Steadfast Echo: After Action Report

[Borscope]

Gooooooood Moooooooooorning Glorious People's Democratic Republic of Farkistan!

Exciting news this Monday morning for glorious, freedom-loving peoples everywhere! Heavy fighting occurred today in the infamous Four Mile Valley region of Farkistan today, as our brave government forces made a major push to oust the insidious insurgents plaguing the area. While glorious, freedom-loving loyalist forces suffered heavy casualties overall with 62 KIA, their string of victorious victories have rallied popular opinion both home and abroad. Anonymous reports from within the Ministry of Information state that an American carrier was launching aircraft to support the reticent rebels, but were recalled after an alleged deal involving a missing KH-11 satellite. (Not that our friends the Americans were spying on us!)

Though reported to be leading the insurgency in the area, the cowardly Commandante Tarjay failed to make an appearance in today's battle, though rumor has it he was spotted disguised as a farmer fertilizing the fields east of Murville. Whether he shows his face in the valley again is anybody's guess, but if he does it will be alone as the insurgency in the Murville area has been gloriously and freedom-lovingly crushed.
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Objectives:

"Checkpoint Charlie" Maintain control of the road:
Government

"Fuel Dump" Destroy/Protect the airport's fuel supply:
Tie leaning heavily towards goverment
(Rebels, with a Deus ex machina)

"Free the sh*t outta them!" Protect Village:
Tie (there was no one in the bunker at the end!)

"Body Count" Rebels force gov't forces to respawn at town, 1 mortar attack per 15 KIA:
62 gov't KIA gave rebel forces 4 mortar attacks (0 used)

"Attack Helicopter" Every 30 minutes the fuel dump is defended Gov't forces receive 1 air strike:
Gov't forces earned 4 airstrikes (0 used)

"Commandante Tarjay" An energetic rallying point for the rebels, and a target for the gov't forces:
Government (Tarjay didn't activate, thus lost face in popular opinion)

"Tax Collector" Gov't forces must escort a tax collector to the village, on foot, to restore order and rule of law:
Government

"Satellite of Love" Recover an American spy sattellite, rebels get American airstrikes while gov't forces get no-fly-zoned:
Government

Overall: Government Forces Major Victory
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One HUGE factor from my perspective, as I had one radio in each ear: Government forces were very coordinated, while rebel forces were very not. Most of the game I heard little to no radio chatter on the rebel net, while the gov't net was constantly feeding information. This also led to gov't forces responding to new missions or reacting to surprises lightyears ahead of the rebels.

Also, maybe having the "high speed killing machines" stacked heavily on one side didn't exactly help the rebel cause LOL. As I said in the other thread though, I salute those rebels who played hard and fair as much as the gov't guys who played hard and fair. The objectives are there to give you a reason to shoot at each other in creative ways

[Rhoades]

cool, good for the government... i for one am baked over... i been up dry heaving all night, i guess its sunscreen time again.



the government had us rebels so frustrated, the spawn at murville for both side was very disorienting for alot. but thats the point. we would get up close to the bunker and then get pushed back cause the government we did kill would come up behind us. I for one never made it as far as the gate were government had control except when i had to come talk to you about the situation that we had.

i think some of the rules got blurred, i wasn't quite sure if we were allowed "while dead" to walk down to the other tunnel entrances that were in government side since we never pushed that far in... or if anyone dead even tried and were denied passage by government this im not sure. i think the rule change about us not being able to pass check point as civilians confused whether we could pass being dead. it may have been a bit different if we were allowed down to the airport(maybe not in) as civilians to have been able to get a front down there, which i think is why you decided to roll with the rogue deployment, but at that time we had lost over half the rebels... meaning they left for the day. we got a rather hefty late start, probably a hour late. (next time we should probably post the times a lot earlier expecting people to run late so that we are on time.)

overall it was an exciting and fun experience, but once the situation happened, a lot of us that were there when it happened(mostly rebels) were no longer concerned with the game, but concerned with straightening it out, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, just goes to show we have people that are concerned with nipping a problem when needed.

im sure me co'ing didn't help much either (where was zee??? lol). I am not a leader by any means lol. we got a late start even for the briefings and even if we had gotten in between their two deployments it still woulda been bad with having them infront and behind as it happened near the bunker. Might have been more interested since we were the rebels and its our homeland if we were already posted when the government deployed. so when run this scenario again maybe we should brief then be deployed to setup say 15-20 minutes before the government troops would be allowed to deploy this way we could pop our tunnel entrances instead of coming back to the town. This would have helped us considering they had 3 regular teams that play together we had a sliver of porkchop. and would have kept the fighting consistent in three fronts, the main field, the gate, and the airport. my original plan as co was to have a team with kyle, that would get to the gate, die then pop the two tunnel entrances near the airport, we were going to get rid of government there since their re spawn was murville and we could respawn the tunnel entrances to keep them under fire until they were all respawning, once we popped the tank our next focus was the village, and regaining control of the road. we just failed on execution of the crutial thing which was not to respawn in murville but to respawn at those entrances near the airport. with the rule of us not being allowed to cross that checkpoint im not sure if anyone tried while dead passing the checkpoint. thus the plan fell apart.

an even better idea might have been to have us (porkchop and p38) host the next one, and we are all rebels and invite other teams to come and infiltrate our land. we would have home field advantage but they would have full use of the vehicle again. assuming we could plan to have enough teams, even if their teams well outnumbered us the tunnel entrances would help even the upper hand. assuming we were already deployed and setup before they deployed their unit to the airfield.

[USMCRecon]

All I can say is that I was mentally & physically WORE OUT after yesterdays game. With so many objectives, side objectives, and wild cards it was very hard to coordinate our forces where we needed them. Luckily I had a group of trusted advisors that where feeding me information on the fly from diffrent area's which enabled the government forces to mobilize quickly and frequently. Our main assault unit (Spartans) where causing the rebles some major grief, and brought the pain! The 2 ODA guys provided alot of good intell on the fly, the rest of our forces did exactly what was needed to overcome the late game changer at the airport towards the end.

All in all it was an interesting and very creative scenario. Still needs some tweeking, but I think the next time it runs it will go alot smoother. A big thanks to all that made it happen!

[Rhoades]

Plain and simply put... We got owned lol.

[RandyCapp]

I think the main reason for us Rebels getting pwned is 1) The organized people were all mostly on Gov forces and 2) I think at the end of the game when I came back to spawn the rebels had less than half of their players. I dunno what happened this time around because on the pratice run I did the rebels did really well. Overall, I beleive the scenario was fun... but IMO that field is way to big to use all of it with only 50-60 players. This does show the potential of our field and what we can do but honestly I'm ready for some good ol throwthe big firework into the building!

[Borscope]

Gunny, I hope this was a good training ex for P38, you did an outstanding job, especially with 3C.

Rhoades, you did the right thing, RL takes precedence. The Pork Chops & DE crew who fought yesterday did an excellent job.

For those that missed it, the best "gag reel" moment of the day was when Drifter (as a civ) dropped his civ flag & a gas grenade at the same time next to a group of gov't forces. The gov't guys froze in an "oh crap" pose for a second then everyone realized the grenade was a dud, and the closest gov't guy bag killed Drifter.

There is a lot of tweaks to be done, not just with scenarios, but the field operation & protocol as well. Please use this thread to offer input.

[Sigmarius]

The biggest gripe I heard was the changing of the rules allowing the rebels to use the transport to deploy.

Honestly, for me, it wasn't the changing of the rules that bothered me so much. It was how we weren't TOLD about the rules change until after the rebels had driven past.

[Borscope]

That was a one shot Deus ex machina to take the game out with a final bang, representing a rogue plane-load of rebs, it's a factor from a historical incident...I don't recall the exact circumstances. The majority of the scenario is based on textbook COIN ops training from the late 80s/early 90s regarding S America.

[Phantomsan]

I am so bumped I had to miss this

[wingzero]

yeah i think most (if not all) of the rebs got tired of walking a few feet out of the gate and getting pinned down, then getting hit in the rear from the ones we did kill. on top of losing most of our players, on top of the problem we thought we had for a good hour or two. nearly nobody on rebs was on comms... which i know was frustrating for me as well as eric.

[Killswitch]

First off, let me thank you all for a day of airsoft. It is not easy to coordinate and run games, not to mention game like what you all had going on yesterday. So thank you for your hard work.

Just a few things I would like to mention and please do not take it as critism, because they are observations... not being critical here.

1. Up-Side: There were a good group of really fired-up airsoft players want to play! Which is way cool! Downside: Alot of players became very frustraited and gave up on the Insurgent side.
I found this very surprising that people just up and quit. Why would you just quit, why not improvise, adapt, and overcome! Find a way to be effective, at least keep fighting. No-one dies for real here in these games (typically) so what do you have to lose?

2. The operation was too complex to keep people focused, and involved.... Perhaps it would be easier to play it in phases.. First field for senerio one... Once it is played out, and a winning side is reached, everyone moves to the next field (area) and you fight out a new objective there, and so on and so on... That way you ise the entire field, but not all at the same time.. There were alot of people not even in the play because they were out in left field with a football bat..... Keep boundries, and give them new terrain in phases... That way if something goes to crap in one phase, you can recover from it in the next phase.... Also it would allow time to re-arm, and drink water.. I am sure there were alot of casualties due to heat, and dehydration....

3. Do not change the teams, or the rules halfway thru the play... Stop the OP and play pick-up games for the rest of the day.. There were more than a few situations that happened because of this... Getting shot at close range by a guy who played all day with you sucks! Especially when he just out of the blue decides to defect! That really was not cool, and really confused the play quite a bit...

4. Build a bridge over the stream...!!! Man what an absolutely awesome terrain feature in the middle of the field! If you built to bridges, they would be awesome stratigic battle points. Man bridges on the creek would be prime real estate!!!!! Not to mention awesome objectives to hold, or claim...

Needless to say, I appreciate the time, and effort put into this game. I am sorry to say that it is my belief that alot of the people who showed up to play were not dedicated to the game, not the sport enough to keep it going. For those who were, it was alot of fun playing with you. I hope you all can make it out to Nashville sometime! Best wishes to your field, and everyone who put forth the effort!

Darrin Numbers

[Rhoades]

To my knowledge non of the rules were changed. The rogue rebel insertion into the airport was planned in donovans campaign. Just was not disclosed to anyone.
as far as team changes... This simulation was meant to be realistic. Civilians and such. Its entirely possible to have someone change sides. Greed money... Spies... And the team switching was to help even the field. Since half the rebels left at 4.

This entire op was meant to be frustrating for all sides. That's how it was designed.

I do agree with the phase idea.

The porkchop guys witnesses a situation that took us out of the op for nearly a hour to straighten out. We being the only organized side for the rebels not even participating. Ads a hole other level of frustration for our side. Once the situation was resolved we were so far behind the last 30 minutes of the game wouldn't have changed anything. Over half had already left. Not alot we could do but hope for.success in rogue deployment and defects of the government.

As i said before i think the next op should be homefield players and invite outside teams to infiltrate.giving them an upeperhand either by people or advantages in the op.

I thank borscope for the time he put into this op. We should be able to iron out the kinks and hopefully the next op will run smoother.

[GREYRIDER]

BLACK TALON enjoyed the day even though it was confusing at times. We had a couple of guys get stuck back at the fuel depot for a couple hrs with no contact with the enemy, that is largely my fault for not pulling them out into the action. It was good to meet some new people as well as you SPARTAN guys , I hope you guys come back up again sometime. Elements of our team had a blast maintaining control of the ridge above check point charlie for most of the day. Lets work out some bugs and do this one again.

[Night Roamer]

Killswitch pretty much summed it up. Boundaries of some sort would have helped tremendously. With so few people and no boundaries and being a new player at the field it was a bit confusing. With a larger crowd I can understand using the whole field but since there wasn't that big of a crowd boundaries would have helped keep interest in the game. I know I was a little frustrated that I spent maybe 1-2 hours looking for someone to shoot at and by the time I found someone I got shot because I really dont know the field. I play airsoft to shoot people and have fun not to play hide and seek and kill myself climbing mountains.

I didnt run into the guy who switched but from what I heard he walked up with a blue armband, took it off ten feet away and started shooting. I can understand taking it off in spawn and coming into the game, but taking your armband off and shooting 10 feet away would have definitely pissed me off. Speaking of armbands, there needs to be a specific place where the armband needs to be tied. I had mine tied to my head so it could be seen by everyone. One guy had a lime green hat on and had a lime green armband tied to his head so it was hard to tell what team he was on. One dude had his tied to his ankle so I ended up shooting him on accident cause I couldn't see his armband on his ankle.

The field is awesome and has a ton of potential, but with such a small crowd there is no way that you can use the whole field with no set boundaries. But being a new field I can see it growing into a great field. (build some bridges/crossings over that creek ) Having someone or a few people watching the parking lot would be nice. Some late comers came in when we were about to start and were eyeballing our gear, and even walked over and started picking things up. I had probably 2k worth of gear and supplies laid out alone, not to mention there were 7 others with me with their own gear. We ended up packing everything back up and locking it in the car. I like to leave my gear out so if a gun breaks or if I needed to reload I could just grab a gun off of the top of my pile and getting back to the game.

Other than those guys everyone else there was awesome. I didn't have any problems with hit calling(couldn't find anyone!). The field was great, and with a little tweaking the gameplay could definitely be more fast paced and more involved.

[Borscope]

I'm taking serious notes here and working hard at it, but just to clear up a few things real quick:

Richard, the one guy who (to my knowledge) volunteered to defect, did remove his armband at the city spawn. If he opened up inside of MED that's another issue. If we do defectors in the future we'll put an APB out to challenge players to which they must respond honestly like in regular games.

There were 2 guys who showed up a little late, one with a royal blue cap, and other with the lime green. I stuck them on government side specifically because the loud colors they were wearing matched gov't colors. If they had wound up on the rebel team I would have had them remove the caps. Sorry for the confusion.

Bridges & Structures. Due to the nature of the field, we have to take limitations passed down from the property owner & environmental effects such as flooding and cows into consideration before we build anything. Previous bridges built without planning have washed away.