COOP: Retribution - Remaster

[Clarke]

Leave mission feedback, videos or fun stories below in the thread.

Map: Zargabad
Time: 17:30
Weather: Cloudy
Host: @Sagu @Guy
DLC Required: None

OPORD

I Situation

Early this morning we sent our routine patrol into the city of Zargabad. While the patrol was in the city the fighting started so our boys got stranded. We have already started the evacuation procedure but we cannot leave our men behind.

Friendly Forces

• U.S. Army 52nd Infantry Battalion
• Platoon, Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, MMG, MAT, ENG, DGR
• Other friendly elements are present in the field, check your fire

Assets

• 4x M1025A2 - 4 seats: 1x driver, 3x passenger - no callsign
• 2x M1025A2 (M2) - 5 seats: 1x driver, 1x gunner, 3x passenger - no callsign
• 1x M1152A1 - 2 seats: 1x driver, 1x passenger - repair vehicle - no callsign
• 1x M2A2 Bradley - 3 seats: 1x driver, 1x gunner, 1x commander - callsign “Dagger”

Enemy Forces

• Healers of the Word – heavy armor and weapons from black market
• Takistan National Army and Police – Taken up defensive positions around the city
• Locals – no armor and light weaponry but are in massive numbers
• The fighting has been ongoing and is fierce

Civilians

• Civilians are present within the AO
• General attitude is neutral, leaning towards hostile
  
  

II Mission

Find the missing patrol within the city then extract them and yourselves. Eliminate any and all AA threat along the way to ensure safe EXFIL.

III Execution

Commander’s Intent

• Find the lost patrol
• Destroy any and all AA you find
• Extract the patrol
• Extract

Movement Plan

• Movement up to Platoon’s discretion.
• Possible IED threat.

Fire Support

• No fire support available.

Optional Tasks

• Find the H.O.W hideout within the city and obtain any intel.
• Wipe out any H.O.W you find.
  
  

IV Administration / Logistics

• Resupply for all elements available at the FOB.

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.
• At predesignated times, an air transport will be sent out to pick up reinforcements from the base.
• At predesignated times, an armed escort vehicle will be sent out to escort reinforcements from the base.
• Upon insertion to the AO, reinforcements should stick together until regrouping with the main force in the AO.

[Clarke]

Tactical Planning “Thread” by @Umi and @Garf

[Karl]

Great op. Very intense, ending was the most fun.

Some feedback to others, please let Dagger know when you are running up to the back of it or be sure it is ready for you arrival. Sorry @Shadisica I had no idea that we were being sent a medic and that they would be right behind us. We were trying to get up the hill to the flat pit so that we could provide overwatch.

Also, when idling at spawn, goofing around a bit is fine, but please don’t shove our resupply boxes into our vehicles in attempts to get them to Arma out. Luckily this time it did a full 360 front flip and did not land either upside down or even blow up the car or the crate.
Doing this can slow EVERYONE down even more as you are waiting for Zeus to fix or replace the vehicle and possibly heal people in spawn who could’ve gotten hurt or killed.
Digging around is usually fine if you’re not being silly but this can also cause injuries or stuff being blocked if not careful.

Thanks for the hosting @Guy and @Sagu!

[Koffer]

OCAP: OCAP
Stats: Grafana

[Arba]

So, a couple of thoughts from me.

I really like this time of scenarios, US Army going into Middle East. Don’t know what exactly about it I enjoy, but I always look forward to these types of missions.

Pre game briefing was way too long. Going over the full plan in details even before we are in the game was unnecessary for a couple of reasons.

I like to hear some details about the OP in the pre mission briefing for immersion and to get me to care about the situation, but I did not go enough into the background of the OP and went too much into the technical details about the plan right at the start before loading in.

Supposedly, this was a continuation of a series that was played back in 2022. and it would be great to hear a few sentences about what was happening then so I’m not confused about why three different factions are fighting each other and ourselves. Nothing about it was written in the OPORD, either.

Plans always have to be changed on the go and leadership roles have to be at least familiar with what will be expected from them during the OP. I don’t believe that every single person in the game needs or even wants to know everything about the plan. We had a long introduction to the plan before spawning in and then the leadership again had a long briefing for them.

PLT/SL often forget that while they are making a plan, there are 10-15 other people standing behind them with nothing to do. Plans have to be made and explained, yes. But make the plan and then gather everyone around you and then explain the plan to everyone. It’s much much more immersive and easier to follow then having a voice without a body talk at you even before you spawned in.

During the OP, there was little to no information going down the ranks about what was happening and why are we currently holding a position for 20 minutes while getting hammered from all sides. I don’t know what was the situation on the long range, but again, PLT and SLs have to remember that there are 18 other people with them playing who don’t have access to it but still want to know what’s going on. I have no problems holding a position for a long time, but tell me why. Because when I and 5 other people from Alpha go down because we have been holding an empty street while getting assaulted from all sides and we go into VISCOM and see PLT fireteam sitting 1 km behind us not moving, we will get frustrated because it felt like again we were forgotten about. At the final minutes of the OP, people were still asking if we managed to find the patrol because the information was not passed down the ranks.

It then seemed like the plan was followed to the letter even if the situation warranted a change of it. Alpha got ambushed on a crossroads before the mosque with the extremists on one side and the national police/army on the other. Instead of pulling back and attacking from another direction or trying to break through, we dug in for whatever reason and got taken down one by one. Since we even had a UAV operator, I don’t see how that ambush could have been overlooked and the plan adjusted before sending the troops straight in.

Once PLT medic disconnected for whatever reason, it would have been infinitely better to get another person from PLT into that role. SL medic was completely overwhelmed during the whole OP having to take care of Alpha going down left and right, but then also having to run away to take care of DGR and PLT.

Short range comms were mostly decent with not too much unnecessary chatter except a situation at the start where a player was accidentally transmitting over the radio instead of voice and when warned about it, he tried to almost convince us that he didn’t instead of just switching off the radio. Other then that, I had no issues following the orders over the radio.

Please don’t take anything written here as a attack on you personally. If we want to improve as a group, all negatives have to be pointed out and I would expect and want my mistakes be pointed out as well so I can avoid them next time.

[Koffer]

I think @Arba has some good feedback here. I also agree that a briefing in game (with ACRE), somehow comes across much better to me than one on the map screen.

I was the drone operator, and it was really nice to do for the first time, though I think it’s a vastly different experience from any other role I’ve played. I’m pretty sure I never missed any contacts for Alpha, except the HMG on the roof at the end of the op (which was due to darkness setting in and them also being much harder to spot for me). If you go through OCAP you can see pretty much all enemy positions marked all the time. Sometimes Alpha and DGR were split far apart and I needed to keep an eye on the other, or I needed to change/recharge drones, but other than that there was overwatch for 90%+ of the op (last drone ran out of batteries shortly before final engagement at airfield).

The ambush you describe Arba, enemies were literally spawned right in front of you (see OCAP 1:17:00). I’m interpreting this as EI coming out of the buildings and ambushing you. But you were already in contact before there was any possibility of a drone operator warning you.

As a drone operator, I did wish I had a way to get in direct contact with Alpha and/or DGR at times. Now all my messages were relayed by @Garf , but I had no clue if the messages were relayed by him and if they were received. Also, I didn’t know when 152 was busy, so I was very cautious in spamming PLT 343 with info, unless it was urgent danger or mission critical.
From the sky it was very visible that my messages weren’t always received (in time). Examples are DGR not facing SSW at 1:23, Alpha literally having a guy walk into them at 1:29 and DGR having a suicide bomber walk into them at 2:13. I don’t know if it’s desirable for a drone operator to have a 152 or maybe even a second 343 so they can warn for immediate danger, but I definitely wanted one when I was watching at times.