AAR ARMA 3 | April 2024 WFW | Operation Warfare Wednesday 233

[Sparrow.P]

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

38/41
Name of Combat Mission: WFW 233
Number Within Campaign: 2/4
Game: ARMA 3
Server Hosted on: TACR
Date of Combat Mission: 10APR24
Time of Combat Mission (Zulu): 2300z (1800CST)
Mission OIC: Captain Beiter.A
Mission Controllers: Chief Warrant Officer 3 Sparrow.P | Chief Warrant Officer 2 Villmarsson.L

Attendees:
Captain Beiter.A
Second Lieutenant Narramoor.A
Sergeant Major Preacher.A
First Sergeant Vincent.L
Sergeant First Class Abate.L
Staff Sergeant Westcott.R
Staff Sergeant Phillips.B
Chief Warrant Officer 3 Wulf.C
Chief Warrant Officer 2 Villmarsson.L
Warrant Officer 1 Sutodoreh.W
Sergeant Crowley.T
Sergeant Davis.D
Sergeant Gann.T
Corporal Almaguer.R
Corporal Bethea.A
Corporal Blake.H
Corporal Dio.B
Corporal Kastor.K
Corporal Whitehead.B
Corporal Rodahl.S
Specialist Hamm.C
Specialist Borenstein.B
Specialist McAllen.J
Specialist Rok.M
Specialist Winters.R
Specialist Fox.R
Specialist Daniel.S
Private First Class Kuusela.N
Private First Class Harris.K
Private First Class Shere.J
Private First Class Neubauer.P
Private First Class Peterson.L
Private First Class Vincent.C
Private Rossi.C
Private Grills.A
Recruit Tahai.L

Reservist:
Eugene.R

Non-Cav Personnel:
MikeM86
Mr. Boyd

Pros:

Cons:

 

[McAllen.J]

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

Element Callsign: Atlas-1
Element Leader: McAllen.J

7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
Winters.R
Pros:

• Decent amount of work
• The contact was pretty good, didn't feel too overwhelming

Cons:

• We need to make sure we follow the flight plan so we don't have unnecessary casualties from getting shot down
• The communication between me and the non-cav personnel could've been better

 

[Spit.K]

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

Element Callsign:Grizzly 1/2
Element Leader: Specialist Hamm.C

7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
Chief Warrant Officer 2 Spitnale.K
Private Grills.A
Private Rossi.C

Pros:

• Busy throughout the operation with tasking
• Stick time with new aircraft is a must, tonight we achieved that agenda.

Cons:

• Testing scripts, and Zeus intervention caused framedrop/immersion issues.
• Teamwork amongst the Grizzly flight element could've been better.
• Coordination between air/ground caused some confusion.
• PVT.Rossi.C was cleared to fly during the OP but Grizzly-2's Pilot was requested to take over when SPC.Hamm.C dropped.

 

[Peterson.L]

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

Element Callsign: Raider-1
Element Leader: Private First Class Peterson.L

7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element: Chief Warrant Officer 3 Wulf.C


Pros:

• Busy throughout the operation with tasking
• Fun mission to run with all the different elements involved

Cons:

• Poor communication at the start of the mission lead to Grizzly flight with no escort.
• Communications at mid to long range distance distorted or simply unable to receive.
• Thermal vision issues resulted in Raider having trouble finding ground targets.
• Repair/Rearm timers are too long.
• Unnecessary Zeus interactions in some areas

 

[Blake.H]

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

Element Callsign: Misfit-7
Element Leader: Corporal Blake.H​

Pros:

• Excellent Work by MISFIT-2 & -5 on securing our downed bird and enabling us to extract.
• Big props to -5 for deleting the ZSU with a stick enabling birds to land for CASEVAC.
• Big props to MISFIT-2 CLS (Sergeant Davis.D) thank you for making life easy - i did say you'd be an honorary ATLAS member this operation.
• ATLAS responded well to being out of support of -7 for 75% of the operation.
• ATLAS pushed radios to platoon Decimal-five (132.5) for effective dispatch by Platoon Command when -7 was unavailable due to red chain disconnect.

Cons:

• TFAR radio distances were very odd during this Op, from main base to the objective (10km+) was reachable via SR radios at about 3-5 but LR radios did not have the power to transmit or receive even 1-5 quality.
• Grizzly deviated from their flight plan, bringing us too close to an enemy held airfield which resulted in downing.
  • Result: 2 Black Tags MISFIT-2, Both pilot & co-pilot Black Tag.
  • Ran out of all fluids and all bandages but quick clots just prior to crashed EVA
  • Compounded by slow response from Air Support & Raider also being shot down.
• No Phenylephrine autoinjectors by default in the platoon medic loadout
  • I always manually pack these, if i hadn't there would have been a lot more Black Casualties from that crashed bird. The IV phenlyephrine is good for a single patient when you have time or lots of hands to be placing IV's but it is very ineffective in MCI Care. Would recommend that the platoon medic has phenylephrine autoinjectors by default - when you're working alone you need the fastest possible way of achieving your goals of treating massive hemorrhaging in multiple casualties.
• Had little time working with ALTAS due to distance after being shot down.
• Redchain issue observed by myself, probably clientside.
• Lidocaine is broken in regards to blocking the pain of resetting simple fractures.
• Unable to remove ComTacs from Platoon medic helmet, reducing tactical awareness.

 

[Fox.R]

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

Element Callsign: EAGLE Flight
Element Leader: Specialist Fox.R

7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
Warrant Officer 1 Sutodoreh.W

Pros:

• As always, outstanding communication with CHAOS (Kastor.K) who also tried very hard to keep both fixed-wing and rotary elements busy throughout the op.
• Good comms with Raider.
• Enough red air to keep both Eagles on their toes (thanks Villmarsson.L!).
• From the air, the op seemed well designed and adequately balanced.
• Sutodoreh.W was very supportive and provided helpful advice on being flight lead.

Cons:

• Radio issues at the beginning of the op resulted in lack of coordination of the initial SEAD mission.
• Rearming and repairing the F-18s takes too long. The pilot having to manually mount ammunition on each pylon isn't realistic or fun, and it lowers the overall quality of air support the unit can provide.
• The new F-18 mod should have been tested more thoroughly before being deployed in a live op. There were issues particularly in respect of its compatibility with certain ordnance. As a result, target lock did not work correctly, which resulted in at least 2 missed targets in KZ Tampa.

 

[Dio.B]

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

Element Callsign: MISFIT-2
Element Leader: Corporal Dio.B

7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
Private First Class Harris.K
Corporal Dio.B
Sergeant Davis.D
Staff Sergeant Phillips.B
Second Lieutenant Narramoor.A
Reservist Eugene.R
Private First Class Delgado.C
Specialist Apollo.R
Sergeant Crowley.T

Pros:

• Reacting to contact was well done, casualties were dealt with in timely and organized fashion while under fire
• Fireteams worked together to position and support each other dynamically at various points
• Mission lore appreciated - mission flow loop was welcome change

Cons:

• 2 red tags were left at crash site extract during the chaos of the situation, thus leading to preventable black tags
• mission should have continued intent or adjusted to retreat/extract after grizzly-2 shootdown and ultimate inability to insert on LZ/s dog or cat until very much later where other misfit squads sustained heavy combat and casualties. Platoon stagnation kept the fighting on the LZ's and bogged down further inserts and supports.
• MISFIT-2 lane to assault airfield poorly planned leading to difficulty moving through and securing lane.
• More transport flight security would have been an asset along with consideration for OPFOR AA capabilities along flight path

 

[Hamm.C]

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

Element Callsign: Grizzly Flight (Grizzly 1, 2)
Element Leader: Specialist Hamm.C

7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
Chief Warrant Officer 2 Spitnale.K
Private Grills.A
Private Rossi.C

Pros:

• Enjoyable mission despite some frustrating setbacks; still had fun and it was a learning experience.
• Excellent and detailed OPORD.
• Boarding plan and execution seemed like it worked out great.
• Great decision to change the Primary LZ to Cat instead of Dog.
• Excellent improvise/adapt/overcome reaction/recovery after Grizzly-1 shootdown. Without killing that AA threat, rescue of the downed ground forces would have been extremely unlikely if not completely futile.
• Great comms with Misfit-5.

Cons:

• Extremely unfortunate hard crash/disconnect for me (Flight Lead and PIC) at worst possible time; helo was spooled up and troops on board and was seconds away from lifting. This, however, resulted in good decision making by Misfit-5 and coordination to continue the mission with Grizzly-2 take-off and insertion of troops. Good Grizzly Flight succession of command during this time.
• Grizzly-1 Shootdown: With regard to deviation from the flight plan, I made and marked the flight plan prior to startup and certainly before my DC. Deviation from a non-precision flight plan is not uncommon nor is altering it. Happens all the time, altering and updating many times in in-flight/mid-flight, sometimes marked, sometimes not. After my disconnect and apx. 5-7 minutes in the dark while reconnecting and starting over as quickly as possible, I fully anticipated the SEAD/CAP aircraft (Eagle 1, 2) to have cleared our marked Avenue of Approach/Route of Flight (aka flight plan) of enemy AA. This was not the case. It is definitely understood that there was a comms issue/failure, however, the OPORD stated "CAP and SEAD priority" for the Eagle aircraft. Naturally I thought our marked flight path would have been cleared by this time. I was also aware that Grizzly-2 had transited this general area of the map relatively safely. Strongly recommend in the future we emphasize the paramount importance of CAP/SEAD/Escort Security along the transport's general Avenue of Approach/Route of Flight, especially during bulk transports such as inserts/extracts.
• Zeus intervention was too involved. IMO, Zeus should generally be more like "the man behind the curtain" and avoid intervention, not just in terms of their Zeus powers, but also in terms of advising players with unknown information, instruction, or "hints". [Fog of War realism/immersion loss]
• Strange spawning of herds of AI was weird and resulted in huge performance hit. Understood this to an experiment of some kind.

Note: Pretty sure the date and WFW# is wrong at the top on this AAR as it occurred on 10APR24 and it was WFW 233.

 

[Kinser.E]

S1 Locked!
Assigned Rutkowski.P for processing

 

[Rutkowski.P]

S1 Operations Processed.