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Really liked this mission. Flying a Littlebird is always a blast and didnt see the zombie twist coming. Hope you guys enjoyed the rooftop extract, was sweating bullets while doing it as the winds were quite high
It was an interesting mission, although I expected the factory complex to be much harder than it turned out to be (not a bad thing TBH).
There is one big negative point that needs to be addressed though: intra-squad radio communication was way off the standard and we have to improve. From the moment we got in position in the forest West of the factory complex to the moment when we left it for me it was way too difficult to understand where [user avatar=“https://assets-cloud.enjin.com/users/20330489/avatar/small.1594394879.png” name=“Mattdogs”]20330489[/user] wanted Red Team to go. So much so that at one point I just missed every order that came through the 343 and started guessing what SL wanted from Red Team.
I don’t want to go full in radio procedures all the time, but when the situation gets hot we must follow exactly the radio etiquette that is described in the SOP. Whenever the situation is calm (i.e. the squad is moving from one place to another or performing low risk activities) it can be more casual and relaxed. But that can’t be the case when we are maneuvering two fireteams in a large enemy complex at night with poor visibility and several compounds all over the place.
I am not entirely sure the 343 clutter was due to 5/6 men fireteams. It was definitely a contributing factor though, since Alpha’s 343 channel is used for: SL to FTLs and back, FTLs to medic and back, FTLs to their FT members. But even considering that, I am confident that a better disciplined radio usage would solve the issue.
So when switching to "serious" mode in radio comms, remember a few points:
- Use proper identification ("[Hello] You, this is Me") and possibly wait for the receiver to acknowledge they are ready to listen to the message
- Don’t jump on people already transmitting, which is something that happened a few times during this OP and is the ultimate sign of chaos
- Keep it short. Brevity is something we should be working on, myself first. If every message is as short and effective as possible there is no cluttering of the channel and everyone understands their orders
One last feedback from me is to try and reduce the micromanagement of fireteams. Again, it was a big complex and didn’t really know its shape prior to navigating it, but both Red and Yellow teams were larger than usual and way more fire effective. I think a bit more autonomy would have greatly improved both the movement and avoided much of the radio clutter that happened. For example, don’t assign fireteams small compounds that can be cleared in 1 minute but rather tell them the whole story beforehand so that they are more independent from SL when moving around.
All of this aside, thanks for the mission Shiny!
Thanks for the feedback. A few things from my side.
It was a bit of a chaotic mission, with very little future planning (which I think was the point).
I expect red and yellow FTL to always be ready for messages. Hence I don’t wait for an ack from both teams before sending. I usually try an "alpha listen up" or "Alpha prepare to move". To give the FTLs time to finish chatter.
Stepping on radios did happen a bit and was a bit annoying. FTLs need to remember their Ack/Readback order.
A1- First (red) , A2- Second (yellow). Full readbacks aren’t required for the Local net. "copy, yellow covering NW" for example is fine or just "copy".