Announcing: Sparta Tactical Domination Nights: UPDATED

[Luggage~SPARTA~]

I still worry about my leadership qualities after being railroaded into leading mission by luggage thanks mate.

 

Always a pleasure, never a chore

 

You did an excellent job at such short notice, and the whole point of playing on veteran mode is to remove all the comforts that we have become used to and not have a map light up with all the targets so easily. The SU25 attacking the mortar is also good, it adds to the difficultly of the action.

 

Taking towns with limited support, limited intel is exactly how we will become a cohesive set of players. Once we have got people reliably able to map read we can consider splitting the comms and working to the Dai/Zeno approach of setting areas to reach, weapons yellow, and then engaging together and splitting the AI/Enemy focus. We know it works, Durka has taken us through some missions where overwhelming attack from stealth has produced excellent results. It doesn't work when a piecemeal, un-coordinated attack starts you just end up bleeding out your squads.

 

p.s. I can always be relied upon to volunteer you Custard, have no fear on that score

Edited October 13, 2009 by BPRLuggage

[T_1]

I concur with Luggage, you did a good job custard.

 

It's difficult enough formulating a plan, and also leading one of the squads. Perhaps the person in charge of the overall mission should consider delegating squad responsibilities to one of the other players in their squad. This would allow them to concentrate on the mission objectives, and the squad leader concentrate of the squad objectives and keeping the mission commander alive.

 

It's for people in charge to command, but people, even in real life, find it very difficult to delegate responsibility, and sometimes that's the best thing to do.

 

[T_1]

Well any feedback from last night?

 

On the mission I joined I thought it went really well. Bravo moved well and co-ordinated fire effectively (it helped having William Tell on the Javelin).

 

I then took the 2IC slot with Ebden in command. What I also "suggested" was that Forrester take charge of Alpha. So whilst Ebden had overall command Forrester had charge of the squad and also had the task of keeping Ebden alive.

 

Medic had Bravo. Strongharm stayed in as Pilot later joined by MH6.

 

The biggest issue was that as we had some "Field promotions" the Channel Commander wasn't set up for anyone and it took a bit of time to organise this. I don't know how the actual mission went as I was at the Farp. Only four people joined while I was there so I wasn't tasked to hard, and with a few people dropping out I just filled the empty slots in Alpha and Bravo, however Bravo ended up a little under strength.

 

As regard the 2IC slot, I don't know if anyone did it after I left, and Durka was the only one I know who was doing it before me.

 

I think it still needs some thought, a lot of the time I was sitting at the farp, doing nothing. However I did alt-tab in from ts to find a su-35 bombing the hell out of the place. And someone taking pot shots from the tree line.

 

My biggest failing was not using in game text as much as I probably should have, a fault that i should have rectified by running A2 in windowed mode.

 

Its for the commanders/squad leaders to decide if the 2IC slot helped or hindered. The only thing I would suggest is that a template for TS is adopted and all the whispers exported to a file available here. That way players need only import the bindings, assign their own keys and can get on with the job.

 

 

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

Apologies guys I was off my game yesterday and had trouble getting started. I will say that despite my shoddy performance a number of people managed to shine.

 

I will practice some more tactical dom during the week.

 

Cheers

Z

[IDAN]

hi , important lesson from last night.

becaue not all players are on same comm it is vital for team leaders to provide the necessary info about friendly forces locations

i was in alpa team and we had i few fatal accidents.

 

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

Yesterday started off badly with repeated attacks on the FARP (Which I positioned too near the base).

 

Once we eventually did get started, the server crashed.

 

When we started again my game crashed twice.

 

Plus we were trying out a new assignment system.

 

I just couldnt get into the groove

 

[PANiC]

i missed the start adn the server crash and just did one town but it seemed pretty good.

 

i was in Bravo with Mr Grumpy Luggage as comander, we didnt have any problems apart from Alpha attacking us becasue we were too damn good and they were gutted not to be in PARTY TEAM BRAVO

:Party_hat: :Party_hat: :Party_hat:

the town seemed to have little resistance from our perspective and we only had one or 2 casualties of which one was blue on blue, even checking the scoreboard didn;t show masses of kills. was the mortar being super effective?

 

anyway we strolled in to blow the comms tower to discover there was a satchel that was AWOL in the tree line somewhere which was interesting because both get detonated at the same time but medic has a couple of satches to plant also

 

comms was pretty good, we could hear commands from Zeno and luggage, some of our guys used the ingame comms to but thats too complicated for me, but it meant we could split bravo into 2 groups. i'm pretty sure even FirstRock managed to announce his name when communicating eventually :D j/k buddy.

 

dunno what happened after that mission, sat in the farp for about 20 or 30 mins. there was either a super detailed plan or no plan? eitherway there was a few dropping out, ppl have patience but infinate time to burn

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

LOL, Alpha had already done 2 assaults on the town (from 2 directions before you joined), wierdly the town had no D30s.

 

But none the less good job on getting to the tower unscathed.

[PANiC]

tbh we were sat in the trees drinking beer :/

[T_1]

tbh we were sat in the trees drinking beer :/

 

lol, it's funny coz it's true

[KalXen~SPARTA~]

Durka, Medic and a handful of us did some late night tactical in hopes of calming some nerves from some Domination babysitting. I initially commanded with Durka as 2IC, but my connectivity and flu coughing fits pretty much meant he was in charge. The 1st town (and coincidentally the only town we fought) was Gorka, which wa hosting the 2009 Russian war Olympics. The amount of armor and attack helicoptors were more than I've ever seen before. Our death rate was so high it became comical. At one point we had all fallen back to a certain barn. The barn was the local armor hangout and our bodies piled high. After 2 hours and several total team wipes we were able to finish the town. It was too late for many of us and we dropped out.

 

Want to thank Durka for keeping the plan straight and making the slaughter enjoyable romp. The best quote was frim either Durka or Medic when a new player joined and asked what kit to play - "pick Rambo 1 with the exploding arrows cus these helicoptors are insane."

Edited October 17, 2009 by KalXen~SPARTA~

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

Must have been my 2 alpha mod, when it kick into high gear its wild.

[StrongHarm]

Well any feedback from last night?

Its for the commanders/squad leaders to decide if the 2IC slot helped or hindered. The only thing I would suggest is that a template for TS is adopted and all the whispers exported to a file available here. That way players need only import the bindings, assign their own keys and can get on with the job.

 

I had fun being a dedicated pilot. I found that I was much more focused on the task and did a better job of it. One thing that I learned is that it is beneficial to stop and do a popup of large hills to check for contacts. I had the boys on guns watch for contacts and report 9oclock or 3oclock, and my copilot perform navigation to distinct landmarks (usually 2 or 3 towns from farp to AO), then I would follow my personal waypoint in to the LZ. I learned that instead of picking up a new box at the base, it's best to pick up an existing ammo box. 10 is the limit and we reached it (there were 4 deployed at the base).

 

If I might make some humble suggestions without presuming too much: where 2IC is concerned, I think the important thing is that there's someone in charge from Sparta, and that there's someone who is out of the thick so they can plan and organize. I would argue that 2IC should just be IC.. if person in command of the mission stays at the farp, they can better serve the troops in the field. The squads in the field would be split into fireteams(FT), and have members with collateral duties. This is consistent with RL teams. The squad lead shouldn't have to spend time talking with command or marking the map. This is what his officers are for. In this scenario there would be a mission commander at base/farp. He would lay out the plan only to the squad leaders. Squad Alpha and Bravo leaders would have responsibility for movement and the achieving of objectives. They would basically lay out flexible subplans. The squad leads would tell their troops the plan on the way to the AO. The Mission Commander takes updates and gives direction to the squadleads based on whats being communicated to him from the field. The FT1 medic from each squad provides sitreps between Mission Commander and SquadLead. The AT spec does the nav and map marking.

 

As follows:

Each squad is split into two fireteams of four men each:

Squad Alpha Fireteam One (A-1)

• Squad/Team Leader - Concentrates on squad/team movement and objectives. Provides orders directly to all squad members or FT2lead at his discretion. Relays information to coms officer to discuss with Commander - carries anti air.
• MachineGunner - (no collateral duties) Covers team approach with MG nest carries extra rockets for AT spec
• AT Specialist - (Doubles as Navigator) Primary responsibility is destruction of armor - stays behind TL and MG.
• Medic - (Doubles as coms officer) stays back from the frey to revive FT1 and serve as communications hub between SquadLead and MissionCommander.

Fireteam Two (A-2)

• Team Leader - Concentrates on FT2 movement. Provides orders to FT2. Takes over as squad lead if he goes down. Carries anti-air.
• MachineGunner - (no collateral duties) Covers team approach with MG nest carries extra rockets for AT spec
• AT Specialist - (Doubles as Navigator) Primary responsibility is destruction of armor - stays behind TL and MG.
• Medic - Stays back from the frey to revive FT2. Moves into FT1 if that medic is killed.

This could an effective Squad/Fireteam config.

Bravo can be the same as alpha, or setup with light SD weapons and demolitions for infiltration and sabotage.

 

Here's a sample TS config. Considering the above scenario and this TS config, Each group would be in their own chat room. The only people crosstalking through channel commander would be: MissionCommander, A-1-Medic, B-1-Medic, Pilot. Each squad lead would have the ability to jump in the crosstalk by using the TOGGLE CHANNEL COMMANDER(ctrl+alt+c), to make themselves channel command along with their medic(coms officer). They would also have the ability to whisper directly to just the Mission Commander(alt+\) only, at their discretion.

 

(I can provide an export file to be uploaded)

CTRL + ALT + C Toggle channel Commander (makes you a channel commander)

ALT + Num0 Whisper to all channel commanders

ALT + Num/ Whisper to Mission Commander

ALT + NumDel Whisper to ALL (channels and players)

ALT + Num1 Switch to Channel Alpha

ALT + Num2 Switch to Channel Bravo

ALT + Num3 Switch to Channel Charlie

ALT + Num4 Switch to Channel Delta

ALT + Num5 Switch to Channel Mission Commander

ALT + Num6 Switch to Channel Pilots and Support

ALT + Num7 Switch to Channel Team Assignment Room

ALT + Num+ Volume up 10%

ALT + Num- Volume down 10%

 

For instance:

If I were a MG on B-2 I'd hit: ALT + Num2 to join bravo squads room. Done.

Later I become Mission Commander. I'd hit ALT+Num5 to join that room, and CTRL+ALT+C to become a channel commander. Done.

 

I'm AlphaLead and realize that my medic is a complete rock and is not communicating with the Mission Commander well. I hit CTRL+ALT+C to make myself a channel commander and tell him he's relieved of that duty, then com with the Mission Commander myself. The extra chatter I have to endure from the channel commanders will divert me from the task at hand, but the dude's a rock so what can ya do?

 

Thanks for good times. Please feel free to use, alter, or scrap these ideas as you choose, I'm not sensitive.

 

Thanks,

StrongHarm

 

[Ebden~SPARTA~]

Well any feedback from last night?

 

On the mission I joined I thought it went really well. Bravo moved well and co-ordinated fire effectively (it helped having William Tell on the Javelin).

 

I then took the 2IC slot with Ebden in command. What I also "suggested" was that Forrester take charge of Alpha. So whilst Ebden had overall command Forrester had charge of the squad and also had the task of keeping Ebden alive.

 

Medic had Bravo. Strongharm stayed in as Pilot later joined by MH6.

 

The biggest issue was that as we had some "Field promotions" the Channel Commander wasn't set up for anyone and it took a bit of time to organise this. I don't know how the actual mission went as I was at the Farp. Only four people joined while I was there so I wasn't tasked to hard, and with a few people dropping out I just filled the empty slots in Alpha and Bravo, however Bravo ended up a little under strength.

 

As regard the 2IC slot, I don't know if anyone did it after I left, and Durka was the only one I know who was doing it before me.

 

I think it still needs some thought, a lot of the time I was sitting at the farp, doing nothing.

 

Its for the commanders/squad leaders to decide if the 2IC slot helped or hindered. The only thing I would suggest is that a template for TS is adopted and all the whispers exported to a file available here. That way players need only import the bindings, assign their own keys and can get on with the job.

 

Despite a complete unpreparedness in my TS settings for my command, I think it still went well (Bravo's 1-time wipeout excepted). Note the unique experience from last night's assault with the current side mission in the SAME town. That meant double the defending forces, double the tanks, etc. I most appreciated having two squad leaders for delegation. If I had TS sorted properly and could live in a separate channel, then it may have gone more smoothly. Living in Alpha channel with their coms overlapping those of others trying to communicate with me was frustrating, so I spent lots of time swapping channels and switching in and out of ARMA.

 

I hadn't recognized the double-defenses in the AO until after the battle, when wondering why the push to the radiotower took so long (it was right next to the side mission). In retrospect, it was unfair to task Bravo on the radiotower with Alpha drawing fire; I should have taken advantage of mortars, probably two, and ensured most heavy armor was down before crossing any squad into the AO. Good work both from Forrester and Medic keeping their squads in play, and for the pilots getting ammo when neeed. Alpha exhausted the supply of their first box before anyone crossed into the red zone.

 

I'd prefer the 2IC be part of a squad to save them from boardom. FARP defense is certainly a concern, but not a priority given how easy it is to clean up and/or teleport out. Also, the 2IC doesn't need to be at the FARP to know someone is in their TS channel-if the person who joined says hello.

 

Perhaps this could be a good solution-set up TS so the commander and 2IC can speak together (mimicking the same channel), but keep the 2nd in the team assignment room, the commander in his own. Next step is for the commander and 2IC to stick together on the map, probably from a covert vantage point near the AO. Continue battle from there, since the primary job of both is to delegate responsibility.

 

I'll command again if needed, but only if I can delegate like I did yesterday.

 

[StrongHarm]

By the way.. nice quick condensed TS whisper/bind tutorial here: http://staff.cs.tamu.edu/dave/stp/download...-_Whispers.html

[T_1]

I'll command again if needed, but only if I can delegate like I did yesterday.

 

When you command, within reason, you can do what you like I would imagine.

 

Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts .... etc etc.

[T_1]

I would argue that 2IC should just be IC

 

The 2IC was implemented to try and stop the information overload on the IC, mainly with JIP'ers, but it's a fair point

 

The team structure you outline, I would agree with, which was one of the reasons I suggested to Luggage that Bravo split into two smaller squads after we took the radio tower on Town One. I think it worked well, but it was done to the players in the team, individual, team, and squad movement was good, and I felt that if either of the teams had had a contact the other could have supported the initiating team well.

 

The TS Bindings look just the job to me.

 

T

[Durka-Durka~SPARTA~]

Thanks guys for all your suggestions. The main problem with Friday night's failings in 2IC/comms is they weren't used as intended. Noticing some of the shortfalls, I sincerely believe that if they had been used according to this, things might have run a bit more smoothly. I'll take responsibility for that, since I didn't say anything at the time, and changed things around at the last minute. Now that we've tried it, I'll have something concrete by the end of the week.

 

1. Mission Commander stays in the Mission commander channel. He can put his virtual body anywhere he wants, but to clear the information overload, he needs to be in that channel, with whisper set to all teams and the 2IC.

 

2. As with MC, the 2IC can go anywhere, but stays in Team Assignment channel to coordinate JIP and support personell. Set whisper to MC and Pilots

 

3. Pilots have very little need to bother the mission commander. That's the whole reason for the 2IC, is to be a go-between. Our pilots were talking to the MC without 2IC's knowledge, which screwed a few things up at times this Friday.

 

4. All team leaders should just have a whisper key set up to the MC's channel.

 

If everyone sets up their whisper key to a channel, rather than a person, no channel commander is needed, and no one has to worry about tabbing out and changing their whole setup between missions. They can freely move to those channels and then be good to go. The instructions were hastily put up in the channel list in TS, they will be easier to do next time.

 

It's easy as pie, and K.I.S.S. certified.

[Ebden~SPARTA~]

When you command, within reason, you can do what you like I would imagine.

 

Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts .... etc etc.

 

 

...And I'm a corruptable adult, so all the more reason to pass the authority around! I approached my first command in ARMA II with the intention to get both squads to their LZs, give them their intended first contacts and special assignments (radiotower, draw fire, etc), and let the SLs take care of the rest. Once they were moving, I shared intel btwx squads from a good position on an opposing ridge, a little FARP defense. I even blew up a Shilka when the squads were working well. Once I spend time and sort out TS (lots of posts now on the topic, I just need to do it), then I look forward to command #2.

[AlarmedBread]

Thanks to everyone who put in the effort to make this work!

 

I had a good time despite mistakes and technical difficulties on my part. The worst of which was losing TS without realizing it while all of my team but me was down (and they were yelling, "sniper!, look that way dummy!") if I had known the situation actions would have been different, I did not realize the direction of the threat until it was too late. Need to keep training and practicing.

 

Later we did a mission which started just before dawn, it was very nice atmosphere as time went on. The most memorable moment of that mission for me was something that was said at the start "Don't worry too much about anti-air guys, it's normally not a big threat". Later as I was diving for cover from the many strafing helicopters, I realized that this was going to be a rather abnormal morning.

[Durka-Durka~SPARTA~]

Thanks to everyone who put in the effort to make this work!

 

I had a good time despite mistakes and technical difficulties on my part. The worst of which was losing TS without realizing it while all of my team but me was down (and they were yelling, "sniper!, look that way dummy!") if I had known the situation actions would have been different, I did not realize the direction of the threat until it was too late. Need to keep training and practicing.

 

Later we did a mission which started just before dawn, it was very nice atmosphere as time went on. The most memorable moment of that mission for me was something that was said at the start "Don't worry too much about anti-air guys, it's normally not a big threat". Later as I was diving for cover from the many strafing helicopters, I realized that this was going to be a rather abnormal morning.

 

LMAO! I think that was me that said that! HA! I wish someone had a screenshot of the blue X's all in a line down the road from that KA's strafing run.

 

BTW, I posted a rough TS guide here for anyone that's interested.

[Ebden~SPARTA~]

When you command, within reason, you can do what you like I would imagine.

 

Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts .... etc etc.

 

T1, I overlooked a specific thanks for your work as 2IC with the extra confusion during my first command with coms, FARP defense, a steady stream of JIPs, and all the other background coordination you handled without my oversight. I appreciate your patience and hard work, and I look forward to hearing your Scottish brogue in TS sometime soon.

 

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

Good games tonight. I enjoyed the 3 towns we worked on and well done Andrewman, excellent and calm command, tough town.

 

Vybor was sweet and the truck approach was hilarious. Thanks for all the support its not easy for anyone in veteran mode.

[custard~SPARTA~]

I do appreciate we are not playing proper tactical i.e. no revive no respawn but I was very impressed with how the two teams managed to get what little cover they had and keep reviving teamates and get the job done.

 

TBH Bravo team Leeper,Idan,T1,Buzz and Tank we had no right to stay alive as a group bloody good job.

 

Commander Andrewman as allways outstanding, only one town and I enjoyed meself I thank you.

[Durka-Durka~SPARTA~]

Sorry i had to bow out on that 3rd town guys. Not a lot of people on, which was unusual, but I guess it's an off-week. Gj Andrewman and Zeno for leading and organizing. Thanks for the good tactics!