Coop - Derailed Part II

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I enjoyed most of the mission but there were a few incidents that also dampened the experience for me. I’ll list them here for easy overview so we can improve upon the next time around.

Platoon Structure

In the slotting screen, we should not fill up the PL element unless at least three other elements are completely full. At most a PL-Medic is required. Otherwise, we will with the inevitable late joiners create an overflow and have to reform a new impromptu fireteam that is going to be equipped worse than if we had started filling up Bravo during slotting and employed them as a smaller separate element - most likely OW element or rear-guard until more people join.

As [user avatar=“https://assets-cloud.enjin.com/users/16433725/avatar/small.1623044483.jpeg” name=“Flo”]16433725[/user] pointed out we should also avoid attaching smaller JIP elements directly to Alpha as a third fireteam - this is something I myself am guilty of as well during "March in the Sands" on April 5th. It overloads the Squad Leader and turns him/her into a mini-PL which will make the squad move slower and be less effective.

When a new element is formed up on-the-fly during a mission and we have dynamic map markers available, members of that new element should leave their parent group entirely in order to generate a new map marker. At times we had no map marker for the call sign "Logistics" and later no actual "PLT" marker anymore as PLT was assigned to the newly created Bravo.

Which leads me to my last platoon structure point, PLT 2IC: there was a bit of back and forth between [user avatar=“https://assets-cloud.enjin.com/users/3749902/avatar/small.1500023987.jpeg” name=“Churizo”]3749902[/user] and me during the mission / in the debrief. As he rightfully pointed out in the debrief we do not have an official element called logistics. Where I got confused during the mission was that I thought "Logistics" was a separate element for the experimental HQ-Truck reinsertion of this mission and thus in my head disconnected him entirely from PL. I must have missed some comms announcing the remerging of Logistics with PL and I apologise for adding to the confusion when we left the mine complex where I repeatedly called on Flo to take over PL as Dusty was down. To circle back to the first paragraph: I do think though that the situation could have been improved upon by having a set structure during the slotting process, starting with a smaller Bravo team and using them for the Logi tasks early on (while retaining the Bravo call-sign). Having a temporary call-sign that gets disbanded mid-mission was quite confusing for my elderly brain. :wink:

Long-Range Radio Comms

I don’t know what the situation was for the 343 channel 1 network but the 152 was a bit chaotic at times. Especially on the long-range where multiple elements share a single network remember to keep calm and keep transmissions to lower intervals. Multiple times when enemy vehicles appeared Dagger was contacted with frantic messages along the lines "Vehicle, enemy vehicle, west, moving towards you, now the vehicle is on your left. No, you’re looking the wrong way! Move the turret, further west! Enemy vehicle!" all the while we still had no indication of what kind of vehicle we are facing nor the approximate distance to us. Keep in mind that MBTs have very slow turret turn speeds and a limited field of view, it will take a moment to acquire the target correctly and accurate clear information helps to achieve this goal. Radio calls to Dagger like all 152 transmissions should be as succinct as possible: "Contact (or "enemy Vehicle"), West 300m, BTR (or "Medium Armour), moving Sout-East coming in fast" (Alert, Orient, Describe, Expound) then pause the transmission and give adequate time for the element to communicate internally and acquire their target to engage. Additionally, as with all contact reports, rough enemy map markers are always a great tool in the box to ensure all elements know the approximate location of contacts.

With regards to updating one’s position on via long-range it’s a difficult balancing act and I admit that at times I lowered my comms deliberately when moving the tank because I didn’t want to overcrowd the 152 net with multiple positional changes during firefights. The terrain made it impossible for DGR to safely stay stationary and be combat effective thus we changed our position quite often. I assumed the T80 would be easily identifiable by sound and look as the friendly MBT since T80s are advanced heavy tanks and should not be available to insurgents. However, the friendly fire incident early on proved me wrong where we were hit by two friendly light ATs. Around the ten minute marker DGR left it’s SE hill position and I called on 152 that "we are moving West and looking for a flanking position", again I relied heavily on my assumption that the T80 would be recognised as friendly or the dynamic map marker would be recognised due to the proximity and thus I didn’t think to adjust the previous radio-call again as we were approaching friendlies further. My lessons learned here are a.) I’ll rely less on the assumption to be recognised and update my pos a bit more frequently over LR. b.) I think it could be helpful, if the time allows for it, to quickly gather up the platoon in front of DGR vehicle so everyone knows what it looks like to avoid blue-on-blue. Luckily LAT launchers can’t do anything beyond light damage to an MBT but if MAT would have acquired us as targets we would have been toast in the first 13 minutes of gameplay.

Tank Engine / Noise

At some point, DGR was approached by a member and asked to turn off the engine after we were ordered to guard the mine complex entrance. I understand that the sound of the engines is very loud and fairly annoying / can overpower sounds of other vehicles approaching. But unfortunately the T80 cannot start its engine right away, it needs to warm up for ca. 20 seconds where it will be completely defenceless to any approaching infantry or vehicles. Thus for heavy tanks featuring these engines, it is tactically not sound to ever turn off the engine. As it so happens very shortly after that conversation enemies attacked the mine complex from the hill and DGR could immediately rush out the base to flank enemy positions. If we were immobile an enemy RPG could have easily hit our top armour from that heightened position and taken us out in one hit.

Enemy Uniform Differences

A smaller point but it did lead to an incident where we deliberately not fired upon an enemy right next to us because we debated for ages if that could be one of our members who picked up a hat. From what I could see the enemies crewing any stationary weaponry were wearing Russian uniforms (very similar to ours) while the actual enemy squads all had the usual Cherno insurgency clothes. I was wondering if this was due to a limitation of Project Opfor but if possible should be avoided to not encourage friendly fire or moments where we ignore a contact.

Clarke’s Most Embarrassing Moment

http://priv.carpenoctem.co/cntr/?m=df2c08ab&t=4750

Though it was called out on the radio, we missed the BTR coming up the road by a few seconds while turning to get around some trees. We kept watching South to spot it approaching but by then it was already passing us in defilade. Only to come back and tease the absolutely oblivious DGR crew by almost bumping into our rear. For the following minutes, we kept searching for it South, following the road and ultimately into the compound where we finally saw it and took it out.

Tank Engine / Noise

  • The point was about crew, in the tank, will not hear enemy vehicles comming. It was not about the noise of the tank outside at all.

  • When is your view limited on ±75, becouse you are looking straight into defilade, it s nice to hear as you do not see

  • RPG - you should position the tank in such manner that you minimize the possibility of being hit - middle of the road is not the way to go, especially with the cliff on left side from 12 clock.

  • RPG - The moment you realize AT rifleman presence is ussually when he shot first rocket on you yet - in such case, yes the 30 sec how was said or 20 sec how was wrote, would be disadvantage

[quote user_id=“18447842” avatar=“https://s3.amazonaws.com/files.enjin.com/821401/site_logo/medium.png” name=“Mother”]Tank Engine / Noise

  • The point was about crew, in the tank, will not hear enemy vehicles comming. It was not about the noise of the tank outside at all.

  • When is your view limited on ±75, becouse you are looking straight into defilade, it s nice to hear as you do not see

  • RPG - you should position the tank in such manner that you minimize the possibility of being hit - middle of the road is not the way to go, especially with the cliff on left side from 12 clock.

  • RPG - The moment you realize AT rifleman presence is ussually when he shot first rocket on you yet - in such case, yes the 30 sec how was said or 20 sec how was wrote, would be disadvantage[/quote]

We’d been ordered to that position by PLT to cover the gateway. With the small space in the compound, we were always at risk of the cliff side and enemy AT. That’s why we made the decision to keep the engine on. There was never a good sight line available for us without risk, so we’d rather have been ready to high speed it away if needed.

Problem will be solved next time by the replacement of jturbine tanks with T-72s and T-90s.

I don’t think the tank engine is an actual issue Demzee, on the contrary! To me it’s a perfect balancing mechanic to make this advanced MBT less OP. It also limits our operational range as by the last compound we were down to 15% of our fuel reserves.

Personally, I’d prefer using MBTs with an engine that requires warming up.