AAR B/2-7 FTX - Operation Midnight Falcon 18NOV23

[Cameron.J]

DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY
S3 BATTLE STAFF
Headquarters
7th Cavalry Regiment
COMBAT AFTER ACTION REPORT
Name of Combat Mission: B.Co Joint FTX - Operation
Game: Hell Let LooseServer Hosted on: Training/Event
Date of Combat Mission: 18NOV23
Time of Combat Mission (Zulu): 2030Z​

Mission OIC: Captain Cameron.J
Mission Controller: Captain Cameron.J
Number of Attendees: 76
7th Cavalry Personnel Involved in Action:

Captain Cameron.J
Second Lieutenant Anderson.P
Second Lieutenant Argentini.E
First Sergeant Sven.S
Staff Sergeant Phillips.B
Sergeant Hansen.Z
Sergeant Warren.G
Sergeant Whaley.H
Sergeant DAmico.J
Sergeant BIzutto.A
Sergeant Rhodes.R
Sergeant Webber.R
Sergeant Ackelson.K
Sergeant Balazova.S
Corporal Zulu.P
Corporal Jinto.H
Corporal Landry.G
Corporal Brough.C
Corporal Konn.G
Corporal Herber.R
Corporal Guillermo.C
Corporal Owens.J
Corporal OCulien.M
Corporal Solo.H
Corporal Finch.A
Corporal Henson.K
Corporal Voci.P
Specialist Rousseau.A
Specialist Narayanaswamy.A
Specialist Fields.M
Specialist Bigos.F
Specialist Tosti.J
Specialist Magnone.J
Specialist Arfuso.V
Specialist Firmin.D
Specialist Mcmillan.H
Specialist Jefferzon.Z
Specialist Noriega.D
Specialist Plum.L
Specialist Lee.N
Specialist Pippin.C
Specialist Choi.S
Specialist White.C
Specialist Kugo.El
Specialist Richman.A
Specialist Swanson.B
Specialist Mulholland.J
Specialist Chhari.A
Specialist Rhodes.J
Specialist Lemon.D
Specialist Grabo.M
Specialist Dupell.G
Specialist Katz.A
Specialist Strole.Z
Specialist Baldrick.D
Private First Class Hazen.D
Private First Class Leifried.R
Private First Class Bas.D
Private First Class Connolly.C
Private First Class Wisniewski.A
Private First Class Evans.J
Private First Class Korfias.F
Private First Class Mead.T
Private First Class Leaf.J
Private First Class Woody.W
Private Paro.K
Private Adver.H
Private LaRoche.P
Private Chaplin.J
Private Normand.M
Private Hendershot.G
Private Spiegal.A
Recruit Lust.K
Recruit Riley.D
Retired Smith.N

 

[Cameron.J]

S3 BATTLE STAFF
Headquarters
7th Cavalry Regiment
COMBAT AFTER ACTION REPORT​

Element CallSign: Allied Commander
Element Leader: Captain Cameron.J
7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
Captain Cameron.J

Pros:

• Great turnout from other companies to help
• Plan worked great
• Adhoc orders executed perfectly
• Allies unified uniforms resulted in minimal friendly fire
• Nameplates were pretty well received

Cons:

• Turnout was chaotic
• Tanks were unbalanced

 

[Leifried.R]

S3 BATTLE STAFF
Headquarters
7th Cavalry Regiment
COMBAT AFTER ACTION REPORT​

Element CallSign: Tank Lead Commander
Element Leader: PFC.Leifried.R
7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:

2LT. Anderson.P
PFC. Bas.D

Pros:

• Excellent Infantry to Armor communication & coordination, couldn't ask for better mechanized infantry gameplay on the fly as we floated between squads working to eliminate hard threats within the AO. This was also due to fantastic recon gameplay from PFC. Woody.W & PFC. Mead.T. Information quite literally gave us the upper hand here and we were able to execute. Big props to 2LT. Anderson & SPC. Rhodes.J for stepping in and filling out the armor squads and working with us as we needed. They were extremely flexible during this FTX and displayed why the Cav is one of the best groups to be a part of. The no nameplates also always adds a level of immersion that I will always enjoy, more of that

Cons:

• In these types of scenarios, it might be beneficial to provide the team really getting their ass kicked a way to possibly get back on the front foot by allowing them larger armor pieces or airheads upon only having one objective left and only while they have one objective. Possibly removing infantry restrictions as well during that time period, to a degree, in order to grant the losing team more flexibility and as if it was a real scenario in which they were throwing everything they have at not losing a foothold in an area. Would really add something to think about for the enemy team and potentially allow the losing team a way to regain some ground

I enjoyed this concept as it allowed a lot of freedom of maneuver and especially infantry & armor cross-gameplay

 

[Woody.W]

Element CallSign: Allied spotter
Element Leader: PVF.Woody.W
7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:


Pros:

• coms
• Garry's
• nodes
• responding and marking map

Cons:
was fun didn't find it bad
would of been more even if we had 50 v 50

 

[Whaley.H]

Element CallSign: Tank Commander 2 (Kilo Tank)
Element Leader: SGT.Whaley.H
7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element: SPC.Lee.N, CPL.Guillermo.C


Pros:

• Troopers mentioned that pros to them were the amount of teamwork between tank to tank and tank to infantry, personally being requested by infantry to be used as a shield to help move up into the area and hold with them.
• The second pro is the 7 vehicle kills we had troopers
• great communication between element leaders
• nameplate opacity was hard but fun

Cons:

only con is that the operation was not longer

 

[Hansen.Z]

Element CallSign: How Squad Section Leader
Element Leader:Sergeant Hansen.Z
7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
Specialist Tosti.J
Corporal Zulu.P
Specialist Plum.L


Pros:

• Organization

Cons:

• nameplates off
• command chat was unorganized at times
• The defending squad needs more than half a squad

 

[Rhodes.J]

S3 BATTLE STAFF
Headquarters
7th Cavalry Regiment
COMBAT AFTER ACTION REPORT​

Element CallSign: Delta Tank Commander
Element Leader: SPC.Rhodes.J
7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element: SPC.Choi.S SPC.Richman.A


Pros:

• No Name Plate was a great element to add - Rising Storm 2 and other games are like this. Enforces communication being key and situational awareness on movement.
• Elements making good use of map marker pings and being able to visually see people react and face the callouts.
• Good use of Recon Tank at the start to get the Recon ground team pushed up quicker to start gathering intel to give the early game advantage.

Cons:

• Better backline anti-recon. Halftracks were up for an extended period and not handled. Caused a lot of disruption against the Allied nodes.
• Agree to have each team pick a uniform type to make it a bit easier to PID targets.
• The game felt short, and too fun to end so quickly!

 

[Argentini.E]

Element CallSign: Charlie Recon Squad
Element Leader: Second Lieutenant Argentini.E
7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element: Specialist Chhari.A


Pros:

• Good comms
• Solid start to the match getting recon to enemy HQ early.
• Clear objective goals

Cons:

• Tanks got overwhelmed quickly
• Bad start getting nodes up and losing midpoint uncontested
• No nameplates very difficult at night. Uniforms don't stick out as much.

 

[Swanson.B]

Element CallSign: Allied Trooper/SL How Squad
Element Leader: Specialist Swanson.B
7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
Specialist White.C
Corporal Landry.G
Private LaRoche.P
Corporal Solo.H


Pros:

• Defense was very smooth.
• Good communication and callouts.
• Axis recons did a good job taking nodes and garrisons out.
• Fun that there isn't much restriction.
• No name plate was fun and for most of us a first time. Good theme.
• Allies could have finished earlier but we refrained from that to get some more game time.

Cons:

• Seemed one-sided a little bit / Team unbalanced?
• Only one dangerous push from Axis.
• Didn't feel like Axis was aggressive on offense.
• Since defense was smooth and enemies aggressive, it made the game a little boring for us. Would have liked to leapfrog.

 

[Bigos.F]

S3 BATTLE STAFF
Headquarters
7th Cavalry Regiment
COMBAT AFTER ACTION REPORT​

Element CallSign: Jaeger 3/ Armor Easy
Element Leader: Specialist Bigos.F
7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element: Sergeant Ackelson.K, Corporal Henson.K


Pros:

• Communication within Armor PLT
• Local infantry communicating with the tank
• 1SG Sven

Cons:

• Company Level Comms became clogged often, report often exaggerated
• Not having the nametags at night became an issue. Blue on Blue was mitigated but not entirely

 

[DAmico.J]

Element CallSign: Axis Platoon Leader
Element Leader: SGT.D'Amico.J

7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element: None

Pros:

• Troopers did a good job of positioning themselves
• Lots of garrisons and half tracks
• Communication between infantry and tanks was good
• Enemy armor was getting marked consistently
• Good use of 7-man tactics, the attacks just didn't pan out. It certainly wasn't for a lack of effort.
• Lots of good maneuvering on the attack, but the enemy defense managed to stop us each time. Good effort on both sides.

Cons:

• No tags on night made it a little too difficult for the newer guys
• Artillery was too hard to use since we couldn't defend against recon at all. They sat in bushes and sniped artillery, making them nearly invisible
• We had the garrisons to outflank their attacks, but they were not used effectively. Many times we kept spawning on the hardpoints instead of sweeping for OPs.
• Took too long to build nodes. We need more practice swapping off support to get three supply drops down quickly.

 

[Bizutto.A]

Element CallSign: Axis SL baker squad
Element Leader: SGT.BIzutto.A
7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
SPC.Magnone.J
PVT.Chaplin.J
CPL.Finch.A
SPC.Mcmillan.H

Pros:

• Great comms and map marks
• some had a lot of fun having to deal with nameplates
• BCO best CO

Cons:

• Some didnt enjoy the nameplates
• Rough start, with almost everyone late to point
• maybe a little more pre-planning.
• Allies have a rifleman advantage on night maps. Close range fights are much harder to handle with the kar89

 

[Kugo.El]

Element Call Sign: Easy Infantry squad
Element Leader: Specialist Kugo.El
7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element: Specialist Arfuso.V, Specialist Katz.A, Private First Class Connolly.C, Private Paro.K


Pros:

• Good comm.
• solid squad teamwork and offensive.
• one job attack

Cons:

• name tags were tricky

 

[Konn.G]

S3 BATTLE STAFF
Headquarters
7th Cavalry Regiment
COMBAT AFTER ACTION REPORT​

Element CallSign: Axis Armor 1
Element Leader: CPL.Konn.G
7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
SPC.Lemon.D
PVT.Adver.H

Pros:
Good comms, good organization, all the crew had fun.

Cons:
Not prepared for No nametags at SPs

 

[Grabo.M]

Element CallSign: Item Squad Section Leader (Axis)
Element Leader: Specialist Grabo.M
7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
Specialist Strole.Z
PFC Hazen.D
Private Normand.M
Specialist Baldrick.D


Pros:

• Fun experience with different-than-norm gameplay
• Great squad movement and teamwork between How squad
• Having Unit comms was extremely helpful
• Nameplates enjoyed by 2 of 5 personnel
  • Better uniform organization -and/or- No nameplate + Night map combination to would vastly improve infantry situation.

Cons:

• Nameplates off (3 of 5)
  • Defense was near impossible, lots and lots of team-killing on Western point
• Bolt Action vs Semi-Auto fire disadvantage
• Command chat was unorganized at times
• Hesitations from newer guys on Axis mixed with seemingly near zero hesitation from Allies
  • Likely skill imbalance between teams (newer guys v experienced guys)
• The defending squads imbalanced immediately
  • Not enough defense on Western, WAY too much on final point.
  • Complaints included seeing 3 tanks in 1 spot on defense while we were solo-pushing back for Western

 

[Noriega.D]

Element CallSign: Axis Platoon Leader
Element Leader: SPC.Noriega.D
7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
CPL.Voci.P
SPC.Firmin.D
SPC.Fields.M


Pros:

• Good callouts
• Well use of pings

Cons:

• The no nameplates at night
• 1 specialized infantry per squad

 

[Webber.R]

S3 BATTLE STAFF
Headquarters
7th Cavalry Regiment
COMBAT AFTER ACTION REPORT​

Element CallSign: Allied Baker Squad - Reapers
Element Leader: RET.Smith.N
7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
RET.Smith.N
Sergeant Webber.R
Specialist Jefferzon.Z
Private First Class Evans.J
Private First Class Korfias.F

Pros:

• Squad did an excellent job on defense patrolling the four square, especially with night restriction making it difficult to spot enemy approaches until they were directly on top of us.
• Definitely had less teamkills as a squad than last week's Operation from no name tags. Slowly learning how to adapt to that restriction. Continue to enjoy no nameplates as a restriction though.

Cons:

• Only having one specialized class felt a little too restrictive and the rifle-only fights felt too vanilla. If run with this restriction again, would suggest opening it up to two non-rifleman classes.
• No nameplates coupled with night maps was an interesting combo, but it slows the game down a lot. Would add in sub-objectives to help centralize teams if used and perhaps just use this combo sparingly in general in the future.

 

[Jinto.H]

S3 BATTLE STAFF
Headquarters
7th Cavalry Regiment
COMBAT AFTER ACTION REPORT​

Element CallSign: King
Element Leader: Corporal Jinto.H
7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:

Specialist Dupell.G
Sergeant Balazova.S

Pros:

• hopefully this failure will show the best way to run no nameplates.

Cons:

• no nameplate op's should be very detailed due to the fact that we tind to bunch move with it, also the map should be cut to a size fiting the player count. (this has been shown to be the only way to make the game style balanced.)
• CAN we PLZ get a way to lower one persons mic in game.
• the front line leaked like a screen door on a sub.
• failure to cross train one billet on the aspects of the other Billet caused a failure to start. this DOES NOT MEAN everyone needs to be a pro (X) but something like node swaping is Basic

 

[Owens.J]

Element CallSign: Allies - Golf Squad
Element Leader: CPL.Owens.J
7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
CPL.Herber.R
PVT.Hendershot.G
PVT.Spiegal.A
PVT.Lust.K

Pros:

• Overall a fun FTX
• No TAGS on night map provided an interesting challenge despite the issues
• Communications were clear and present, good squad integrity
• Well planned attack

Cons:

• Improvement can be made on imbalances, every OP will vary of course
• More objectives and/or secondary objectives especially in regard to asset allocation should be considered
• Uniforms somehow were still very similiar in most lighting, quite a few spiderman pointing at himself meme moments
• Last minute personnel adjustments across the board

 

[Rhodes.R]

S3 BATTLE STAFF
Headquarters
7th Cavalry Regiment
COMBAT AFTER ACTION REPORT​

Element Call Sign: Jig Squad
Element Leader: SGT.Rhodes.R
7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
SGT.Rhodes.R
Corporal Brough.C
Specialist Pippin.C
Specialist Mulholland.J
Private First Class Leaf.J
Recruit Riley.D

Solids

• Great coordination with tanks when it was possible
• Intra-squad comms were amazing
• High squad combat effectiveness

Improvements

• We need to start planning before the Operation. At least a week.
• Ineffective communication about the nature of the FTX lead to significant holes in training (nameplates, etc)
• Team balance needs significant improvement
• Leadership (including myself) was ineffective at coordination.