COOP: Hard Road Home (re-run)

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Map: Rosche, Germany
Time: 07:30
Weather: Slight overcast, strong morning fog. Expected to clear up as the sun rises, but wind is expected to pick up.
Host: @Clarke (mission created by @Karl)
DLC Required: None

Europe is at war. The Eastern Coalition forces have pushed the frontline all the way to Germany. As our Airfield base has been causing the hostiles heavy losses and is a strategic position, they have focused their new efforts to this region.

After fierce fighting, their forward troops have pushed our forces back over the western river, and have set up roadblocks on the bridge crossings. HQ has decided to call back all units east of the river to regroup and plan a counter attack.

OPORD

I Situation

Our unit is set up in a small repair base to the north-east of the region. Due to fighting our tank platoon is no longer at full strength. We have been tasked with falling back to the airbase and taking out an enemy forward artillery position on the way back.
Seems like the hostiles plan to capture the airfield in one piece, and have not launched any artillery attacks on it, however, they have set up a forward Anti-Air position to keep all of our aircraft grounded.

Friendly Forces

  • 1st Tank Platoon + Engineer section, US Army
  • PLT, A,B,C, ENG, DGR1, DGR2
  • Friendly Close Air Support exists at the Airbase, however, they are currently stuck due to hostile AA.

Assets

  • 2x M1A2SEPv2 (Abrams tank) - 4 seats: 1x driver, 1x gunner, 1x commander, 1x loader - Dagger + Sword
  • 2x M1151A1 (HMMWV with CROWS/M2) - 4 seats: 1x driver, 1x co-driver, 1x gunner, 1x passenger
  • 2x M1151A1 (HMMWV with CROWS/Mk19) - 4 seats: 1x driver, 1x co-driver, 1x gunner, 1x passenger
  • 4x M1151A1 (Unarmed HMMWV) - 4 seats: 1x driver, 1x co-driver, 2x passenger
  • 2x M977A4-B (Truck with M2/Ammo) - 3 seats: 1x driver, 1x gunner, 1x passenger
  • 2x M977A4-B (Truck with M2/Repair) - 3 seats: 1x driver, 1x gunner, 1x passenger
  • 2x M978A4-B (Truck with Fuel) - 2 seats: 1x driver, 1x passenger

Enemy Forces

  • Easter Coalition forces, mostly expect Russian troops and armour. Expect recon infantry with light vehicles and BTRs roaming the region. You can expect heavier presence in hostile strongpoints, including lighter tanks.

Civilians

  • Civilians have been evacuated away from the frontlines.

II Mission

Our Tank Platoon has been tasked with falling back to the Airbase. However, as we are the heaviest unit on the way back, we are also tasked with destroying a forward artillery position to safeguard the airfield. You are also to remain vigilant for any new tasks from command.
Optionally, you can also chose to take out some other enemy forward positions to cripple their forces or get access to friendly support.

III Execution

Commander’s Intent

  • Platoon dictates the order of plans and movement, however, the artillery position must be destroyed.
  • Movement down to Platoon’s intent.
  • The Artillery position has to be destroyed and our Platoon safely at the Airbase.

Movement Plan

  • You can chose to go down the main roads for speed, or stay in the fields for more stealth. Watch out for any roadblocks or recon forces.
  • Is it predetermined to use certain vehicles in a specific phase of the movement plan?
  • There are some friendly minefields which are marked on the map.

Fire Support

  • Airbase has AA set up, which should help keep the skies clear of enemy air assets.
  • We have CAS available at the airbase, however, they are pinned down due to hostile AA.

Optional Tasks

  • Destroy the enemy AA position to free friendly CAS.
  • Destroy enemy captured fuel + armor depot to reduce their armor availability.
  • Potential tasks from HQ as mission progresses.

IV Administration / Logistics

  • Should you capture any hostiles, strip them of weapons, but we have no facilities for prisoners.

Resupplying

  • Resupply boxes are available at starting location. Supplies also possible to call in via Airbase air assets once hostile AA is offline.
  • Medevac is available, once hostile AA is destroyed.

Reinforcements

  • Reinsertions will be on the hour every hour and be adhered to strictly, no deviation is allowed.
  • Reinsertions are the same for all, including vehicles teams.
  • Platoon Commander has a one time reinsertion wild card at his disposal, call this in through HQ.
  • At predesignated times, reinforcements will be sent out of the base in the smallest transport vehicle which can hold reinforcements.
  • Upon insertion to the AO, reinforcements should stick together until regrouping with the main force in the AO.
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Stats: Grafana

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OCAP: OCAP

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Please leave medical feedback here: https://forum.cnto-arma.com/t/ace-medical-and-instant-deaths/10078

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IMHO this would’ve benefited from PLT + Squad Lead and other elements to keep lead sane. It was chaotic as a fire team lead, and I can’t imagine what it was like for Platoon/Squad lead.

I think this would have been possibly benefitted from a different Platoon structure giving our unit more flexibility considering the side. (A topic worthy of a post of it’s own).

Thank you for running my mission @Clarke @Shadisica. It was cool to see it from a new angle on the ground, with events handled differently.

Thanks to @Justarico for leading! I imagine it was hectic, so hence hard to stay on top of everything and this caused some issues too. I personally had a hard time hearing you at times, which played into as well.

Thanks @Koffer for taking over when I was overwhelmed or distracted with some key comms and directions. Thank you @Vinterr and @Omelette for being good riflemen on the ground!

T’was fun, though a tad too messy. :smiley:

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Yes, @Justarico was put in a very difficult position leading this op as PLT+Alpha. Unless the playercount consists of only Alpha (<11 ppl) we really shouldn’t be suggesting this to people that want to lead.

Before I start, I want to say I had a great time this op. I got lucky a couple of times (not dying to the mortars or to the RPG on our car) when others did die, and this definitely contributed. Also I think the medical changes at first glance helped. But even though things were chaotic, they were most definitely fun imo.

Some things went wrong, but only a couple of them could be attributed to PLT lead, and even those are mitigated by him having too many responsibilities.
First all of Alpha getting mortared at Hold 1 was of course preventable. As an element lead you need to respect enemy artillery (which we knew was present). This means that we don’t sit still in places where the enemy can see us or guess our position, and definitely that we don’t go back there and do it again. However, 2IC’s (in this case FTLs) also have a responsibility here to tell lead that we are setting up in a risky area. PLT has a lot on his mind here, and you’re not breaking CoC by informing your leader that he might’ve forgotten about the mortar hitting this same position just 15 minutes earlier. I was playing as AAR so I don’t feel like it’s my role to point this out to Alpha lead, but I did tell I my FTL (@Karl <3) that we are in a dangerous spot and are taking a risk. They can then take it up with Alpha.

In general for people, if you hear mortar fire, you have abound 30 seconds to move away or to take cover. Given the splash radius, if you spend 15 seconds deciding if you’re going to move and where, it’s too late. Then it’s better to take cover and wait for the salvo to end before moving.

In the town of Dormte (vehicle depot), Alpha was actually doing very well. Red and yellow were supporting each other and moving good. Except then we spotted the vehicle depot, got distracted by looking at it for 5 seconds while continuing our movement forward as red and then took an RPG from the other side that killed 3/4 and set in motion the practical wipe there. At the same exact time yellow was also just pausing to engage contact down the other road, which also contributed to that angle not being covered.
The wipe there was not a fault of leadership. (I’ll have a video of it up tomorrow).

After this, a couple of things went wrong.

  • Given the damage that was done to the vehicle depot and it’s garrison, we shouldn’t have gone back to it again. This location was an optional objective/a threat to our ability to achieve the main objectives, but we focused on it for too long. Also here FTL’s/DGR could’ve helped keep PLT on track, because it’s understandable to sometimes forget the big picture (which is PLT’s job) when you’re also doing Alpha’s job. In the end @Clarke had to radio in to declare the objective ‘cleared’ so that we could get a move on (this was around 22:00).
  • There was a miscommunication between PLT and the survivors about the regroup point. At first “Hold 1” was called, but this turned out to be a slip of the tongue, as instead PLT meant “Hold vic”. This was corrected over 343 by yellow FTL, however due to radio static and everyone up (3/5) in survivor vic being busy medicing the people that were bleeding out in the back we missed the correction. A suggestion for @Justarico is to ask for people to call back orders to you, to make sure they understand them. Not just “copy”, but the actual intent of the order. It’s not always possible when things are hectic, but this was during driving and it can save a lot of miscommunication.
  • We dismounted very far (~1.5km) from the artillery objective. It’s not a mistake, but it was unnecessary. Also as @Clarke mentioned, we dismounted our vehicles on an MSR that was being used by enemy mechanised elements to provide QRF against us. It seems that only DGR was aware of this though.

The bridge incident at the end was very funny :smiley:

Again, I loved this op. I want to thank @Justarico and the FTL’s for leading it, because even though it was very hard to do it all perfect, it was fun. And to me that’s always right.

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Oh I forgot to add, I liked having 2x Zeus and the threat of someone with a brain attacking us. Especially during the evacuation at the vehicle depot it forced me to change my plans from “we can easily hold a building here until reinforcements arrive” to “we need to leave because at any time someone might lob a grenade on our position”. Thanks to @Clarke and @Shadisica for giving us some real challenges.

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