AAR ARMA 3 | Campaign Thundering Herd | Operation Sand Bird - Phase 2

[Geki.T]

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

Name of Combat Mission: Sand Bird
Campaign of Combat Mission (If applicable): Campaign Thundering Herd
Number within campaign: 2/6
Game: ARMA 3
Server Hosted on: TS1
Date of Combat Mission: 24SEP23
Time of Combat Mission (Zulu): 1900z
Mission OIC: Captain Gerrish.T
Mission Controller: First Sergeant Geki.T

7th Cavalry Personnel In Attendance:
Major Dread.M
Major Stewart.B
Captain Gerrish.T
Captain Mackey.A
First Lieutenant Knights.Z
First Lieutenant Highman.J
Second Lieutenant Sam.T
First Sergeant Geki.T
Master Sergeant Zimm.L
Chief Warrant Officer 3 Sutodoreh.W
Sergeant First Class Abate.L
Sergeant First Class Fields.Q
Chief Warrant Officer 2 Morton.Q
Chief Warrant Officer 2 Villmarsson.L
Staff Sergeant Westcott.R
Staff Sergeant Phillips.B
Staff Sergeant Whitehead.B
Sergeant Armitage.T
Sergeant Vincent.L
Sergeant Fox.Z
Sergeant Narramoor.A
Sergeant Hilberg.A
Corporal Holiday.T
Corporal Kastor.K
Corporal Lucander.P
Corporal Kamenar.M
Corporal Dio.B
Corporal Stuart.Z
Corporal Mobius.T
Corporal Taylor.C
Corporal Teddy.J
Corporal Turn.J
Corporal Lamb.J
Corporal Harris.M
Corporal York.KC
Specialist Krupa.W
Specialist Mac.S
Specialist Rodahl.S
Specialist Fisher.S
Specialist Ahsan.N
Specialist Facklam.E
Specialist Songs.Z
Specialist Fougere.J
Specialist Walker.H
Private First Class Palumbo.P

 

[Vincent.L]

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

Element Callsign: Viking-4
Element Leader: Sergeant Vincent.L


7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:

• Corporal Lucander.P
• Corporal Kamenar.M
• Corporal Dio.B
• Specialist Fisher.S
• Corporal Stuart.Z
• Corporal Mobius.T
• Corporal Taylor.C
• Corporal Teddy.J
• Specialist Ahsan.N

Pros:

• Good Squad comms
• Good movement
• Good use of drone
• Good use of AC-130

Cons:

• Engagement Distances too far for most weapons
• Server Issues
• Over exposed most of the time
• Thermals are bugged
• Crew neeeds whitelsited for all equipment so make loading easier

 

[Abate.L]

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

Element Callsign: Viking-1
Element Leader: Sergeant First Class Abate.L

7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
Sergeant First Class Abate.L
Sergeant First Class Fields.Q
Staff Sergeant Phillips.B
Sergeant Fox.Z
Specialist Mac.S
Specialist Rodahl.S
Specialist Facklam.E
Specialist Songs.Z
Private First Class Palumbo.P
Specialist Fougere.J
Sergeant Blake.H[RET]

Pros:

Cons:

 

[Highman.J]

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

Element Callsign: HAMMER
Element Leader: First Lieutenant Highman.J


7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:

• Major Dread.M
• Chief Warrant Officer 3 Sutodoreh.W
• Chief Warrant Officer 2 Morton.Q
• Chief Warrant Officer 2 Villmarsson.L
• Specialist Walker.H

Pros:

• A fully manned aircraft!
• Excellent internal communications and crew coordination
• Effective use of HMs, FMs, FTMs, and POIs
• Hammer clobbered targets almost as fast as they could be generated

Cons:

• Another red chain at end
• In practice, only three or four crew positions have actual work to do
• No CHAOS at start kept us relatively unemployed, but fortunately, we were proactive and flew to the mission area and were already on station by the time one signed in

 

[Sam.T]

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

Element Callsign: Atlas-6
Element Leader: Second Lieutenant Sam.T

Pros:

• Assistance from SGT.Goel.B as Atlas-5 was greatly appreciated. His work on the secondary objective and general Zeus tasking greatly aided me.
• Viking-5 was awesome, flexing around to support Atlas when the M1133s were damaged.

Cons:

• The mission environment contributed to a deficient casualty volume.
• The pacing of Viking led to downtime in establishing the BAS.
• The lack of definitive threats to Viking compounded low casualty volume.
• The lack of a fortifying tool meant Atlas could not "build up" the BAS area as planned.
• The server crash made completing the secondary objective impossible.
• Desynch led to 4x black tags in Atlas.
• The inclusion of Hammer meant that what little volume of significant threats to Viking were present were prosecuted before casualties could be incurred.
• Overall, this operation (and most of the campaign setup) was entirely more conducive to Viking Platoon's success than Atlas.

 

[Eugene.R]

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

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

7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
N/A

Pros:

• Comms were ok amongst the platoon and medical units.
• Utilization of intel gathered by POWs and Recon was great to see transitioned over from Phase 1

Cons:

• Overall not very entertaining seems this has been a repeated theme throughout all of Bravo TRP FTX's. (After a while it gets old really quick.)
• Operations feel more centered towards 2nd Platoon rather than "together" and 1st platoon just feels like a second thought. (Increases burnout)
• Little to no medical work for anyone, only 1 yellow tag the entire operation.
• Server crashes being a CONSISTENT problem with little/slow response makes operations not entertaining and pointless if the server is just going to crash every time.
• Hammer being in the AO is not great, they had fun sure but at what cost? The entire Platoon focused FTX being little to no work because everything in a 2km radius just gets obliterated.
• Bigger threats need to be utilized if everyone is just going to wipe everything 2km out. (produces 0 casualties for 1st platoon which means 0 work.)

 

[Knights.Z]

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

Element Callsign: Viking-6
Element Leader: First Lieutenant Knights.Z


7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
First Lieutenant Knights.Z

Pros:

• Good platoon comms
• Excellent integration with AC-130
• Platoon did well to move through contact
• Excellent execution of Platoon Bounding Overwatch which was trained in august

Cons:

• Server crashed, couldn't complete objective

 

[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

Pros:

• Excellent communication and reactiveness from HAMMER
• Great HAMMER initiative to get over the AO (low to none AAA threat zone) and begin ISR on station
• HAMMER indispensable in finding and hitting several mortar firepits harassing VIKING force
• Good reaction to IDF from VIKING platoon

Cons:

• Several game crashes on server load
• Then audio issues (had TFAR, no in-game sound though), which forced another reconnect
• Those resulted in HAMMER having no control through the first 15-20 minutes of the op
• Some artificial limitation needs to be instituted on air assets for targeting - at once, HAMMER was doing a great job pounding targets and at the same time taking away from VIKING enjoyment -
• I've attempted to self limit by trying to focus on the IDF threat of the mortar pits, then rocket artillery technicals, then technicals within threat range and then infantry entrenched in compounds and already in heavy contact with friendly forces (and got a clear from VIK-6 on those as well)
• if this is a conflict between "how many enemy units can be deployed before the server starts straining" and "how many targets can air assets hit before taking away from infantry fun", I'd be happy to dial back support - but here we had infantry HQ requesting support as well, so we've prosecuted those targets

 

[Narramoor.A]

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

Element Callsign: Viking-6
Element Leader: Sergeant Narramoor.A

Pros:

• Platoon's reaction to contact was stellar
• Good movement in open terrain that enabled constant security.
• Good coordination with Hammer, utilising tracers to designate targets.
• Enjoyed the scale of the operation, the work put into the OPORD, scenario and the backstory.

Cons:

• Personally crashed and had comms issues with proximity chat throughout the rest of the OP. Personal situational awareness suffered.
• BLUFOR AI was a bit of a hinderance, but not too bad.

 

[Holiday.T]

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

Element Callsign: Atlas-2
Element Leader: CPL.Holiday.T

7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
Corporal Turn.J
Staff Sergeant Westcott.R
Master Sergeant Zimm.L
SFC.Houston.T RET

Pros:
Great banter
Comms were alright

Cons:
Server disconnects
Little to no work for Atlas
Hammer is way too much of a force multiplier for such a small AO

 

[Whitehead.B]

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

Element Callsign: VIKING-2
Element Leader: Staff Sergeant Whitehead.B

7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
Staff Sergeant Whitehead.B
Sergeant Armitage.T
Corporal Lamb.J
Corporal Harris.M
Specialist Krupa.W
Corporal York.KC
Sergeant Hilberg.A
Captain Mackey.A


Pros:
Good op overall
Platoon bounding worked well for only one sp on it

Cons:
long odd movements to positions that put us in more danger than advantage
server crash at worst time near the end

 

[Armitage.T]

LOCKED

Assigned to Xinos.T for processing

 

[Xinos.T]

S1 Operations Processed