Zeus Mission: Operation Resolute Justice

[Noskire 123]

 

Operation Resolute Justice

Briefing: One of our GhostHawks moving from a NATO airbase has been engaged by a concealed anti-air battery. The craft was carrying Major General Jason Atwood, NATO Chief-Of-Staff for NATO Mediterranean Command. The aircraft was forced down in the vicinity of the town of Oreokastro. We have lost all communications with the crew, and the other two helicopters were not able to mount a successful rescue at the time. NATO, with the assistance of Task Force Straya, will be deployed to the area in order to secure the extraction of the Major-General  stranded on the ground.

Mission: Task Force Straya is to secure the crash site on Sun 27 Jan 2019 and execute the safe extraction of Major-General Atwood.

The mission will be executed as follows:

Intent: Three squads will be deployed, with assorted assets, under the command of @Guardian, callsign Hades.

Callsign Phantom will establish an observation post over the town of Oreokastro and provide the Operation Commander with detailed reconnaissance of CSAT forces in the area. They may be required to engage HVTs as required.

Callsign Demon will establish a cordon on the two roads leading into the town, as these are the assessed enemy approach routes with light armour and infantry. They will prevent any CSAT forces from interfering with Callsign Angel.

Callsign Angel will move into the AO, secure the crash site and survivors and establish an LZ with which to extract the survivor(s).

Admin/Logistics:

Dress/Equipment: As this is a Nato-sponsored mission, all participants will be required to wear the standard-issue Nato beret. 

Weapons: Each squad, other than Phantom, should include 1 x Missile Specialist AT and 1 x Machine Gunner.

Ammunition: Individual preference

Transport:

1. Callsign Demon will travel by vehicle (Hunter MRAP, Marshall)

2. Callsign Angel will travel by helicopter (Ghost Hawk)

3. Callsign Phantom will travel by light helicopter and move in on foot

Medical: As per I&A Standard practise. Treat survivors at the site and return all personnel to NATO on mission completion.

Command/Signals

Overall Commander is: Guardian The Commander's callsign will be Hades.

Phantom Commander is: Decibel_SPL

Angel Commander is: Swordster

Demon Commander is: Zombine45

Once you’re assigned your squad, tune to the appropriate channel on Altis server.

All Commanders should be in the Teamspeak I&A Infantry channel. No-one else is to use this channel.

Edited January 25, 2019 by Noskire

[Zombine45 177]

I'm down to be Demon commander.

[War Machine 40]

My current name is Yuzuhiko, I'll join Phantom

[War Machine 40]

maybe, leave Echo, Foxtrot, Golf and the Recon Team slots as reserve slots for the event so that we won't be missing any medics or AT's in the event.

[Swordster 3]

I offer my assistance as Angel Commander to fill the vacancy, will there be any commander briefing prior to the operation?

[War Machine 40]

3 hours ago, Swordster said:

I offer my assistance as Angel Commander to fill the vacancy, will there be any commander briefing prior to the operation?

I believe there will be, just like the last operation "Steel Sunday".

Insertion points will surely be discussed before the execution of the mission. Remember, this is not your everyday mission.

[Swordster 3]

3 hours ago, War Machine said:

Insertion points will surely be discussed before the execution of the mission. Remember, this is not your everyday mission.

Thanks, I've dealt with modded public ops as a Player and Zeus so I assuming some shenanigans are to occur, even with the best of plans foiled from experience.  Though I'm curious about how many where in the last operation just as a hint for prepping the Squad Size.

Side question shouldn't our 'Overall' Commander have a call sign or do we go by the player name Guardian?

Edited January 24, 2019 by Swordster
Grammer

[webbie 186]

2 hours ago, Swordster said:

Thanks, I've dealt with modded public ops as a Player and Zeus so I assuming some shenanigans are to occur, even with the best of plans foiled from experience.  Though I'm curious about how many where in the last operation just as a hint for prepping the Squad Size.

Side question shouldn't our 'Overall' Commander have a call sign or do we go by the player name Guardian?

For Steel Sunday their were 3-4 squads. 2 infantry from memory and a couple of vehicle squads. Close to 20+ in that divide.

[Noskire 123]

14 hours ago, Swordster said:

I offer my assistance as Angel Commander to fill the vacancy, will there be any commander briefing prior to the operation?

Thanks @Swordster, you have been assigned command of Angel squad.

All command roles have now been filled. 

@Guardian, will you be holding a command briefing before the operation starts?

Edited January 24, 2019 by Noskire

[Guardian 45]

Yes. I'll aim to grip up all the squad commanders an hour prior to the operation so we can discuss tactics - I'll call the shots overall, but I also don't have the intention of standing on your throats with how you conduct the mission within your squad. 

Players/Soldiers: It'd be ideal to have everyone there as early as possible to make it easier on the commanders and Zeus. Make sure you've got your arsenal set.

Squad Commanders: I'd like to have the squad commanders in Teamspeak at 1pm NZDT on Sunday if that's doable. @Zombine45 @decibel_spl @SwordsterPM Me if not and I can do a briefing that suits your time frame to discuss it.

Good point - The command callsign will be 'Hades' and I will brief insertion points to the squad commanders.

 

Squad sizes will have to be determined on the day - but I can handle that as it happens. Sadly, no plan survives H-Hour but we'll get through it.

I'll be on the server tonight and tomorrow night if anyone remotely interested wants to hit me up and discuss or put ideas forward.

Cheers, Ladies and Gents and I'll see you on the field.

May the Force be with you.

[War Machine 40]

On 1/23/2019 at 5:53 AM, Noskire said:

Admin/Logistics:

Dress/Equipment: As this is a Nato-sponsored mission, all participants will be required to wear the standard-issue Nato beret. 

 

Other than the NATO beret, what kind of clothing are we going to wear?

Combat Fatigues (MTP)?

Combat Fatigues (Tropic)?

CTRG Stealth Uniform?

[Noskire 123]

Combat fatigues will be determined by squad leaders, with instructions from @Guardian as necessary.

@Noskire has been seconded by NATO to escort a TV crew to assist in the filming of the successful release of Major General Jason Atwood.

[Guardian 45]

There is no requirement to wear a specific type of uniform outside of NATO/CTRG issue equipment. Soldiers are free to wear all NATO issued uniform, however CSAT, AAF and Syndikat equipment will not be accepted. This is to minimise casualties to friendly forces in such a high risk area of operations.

[BigRed 133]

Bring it on, I'm setting a calendar alarm now, don't want to miss this!

I'd love to be part of the recon/obs team.

Edited January 26, 2019 by BigRed

[War Machine 40]

10 hours ago, BigRed said:

Bring it on, I'm setting a calendar alarm now, don't want to miss this!

I'd love to be part of the recon/obs team.

In that case, we will be on the same recon team mate. Only if I still have data for tomorrow.

Damn! I'm really looking forward to this.

[Farqman 86]

IMHO, The mission was a complete flop.

We had a pilot crash in the Loiter area. Probably took another 10 minutes to get everyone back on a chopper. We had people from other teams trying to jump in our Ghosthawk.
Half the team decided to go off and do their own thing and jump in a hummingbird. While loitering, SGT.Drake decided to 40mm our Ghosthawk.
We had randoms join our team asking what the plan is, when he was a pilot and nothing to do with us.
We had these idiots continually asking what the plan was, even though Swordstar explained it 10 times already. Those same idiots went and did their own thing anyways.
Took an hour to actually get on the ground.
The rouge team went off to do their own thing and all got wiped out. I had to go to them to revive. I get shot, other medic gets shot. Game over. Was a fun 8 minuites on the ground I guess. Hats off to Swordster for being so patient, even though people purposely set out to ruin everyones fun.

Yes, I know it is a public server. Just giving you a review of what happened.

Edited January 27, 2019 by Farqman

[Swordster 3]

ANGEL Actual/Commander Report

Actions (Recollections of the Events)

Briefing: Took time for players to get into the PLT1 Channel to Set-up, a couple that where present did miss it, but guardian helped them be assigned.

Set-up: 3 New Recruits at different times arrived after briefing that taxed me causing me to repeat my briefing multiple times, gave up on fireteams that I started to set up prior and focused on buddy system feeling under the clock to get going.

Loitering: Apache our Pilot had a graphics card problem and crashed at our first Loiter, confusion occurred going in and out choppers caused frustrations in the ranks of which helo to go, when after Apache Returned and another Helo was given to the bigger squad headed to loiter while adding another pilot and Soldier Andy, the former I kicked kindly since we had one, where Drakes Friendly Fire incident occurred. Size of Group prior to drop 11-12.

AO-Moving to Objective: After Landing 3-4 players split from us and went over the hills running holstered, ignored instructions to stay on road asked for staggered column, only half managed to stay on the road, contact was made told them to focus on the road, this compromised intent of plan to clear the buildings along the road (Failed to relay that approach, forgot), relented and ordered the rest to join up, mass casualties occurred bar one, was taken town by ifrift that turneds its turret to me as I lined up launcher on it, revived by medic from demons group, those that respawned at base no attempt to communicate instead went on vehicles and drove, status unknown didn’t care, focused continued with half strength group to church.  

AO-Church: When secured there were initial instructions to move the pilots and blow up the helo if it couldn’t be flown but then where told to hold position instead and have demon go through the town, ANGEL contacts we dealt with EI West and North, 2 paradrops and spotted BTR-K, visually confirmed at the west of the castle? Reported it to Hades, Squad took it out. However we were down to 3 with no medic, not helped with 3 of them out in open outside the church and graves stonewall and me yelling at a AR charging the enemy by themselves, the rest alive instructed us to fall back into church, asked Hades twice if the pilots could be moved into the church since I couldn’t command them and there just standing up in the open, hoping they could be teleported inside by zeus, but I don’t think my intention was understood, the pilots would stand for last time, their fate one killed by ei the other during a cross fire with the reinforcements from Demon.  

AO-Extraction: Upon Requests to extract. Squad Proceeded north of the church to extraction dropped smoke only for the pilot to land at the church just as we called it in as instructed by Hades then dashed back only for the Hurons engine to quit and jumped out in times missiles from the West of church took it out, then we where instructed to head west to our AO, sure why not, there were casualties one papa(forget his full name) in the rear of our withdrawal that no one was handling, so I asked if the medic could come back and help me with the casualties with no reply, I still rushed back up spotted MANN combat lifesaver from a different squad told him to help them up as I covered, however after one was revived they both withdrew, as I yelled them to comeback in direct I then later got shotdown, later another team came up and revived the casualties and I took rear guard with papa as we withdrew I informed Hades of comprised team friendly fire of blackfish, in my mind concerned of another friendly fire and/or downed helo, Persona now a pilot in the blackfish arrived then withdrew.

 

Performance Assessment

Hades Performance: Decent, nothing critical communication good

Phantoms Performance: Non-existing, to our efforts contributed little to ANGEL provided little or any intelligence of hostiles, unknown if they or just overall commander spotted the crashed helo?

Angels Performance: Our conduct was embarrassing, little to no comms, little contact reports to work with, none where checking flanks or covering, Commendations to Andy for being the only soldier that stayed alive when all of us were down in the initial, tough even when directly instructed half followed others went on the offence, even when told to hold, got no chance to breath or take stock, also failed to speak with demon on alternative evac on organizing withdraw too a rush of soldiers, this delayed our withdraw, thanks to those that stayed with me and followed.

Demons Performance: There contributions to Angel is to be commended to help in our times of need, though surprised no armour and had more numbers then even our group full strength.

Zeus Performance: Questionable, overestimated the teams capability I’ve consider, if team better players involved it could’ve worked, placements of units and strengths where strange(Refer to question)

Summary OP

Primary Mission: Unknown ANGEL didn’t find or extract HVT at crash site (General Atwood), mission transferred to Demon, status unknown.

Secondary Mission (Protect Pilots): Failed

Secondary Mission (Destroy Crash Helo): Failed, too many friendlies about to tell the squad to blow it up.

 

What I need to do next op:

Priority 1: Get a 2IC (Second in Command) Credit Persona for suggestion

Priority 2: Have the fireteams set up, don’t be worried about time compromising Set-up

Priority 3: Get a SMEAC list prepped designed for Zeus operations so I don’t forget my approach, including a list of do nots, to get them outside the casual I&A mindset on operations.

Priority 4: Try to test out players before brief, if I can even if it’s just the basic spacing then diamond and staggered column formations, finished with Leapfrogging.

 

Feedback: Provided from the After action

If server has a restart briefing is to occur an hour after to allow setup.

Squads are to close their groups after the briefing.

Have a Dedicated Pilot and Back-up in the loop setup by Overall Command for Ops to be on station for Transport of Personal and Assets.

Have PLT1 Channel used as placing mission markers and contacts or Allow contact reports on side and to communicate with pilots rather then putting pilots in one of the squads for Overall Command to ask a squad commander to send a helo.

 

Question:

Could we instead of calling him Overall Commander, just call it commander, and the other squads something else such as ANGEL Actual/Lead it seem weird in writing and talking?  

 

Was the Commander and Zeus intentions and Expected strength of forces Shared?

I’m still confused with what was said about zeus after OP about being only the enemy commander separate from our Commander to me it sounds like in D&D saying that a DM and Players should be living in their own worlds rather than one world, what I’m getting at is this:

Did an accident or intentional placement of the forces that contradicts and breaks the immersion for the sake of challenge?

And/Or

If Commander and Zeus aren’t providing intentions and Expected strength of forces there making assumptions made on both ends to the forum briefing of the how the operation was to be handled resulting on conflicts with each other (living in their own worlds). [Am I thinking too deep on this point?]

Example

Commander Briefing Summary: Phantom Position your position is too keep an eye for infantry coming from the NE road to the town while Demon will repel vehicles and armour from the South.

Actual Op # 1 Before Secure Church 1xIfrift then after church 1x BTR from the North? Why was an APC deployed north instead of the south? Where did the vehicles come from, did they come from the castle road east?  Then how did Phantoms, and Persona(UAV) miss them [Thought Bubble when reading this again came to mind: There is no way His Excellency, The UN Deputy Undersecretary Persona non Grata, missed it, something else must be wrong] and not warn us prior and during the operation?

Actual OP # 2: Squad told me mines where in the AO saw mine markers, did you place some in the town, and why?

Actual OP # 3: Infantry ‘some’ with suppressors coming from the North and West of the Town, not East, was there any hint by UAV of an enemy camp in the forest or are they grown from the ground?

Actual OP # 4: What happened to Nato Forces? “NATO, with the assistance of Task Force Straya, will be deployed to the area in order to secure the extraction of the Major-General stranded on the ground.”

Actual OP # 5: Paratroopers!!!???

 

10 hours ago, Farqman said:

Hats off to Swordster for being so patient, even though people purposely set out to ruin everyones fun.

Yes, I know it is a public server. Just giving you a review of what happened. 

Thanks for the compliment, that account is accurate, I would say I wasn’t entertained, nothing from any of the Squads Managed to do what they where intended to do, Phatoms being wiped at the get go didn’t hear they managed to do what they wanted to spot they became infantry, Demon couldn’t get a pilot for vehicle drop, lost vehicles at the gas station and reinforces us as infantry squad in the end. And us I assumed light resistance of infantry in the town and at least a squad west, we clear all the buildings, one find the crash site we set up a defense perimeter, move the HVT and pilot in the center of AO ‘ANGEL HQ’ depending on size I set fireteams in 2-4 buildings and the EI come from N and S roads only any that go through Phantoms and Demons line but it didn’t happen some on my shoulder and some situation that even if we able to move the pilots which we couldn’t and I did tell the group multiple times the team wouldn’t have stayed put I think it’s something I should have expected from when we defended the church, let’s hope we have better success next time.

  

Anyway, thanks for the OP, see you next time.

[Farqman 86]

Jesus Christ, what an epic debrief!

 

[Swordster 3]

1 minute ago, Farqman said:

Jesus Christ, what an epic debrief!

 

I did say after the debrief I would write an after action report over 1000s words (1683 According to Word)

[Farqman 86]

When the chopper went down, all I could do was picture you 

 

 

[Zombine45 177]

23 minutes ago, Swordster said:

Was the Commander and Zeus intentions and Expected strength of forces Shared?

(This part isn't directed at you, sword, just using that as the headline)

From what i noticed, enemy forces were placed and selected specifically to counter our expected strategy, which seems completely ridiculous. I have to say i was not impressed when i learnt that our one zeus had turned into four.

The enemy force needs to have specific and measurable resources, when we destroy all the enemies, we win. Not a random LAV coming out of the woodwork behind us the moment we look away, and certainly not 40x paratroops dropping on top of us. When the enemies just keep appearing out of nowhere for no reason it just gets annoying and no one (Besides zeus) has fun.

Where did those reinforcements come from? I know obviously on the I&A server you can't have them take off from half the map away, but i'd suggest in future you prepare a list of enemy assets beforehand, and stick to it, ticking off assets as they're sent into the AO, and when you run out, well you've run out, no more reinforcements.

Walking away from this op it seemed like zeus was specifically trying to stop us from achieving our objectives providing perfect counters to our efforts, and not promote a fun mission. A mission can be both fun and challenging without viper teams. Both zeus's and our objective should be for us to win, right?

32 minutes ago, Swordster said:

Demons Performance: There contributions to Angel is to be commended to help in our times of need, though surprised no armour and had more numbers then even our group full strength.

The lack of armour was partly my fault and partly because of a miscommunication to the men. We got the order to hold off our advance after arriving near the AO, i thought it would be a great idea to park all three vehicles next to eachother right next to the petrol bowser, i told the men to disembark, as enemy AI do not attack empty vehicles, so i assumed they were safe. One of the men did not get this message and a missile hit one of the vehicles, detonating all three. I did think we'd cleared the area and there wasn't any further infantry though, but there just conveniently happened to be an enemy AT squad right ahead of us outside of my vision cone. I don't suppose the other squads encountered any AT squads because they didn't have armour. We did manage to capture a Qilin, which we sent your way when you needed assistance though.

I'm not sure how my squad ended up with so many people in it, i was actually expecting to have the least people in, but ended up with 12 people.

And i'll say this, for everyone, gearing up and driving to the AO in light armoured vehicles takes 20 minutes, telling us to hurry doesn't make it go faster. Just because you're ready to jump in your chopper and leave for the AO, does not mean we are, it takes time to load the vehicles with ammo, work out who wants to do what vehicle role and then get everyone else split into teams.

[Fitz 1239]

I said a bit of this in Teamspeak, but I'll repeat for those that missed it. I was in Angel squad.

I thought the loitering part wasn't the greatest idea. I understand why we had to wait south of the objective in the helicopter, but in this environment, it's really testing people's patience - most people are keen to start shooting stuff or, at the very least, get to the mission area. The crash certainly didn't help and frustrated the squad even more. If I remember correctly, 45 mins had passed and our squad was still at base, trying to figure out which chopper to get into. Then we still couldn't go further than the loiter point for quite some time. The pilot also landed on the main pads, so players that weren't apart of it were getting in. Helicopters should probably pick up passengers from the Side Base next time.

When we got there, we followed the road even though CSAT was in the trees and hill to the left of it, so by the time we got to the church, we had enemies in front and on our flank. The recon team certainly didn't communicate the presence of these units or any other units or vehicles to us, we only found out when they were standing on top of us.

The extraction was a mess as the initial evac point was between us and the enemy. Blue smoke was thrown and the evac was marked while we were still taking fire from that direction. The Huron landed at the church for some reason, in clear view of an active AA team. He then turned his engine off, even though he had no damage and half a tank of fuel, so his flares had no effect. I think the LZ should've been behind us, south of the church where we knew it was clear, or back at the LZ we inserted at. After the LZ was changed to the initial insertion point, we didn't hear anything from the squad lead and most of us didn't realise that some people had fallen behind or were incapacitated until we were half way to the LZ.

The downed heli AI couldn't be commanded and had to be moved by Zeus, but I think by the time that was communicated they were already dead 

No idea what happened to the General, didn't hear anything about him and he wasn't at the crash site.

As you said Swordster, I think you should definitely stick to fireteams next time, instead of buddies - easier to organise and people remember where to go because of the squad colours.

1 hour ago, Zombine45 said:

From what i noticed, enemy forces were placed and selected specifically to counter our expected strategy, which seems completely ridiculous. I have to say i was not impressed when i learnt that our one zeus had turned into four.

Yeah, I think it did feel like that in some areas and I agree with all your points on Zeus/reinforcements. However, only Orion and Webbie were Zeusing for that mission. Noskire doesn't have it, and I was just playing it out normally. 

 

Anyway, we're all learning, the squad leads and Zeus operators put in a good effort and hopefully the feedback you guys have posted will lead to improvement for next time 

 

Edited January 27, 2019 by Fitz

[Farqman 86]

In future, could we use a FOB as a staging area for operations? 

Because, you know, that's what a FOB is usually used for. 

You could have Zeus spawn in any ground vehicles needed for the op. Would also separate us from the people playing I&A. Just have a infantry blackfish transporting people to the base.

Server restarts at 12. Last flight to the FOB is at 1230. That gives people half hr to organise themselves at the FOB, mission start at 1pm. Miss the 1230 flight, too bad.

[Farqman 86]

Actually now that I think of it, you are using Achilles.

Zeus can set up a teleporter pole

[Bread 18]

16 minutes ago, Fitz said:

If I remember correctly, 45 mins had passed and our squad was still at base, trying to figure out which chopper to get into.

Yeah this is definitely something that needs to be fixed. If any air is going to be involved in missions, especially if it's going to be transporting troops, it should really be arranged by staff running the mission before the briefing occurs, allowing us players to move straight to the aircraft instead of stuffing around like what happened on this mission.

 

22 minutes ago, Fitz said:

Helicopters should probably pick up passengers from the Side Base next time.

I'd say it would be better to do everything at side base, doing things such as briefing and sorting vehicles right at the base is kinda a crappy idea as it has a high chance of people not involved running in and being disruptive.