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Not a fun mission from my perspective. I believe this has nothing to do with the mission itself but the plan/formation/imbalance units.
I felt alpha was very imbalanced.
A small 8-man alpha made us very combat ineffective (only 3 in each FT) On top of that we went with modular squads (MAT) making the team combat imbalanced. I don’t agree with the modular squad leader keeping the 152, it would make more sense to field the actual fire team leader and then the members from the modular squad.
Lastly, A1 was placed in a Bradley instead of a humvee like A2. Making the teams even more unbalanced. We spent 70% of the mission listening to contacts in the back of the Bradley. Then get shot when we get out.
The PLT itself was very imbalanced.
We had
3xpeople in daggar
2xPeople in nightbird
2xPeople in PLT
2x Engineers
Meaning more supporting units than infantry. Supporting units are meant to be combat modifies in my opinion, not the main element. I don’t think there was any point in A1 being there at all.
Sorry for my poor attitude during the mission, I probably should have left but felt bad making alpha even smaller.
I think that’s fair - I think I agree that, in hindsight, MAT Lead should have been Alpha 2 Fireteam lead. I also should have been more clear about dismounts. In my mind what was happening was when we came into contact, Dagger was moving somewhere safe to dismount infantry then continuing to engage but clearly that didn’t happen (I was constantly busy co-ordinating things so I couldn’t see, but still my fault for failing to communicate more effectively).
I had supporting elements as I wanted to make sure we had people able to deal with all threats and keep Alpha 1 safe moving along the route - perhaps I overprepared but I stand by the numbers.
I don’t think the modular squad was the issue, I think I just failed to effectively communicate the intent at points and that led to Alpha 1 missing out. I wanted the MAT Team to be riflemen first and MAT second in the event that NB wasn’t available to hellfire targets; but again, in the hectic nature of the mission I failed to communicate this.
I’ll do better next time. Thanks for the feedback.
Don’t blame yourself too much it was a convoy OP with not much time for infantry action.
MAT were rifleman first and we acted as part of Alpha. As Alpha 2 we helped in conducting town clearances and well as in F&M.
Ellpuk in all honesty I don’t think it was bad leading from you, it was rather mostly my fault as Alpha SL I think.
Given that having a fireteam sitting in Dagger and the other manning an M2 Humvee is unbalanced already, having the most powerful fireteam of the two in the M2 Humvee is the worst choice ever for balancing action within the squad. Yes ideally both fireteams would have the same equipment, in this case both could’ve taken an M2 Humvee.
The easiest solution would’ve been to have Red manning the M2 Humvee and Yellow/MAT in Dagger. Considering our numbers throughout the mission it could’ve worked better, balancing not only Yellow/MAT’s AT capability but also it being more staffed than Red. I also agree that if anyone except SL can have a LR it should be Red FTL, lots of lessons learnt. Apologies Mattdogs, Bull and Delta for giving you little action!
It’s a pity that Alpha was so heavily understaffed because we could’ve helped out much more at the front. Coordination with Dagger was top notch, very good stuff. Little criticism on 152 comms were hectic during engagements and it’s OK, PLT left us a lot of freedom sometimes but perhaps stating the intent for Alpha before each objective (i.e. clear one side of a town, which side and so on) can help so we are more autonomous.
Cheers for the mission Guy and Sagu for GMing as well!