AAR Arma 3 | Operation Steam Hammer | 07SEP24

[Moraru.R]

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

Name of Combat Mission: Operation Steam Hummer
Number Within Campaign: N/A
Game: ARMA 3
Server Hosted on: Training Server 1
Date of Combat Mission: 07SEP2024
Time of Combat Mission (Zulu): 1900z
Mission OIC: Major Highman.J
Mission Controller:
First Lieutenant Moraru.R
Corporal Bethea.A

Attendance: 42
Lieutenant Colonel Dread.M
Major Beiter.A
Major Bunnell.M
Major Highman.J
Major Ronen.R
First Lieutenant Sam.T
Second Lieutenant Grizzle.M
Second Lieutenant Rodahl.S
Chief Warrant Officer 3 Sparrow.P
Chief Warrant Officer 2 Villmarsson.L
Warrant Officer 1 Hamm.C
Warrant Officer 1 Sutodoreh.W
Staff Sergeant Hilberg.A
Sergeant Blake.H
Sergeant Crowley.T
Sergeant Davis.D
Sergeant Holiday.T
Sergeant Lucander.P
Sergeant Turner.T
Corporal Bethea.A
Corporal Abate.L
Corporal Albright.J
Corporal Burton.P
Corporal Houston.T
Corporal Kastor.K
Corporal Kuusela.N
Corporal Peterson.L
Corporal Whitehead.B
Corporal Zander.D
Corporal Zaren.T
Specialist Bonnet.J
Specialist Borenstein.B
Specialist Bryan.R
Specialist Frags.J
Specialist MacTavish.J
Specialist Rok.M
Specialist Xinos.T
Private First Class Gibbs.K
Private First Class Jackson.A
Private First Class Pierce.JA
Private Banks.M
Private Wolf.F

 

[Holiday.T]

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

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

7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
Major Bunnell.M


Pros:
Chaotic
Air to air kill with minigun
Loved working with Buffalo-1
Good amount of medical when we got on the ground

Cons:

 

[Albright.J]

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

Element Callsign: Atlas-1
Element Leader: Corporal Albright.J

7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
Private Wolf.F
Private Jackson.A
Private First Class Pierce.JA

Pros:

• Challenging OP for Atlas
• Team had fun
• Good medical work
• Good coms within the team & 7

Cons:

• Chaotic at times
• Team was forced to split up, followed by a disconnect that left the CCP understaffed for a while
• Many blacktags

 

[Lucander.P]

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

Element Callsign: Bandit-4
Element Leader: Sergeant Lucander.P

7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
Sergeant Lucander.P
Corporal Whitehead.B
Corporal Kuusela.N
Specialist Borenstein.B
Specialist Bryan.R
Specialist Xinos.T
Specialist Rok.M
Private Banks.M

Pros:
Target rich environment

Cons:
More Coordination between squads in the beginning.
More Spot reports.
More usage of CTAB

Requests:
Standard boxes for Mortar ammo, Maws ammo and Stinger ammo, so SBF elements can call for resupply from air.

 

[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:

• A good amount of medical despite black tags.
• The stressful environment was good to run newer medics through.
• Handful of good 6-lines.
• There was some good CASEVAC from infantry squads when we were pushed into the town.

Cons:

• The disproportionate force size listed in SALUTE is unrealistic for a Platoon(-) to manage.
• Enemy force composition dramatically out-ranged friendly forces, allowing them to degrade our force before we could engage them effectively.
• Proximity to the LOA meant that an area defense or delaying effort wasn't possible.
• AO was far too large for the platoon-sized element to handle, especially with the proximity to an LOA.
• BLUE on BLUE, multiple times, again.
• The enemy force effectively destroyed/routed the friendly force and stopped to allow us to push back into the town.
• The inclusion of aeromedical planning seemed awkward and unnecessary. It was conceptually really cool, but the medics who were on the helicopter and came for that experience didn't interact with those systems and procedures because the AO was overrun immediately.
• The time allotted for step-off did not account for the massive disconnects at the start (Atlas-1 disconnected 2-3 times before settling in).
• No SOCOM HMMWV for command meant that we were unable to use command vehicles for multiple purposes was not possible (evacuation, CASEVAC, etc).

 

[Beiter.A]

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

Element Callsign: BANDIT-2
Element Leader: Major Beiter.A

7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
Lieutenant Colonel Dread.M
Staff Sergeant Willson.JA
Staff Sergeant Hilberg.A
Chief Warrant Officer 3 Sparrow.P
Sergeant Crowley.T
Sergeant Turner.L
Sergeant Blake.H
Corporal Kent.R
Corporal Zaren.T
Corporal Houston.T
Specialist Frags.J


Pros:

• Fun operation.
• Felt like a mini–Urban Anvil just without the one life.
• Squad coms were pretty decent.
• Everyone within the squad had a fun time.

Cons:

• The platoon was way overextended with a very ambitious plan left a lot of the squads out of mutual support range
• Squad was wiped at least twice
• Step off time is what killed us during the start, Bandit-2 was ready after 4 minutes into the operation due to the fact that we were going to be the furthest element we did not have amble time to set up before taking contact.
• AI were super cracked it seems that way, they were sniping us from 1km out and wiped a majority of us out before we could even engage.
• Called for CAS several times and got no response. Not having any sort of CAS really hurt us on the south.

 

[Grizzle.M]

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

​

Element Callsign: Rotary Wing
Element Leader: Second Lieutenant Grizzle.M

7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
Chief Warrant Officer 2 Spin.M
Warrant Officer 1 Hamm.C
Specialist Rossi.C
Sergeant Davis.D
Corporal Peterson.L
Chief Warrant Officer 2 Villmarsson.L
Warrant Officer 1 Sutodoreh.W
Corporal Kastor.K

Pros:

• Great rotary involvement
• Great mission
• Good comms between all rotary elements and Chaos
• Three Buffalo-1 air to air kills
• All pilots and crew reacted great to different situations and adapted accordingly
• THREE Buffalo Air-2-Air Kills
• Good position for Chaos

Cons:

• Need to improve coms brevity
• Limited comms with ground at start and for the start of the op (but improved)
• Need to train for Atlas in a Buffalo, to include comms, equipment stored in aircraft, and general working together
• Need to improve ISR SPOTREPs to ground
• Red air was a little heavy but was great for engagement
• Poor comms lead to Blue on Blue incidents

 

[Rodahl.S]

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

Element Callsign: Bandit 5
Element Leader: Second Lieutenant Rodahl.S

7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
Second Lieutenant Rodahl.S

Pros:

• Mobile Defences.
• Elastic lines of defence.
• Great performance with the mortar and such.
• Good flex with the aeromedical stuff into ground medical.
  • Shame it didn't pan out.

Cons:

• Disproportionate force size.
• Ambushes were not used to the extent we wanted.
• 5 late to the field.
• Add a Truck for the HQ element?

 

[Highman.J]

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

Element Callsign: Bandit 6
Element Leader: Major Highman.J

7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
Major Highman.J

Pros:

• Decent turnout meant that we could stick to the plan (for what it was worth!) without alterations
• Very skilled and well-equipped enemy gave us a proper near-peer fight
• Our troopers are just insanely talented and skillful players
• Medical care was on point, despite their challenges
• Bandit-5 did a terrific job of taking over for me every time I ended up unconscious and/or deceased

Cons:

• The size of the enemy force was disproportionate, sure, but that doesn't bother me. One Cav Trooper is worth 10 of their guys. But we were briefed in advance that the purpose of the mission was to conduct hasty ambushes against mechanized infantry, and we planned accordingly. Given that design, the equipment and the skill level baked into the opponents was inappropriate and we paid the price in blood. The mission plan from my end was flawed from the start, and had I known it was going to be a slugfest at extreme ranges, we would have chosen different deployment options
• I did not do a good job of juggling radios, and I'm afraid that may have led to some missed support calls
• As a fool who can't help but to stand on the front lines and look through binoculars, I found myself uncon many times. This lack of discipline on my part meant that -5 had to assume more than his fair share of the workload, often times at the most inopportune moments.
• We knew there were going to be a TON of vehicles, but we were not prepared for how many at once, nor how aggressively they would try to outflank our defensive positions. We were also ill-equipped for this fight. The Sparrow is a surprisingly capable little fighter, but cannot carry enough ordnance to deal with that level of mechanized/light armor push. One or two Raiders would have evened the playing field far better

 

[Rutkowski.P]

S1 Locked.

Assigned Lawrence.M for processing.

 

[Lawrence.M]

S1 Operation Processed