiet one. "LZ is to our northeast. Power lines. Low walls ahead. Clear left. We're down, everyone go."

And from there I watched from the sky as Zeus whilst the assault swarmed over the mountaintop facility. I watched as Fer's team swept through the building. I saw the brave sons of Persia fending off NATO dogs as they attacked the compound. I witnessed TH4's ascent into the stars, the tracery cannon-rounds that melted their wings, and the graceful arc of their wreckage-to-be into the side of the mountain. Then I saw the facility vanish in a flash of light and flying masonry, and the mission was won.

Beautiful.



Appropriation, Part 2
Deployed as IndFor (AttackFor) Medic #2
IndFor got off to a slow start, and followed a squarely traditional plan: Seize the church. FIA followed an equally traditional plan: Lay an ambush. Their geography happened to coincide with ours.

What's terrible is that we could hear FIA engaging those random CSAT wanderers up ahead of us. We absolutely knew FIA was up there, but we didn't realize they were inside the church instead of beyond it.

Either way, it was an eventful few seconds. With the Squad Lead and his medic, I was a hundred meters behind our lead elements, but that was enough to mask them from support in the dense, dense forest. Several smokes later, I spotted movement to our right and sprayed wild unaimed fire at a target, only to be downed in return. Sparks must've remembered my co-piloting, as he came over to rub my belly and I lept to my feet even as he slumped over dead. My next magazine of wildly sprayed fire managed to down Costno, but his mates blew out my knee and then finished me off with sustained application of bullets, and that was that for Alpha.

That Bravo 1 survived the carnage was less a testament to their durability and more to their extremely wide flanking maneuver. And then one of them got shot. The other threw smoke, and this being a PvP, smoke was instantly seen by FIA as a "Grenade This Spot Please" marker, and that was the game.



Overrun
Deployed as Bravo Medic
"Medic station set up on the first floor of the marked building!" I called out. Bravo 1 was in the hovels to our south, Bravo 2 scattered across the western frontage, and brave Fer directed fires from the second floor of my medic station. I snapped off hurried shots at enemies not 10m away, healed the crap out of most of Bravo 2, and witnessed first-hand the artillery strike called down by Alpha. On top of their heads. Final Protective Fire at 10 minutes into the mission, whoo boy. On the plus side, when Alpha's Teamspeak channel had emptied out completely, Bravo was still chugging along with, count 'em: ZERO casualties.

By the time I pulled up stakes to dispense some medicinal herbs to Bravo 1, however, the streets were filled with less air and more bullets, making it ridiculously hazardous just to bounce between B2's two buildings. As Best Squad was felled one-by-one, we fell back to the church, we three survivors. After fruitless firing out of the doorway and checking that I was on my last two mags, I readied myself by the door and said, "I say we rush them and face our deaths like a man." And then I got shot through the window and slumped over dead as the perfect full-stop to that telegram.



All in all, a very enjoyable evening. Thank you to everyone who came along. DryToad, I'm especially glad that you (and it seems a few other first-timers) found the session to your liking. Your description of a nice, friendly, cooperative, relaxed, low-friction community is pretty much exactly what we strive towards. Welcome!

~ Ferrard

[Cardova]

I now have an EDtracker which I tried out for the first time during these missions. After using it here I'm not entirely convinced that it helps me, as it seems less accurate than than using the mouse with the look key. But I will need to keep using it and tweaking the response curves to really tell.

Castle Crashers - Alpha 1 Rifleman
I had an excellent time storming the castle and then providing overwatch of the town while other teams fought their way in. Right near the end of the mission I was captured in a glitch and killed. Seems like Tigershark hit the same glitch but he was able to get away with only minor injuries.



Quds Radio Hour - Alpha 2 AR
After a lovely helicopter ride, Alpha landed and stormed the substation. There were only a few enemies which we quickly dispatched. There was a bit of confusion over the location of the RV point for pickup. The map marker had been moved east, but then it was announced over the radio that the RV point had been moved east. I believe this resulted in everyone standing a few hundred meters east of the new RV point, rather than right at the new RV point. In any case we hoofed it back to the heli and got in, although we were short one seat and our squad leader, SuicideKing, was briefly left behind and we had to wait for him to rejoin us. We then assaulted the broadcast and met up with Bravo for the first time. We held off the attackers and successfully uploaded the virus.

Appropriation - FIA Alpha 1 Rifleman Red
Alpha 1 quickly moved southeast to secure the church on the hill. We further split up with blue holding the church while myself in red moved east down the hill to flank any incoming enemies. Before even reaching the bottom of the hill we started taking fire from CSAT, but continued pushing forward. (I was a bit confused at this point as to where we were taking fire from.) As expected the church was attacked, and we moved in through the forest to surprise them from the side. This was quite successful although Alpha 1 blue team did not fare so well. Yet again the church came under attack so we pulled back to a hill northwest just before the mission ended in victory.



Overrun - Aplha 1 Rifleman
I managed to shoot out a wheel on a partially disabled IFV, fully disabling it. I had a good position in the building and managed to kill four enemies before Alpha was overrun and we lost the east side of town.

Glub Glub Glub
I've never played a diving mission in Arma and the mechanics seemed super glitchy. I'll have to mess around with diving some more and figure it out.