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I did quite a like this mission even when did not shoot too much. I believe there was a strategic mistake that we did not také at first the hill 58. On the map is good to see that it was the highest point of the area and with vehicles in defilade could be more safe to engage city (and other areas) than to position lowland (and possibly get shot from hills). The vehicles can be hit on very long distances with missiles, for sure over 1,5 km and it s never too safe to move just close to front line or assuming nothing can happen bc there can not be any enemy (and bc that I do not like stay in vehicles at all - you get to close to enemy=you die-if they have AT). Generally infantry goes first and vehicles are far behind (0,5-1,5km) in safe possition for fire support and not moving to much except driving from cover to shoot and driving back to cover. It s very hard to spot enemy AT teams, to spot vehicles is easy. I think we had too, too low advanced rpgs-26 (??) which can be shot on maybe 250m with like 50% hit rate. Altis is big and distances between hills can be 1km or more, so it s more realistic to have the RPG-7 which can fly over 1Km. So we were very dependent on our BMPs (IFVs) and airborne light tanks to win the vehicle fight, but enemy could shoot rockets or missiles on us, so we had some disadventage, maybe, next to the lowland possition at beginning.
The sprut 2S25 (succesor of BMD line) is not better than BMP-3K as it is used be launched from airplane on parachute as airborn light tank, just the 125mm gun is good. But the vehicle in arma has no better armour than the BMP-3K we had. The Mora, Marshall, Gorgon they can all get them if they shoot long enough. And if there is a lot of AT Infantry, vehicles on open can not make it at all.
(what I really do not like is the Ace cook off, as it is incredibly laud on close distance)
I have bad experiences with vehicles so If I need destroy them I try to attack the Gun first, so they can not shoot. If I play in vehicle Im moving from cover to cover like when I play infantry and can get sniper fire. To drive on field it s the same like infantry running on open, just instead bullet I get rocket or missile. The vehicles are for me more difficult to play than just Infantery position as you can not just simply jump to closest field wall to také cover, stay there 2 minutes to get rid off the aiming AI and move again. The most difficult thing in vehicle is to possition well in terrain as the driver always see anything, so is very dependand on commander or gunner help.
I agree if we had more ppl +5-10 we would made it or if we took the hill first it would be probably better too.
BTW, thanks to GM as you did not shoot me there 
I was like is it friendly or not (bc he does not run like AI), so after you disappeared I wanted throw granade as it could be a AI fail and after I hear drop your weapon 
But I simply wanted play, not to go in POW camp, so decision was to rather shoot, even when I was feeling quite a bad about it at the moment.
I did like this mission and the entranched possition was a lot cool :thumb: It was thrilling as I gennerally tried to stay in cover as got under fire couple of times and did not wanted die there. Many times I felt like we are pushing to much into the city while under imminent threat with the hill on left still occupied and blue team few times could be wiped out by the Mora on the hill if it saw us, us the AIs are very good in spotting movement opposite staying frozen and moving just head.
And maybe we dismounted too very close to the city(as the cars can not be easily overseen by enemi), the same feeling I had in second Altis deployment where probably first vehicle got it few secs before dismounting. It s maybe better choose safe spot over close spot and do not rush.
I’m happy we failed a mission for once. Too often we just go through each objective with little opposition but this time it was different.
There was a big challenge that we didn’t manage to overcome. I don’t think we have to blame it on the numbers only but it would definitely have helped. I guess we’re not too familiar with combined arms yet, however there was some great movement and coordination at times with infantry getting behind armor, for example.
Combined arms with such a strong opposition resulted in a very immersive and intense mission where everyone got its share of action I believe, so thanks for the mission.
This mission learned us a couple of things.
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We need HAV and MAV training. Vehicle control and how to properly move about and give orders and when and where to use them.
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Fight in combines arms. Honestly I don’t think we should do combined arms anymore. We try to use them the best we can but it feels very, very underwhelming. Especially with a HAV.
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Fighting 17 different AT sources when were with 18 guys including 3 vehicles is BS.
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To many AI is boring and feels like we can’t win the mission anymore. Please adjust missions to people that show up or to success of the mission. Change it during the mission if the players are not making any progress. It’s not fun to fight on the same bit of land and see +/- 20 people die around you through out the whole mission on the same part. Especially when there are 3+ objectives and we can’t manage to even complete one. The end of the mission leaves a very bitter taste if you can’t even complete 1 of 5 objectives if you ask me. Also sending in a extraction helo without long range that gets instantly shot down because it doesn’t follow orders/is not able to follow orders leaves an even more bitter taste.
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MMT/GM’s have to communicate more. Do you have something special in mind? Is your mission different then others? Say it before the mission. For example : The AO is non existent and the whole map is your AO, not just the lines drawn on the map. Or another example : Name what kind of support you have and how many rounds. Also leave AI to control it instead of relying on dead people. Only calling in Arti when someone is dead makes no sense at all.
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Try and refrain from giving the enemy lock on AT or AA that can fire over a kilometer. Not seeing a threat come at the start of the mission and it immediately blowing up a HAV is not cool. It happens but still, not cool.
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Communication is going better and better. Keep the good work up!
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UAV is very useful and we can use it more often.
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Radar on the BTR3 or whatever the name was is not working if enemies do not move more then 5m. If you advise the troops to use the radar and nothing at all pops up it gives us a very false idea of our surroundings.
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Deploying more reinforcements and reinserts is good! I like it
Just to reply to several of Shiny’s points.
Combined arms and HAVs aren’t underwhelming if they are used properly, in this mission at least 2-3 vehicles were lost by them bum-rushing the fortified lines, when the AT range is short (and in those cases it was) infantry lead the way, vehicles support from the rear. This mission failed due to a complete lack of reconnaissance. The emplacements on the hill were clearly visible and identifiable from the air even before the sunrise. All assets including artillery were listed in the OPORD, any questions regarding the details of the assets should have been directed to HQ at the outset.
I will also agree, albeit begrudgingly, about your point with the AO. Highway should have said either moved the border of the AO or have alerted you about the possibility. The begrudging part comes from the fact that proper recon could have solved all your problems.
There were only two heavy enemy AT assets on the front, 1xTOW (also T-90 is immune to TOW missiles due to it’s SHTORA IR ECM system which causes TOW missiles to miss wildly) and 1xTITAN, everything else was short range. If preliminary scouting were completed they could have been easily identified and taken out by either careful shoot-and-scoot tactics or by artillery strikes giving you a free reign over the AO. The thing I will agree with you is the use of Lock-On weapons as the Titan is simply impossible to dodge once it fires on it’s target.
As for the BRM-1K: I explicitly stated how the radar works, and stressed at the outset that the radar does not pick up static targets, only moving ones, so any false idea of your surroundings was due to faulty assumptions on the troops’ part.
[user avatar=“https://assets-cloud.enjin.com/users/3602631/avatar/small.1411590107.jpeg” name=“Shiny”]3602631[/user] - you made several points that are repeating themselves in the context of GM role, so I’ve opened up a separate thread in more intimate environment
We have a different view on several Arma related things so it’s better to discuss them over there.
To be honest, combined arms is never going to work ‘properly’ without training. Same goes for the other stuff. I think your expectations are simply too high.
That is where I would hope to see some original GMing. Original GMing to be defined in my very long and serious post to the above-mentioned thread once home.
[quote user_id=“15519795” avatar=“https://assets-cloud.enjin.com/users/15519795/avatar/medium.1493755975.png” name=“Argon”]Just to reply to several of Shiny’s points.
Combined arms and HAVs aren’t underwhelming if they are used properly, in this mission at least 2-3 vehicles were lost by them bum-rushing the fortified lines.
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We lost 1 vehicle on close range I think. Maybe one more at the bunker in the end. Everything else was lost on long to superlong range.
I’ve observed the fight from above and the group lost the Command vehicle (BRM-1K) and two IFVs (BMP-3) in a span of 10 minutes from the first to the last. I’ve rechecked the CNTR for timestamps.
Here’s all three of the vehicles in question and the routes of their attackers. They might not show up clearly in CNTR but I’ve observed where the shots came from (except for the second one but I’ve made an educated guess as to where the shot originated from).
VEHICLE 1
The first vehicle to blow up was the one in the north, in the eden editor I’ve placed it at the position where it died and measured the distance (212 meters)
Although note that the vehicle itself went much closer to the front before it backed away, I would estimate it was some 150 meters away from the enemy lines.
The mistake here was assaulting a strongpoint with a vehicle while the flanks were not secure, even if the vehicle was safe from the front it’s right hand side flank was still un-secured and out of sight of the infantry. The infantry should have moved to follow or the BMP-3 should have remained 200 meters to the rear. The rule of thumb is when assaulting a fortified urban position from open field is the furthest an IFV should go is to be in line with the infantry, but preferably it should stay to the rear of them.
VEHICLE 2
This is the one I haven’t observed clearly but I’ve made an educated guess about where the shot came from one of the buildings in front of it or to it’s left flank. This vehicle is the one in the middle on the topmost picture. (166 meters)
This time the vehicle was going along the MSR which was the most fortified with it’s left front and left flank unsecured and exposed, from this distance the chance to hit for a human is substantial and for the AI it’s guaranteed.
VEHICLE 3
The southernmost vehicle (and the last one to get destroyed) was the most dangerous example of assaulting a town without proper securing of the flanks.
This image shows unit disposition seconds before disaster, as you can see the construction site on the left of the vehicle still contains enemy troops, there are no friendly units on that side and the BMP moves in to point blank range of the enemy.
Here’s the enemy perspective.
As you can see the range is mere 66 meters.
The point that I am trying to make it that a lot of vehicles were lost in a short span of time by them getting too close to the enemy positions, all 3 vehicles were taken out by short ranged AT assets, and the longest range was less than 250 meters. The flanks weren’t secure and the vehicles got dangerously close to uncleared buildings. Had the BMPs remained to the rear and just pummeled the enemy positions with HE shells and 30mm cannon fire the enemy would be forced to retreat into the town for CQB defense where CNTO excels.
The part where the hill was assaulted was excellent, a textbook assault with Dagger and the BMP providing long range fire to soften up the hill before doing an infantry assault. Had proper precautions been taken in the first part of the mission the second part would have had more assets and more chances for a proper breakthrough to the airfield, ignoring the town completely. If the BRM-1K had survived it would have warned the group of an incoming Gorgon IFV and dagger and the BMP-3 would likely have survived the encounter.