[Sun] 17 May 2015 (Bushwhacking)

[Freyja]

Note to the mission designed: The Mission ended as soon as I(final person alive on the ground) boarded the final CH-47, maybe change the parameters so that we actually have to escape from the mountain? I also never saw or heard of enemy vehicles approaching our position which I presumed would happend.

That was actually a matter of the other helicopter making it off into the safe zone, it turns out the trigger went on Anyone being in the safe zone, the end trigger is being revised.

[pepper]

Aaah Excellent! Heli 1 left too early though, I suppose that didnt help either.

[SuicideKing]

I don't have the time to post a proper AAR, but I will say that Citadel is an excellent mission.

Probably should remove EI in RA-1 and RA-2, people seem to get shot there in the first few mins - not nice, I think. We went there on foot so we spotted hostiles on time, but anyone teleporting there would have got shot.

I feel mildly guilty for not shooting the FIA dude in the bush near Bravo 1, I was staring at him for a good 10 seconds with a clear shot. (Guilty because he shot half the fire team if I remember correctly).

[PhilFlame]

Budget Issues
B2 AAR
(FTL: Eagle Eyes)

B2 was tasked with 'filling out the gaps' in our defenses. We started out watching the southern flank, but were early on relocated to a 'gap' in the northern flank. I spent most of my time staring into a black moonless night, occasionally taking shots, more or less blindy, at scattered enemy muzzle fire. Couldn't tell if I hit anything. Before much really happened the helis were ready for extraction, and mission over.

*I think this mission would greatly benefit from being longer and having more defined waves of assaults, from alternating vectors.

Delivery Denied
A3 AAR, CSAT
(FTL AJAX, Rawdog, Costno)

As CSAT we probably spent too much time getting our well coordinated show on the road. Half way to our destination, the NATO heliborne blitz assault on the FIA convoy forced us on the fast track. We scurried to a hill top opposite the ruined castle. A3 was appointed base of fire duty, while rest of squad advanced on the convoy down below. The remainder of the mission I tried to hit enemy infantry targets in and around the castle 400 meters away... with my glorious non-magnifying reflex scope. Can't take credit for it, but we owned the valley and soon won the mission... wait, what?! NATO won? How the...

Citadel
B2 AR
(FTL Zitron, Leander, Gleen)

I really enjoyed this mission. Everything felt coordinated, well-executed and butter smooth as Bravo moved in perfect sync through the fogged up valley towards the enemy occupied town. Then small arms fire out of nothing. My entire fireteam eradicated in a few seconds. While waiting for squad medic I contemplated the situation and became certain we were victims of friendly fire, as B1 had just moved safely through same area (Although OP Ferrard claims it was an AI in the bushes). Proceeding with Bravo as sole survivor of B2, we started clearing the eastern perimeter of town. I was sent over to a couple of houses opposite side of the street. Ground floors secured, I went upstairs for a quick peek. Passed a window pointing the direction we came and spotted a friendly fireteam down in the open ruins next door that I'd just cleared. One looked at me. I died by headshot. Death by friendly fire, you say? Negative. Must have been that AI mass murderer in the bush out in the mist.

[pepper]

I was sent over to a couple of houses opposite side of the street. Ground floors secured, I went upstairs for a quick peek. Passed a window pointing the direction we came and spotted a friendly fireteam down in the open ruins next door that I'd just cleared. One looked at me. I died by headshot. Death by friendly fire, you say? Negative. Must have been that AI mass murderer in the bush out in the mist.

I had sent out disciplinary comrades to quell any slowdown in the advance. You were obviously not expedient enough in their expert opinion!

[Sparks]

Also, that's it, I've had it, no more MSI afterburner. That POS just ate two more hours of video footage. All of Delivery Denied is gone, the last few minutes of Citadel is gone, all of Indfor Don't Surf is gone, and that last one isn't even corrupted, it's just not there, as if recording never happened despite the little tell-tale on-screen recording logo all throughout the mission. Harumph.

Screw MSI, I'm going back to OBS.

[fer]

Budgetary Issues

Alpha 2 FTL: SuperU
|- AR: Tigershark (?)
|- AAR: Leander (?)
|- G: Fer

"I think now, looking back, we did not fight the enemy; we fought the terrain geometry. And the enemy was in the angles (and my inability to deploy my bipod and fire downhill). The war is over for me now, but it will always be there, the rest of my days as I'm sure Tigershark will be, fighting with SuperU for what Leander called possession of my soul. There are times since, I've felt like the child born of those two fathers*. But, be that as it may, those of us who did make it have an obligation to build again, to teach to others what we know, and to try with what's left of our lives to find a goodness and a meaning to this life. Or become alcoholics and spend our time in bars, telling anyone who'll listen that being molested by Tigershark in a tiny hilltop bunker was infinitely more damaging than the 5.56 rounds the enemy spat at us from the surrounding darkness. I don't know. Can I have my beer now? You said there would be beer. And hookers. Jesus Fucking Christ, don't any of you hippies have a real cigarette?!?"

I really enjoyed this mission, even with it triggering a full-blown Vietnam flashback, which I think illustrates perfectly that great missions don't have to be long or complex. 8 minutes of panic fire at distant muzzle flashes and the 'beep beep beep' in the evacuation helicopter made for genuine atmosphere. I salute the comrade mission maker.



* :shudder:

Delivery Denied

CO: Fer
|- M: Darkit (?)

This mission begins with a race, but one where you really want to come a very close second. Mounted in MRAPs and trucks, and with only one genuine MSR from the edge of the deployment circle to the stopped convoy, there really isn't much choice of approach for CSAT. However, where the approach is obvious, so is the risk of ambush. Between us and the FIA convoy was the hilltop town of Oreokastro, which has to be approached along a vulnerable road overlooked by the town. If comrade Tigershark's plan was to ignore the FIA convoy and ambush us en route, he could do worse than get to the town first and massacre us as we approached. To prevent that, my initial movement orders specified a stop at a ridge-top wind farm south of Oreokastro, from which I hoped to glimpse the town and check we weren't driving toward The Great Molester himself. Then, if the path was clear, we'd drive up to Oreokastro, dismount and take up positions along the northern edge of the town, from which we could then engage the FIA convoy (and NATO if it had arrived already).

The composition of the convoy was very simple: MRAP (HMG) at the front (to kill helicopters ahead of us), a truck full of crunchies, a decoy truck, and finally a second MRAP (HMG) (to kill helicopters behind us). After a lengthy bit of logistics (made more lengthy because one of our MRAP crew-members was unable/unwilling to communicate with us on TS*), we got underway. Almost as soon as we approached the wind farm, a NATO helicopter was spotted to our west, so I did what any self-respecting PltCo would do and panicked doubled-down on aggressiveness, ordering all vehicles to head straight for Oreokastro. We bounced along at a merry lick, quickly arriving at the southern edge of Oreokastro. All the crunchies dismounted and Alpha's 3 fireteams made their way northwards to a pre-selected set of positions. MRAP (HMG) #1 (Blip2) went forward as well, whilst MRAP (HMG) #2 (Sam) remained as our rear-guard. Thanks to a combination of trigger messages and the sound of gunfire to our north, we understood NATO to be already at the convoy and in the process of securing the HEMTT. So, I increased the panic aggressiveness.

Alpha's positions formed a rough squad wedge, oriented north with A1 at the tip of the spear; but it was A2 (on the left) that had better terrain ahead of it, and was able to advance much further north than originally envisaged. Leaving A3 and MRAP #1 as the base of fire, A1 and A2 began bounding northward on either side of the road, engaging targets in and around the convoy (although it was sometimes hard to tell if they were NATO or FIA). MRAP #1 soon began to creep up the road as well, serving as a mobile BoF for A1 and A2, whilst MRAP #2 came up to replace it at the baseline of our assault. Through volume of fire, and probably no small amount of luck, the majority of A1 and A2 (and my own element) reached some dead ground immediately below the stretch of road on which the HEMTT had stopped. We crept up the embankment and found ourselves in a point-blank engagement with 2-3 NATO troops at the vehicles, but automatic fire and hand-grenades (and a little bit of running, screaming, back down the slope) helped us win the day. Then we dashed forward again, and cowered took up tactical positions under by the HEMTT and waited for the timer to go off. At some point a helicopter crashed into the truck**, which then treated us to a hilarious display of Arma physics, before finally the mission ended and NATO was declared the winner. Which was not totally broken at all.



* Party Request #1: Folk ARPS asked almost nothing of its guests, but TeamSpeak is necessary for participating in our sessions. If you can't or won't speak that's not a deal-breaker, but out of consideration to your fellow guests please try to avoid crew and command slots, so the impact on others is minimised.

** Party Request #2: Folk ARPS is not a MilSim/roleplay/dress-up/cosplay/furry environment, however ... unless the Party issues a 'Glory' order, guests are not expected to treat their characters' lives cheaply (and by extension, their assets). We weren't fighting on Okinawa, and you weren't playing a Kamikaze.



Citadel

Bravo SL: Fer
|- M: Darkit (?)

Bravo had a pretty conventional approach for the first half of the mission: with IFVs 3 and 4 trailing behind us, we walked up the road to the 'saddle', spotted for enemy statics in the town, and then let the IFVs do some heavy calibre sniping. Afterwards, we bounded down the track towards the first cluster of buildings, where we re-united with comrade Ferrard Carson's B1 (which had been escorting the MBT). Comrade NetKev's IFV also joined us, with comrade Mabbot's IFV remaining on the 'saddle' as our ultimate overwatch element. So far, pretty straightforward stuff.

Then comrade CO Pepper spirited comrade NetKev's IFV away from my command and gave it to Alpha, whilst asking me if Bravo could cut across the fog-filled valley and hit the town from the south-west. We would still have comrade Mabbot's IFV to provide us with support, but I didn't fancy his chances of seeing contacts in the milky soup we were about to step off into. Now entering my second Vietnam flashback of the session, I put the squad into a column and had comrade Ferrard 'Point' Carson lead my men down into the mist.

To begin with, it actually went okay: we were contacted by an enemy patrol but managed to be faster and more numerous with our bullets. But as we descended further into the valley, the mist grew almost as thick as the tall grass, and soon we were struggling to see the tips of our rifles (let alone enemies hiding in the bush ahead). When the second contact came it was brutal and from two directions. Ahead, but very close, the enemy had contacted Carson's FT, whilst high up to our left more enemies were exchanging fire with comrade AJAX's B3 FT. After a very chaotic minute, the contact seemed to subside, but we took casualties and I myself was wounded. Comrade CO Pepper had given me the option to withdraw, so I pulled the squad back south to a higher part of the gully where the mist was less dense.

Reformed and patched-up, we next followed the contour around to the southern edge of the town. Our orders were to secure the churchyard, but I also tasked my FTs (of which I still had 3, albeit at reduced strengths) with clearing all the buildings at the south entrance. In made a mistake here, in that I didn't co-ordinate enough with CO/ASL, which may have resulted in overlapping advances and some friendly fire. I myself met my end at the hands of a lone AI who was hiding in a bush, or maybe had become the bush (through meditation).



Great work from my FTLs, and thank you to the IFV crews for some splendid co-ordination.

[Raptoer]

As the mission maker of Budget Issues I'm wondering what everyone thought about the various types and positions of the emplacements. I already know of one on the west side that was completely useless, and I know of a general issue with high player density, but it's hard to get a sense of how they all work during combat without actually being there.

[Sparks]

Quite late joining this evening, missed Budget Issues completely and just missed slotting in Delivery Denied and wound up spectating it. Thought I had it all on tape too, including Leander's whoopsie with the parachute, Zitron's dodging fire from an overflight of FIA which unfortunately took him right over CSAT, and the subsequent unpleasantness on landing (honestly, you'd have been fine if you'd pointed the nose back up the slope, it was just bad luck). And not only the kamikaze run in the helo (btw Fer, I didn't actually know that kind of thing was frowned on in Folk, do we have a "Folk Combat Ettiquette" sort of post anywhere for the other stuff I've missed?) but also the way the exploding helicopter and the somersaulting truck managed to completely miss either Fer or Ferrard, who were standing at ground zero at the time, watching several tonnes of burning metal slowly bounce over their heads in bullet-time slow motion...

Citadel
Alpha 2 FTL with Major Effort (AR), Noose (AAR) and Tigershark (RAT)



To be honest, I actually disobeyed orders initially. ASL said to teleport right on top of our assigned overwatch positions; I teleported to a point about 200m downslope in a forest instead. I reasoned that (a) our avatars are highly trained soldiers, running 200m upslope in under two minutes was possible; (b) it's in the AO so it might have enemy nearby and I'd rather have a chance of walking into an engagement rather than materialising in one and having to reorient ourselves, find cover, and then fight (which we'd have zero chance of surviving). I'm not sure what the hell happened to A3 and ASL, but by the time we got to them, everyone but one man was dead, and by the time we got him back up, he'd lost connection to the server and his AI just stood there doing nothing. It was a little spooky, ASL hadn't crested the hill, and we couldn't spot any enemies on our side and nobody was shooting at us and there wasn't anywhere that had a line on both the point where ASL fell and where A3 was overrun.

Are there ninjas on this mission? Because I feel that should have been included in the ORBAT...

Anyway, after we confirmed that we'd lost ASL and all of A3, and had delivered the bad news of his promotion to Pickers in A1, we stole all the stuff off the dead and fell back to Bravo's position, to help them screen the IFVs as they pushed into the valley. Orders changed slightly en-route, with Alpha now screening on IFV while Bravo took the others, and we pushed on up along the road. ASL gave us a point to go check out where we were going to deploy IFV4 so they could murder everything, and we pushed up to scout it out, and surprised at least one enemy along the way. Noose went down, the IFV and Major made swiss cheese out of the enemy and Major revived Noose and on we went. Tigershark and myself were at the OP at that stage, and had spotted a fireteam waiting for the IFV so we got the AAR with his looted UGL and the AR into position with myself and Tigershark and proceeded to lay fire into them, annihilating all but one fairly quickly. While we were trying to finish off the last one, Pickers went and got himself shot and suddenly I was ASL and my headset started to melt from the comms traffic. Tigershark helpfully took the fireteam load off me and kept everyone together as we moved up, and IFV4 helped smear the last AI over several square metres of terrain, and the remains of A1 and all of A2 pushed into the IFV's new base of fire.

And then everything went sideways, because A1 and A2 weren't properly coordinated by ASL, the incompetent buffoon. Instead of A1 and A2 hanging back from the houses they were clearing while the IFV put some 30mm fire through windows and doors at scouted targets, A1 and A2 cleared the buildings without support and without covering each other. Tigershark got shot in the back by one AI from an uncleared building while he was pulling away from a building A1 were already clearing even as I was lining up a UGL shot through its window; then while I pulled A2 out to call in the IFV, and lobbed a grenade at the AI that had shot Tigershark, A1 tried to clear the building I'd just lobbed a grenade into. How blip2 survived, I don't know, but that man is one crazy sod. Friendly fire and incompetent leadership done, I tried to get A1 and A2 to consolidate and screen for the IFV, but blip2 was out for blood and was extracting it with high velocity lead from some FIA forces. I got our squad up to where he was, he joined so we now had just the one Alpha fireteam, screening for IFV4, finally.

Then I walked round a corner and was shot at point-blank range by an enemy nobody had seen.



Lesson learned - it's not cleared until it's cleared...

We watched the remainder of the ingress into the town with some amusement (Fer, the AI was definitely hiding in a bush, the initial wave of Bravo missed him in a corner of a field and he came after you deliberately), and I think blip2 may have burned out at least one barrel on his AR Ferrard corralled several of us into Charlie squad to bring in reinforcements, but just as we deployed, the mission ended in victory so we never even got into the field.

IndFor Don't Surf
R for Alpha 3 with Sam (FTL) and Noose (AR)

Command started off with a rather ambitious sprinting-based plan that aimed to have A1 and A2 run past the club and take the high ground beyond it while A3 flanked through the gully to the west to get behind OPFOR. The plan, as with all plans, didn't survive contact with reality because A1 and A2 couldn't run that fast, and they took the hill to the south of the club while OPFOR took the hill to the north. OPFOR's flanking element and ourselves must have passed each other within a hundred metres or so, but missed each other, and so while the main forces plinked away at each other, the flanking elements did successful end runs. A3 got up to the wall of the church and could hear OPFOR on the far side, so something like fifteen grenades got lobbed over the wall (five from each of us) and Sam and Noose charged the survivors while I pushed to the eastern flank, expecting to find resistance. I did, but Zitron found me first and shot me in the head.

The remainder of A3 finished off everyone on the hill though, and proceeded to UGL the crap out of the OPFOR flankers, BLUFOR and OPFOR now having swapped sides of the club. Meanwhile the last INDFOR element in the club wiped out anyone in the club itself, and suddenly it was an AJAX-v-Sam UGL duel. Sam was denied a kill by a random rock (apparently the overpressure wave from a 40mm grenade isn't modelled in Arma) and then ate shrapnel a few seconds later from an impact that was far further away from him than his had been from AJAX, but at that point the last INDFOR element shot AJAX down and now there was just INDFOR, a wounded BLUFOR and one OPFOR left, but that OPFOR was trapped in the drag animation trying to pull a dead OPFOR comrade out of a rock/bush combo, so the whole mission became an ironic INDFOR win

That was it for me, I didn't hang about for the go-karting. A fun night, wish I'd seen more of it, but c'est la vie.

And then I found that MSI had eaten almost all of my video. Screw that stupid program, I'm going back to OBS and I'll use an ABO to filter the mic instead of doing it in post.

[pepper]

Wonderful AAR Sparks, interesting to hear what happend to ASL and A3 in Citadel mission.