AAR ARMA 3 I October Warfare Wednesday 2023 I Warfare Wednesday 212

[Hilberg.A]

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

Name of Combat Mission: Warfare Wednesday 212
Number Within Campaign: 4/4
Game: ARMA 3
Server Hosted on: ARMA 3 TacR
Date of Combat Mission: 25OCT23
Time of Combat Mission (Zulu): 2200z
Mission Controller: Staff Sergeant Westcott.R , Sergeant Hilberg.A
Mission OIC: Corporal Gann.T
Attendees:

1. Major Dread.M
2. First Lieutenant Beiter.A
3. First Lieutenant Sam.T
4. Second Lieutenant Bethea.A
5. Second Lieutenant Searle.I
6. Second Lieutenant Thumper.N
7. Second Lieutenant Tucker.C
8. Chief Warrant Officer 3 Sparrow.P
9. Chief Warrant Officer 3 Sutodoreh.W
10. Chief Warrant Officer 2 Dujakovic.R
11. Warrant Officer 1 Hamm.C
12. Sergeant Major Preacher.A
13. Master Sergeant Zimm.L
14. Sergeant First Class Abate.L
15. Staff Sergeant Westcott.R
16. Staff Sergeant Whitehead.B
17. Staff Sergeant Narramoor.A
18. Staff Sergeant Phillips.B
19. Sergeant Fox.Z
20. Sergeant Hilberg.A
21. Sergeant Crowley.T
22. Corporal Dixon.E
23. Corporal Gann.T
24. Corporal Kastor.K
25. Corporal Kent.R
26. Corporal Maco.D
27. Corporal Marcus.J
28. Corporal Lewis.A
29. Corporal Zaren.T
30. Specialist Hoidahl.N
31. Specialist Krupa.W
32. Specialist Mason.H
33. Specialist Mitchell.B
34. Specialist Perea.A
35. Specialist Renard.S
36. Specialist Rodahl.S
37. Specialist Rok.M
38. Specialist Xinos.T
39. Specialist Sawyer.H
40. Specialist Singhal.P
41. Private First Class MacTavish.J
    
    Retired / Non-Cav Attendees
42. Sergeant Blake.H [RET]
43. Mouldy
44. Slinter
45. Dr Weird
46. Expendable Joe

 

[Tucker.C]

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

Element Callsign: Bandit-1
Element Leader: Second Lieutenant Tucker.C

7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
Second Lieutenant Bethea.A
Sergeant Fox.Z
Corporal Zaren.T
Corporal Kent.R
Corporal Lewis.A
Specialist Krupa.W
Specialist Rok.M
Specialist Xinos.T

Non-7Cav Personnel:
Slinter

Pros:

• Rescued some HVTs.
• Overall was a well-designed mission.
• Had a pretty cinematic breach into Objective 2.
• Good individual squad work. Guys were on their game as far as individual soldier discipline and skillsets went.
• Platoon movements were pretty good. Squads were normally within mutual support.
• LDA set en-route to OBJ2 was pretty slick.
• Great reaction to IDF.
• Great reaction to the helo-crash. Triaging of casualties, setting of security, etc.
• Quick step off, even with issues around the arsenal.
• ATLAS was really good at OBJ2. Seriously, Johnny-on-the-Spot work there. Kept most of my guys alive in a seriously nasty situation.
• Raid at OBJ1 went really well.

Cons:

• ACE arsenal is busted, preventing effectively resupply and procurement of necessary equipment.
• ATLAS got dropped in a random field? LZ's were being changed on the fly without any coordination with 5 or 6? Things seemed off.
• One HVT was dead at the first OBJ? Not sure if this was from us, or from a 'story' perspective.
• Helo crash/ARMA issues caused five plus black tags.
• Helo crash/ARMA issues had a seriously delayed response from platoon and ATLAS.
• IDF struck my Bravo team directly. Think this was an AI issue. They're lethal when they can LOS you from the mortars.
• Zero resupply, really, even after the helocrash survivors were picked up. They were black on medical.
• Bandit-6 was ahead of leading elements at certain stages.
• Squad members crashing out en-route and multiple times throughout.

 

[Sparrow.P]

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

Element Callsign: Sparrow-1
Element Leader:Chief Warrant Officer 3 Sparrow.P

7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
Major Dread.M


Pros:

• Nice Strikes
• Good ISR

Cons:

• Micromanagment from 6
• Lack of communication of update to plan

 

[Phillips.B]

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

Element Callsign: Bandit-3
Element Leader: Staff Sergeant Phillips.B

7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:

• Sergeant Major Preacher.A
• Staff Sergeant Phillips.B
• Corporal Marcus.J
• Specialist Hoidahl.N
• Specialist Perea.A

Non-7th Cavalry Within Element:

• N/A

Pros:

• Fun
  • Everyone had a very good time
  • Yay!
• In-Squad Teamwork
  • Tons of communication and echoing of orders
  • Quick to react to contact
  • Buddy team accountability
  • Good secrurity
• Good Contact
  • Difficult but not overwhelming
  • Good trigger time
• Violence of Action
  • Trench clearance quick and effective
  • Like water baby!

Cons:

• ACE Arsenal
• Aircraft
  • Told to shut up during a MASCAS call and took out 7, 3, Atlas communications for ~10 minutes
  • Landed in a random field outside of AO
  • After being picked up from field, we landed at an LZ, walked 200m to another LZ, to fly a km to another LZ
• Platoon Cohesion
  • Leadership getting frustrated
  • Almost never on same page/game plan
  • Game plan changes frequent and ill communicated
  • Communication inconsistent with calls going unanswered

 

[Crowley.T]

Element Callsign: Bandit-2
Element Leader: Sergeant Crowley.T

7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
Staff Sergeant Narramoor.A
Specialist Rodahl.S
Sergeant First Class Abate.L
Private First Class MacTavish.J
Staff Sergeant Whitehead.B
Second Lieutenant Searle.I

Non-7Cav Personnel:
Sergeant Blake.H [RET]
Mouldy

Pros:

+mission setup was fun and interesting
+squad handled unexpected occurances well (arsenal problems, odd LZs, etc)
+sqaud handled the firefights well
+fire teams maneuvered well

Cons:

-first objective was alomst too small to effectively clear with two squads
-pacing was odd in places
-spent a lot of time in the buffalo sitting in a holding pattern

 

[Mason.H]

Element Callsign: BUFFALO
Element Leader: Specialist Mason.H

7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
Second Lieutenant Thumper.N
Warrant Officer 1 Hamm.C
Chief Warrant Officer 3 Sutodoreh.W
Specialist Sawyer.H
Specialist Mitchell.B

Non-7Cav Personnel:
Vitor

Pros:

• Fun mission with cool looking AOs and hidden objective for 2nd AO
• Plenty of flight time for air crew
• Interesting strong defended AO

Cons:

• Buff-1 arma error / crash ruined a squad and caused +30m op delay
• 2nd LZ looked too hot, friction between ground and Buff about where they should have landed

 

[Sam.T]

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

Element Callsign: Bandit-7
Element Leader: First Lieutenant Sam.T

Pros:

• The mission concept for this OP was solid. I especially enjoyed the Halloween/spooky themes.
• The raid on Objective 1 was executed very well by the infantry.
• Both Atlas teams performed excellently when brought into play.
• Mission controllers/S3 staff handled the technical issues at the mission start expediently; they saved this OP.
• There was a solid number of casualties on the second objective; Atlas was busy almost the entire time. There were 2x MASCAL, though neither could be responded to (see conns).
• We grabbed the HVTs and exfilled them with no issues!
• I saw an effective casualty management incident from Bandit-5. The PSG marked a hasty CCP, called this up to the Platoon medic to relay to Atlas, and triaged casualties for their arrival. Considering how frequently we get calls where squads a) don't have triage information and b) don't have casualties consolidated for treatment, this was amazing!

Cons:

• Lack of platoon MEDORG/MEDPLAN led to Atlas being shoved into whatever bird was available, leaving behind medics and troopers at several instances throughout the OP.
• Initial transit from Objective 1 to Objective 2 allocated all medical personnel to a singular bird (including the platoon medic). This directly contributed to 4+ deaths within Bandit-1 during a MASCAL and severely hampered the experience of all medical personnel in the operation. While we appreciate that the present medical staff are the SMEs, there still needs to be some platoon-level plan regarding the movement of platoon resources and how the unit reacts to mass-casualty events.
• All medical personnel ended up in a field. Somewhere by the FARP? Considering this wasn't an established or marked LZ and was adjacent to a designated resupply point, I'm at a loss as to why/how this happened. This was incredibly frustrating as this was during a mass-casualty incident.
• Several random casualty calls on the platoon net amounting to "man down..." with no follow-up information. While I appreciate that an SL or FTL likely doesn't have the resources to pre-format a clean 6-Line MEDEVAC call, some info is still needed (unit callsign, unit location, casualty number, and security status).
• Platoon HQ comms were... dubious. It seemed the PL was not on the HQ short-range net, pushing needed traffic to the platoon net. The few moments I was on the command net displayed a stunning lack of brevity from units.
• There was a disjointed level of micro-management regarding where medical teams were moving, in conjunction with redundant net traffic (i.e. If a MASCAL has been called, additional net traffic reiterating there is a MASCAL prevents the support assets from replying to the incident or gaining more information to clarify the situation).
• Overall, the MACRO plan for this OP felt disjointed or "half-baked" in the operation. The previous two points compounded this issue.

 

[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:

• Love the map, the buildings and layouts were excellent, lots of great variety
• Visible effort put in by mission maker into storytelling
• Usage of FARP for air assets once again proves to be an excellent idea
• 6 clearly requesting the church area as a NO FIRE zone, good initiative

Cons:

• ACE update dunking on Arsenal
• loss of REAPER due to technical issues
• 6 micromanaging close air support too much in mission plan (limiting call type, no fire zone sizes depending on A/C type - 200m for SPARROW, 400m for REAPER, etc) - these are not an OIC call, always JTAC's call - OIC can put limitations, designate general no-fire zones, however specifics like threat ranges are up to the JTAC / TACP party
• 2nd objective area was not declared as a NO FIRE zone by OIC, yet OIC chastised CHAOS for fires into the zone "because we have hostages there" - again, threat assessment of fires into a target is JTAC responsibility
• above fire was SPARROW's defensive action against heavy machinegun threat firing at it - that's even out of JTAC's hands, much less OIC's, the pilot's prerogative is to defend the airframe and the safety of the crew
• 6 has in sequence:
  • clearly permitted coordinated fires into the infantry garrisoned in the trench group on the northern border of OBJ 2, as troops were staging for assault
  • after this strike package was executed and minor skirmishes in the jungle already happened (we've gone loud), 6 has given the order for BLUE infantry to turn off IR strobes, which made SPARROW unable to PID friendlies from enemies
  • only to soon allow those turned back, but not all infantry seemed to have received the message, further confusing PID
  • when assaulting infantry got bogged down by enemy machinegun nests refused precision strikes against those
  • when explained that the main suppressing MG nest was 50+ meters from buildings, and JTAC wished to use a weapon safe to buildings, permitted the single munition strike
• above indicates 6 was a bit overwhelmed and indecisive, probably due to previous hiccups ("dancing LZs", BUFFALO crash, etc), but managed to adjust to ongoing limitations and made a good call which permitted troops to breach the compound
• the raid on OBJ 2 got stuck in the middle for way too long

 

[Armitage.T]

Reminder,

Going forward, please make sure the campaign name is consistent with previous posts in the campaign.

Example:
This one is...
October Warfare Wednesday

Previous posts have...
Warfare Wednesday OCT23

If the campaign name does not match the others verbatim, it will not formulate on S1's spreadsheet when we go to process UN medals and people will not get that credit.

Thank you.

 

[Armitage.T]

LOCKED

Assigned to Groves.A for processing.

 

[Groves.A]

S1 Operations processed.