[Sun] 21 Jun 2015 (Kefirz, I love you)

[Sparks]

In this case, we'd used all the microterrain just getting that close, my draw distance wasn't helping things, if we'd started plinking we had no cover to fall back behind, and anyways, we had Carson as an FTL. I don't think Carson could hold still and plink instead of charging even if you cut off all his legs and arms and nailed his spine to the ground behind hard cover. Which is why it's usually a lot of fun to be on the Carson Fireteam

[Ferrard Carson]

The southern approach was simply bad in all aspects. Upon further reflection, I should've just pulled us back and found some good terrain from which to plink at you guys and peck away at the town. My reflexive move towards "use terrain to close distance and flank, and if that's not possible rely on violence of action" serves well in most circumstances... but wide open ground is the one place that it thoroughly doesn't.

That said, two of us did make it to the walls of your shed, where the odds were significantly more even (though my fire team still lost in the end).

~ Ferrard

[Sparks]

from which to plink at you guys and peck away at the town.

Who are you and what have you done with Carson, you monster??!?!

[SuicideKing]

Kefirz - I meant one team starts firing as soon as the other pops smoke, and the one that pops smoke starts running. We were at enough separation that had you returned fire at the buddy team shooting at you, the others could have advanced - at least, that was my analysis.

I think we couldn't really see you guys clearly either - we saw one of you run into the ruins once but it didn't seem worthwhile to engage. So yeah, maybe even cover fire wouldn't have worked well (who would we shoot at?).

[Kefirz]

Well, when you are being engaged the worst thing you could do is not return fire.
Even if you don't see any targets, you can fire speculatively at bushes, corners and in this case, the wooden shed because the bullets will go through it. You might not hit anybody, but you will put the opposing team under pressure, which could mean in some movement and visible targets for you.

Also the whole deal of throwing a smoke, waiting for it to conceal everything, running to the position and taking some cover, sounds like a whole lot of time. By this point the other buddy team might even be dead or incapped.

P.S. From a personal perspective, whenever there is a firefight I look for smoke and put some rounds in it also, it's a great indicator of enemies. I know that I won't hit anybody, unless I have an AR, but I know that it will put pressure on them.

P.P.S. FA missions are short and we have an abundance of ammo in them, especially in 10-30 min adversarials, I would suggest everyone to be very, very liberal of the ammo. It's not like they are paying you to bring some back.

[boberro]

In situation like that one, smoke should be placed on enemies position, not your own. Unfortunately, there's still no underbarrel grenade launcher for M14.
BTW I wonder if in 2035 we wouldn't see new version of good ol M79 instead of underbarrels. Afaik murrican soldiers prefer dedicated grenade launcher, because it works better and in times of MRAPS, it's easier to have one in the car, than to have your rifle weight more.

[fer]

https://www.marines.com/operating-force ... e-launcher

[madrak_the_red]

Having the 3GL grenades is like having half of an M32 stuck to your rifle. And it's amazing

[Sparks]

It was Father's Day, so I had permission to play, so there
And happily BI hadn't put out a break-all-the-things patch on Sunday morning, so things even worked (though my recording still has that damn echo in it. Must fix that).

Budget Issues
Bravo Squad Medic with Fer (BSL) and Madrak (pilot)



Nice fast mission to start. Simple plan, Alpha look north-west to west, Bravo north-east to east to south-east. Everyone volunteers one person per fireteam to leg it forward to enemy territory and chuck a bunch of chemlights about then try to leg it back without being shot. Then we all shoot Bad Guys till we fly home. Simples.

Surprisingly, nobody on chemlight duty died. Actually, very few injuries or Medic! calls went out, so mostly I was shooting at enemies silly enough to walk into the light while I had an MRCO on my rifle. Then I heard shots from the south-east while everyone was watching north-east to east; the UGL that exploded ten metres from me made me think they were serious, so I went to investigate further, but the second I walked up to the little bunker that would keep me safe, I was shot in the spleen. Mabbot revived me, we laid down smoke and pushed further south and just fired blindly into where it sounded like they were firing from. Then I realised I was out of ammo (there's a first, normally I die waaaaay before that happens. I legged it back to the helo hoping it or the other one had ammo, but nope, so I guessed I had to hang back and just Medic it up for a while. Fer donated two mags to the Keep Sparks Alive fund, but just as he did so the refuelling ended, we popped all our remaining smoke (yay Medics, we have lots of smoke) and fell back trying to do that cool thing where one person fires to cover the other as they drag Mabbot's twitching corpse behind them. But we gave up on that, revived him (that twitching was sooooo totes irritating) and legged it to the helo where Arma insisted I check out the helo's inventory and delay everyone for a swear word or two. Then in I got and I threw the last of Fer's rounds out into the smoke as we lifted off into the night sky sans NVGs and the mission was called a victory just before I could panic as I realised we'd forgotten to execute Madrak and someone had given him the keys to a vehicle that we were now all in...


Inter IV (M14s!)
Charlie 1 Rifleman with Carson (FTL), SuicideKing (R) and Glenn (R)



Finally got to try an M14 in a Folk game! And by try I mean carry one and never get a round off before dying instantly!

Plan was, Bravo suppresses from the north-east hill, Alpha moves down from the north-west hill we spawn on to a smaller foothill north-west of the town but closer. Charlie moves with Alpha until we're in the saddle between the two hills, then we split off and sneak south in a gully around the town and hit it from the south while Alpha and Bravo attack from the north.

The 'gully' turned out to be about six feet deep at the most, and mainly it was concealment instead of cover, but okay. We snuck our way along the western edge of town, got to a point to the south-west, noticed that the gully effectively ended there, and started crawling through tall grass and short bushes until we go to around 60m from the centre of town, and found ourselves out of options.

Ever seen Carson when he's out of options?





Sadly, our charge lasted just about long enough for me to take three steps and SuicideKing might well have been hit by a round that had bits of my cerebellum still smeared all over it. Glenn and Carson made it to the first hut, and Carson managed to kill one EI, but Kerfirz won the coin-toss when they rounded a corner at each other and Charlie was no more.

However, the defenders didn't last much longer as Alpha pushed into the town. There were some funny moments as people were let down by their situational awareness senses, and finally sam took a gymnastic bullet to the noggin and the game was over.

Huzzah II
FAXORBAT-4C Alpha 1 FTL with Fer (AR), SuicideKing (AR), Pickers (RAT), ZeCatnip (R) and AI (later Eqbot) (R)



In Folk, if you blink at the wrong moment during slotting, you'll be an FTL...

And wow, half the old hands in the fireteam too. Why not just invite Taconic in as a rifleman under the least experienced FTL on the server while you're at it? Oh well. "Now Grandma, pay attention. This is an egg..."

The mission wasn't strictly planned as such. The map indicated lots of microterrain and we had no intel on enemy disposition, so the order was to move up to our initial waypoints, secure them and scout for enemy. I thought we'd be doing that on foot, it seemed a bit safer to me what with Madrak behind the wheel and confused about who was whose ablative armor, but no, so we mounted up and drove up to the first waypoint, Michigan. I'd pretty much settled on building 3 being the one to start from - 1, 2 and 4 would all be the first buildings in the line of sight between the enemy and us, 3 would let us get our bearings before being shot. That much was grand, but mixing up north and south at the dismount was sortof a cardinal sin (ba dum tish). But nobody died, we all got to cover in 3 and started to peek about. Nobody was actively firing on us anymore (the IFV took some UGL fire approaching the dismount but it had ceased), so I snuck up to building 2 to peek around the corner and then the squad moved up to join me. ASL said to hunker for a minute, and I was thinking okay, but not here, Madrak's dumped his magnetic explosives attractor just close enough to us to either run us over when he accidentally nudged the throttle, or kill us with the shrapnel from the UGLs that bounced off his armor, so my plan was to send red team back to 3 and take blue team over to 2. Right before we moved, the IFV took a few UGL hits, and with my precognition rep now firmly boosted, we legged it (all bar the AI who, being an AI, was dumb as a post yet still lived).

After a few minutes of looking about for enemy but seeing none (despite Madrak trying to scare the crap out of red team), I left the ARs in building 2 and pushed up to building 1 myself to take a peek. I arrived just as Tigershark mortared himself, and I nearly added to the fun by fragging the Alpha medic, but happily managed not to. Fer joined me in building 1 and took an upstairs window, finding the only one of the three that didn't have a half-pound of lead flying into it every ten seconds. We kept scouting and occasionally plinking for a few minutes, and had red team push up to building 2 and were joined by Eqbot in the AI slot, then ASL gave the order to push up to waypoint Ohio down the road. We left Fer at his window with a clear line of sight to cover us, and SuicideKing stayed on the ground floor of 1 for the same reason, and myself and red team ran up to Ohio firing UGL smoke rounds along the way and a few frags. Red team took the first house we saw, then we pushed on to Ohio proper, paused there to shoot a few enemy hiding in some ruins 400m away, volunteer SuicideKing for HAT duty (thus losing an AR), and lose Fer to an IFV attack without noticing (sorry Fer!); then we ran after ASL who'd charged on ahead. Before we got to him he took one in the kidney so we charged ahead even faster, and unfortunately nearly fragged him in the process. But no harm, no foul. We may need to ponder the question of whether "you missed him" is good or bad when talking about someone who unloads an entire clip at full auto at their SL...

Having reached the town, we started clearing buildings. Pickers took a round or two, we got his assailant and revived him and kept going. Then all of ASL went down the same way and we went and rescued them, and stayed with them while we cleared buildings. We'd almost finished all the village when Pickers went through a gate and went left and I went through the gate and went right to support him; only to be shot in the back from the second story of an uncleared house I'd just asked about a few seconds earlier. Boo.

The mission wound up a few moments later, with sufficient forces attritted on both sides to be unable to call it cleanly.

Not a bad mission, but losing JTAC early probably hobbled us, and I thought we didn't push as hard on Ohio as we could have in the beginning and pushed too hard in the end.

Also, FOXORBAT-4C. It's easier than 4B, but I missed 4B's extra UGL and it's surprising how much smaller 4C feels than 4B. You've definitely gone from FTL being a full-time occupation to FTL being a little less. It feels like the old ORBAT used to feel when you had an attached survivor. Easier to keep track of, but somehow the two teams aren't as independent and flexible. Still fun to have it in there though.

Routine
FOXORBAT-4C Bravo 1 AR with Eagle_Eye (FTL), Mabbot (AR), Wilson (RAT), Dabbo (R) and Grumpy (R)



In our defence, we were desperately funny. No, really.

The plan was: UGV first, then Alpha, then Bravo. On meeting contact, pull off the road and engage as dictated by the enemy.

Our plan was: Let the UGV and Alpha absorb all the bullets while we ran away engaged in an unexpected and unanticipate-able flanking manouever with a wide baseline.

Much camaraderie was had. But I resisted the temptation to shoot out Alpha's tyres. Next time Alpha, next time.

The in-truck entertainment system sucks btw. Meanwhile Alpha was being mean to one of their squad and kept throwing him out of a moving truck. Because they're mean that way.

Then, just after I was musing on how amusing it would be were Alpha to stop an RPG right in front of us, one of them stopped a .50 cal with his head and we were dismounting. Bravo bravely ran away began their flanking manouever via stratis, and I got left behind in the middle of enemy territory by Eagle_eye again there was a degree of mis-coordination regarding the exact baseline for the flank. I charged a hill with a volleyball looking for enemy but found none, so I brought the volleyball back to the squad and we pushed on up North, hosing down a small group of buildings along the way. Someone trusted Madrak with keys again (seriously people, what the hell?) and as we offered constructive criticism, he brought up the truck and we mounted up, pausing only to obtain a sweet pair of shades tactical advantage in the bright noon conditions.

We then were mean to command's medic and he ran away.

Then we slooooooooowly drove up a hill while command was mean to his own medic and the medic ran away again.

Once we reached our new RV point, command told us to leave the truck there and run to the far side of the valley. I think it was because we were mean to his medic.

We moved up on our newest RV point, secured it, and gained overwatch on a house to the south of the FOB, while Mabbot treated himself for worms.

Mabbot dosed, we moved up on the house, which Eagle had ensured was clear through careful observation.

After we'd dealt with the technical and the enemy AR, we occupied the buildings and got eyes on the FOB. Mabbot's dose proved insufficient and Eagle performed a field examination and determined he also had crabs. Then the FOB got eyes on us, declared us unclean and proceeded to shoot at us. In their defence, we couldn't really disagree with their assessment.

We then spent twenty minutes unloading all the ammunition from the truck into the FOB, the trees, the rocks, and generally polluting the entire local water table with lead particulate matter. I understand formal complaints have been filed with the Altis EPA.

Having thus eliminated the two fireteams who had been picnicing on the hill, and their mascot, and several rabbits, and defoliating a large percentage of the local forestry with 5.56 rounds, I secured the technical's 50 cal and offered to murder Alpha. My offer was declined. I feel Alpha should know that BSL was looking out for them.

Then I decided that running was for fit people and brought the truck up to the FOB. BSL wasn't impressed, even though I'd just shown up in the only mobile cover in the area carrying the last of the stanags (and he was low on ammo). BSL is a strange creature, hard to please, easy to accidentally frag.

Just sayin'.

Then the mission was called as a victory as I was handing out stanags to the ungrateful masses.

1200 rounds expended (conservative estimate). Two kills. Thus is the life of an AR gunner.


We never did treat Mabbot's crabs successfully

Weekend Warriors
Bravo 3 RAT with Eagle_Eye (FTL), Eqbot (AR) and Mike (AAR)



For which this AAR is named...

I did have this idea that the North Patrol gang could send their AR/AAR back to the barracks while FTL and RAT occupied a building outside the compound to make life harder for the technical coming up the road, but then I realised that when Fer said "fill all the slots" he'd meant slots that he'd opened further down the list that I'd not seen yet.

Sheepishly, I joined Bravo as RAT. This being the first time I'd played this mission as someone other than North Patrol, I hadn't had to do the armoury run yet and so didn't realise there was an Arma menu option to grab your gear and spent a good 90 seconds futzing about looking for rifles in the ammo crate before sorting myself out. Then I ran upstairs in the Barracks, got into a room, heard the radio call announce there was a technical, thought "you're RAT, that's your job" and legged it out to the balcony, couldn't see the technical at that angle, ran up for a better angle and got shot in the head by EVERYBODY simultaneously, just before someone warned me on the radio that it wasn't safe out there...

Spent the remainder of the mission discussing doughnuts, eclairs, meringues and kitchens with Fer and Pickers while the team slaughtered every EI going except for one who wandered slowly off down the hill staring at the night sky, presumably whistling his best "I'm not an enemy combatant" whistle...

Afterparty: Shipping Problems

So, it's a fast-twitch kind of game this, see an enemy, look up to check their hat colour, shoot/no-shoot. We don't have helmets or body armor, just work clothes.
Ah-ha, thought I. You can't drop your hat, that'd be cheating, but what if their reflexes were just a little slow? What if I could keep their eyes off my hat for just an extra half-second or so? Hey, isn't that the argument the comic book artists use for the armored bikinis that feature on every female character in every comic book ever?

And so was born Sparks: The Naturalist. Think Robert Redford with a fully-automatic 9mm PDW and a hat. And no clothes on.

The last few times I played this mission, I amassed one actual kill for four games. This time, I killed four and wounded one in two games.

I'm just saying, some of you were totally staring at my junk instead of my hat. Awww, yeah.

(Also, you can totally sneak up on Eagle_Eye if you just take all your clothes off first. Go on. Try it.)

Afterparty: Insurgency

Okay, this was an interesting map. KoTH without the stupidness and in coop. Cool. Also, virtual arsenal so use whatever you want - well, silenced .338 sniper rifle then please

And of course the Mohawk left without some of us, so Eagle (I think?) swiped an MH9, then saw an AH9 and swapped, I got in the attack helo and regretted it because the MH9's better than that thing. The attack helo flies like a pig that's not very enthusiastic about the idea of heavier-than-air flight. You'd think it's bigger than the MH9, carries less people and so would have more power available, but nope. It uses all that power up lifting armor. It's not quite as bad as the Huron (because, you know, it's not the size of a damn bus), but nimble and spritely it ain't. So we followed the mohawk and AH9 off into the distance, had some fun dropping chaff across people's noses and generally flying in and around the formation, then tried to do a pretty normal MH9 high-speed manouever to dump speed in prep for landing, and discovered first-hand that the attack helo doesn't have the power to pull off a high-angle turn that points the rotor disk's lift line back along the motion vector to dump energy. Instead your momentum just overwhelms the engine and instead of a nice dyslexi of a compound landing that impresses everyone with your prowess and competence, you bounce into a building, rip off your main rotor eight feet off the ground and are very very lucky to not explode...

But in case anyone ever asks, it was theBest. Landing. Ever.
(And as my gunner lived, my record for not killing crew remains almost intact, and my record for not killing crew while alive is immaculate...).

By the way, did you know that if you have a silenced .338 rifle and are at point-blank range, you can kill the rabbits? Yeah, fuck those guys. That'll teach them to keep scaring the bejaysus out of me when I'm sneaking through long grass...

Oh, and when engaging enemies at ranges of 50m, do not set your scope for 1.8km. Just saying.

Had to call it a bit early on this one (wee man picked that point to start getting sick), but it was a lot of fun. Would definitely play again.

[madrak_the_red]

I'm not sure why you're quite so terrified of me in a vehicle, sparks... terrified enough to confuse me with Tigershark and Netkev, who flew and commanded your chopper and IFV respectively