AAR ARMA 3 | Warfare Wednesday | Warfare Wednesday 198

[Beiter.A]

DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY
S3 BATTLE STAFF
Headquarters
7th Cavalry Regiment
COMBAT AFTER ACTION REPORT​

Name of Combat Mission: Warfare Wednesday 198
Number Within Campaign: 3/4
Game: ARMA 3
Server Hosted on: ARMA 3 Tactical Realism
Date of Combat Mission: 19JUL23
Time of Combat Mission (Zulu): 2200z
Mission Controller: Sergeant Hilberg.A, Second Lieutenant Beiter.A , Specialist Brian.F
Mission OIC: First Sergeant Geki.T

Number of Attendees: 53
Major Burton.P
Major Dread.M
First Lieutenant Mackey.A
Second Lieutenant Thumper.N
Second Lieutenant Highman.J
Second Lieutenant Sam.T
Second Lieutenant Beiter.A
Second Lieutenant Bethea.A
Second Lieutenant Searle.I
First Sergeant Geki.T
Sergeant Major Preacher.A
Staff Sergeant Whitehead.B
Staff Sergeant Sullivan.A
Chief Warrant Officer 2 Sparrow.P
Chief Warrant Officer 2 Berg.J
Sergeant Westcott.R
Sergeant Hilberg.A
Sergeant Crowley.T
Sergeant Narramoor.A
Sergeant Adunno.D
Sergeant Santoyo.T
Sergeant Guerra.J
Corporal Corbin.R
Corporal Kastor.K
Corporal Armitage.T
Corporal Turn.J
Corporal Zander.D
Corporal Velasquez.J
Corporal Crapachi.M
Corporal Kent.R
Warrant Officer 1 Villmarsson.L
Warrant Officer 1 Spitnale.K
Specialist Alexander.P
Specialist Brian.F
Specialist Rodahl.S
Specialist Krupa.W
Specialist Eugene.R
Specialist Rok.M
Specialist Keith.W
Specialist Xinos.T
Specialist Bonnet.J
Specialist Perea.A
Private First Class Rhodes.J
Private First Class Davis.M
Private Harsh.M
Private Slaughter.J
Private Sawyer.H
Private Mason.H
Private Helland.N
Private Palumbo.P

 

[Thumper.N]

DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY
S3 BATTLE STAFF
Headquarters
7th Cavalry Regiment
COMBAT AFTER ACTION REPORT​

Element Callsign: Lightning-2
Element Leader: Second Lieutenant Thumper.N

7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
N/A

Pros:

• Plenty to do, with SEAD, CAP and CAS
  • Fired HARMs, dropped SDBs, Guns, and air-to-air with AMRAAMs, good practice for something I don't do very often.
  • The best part was killing a SU-25 engaging ground troops, and I was able to smoke the Frogfoot rather quickly.

Cons:

• Chaos tried to control CAP aircraft, which isn't something that needs to be done, as the CAP aircraft has nothing to do with CAS or is within their zone of control.
• Chaos was going to call in Lightning 1 in on a strike on a T-72, but then attempted to get danger close clearance when friendly infantry were outside the MDS of the SDB.
• Anti-Air was not "behaving" properly, specifically, Tungunskas were not firing (presumably Winchester), but then all of them started to fire all at once.

 

[Velasquez.J]

DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY
S3 BATTLE STAFF
Headquarters
7th Cavalry Regiment
COMBAT AFTER ACTION REPORT​

Element Callsign: Atlas 2
Element Leader: Expendable_Joe

7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
CPL.Velasquez.J

Pros:

1. 100% improvement in radio usage
2. Eugene was a good 7
3. Good triage in the CCP Benvolio
4. Good comms between the squad.
5. Like having CCP prelabeled, and having options.

Cons:

• In the first part of the mission, we had to drive back and forth for two yellow casualties.
• Also, not much action in the first part of the OP.
• A lot of troopers talking in CCP Benvolio.
• No casualties handover. Chaos.

 

[Berg.J]

DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY
S3 BATTLE STAFF
Headquarters
7th Cavalry Regiment
COMBAT AFTER ACTION REPORT​

Element Callsign: Lightning-1
Element Leader: Chief Warrant Officer 2 Berg.J

7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
N/A

Pros:

• Varied taskings, with a very busy mission.
  • Employed several different types of munitions.
  • High intensity and pacing with multiple calls for fire.

Cons:

• TFAR seems to still be showing teething issues, I could hear Thumper.N on SR but he couldn't hear me, LR worked fine.
• TFAR radio rack on the USAF mod F-22 isn't working, works on all other USAF aircraft.

 

[Sparrow.P]

DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY
S3 BATTLE STAFF
Headquarters
7th Cavalry Regiment
COMBAT AFTER ACTION REPORT​

Element Callsign: Buffalo Flight
Element Leader: Chief Warrant Officer 2 Sparrow.P

7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
Private Slaughter.J
Private Sawyer.H
Specialist Alexander.P
Private Mason.H
Warrant Officer 1 Spitnale.K

Pros:

• Fun due to people

Cons:

• We should have flown as flights because there was a seeming lack of tasking for Buffalo
• Tunguska placement needs to be more careful
• TFAR learning pains (needs to be on Training Server ASAP)
  • Lack of response from Zeus on Short Range 50
  • Lack of Range resulted in long wait for CSAR
  • Felt Disorganized as a result of all of this.
• No Go-Karts

 

[Westcott.R]

DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY
S3 BATTLE STAFF
Headquarters
7th Cavalry Regiment
COMBAT AFTER ACTION REPORT​

Element Callsign: Viking-5
Element Leader: Sergeant Westcott.R

Pros:

1. TFAR implementation was FAR better this week with everyone on the correct freqs!...we can be trained!
2. Excellent flexibility by ALL Viking elements, swiftly complying with every tasking and often multi-tasking within the squads.
3. Comms were excellent all around...TFAR seems to have improved many things besides just the disconnect problems.
4. Buffalo's "quick" side mission at the beginning that turned into an entire operation in and of itself was "fun" to try to coordinate.

Cons:

1. Lack of dedicated Stryker drivers for 6 and 5 led to 6,5,7, and 2x's Chaos ALL IN ONE PANDUR....which was sub-optimal.
2. Viking-1 reported a CCP position clear, I gave 7 the go-ahead to move his teams to the position and there was a T-72 there.

Note: My second time as 5, first during a Viking operation. There is a LOT going on and I may have missed some things but I had a RIOT of a time trying to coordinate all of the things.

 

[Narramoor.A]

DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY
S3 BATTLE STAFF
Headquarters
7th Cavalry Regiment
COMBAT AFTER ACTION REPORT​

Element Callsign: Viking-1
Element Leader: Sergeant Narramoor.A

7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
Sergeant Narramoor.A
Specialist Rodahl.S
Second Lieutenant Bethea.A
Corporal Crowley.T
Corporal Zander.D
Specialist Krupa.W
Sergeant Guerra.J
Sergeant Major Preacher.A
Major Burton.P
Brock
Rex

Pros

• Mission was awesome, A true Cav Scout operation. Great work from the mission maker and 6 for planning in short notice. A good variety of contacts, a good volume of armour.
• Love the decentralised planning enabling independent action and flexability
• Good SPOTREPs, Incredible use of UAV by Krupa.W for anticipating contact
• Good security and independent work holding sectors from fire team leaders.
• Some great individual contact situations and skilful actions
  • Excellent use of AT, VIKING-1 neutralised a total of 12 vehicles (Mech, Motor, Tank)
• Nice little rescue tasking for Sierra-4's crew.

Cons

• Too loose of an area covered in the top phase box, platoon was a little light on the ground.
• A procedural change of people referring to the severity of Green casualties as Yellows needs to be corrected and adopted across 1-7.
• 2 command Strykers would have helped things
• Maybe split 6's execution markings to global channel so that side is reserved for more contextual markings. (for lots of terrain features / OPs)
• Lack of close combat for fire team leaders or infantry contact.
• It felt as though friendly fixed wing air was constantly tied up. We took one hostile CAS airframe down with a stinger though!
• More awareness of CFF procedure required and a capable fire observer would have helped things. That being said there was no notable stationary or slow moving contact spotted by Viking-1.
• Speed of mounting the vehicle could be improved.

 

[Kastor.K]

DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY
S3 BATTLE STAFF
Headquarters
7th Cavalry Regiment
COMBAT AFTER ACTION REPORT​

Element Callsign: CHAOS
Element Leader: Corporal Kastor.K

7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
Corporal Corbin.R

Pros:

• Excellent mission design. The tons of OPs seemed too convoluted to me at brief, but infantry seem to have executed it all well, so no factor.
  
  
• TFAR shone brightly, no comms issues, despite terrain interpolation and range being on.
  
  
• Very responsive -5 and -6, good calls for close air support, with either grids or even once by polar from -6.
  
  
• LIGHTNING very responsive on the radio, great comms and precise readbacks, great adherence to procedure from the entire flight.
  
  
• Incredible showing from Corbin.R - he was supposed to be shadowing me only, but showed lots of great initiative, executed routing and safety of flight briefs, situation updates, permitting myself to focus on SEAD / CAS tasking. At later stage he concurrently tasked LIGHTNING flight with CAS, as we were being swamped with priority targets.
  
  
• Presence of VIKING-4 mortar firebase was very welcome. A simple idea for deconfliction emerged, where Gun-To-Target lines would be drawn on the map and removed after they ceased to be active, with BUFFALO flight prebriefed to ensure to watch out for them and go around them. Since BUFFALO was mostly in the rear of friendly force anyway, it worked out very well and was clear indication without the need for more verbal comms than necessary. Sullivan.A 's squad executed it all very well.
  
  
• First hour was an insane SEAD / CAP battle against the NE airfield which turned out to have extended radar range - from the early downing of WAFFELO-1 and subsequent SERE mission to the selfless sacrifice of LIGHTNING-1 (Berg.J ) who after the prolonged fight against the AA of the island engaged and destroyed five Tunguskas and still had AA to evade, was shot down, ejected and reached the same LZ that WAFFELO-1 left only recently - resulting in another joint SERE effort and rescue by BUFF-2. Splendid showing and three-way coordination gents!
  
  
• Target saturation on the ground! Hard targets started popping up for us in the last third of the Op, but oh my were we tasked. We've at times literally juggled comms at 59 LR, with Corbin.R finishing his 9-line for LIGHTNING-2, then LIGHTNING-1 pushing in, getting cleared by me and then LIGHTNING-2 pushing in himself. It was tight, it was effective and we've kicked major butt. Everything between several very mobile tanks, BTRs and SPGs firing counter-batter fire on VIKING-4 firebase - at the same time, we've felt that we've been essential to holding the line, without taking away from the infantry who still expended tons of ATGMs themselves.
  
  
• I noticed good progress in smoothness and speed of my CAS calls. I've finally managed to get a good hang of keyhole / FAH method and relinquished use of IPs entirely during the OP. I was able to not have to write the CAS call down anymore, just read out on the fly. After first flustering a bit, Corbin.R caught up incredibly quickly and was very fluid and fast as well. Very proud of the show we gave tonight.
  
  
• Despite the number of Cons below, it was one of the most enjoyable JTAC nights so far, everything that was in our control clicked so well!

Cons:

• Colocation with HQ element in one vehicle was noisy and I'm afraid we were verbally much in the way of VIKING HQ despite the ability to switch intercom channels. It was also unsafe, at many times we were buzzed by tank shells or I think even hit once.
  
  
• I've not seen the sky or grass for the entire Op and Corbin.R got out only to deploy drones. Sad Pandur filler is sad
  
  
• If we had our own vic, we would have been able to take a good overwatch position and have actual eyes on targets.
  
  
• Absolutely need a cTab in inventory, with Android I was unable to view / take control of the optics of Corbin.R's drones I was not synced with.
  
  
• LIGHTNING-2 minimal comms issues - very low, sometimes inaudible / hard to parse, especially in noisy environment full of other chatter.
  
  
• Misunderstanding of need to route / deconflict RAPTOR-1 CAP assets. After debrief with Hillberg I'm clear on it being the responsibility of RAPTOR flight lead.
  
  
• Hard disagree with Justicar's assessment of the need for danger close clearance. Target was high threat, surrounded by friendlies on three sides, each within 300-400m, all of them mobile in attempt to evade fire from target / obscure themselves with ground and buildings. Regardless of actual splash area of the weapon system used, this mission was Danger Close as friendlies were likely to shift into the danger zone / run into the final attack heading after weapons free. As such I felt it might require a signature from 6.
  
  
• VIKING-4 action was all laughs only because it ended "well". My call to immediately cease VIKING-4 movement made on HQ net was initially disregarded by 5/6 as supposedly "they were doing what they were supposed to". Then 5/6 attempted to stop VIKING-4, who in turn disregarded them and then proceeded to not only close to the CAS hard target as LIGHTNING-1 was pushing in, but literally drove within 5m of target and past it, perfectly synchronized with the would-be splash of GBUs. Were we not able to abort in the very last second (LIGHTNING-1 was already IN, just waiting for Cleared Hot to release GBUs), the entire VIKING-4 would have been casualties along with the enemy tank.
  
  
• The presence and need for deconfliction of VIKING-4 mortar gun-to-target lines was welcome, however it was not communicated to CHAOS on the radio that their choice of charge / firing arc would take rounds to 2000 AGL. We've only noticed it because they made a marker on the map saying 2000 AGL and then we've reached out to confirm, deconflicting airframes afterwards.

 

[Sam.T]

DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY
S3 BATTLE STAFF
Headquarters
7th Cavalry Regiment
COMBAT AFTER ACTION REPORT​

Element Callsign: Atlas-1
Element Leader: Second Lieutenant Sam.T

7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
Corporal Armitage.T
Corporal Turn.J

Non-7th Cavalry Personnel:
Dr. Weird

Pros

• There was an excellent group of folks in Atlas-1 tonight. Good skill level and excellent banter throughout.
• We were able to put some CCP SOPs into action tonight, with entrance marking, flow markings, and triage/treatment areas being established.
• Tonight was my first time using the new medical M1126 Stryker, S3 Scripting, and Bravo Troop leadership did an awesome job with those compositions!
• Additional "add-on" tasking for Atlas (in this instance, CSAR tasking) is super welcome. We are happy to pick up downed pilots, triage them, and coordinate with Buffalo. This will be followed in the conns section.
• Leadership brief/FRAGO with -7 and the team leads were excellent! Love seeing this in any context, as it's something we regularly train in the Infantry School that doesn't regularly appear in operations.
• Lots of our TFAR issues didn't appear this week. People are definitely becoming more acclimated to the mod.

Cons

• Just an overall rough Operation for us. This occurs every time an OIC states that the platoon will focus on CASEVAC procedures due to the mission set. (At least in my personal experience.) The casualty plan/TASKORG for evac and care was not utilized for 80-90% of this operation.
• The lack of adherence and utilization of the MEDPLAN led to Atlas-1 not receiving any casualties until roughly 15 minutes before ENDEX.
• Absolutely atrocious individual soldier discipline at the CCP when we finally did receive casualties. When the casualties arrived, the entire squad emptied out of the Stryker and started talking/yelling over the OIC, who was trying to conduct a casualties handoff with the medics, which was atrocious. This behavior would be completely unacceptable in any other setting that involves SNCOs and Officers exchanging information. This was compounded by troopers who were not the squad CLS or squad lead spouting incorrect triage information, nearly resulting in the casualties we were trying to receive being left by the medics ("Oh, he's already dead, work on the yellows").
• CSAR tasking was called into Atlas, only for the pilot to either respawn/be TP'ed away as we were arriving on the scene. This upset the team more than the lack of casualties. Understandably, once everyone gets excited to finally have tasking after ~1 hour of just setting up empty CCPs, having that tasking disappear was upsetting.
• At one point, we received instructions to move into and establish a new CCP, only to take fire from enemy IDF or enemy armor on movement.

 

[Eugene.R]

Element Callsign: Viking-7
Element Leader: SPC.Eugene.R

7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
N/A

Pros:

• Was fun doing Viking-7 for the first time.
• TFAR was a lot better this time with the platoon and medical comms were fine.

Cons:

• LACE/ACE reports not being done correctly/misinformation being given for casualties constantly.
• People need to take the effort to understand Triage and what a Green, Yellow & Red casualty is to prevent misinformation.
• CSAR being conducted on Raptor ended up in either them respawning or being teleported after Atlas was dispatched not enjoyable.
• Platoon execution of mission seemed poor, enemy were able to roll all the CCP's within minutes with armor.
• Entire Platoon Staff + Chaos all being in the same vehicle made it extremely difficult to do our jobs & lack of dedicated drivers for command vehicles is not ideal.

 

[Adunno.D]

DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY
S3 BATTLE STAFF
Headquarters
7th Cavalry Regiment
COMBAT AFTER ACTION REPORT​

Element Callsign: Viking-3
Element Leader: Sergeant Adunno.D

7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
Specialist Rok.M
Private First Class Davis.M
Major Dread.M
First Lieutenant Mackey.A
Sergeant Santoyo.T
Private Harsh.M
Pros

• For my first time SLing in an OP, I think it went well
• The Squad itself did well. Ample amounts of communication and decent response times to commands.
• Overall the OP was fun

Cons

• I would have liked to see a little more enemy units pushing the line that we were "screening" it felt like at times that we were just sitting there to sit there
• I was having a hard time with communication the radios were garbled at times and I could barely make out what was said.

 

[Sullivan.A]

DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY
S3 BATTLE STAFF
Headquarters
7th Cavalry Regiment
COMBAT AFTER ACTION REPORT​

Element Callsign: Viking-4
Element Leader: Staff Sergeant Sullivan.A

7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
Second Lieutenant Searle.I
Staff Sergeant Whitehead.B
Corporal Crapachi.M
Corporal Kent.R
Specialist Keith.W
Specialist Xinos.T
Specialist Bonnet.J
Specialist Perea.A
Private First Class Rhodes.J
Private Helland.N
Private Palumbo.P

Pros

• We got targeted a lot by tanks / gaz's / enemy air and it was genuinely fun for once rather than being back and not being touched at all.
• We got some good calls from elements and conducted our own calls too.

Cons

• Communication is a bit weird due to directional audio from tfar.
• I can't hear anyone on LR due to distance.
• We lost our Sierra crew and vehicle because they ran into the town unaware of it's hostile population.
• There was no real frontline protection for us and the medics behind us.
• vehicle loadout needs to be reworked since we will always need maws / at4

 

[Armitage.T]

LOCKED

Assigned to Armitage.T for processing.

 

[Armitage.T]

S1 Operations Updated