AAR AAR Campaign War in the West (2/4) : Operation Theatre - SME

Leifried.R · Apr 20, 2025

DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY
S3 BATTLE STAFF
Headquarters
7th Cavalry Regiment
COMBAT AFTER ACTION REPORT
Name of Combat Mission: Campaign War in the West (2/4) - Operation Theatre - SME
Game: Hell Let Loose Server Hosted on: Training Server 1
Date of Combat Mission: 19APR25
Time of Combat Mission (Zulu): 0045Z
Mission OIC: Second Lieutenant Leifried.R
Mission Controller: Specialist Williams.JB

Lee.N · Apr 20, 2025

Element Callsign: Axis Lead TC, Callsign "Rocinante"
Element Leader: Sergeant Lee.N
7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
Sergeant Lee.N
Specialist Stenberg.P
Captain Anderson.P

Pros:

Great tanking; both good and bad engagements but that's what makes it fun
Infantry support was great for over half the match; sometimes they got wiped and we didn't realize.
At exactly 1:17 in game time, Anderson creamed a Sherman in the North.
Killed a 76 with a recon tank at the end

Cons:

No AT guns with 2 tanks was unbalanced versus 3 (2?) tanks and AT guns
Teams were not balanced: I believe 49 v 46, in addition to the limited assets
I get the concept of an evolving operation over the course of several operations, but it doesn't work well for how we are structured as a whole. I am not sure what would make it better, as there will always be a team with disadvantages.
All of the assets removed from use by the Axis were kept by the Allies, plus they had 13 minutes to prepare on the D/E line.

Tawfik.Y · Apr 20, 2025

Great OP design and very fun. Allies plan was very well laid out, and squads adapted tremendously.
Cons: Command comms were a bit unnecessarily hectic sometimes.

Keif.A · Apr 20, 2025

Element Callsign: Allies Engineers Squad "Love"
Element Leader: Specialist Keif.A
7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
Specialist Mess.L
Specialist Thorb.D
Corporal Plummer.M

Pros:

Excellent defense
Great Communication and call outs
Great usage of tanks on both sides

Cons:

Beginning was kinda jumbled
Was set up to make a big push at the end

Barnes.D · Apr 20, 2025

Element Callsign: Allied Recon
Element Leader: Specialist Barnes.D
7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
Sergeant Pierre LaRoche

Pros:

Great design
Lots of fun sneaking in the backlines
Really good comms

Cons:

No complaints

Ackelson.K · Apr 20, 2025

Element Callsign: Axis TC 2, Callsign "Maple Thunder"
Element Leader: Corporal Ackelson.K
7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
Corporal Ackelson.K
Corporal Coutu.M
Private First Class Giglio.M

Pros:

Good crew cohesion and comms between infantry and tanks
Infantry support was great

Cons:

Armor teams seemed to be unbalanced
I got skipped in hot wash

Becker.J · Apr 20, 2025

Element Callsign: Axis Combat Engineers, King Squad
Element Leader: Private First Class Becker.J
7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
Specialist Narayanaswamy.A
Specialist Schulz.R
Private First Class Crooks.A

Pros:

Good communication and teamwork within squad.
Good fights where we were stationed, plenty of action.
Excellent leadership and communication from Commander, Platoon Lead and Squad Leaders.
Had fun running infantry support and mobile repair for our Heavies.

Cons:

Restrictions on Engineer put a damper on things, felt more like a discount recon squad than combat engineers.
No AT guns made us feel somewhat hopeless when engaged by enemy armor during the few times we had no armor support.

Konn.G · Apr 20, 2025

Element Callsign: Allied Lead TC, Callsign "Centaur"
Element Leader: Staff Sergeant Konn.G
7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
Sergeant Laui.M
Specialist Heinz.B

Pros:

Great tank gameplay from both teams.
Great performance by our tank.
Good teamwork overall.
Good coordination between infantry and armor.
Great Operation in terms of design and execution.

Cons:

Command communications were cluttered.

Arnold.W · Apr 20, 2025

Element Callsign: Allies AT Squad 1 "Baker"
Element Leader: Private First Class Arnold.W
7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
Specialist Loup.N
Specialist Payne.J

Pros:

Great Communication and call outs
Great teamwork being fluid with other squads
1Lt. Rhodes did an amazing job dictating on what's needed with whom and where.
SPC Loup and SPC Payne did an amazing job and worked very well with me throughout being my first Operation being a SL. (I'm not used to Squad Chat, Command Chat (with literally everyone talking) and also Discord Chat.
- Suggestion: If SL's are in discord with Platoon Leader then everyone else beside the commander should be muted in game. Would clear a lot up. If other SL's are marking properly that's the communication that a SL needs.

Cons:

If it's an official comms setting and people are not following that they should be discord muted if they can't follow. My squad brought that up and I agreed. It's been happening way too many times and gets quite frustrating.
At the beginning there was a mesh of what's allowed and what's not allowed. Axis Recon was shooting flares up BEFORE live time in the blue zone. If they are in allied territory shooting flares than we should be able to shoot them because they are giving our positions away easily to get shot once live. Either have a direct line of no contact or if enemies are within the point zone they should be allowed to be shot.

Flick.J · Apr 20, 2025

Element Callsign: Axis Commander
Element Leader: Specialist Flick.J
7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
Axis Forces

Pros:

Great teamwork from PLs and SLs
Operation was designed perfectly. Had a really hard time Commanding for the Axis side, and that's what made it fun.
Restrictions for the axis were tight (would have appreciated an airhead)

Cons:

Would have loved to have a 3rd tank crew
OVERPLANNED by myself

Herber.R · Apr 20, 2025

Element Callsign: Axis 'Charlie' squad
Element Leader: Sergeant First Class Herber.R
7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
Second Lieutenant Macpherson.C
Corporal Maca.D
Private First Class Teague.B
Private Hernandez.J

Pros:

Squad had fun and worked well together most times

Cons:

ALOT of pre-planning but little follow through with the initial plan
Command comms/PLT comms were very cluttered in the beginning and then became nearly non-existent toward the end.
Required roles/locked roles sometimes make OP's too challenging/over complicated.
Infantry and Armor cohesion needs to be worked on and fostered. Tanks shouldn't be seen pushing an objective alone.

Rhodes.R · Apr 20, 2025

Element Callsign: (King Squad) & (1st Platoon Leader)
Element Leader: First Lieutenant Rhodes.R
7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
First Lieutenant Rhodes.R (INF 1A)
Corporal Lemon.D (Support & FTL)
Corporal Jay.JH (Automatic Rifleman)
Sergeant Wagner.D (AT)
Specialist Darko.M (Rifleman)

Private First Class Arnold.W (AT Squad)
Corporal Travis.W (Infantry Squad 1B)
Specialist Tawfik.Y (MG Squad 2)
Corporal Grimshaw.J (MG Squad 1)

Solids

Coordinated armor push with SSG.Konn's tank against Western Approach was the single action which won us the match. Grimshaw handled the southern part of the attack, I handled the north, and Arnold protected the tank itself. Silver stars for all involved incoming.
Corporal Lemon basically ran the squad for me while I was platoon leading. Without him I would not have succeeded, and likely we would not have won the match. Bronze star incoming.
Excellent pre-planning by Hazen, even if it was a little last minute. Very strong commander, and rolled with the punches extremely well.
The time to brief our squads beforehand was essential in making sure that the operation went smoothly.
Great positioning and coordination by the squad, excellent communication.
Carmine and the Engineers did a fanastic job building the defenses.
Excellently balanced teams, very well done.

Improvements

Commands comms was busy. This isn't really even an improvement, because those comms were necessary for the success of the operation. Very few wasted words, I thought.
I was told that the map flip would happen at :45 and the map flip occured at :30. I don't know what happened, but more clarity would be nice.
Maybe we should put the Platoon Leader into solo or small squads. It's very difficult to coordinate a bunch of other SLs, while also leading with a full squad. Without Lemon running as my FTL, I would have been totally incapable.

Swanson.B · Apr 20, 2025

Element Callsign: Axis 'Jig' squad
Element Leader: Second Lieutenant Swanson.B
7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
Private Bird.W
Private First Class Matthews.A

Pros:

The organization, communication, and scenario of this operation were fantastic. Hats off to the organizers. It's an example to follow for all operations.
My troops had a lot of fun overall. We worked well together and moved as a group. I felt like we were effective wherever we were going
I'm always down for a challenge, and I believe that despite the restrictions, the Axis held the points very well and even almost captured the enemy point at the beginning of the match.

Cons:

No Cons on the operation itself.
Communications were a bit saturated at the beginning of the match and at certain moments during the game, but nothing too concerning.
I don't know if it was due to limitations of the operation that we didn't have any 'WAMO' or airborne, but I'm a bit sad that it wasn't included in our plan. I was on defense, and when I felt that the point was well covered by the defense team, I went off with my two troops to do some airborne tactics—placing some backline garrisons and destroying the enemy's. Toward the end of the game, while practicing airborne tactics, I made it to the enemy's point and destroyed their garrison. It's quite effective.

<3

Hazen.D · Apr 20, 2025

Element Callsign: Allied Commander
Element Leader: 2LT Hazen.D
7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
Allied Forces

Pros:

PL's and SL's worked together well and took initiative when needed.
Garrison emplacement was excellent.
SL counter response to enemy pushes was fast and impactful
Axis gave a great fight for SME
Comms were perfect for me to paint a picture.

Cons:

Dislike defense SL's complaining about being on defense.
When an enemy point is being capped, SL's need to stress getting the squad members IN THE CIRCLE.

McCaasic.C · Apr 20, 2025

Pros: Incredible flexible defense from small squads facing attacks from multiple directions. Incredible communication between squad members, and squads to make coverages.
Cons: better diagnostics and response to tank pushes

Donk.B · Apr 20, 2025

Element Callsign: Axis George
Element Leader: CPL.Donk.B

7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:

CPL.Donk.B	Combat Engineers
PFC.Tilley.B	Engineer
CPL.Baldrick.D	Assault
PFC.Fenrir.J	Support

4 man squad got 2 garries, full set of nodes south, full mines, and a repair station on Western, and all deployed to the forward garrison within 8 mins. Quickest utilization I had ever seen done with 9 mins to spare before live time. Amazing work by these professionals.

Pros:

Pre-planning of Op was incredibly well planned out by Flick. I have never had such a detailed plan of action.
Great teamwork and communication from my squad. Tank and garry call outs were stellar.
Great Satchel work by Baldrick and Tilley. They blew up many garrisons, fortifications, tanks and AT guns.
Fenrir was able to assist in getting many garries up. He lit up some barbecue with his flame thrower.

Cons:

Once we got punched in the mouth we had difficulty adapting. I should have built more south west red zones.
I lacked the manpower to maintain the south on defense or a full understanding of what to request from my Platoon leader to destroy southern spawn in the blue zone as I was fixing them. I felt that if I had tried to flank I would have left a hole in my own line, therefore was only able to spare 1 or 2 of my men at a time while we defended the spawn in B5.
I didn't have the presence of mind to get a redzone garry up in an optimal spot.

Travis.W · Apr 20, 2025

Element Callsign: Allied Infantry Squad 1B
Element Leader: Corporal Travis.W
7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
Major Mix.C
Specialist Blade.B
Specialist Rose.MJ
Private Rhamaad.K

Pros:

Fun Operation, "no complaints"
Excellent comms in squad
Great plan with good discipline from all sections
I enjoyed the platoon chat structure with the "leapfrogging" of squads
Loved being able to boss a Major around

Cons:

Class limitation was annoying for a trooper or two. I could have done better and swapping roles in squad
Transport truck was 20 seconds late leaving HQ at match start
Ok, command comms... The first half of the game was good. I was in 1st platoon and we did most of our communication in discord. Once we capped Western Approach I swapped to 2nd platoon to work defense expecting to do most of my coordination in discord again. But in the shuffle of swapping discord VCs and ATK/DEF roles people started to use in game command comms mainly.
- I think I misunderstood some details about the discord VC swap
- I misunderstood the role swap after Western cap
- I had various PLs and also the commander telling me what to do which got confusing
- I had two command chats in my ear which caused to have limited communication with my own squad
- I only ever listened to command comms when people actually called my name, way too much chatter to track everything being said

Carmine.J · Apr 20, 2025

Element Callsign: Allies Negat Squad
Element Leader: Second Lieutenant Carmine.J
7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
Private First Class Milkovic.D
Private First Class Salvatore.J

Pros:

During the defense of the church my 3 man team briefly acted as QRF and stopped a large enemy advance to the south by sneaking around the Axis push and placing a flanking garrison behind them to cancel it out. We then pushed back to the church wiping multiple enemy OPs on the way back.
My 2 troopers followed as many instructions as I could give them despite us getting thrown around the map and should be extremely proud in how flexible they were. During the defense of both the Church and West Bend my 2 troopers support swapped so many times I lost count to help replace the garrisons that kept getting knocked out and they fell back to rebuild nodes when no one else would.
Somehow despite the garbage command comms we won.

Cons:

I signed up 5 hours before the FTX, read the OPORD, thought I was going to be on offense leading an infantry squad and at the literal last minute I was somehow fully put in charge of the defense of both hardpoints "because I'm a combat engineer" which is beyond annoying but I decided to roll with it. I was "put in charge of the combat engineers" when in reality I had a fire team made up of 2 random other troopers that weren't even my platoon or combat engineers and apparently I had 2 other squads of "combat engineers" that were just radio silent and disappeared halfway through the match and all that responsibility somehow fell on me exactly 5 minutes before rally. Just because I lead a combat engineer platoon doesn't mean I constantly want to be thrown on defense for every FTX and I definitely don't want to take responsibility for somebody else's piss poor planning at the last minute.
Several of my platoon who actually are combat engineers participated in this FTX, but as usual like most FTXs my platoon just gets randomly scattered and placed in other squads. Not only do I not get to enjoy playing theses events with my own troopers but I also have to coach 2 people I've never met before how to put up wire and just hope the other 2 fireteams I told to do the same actually listened. Initially during set up phase I told my 2 troopers to set up wire to the South of the church, I told Keif's squad to set up to the North, and Tawfik's squad to anchor and build up mid. I again don't know who any of these people are and don't know how capable they are at building up fortifications or if they ever even bothered. My two guys built up all 8 pieces of their wire, placed some mines and some barricades, and that's about all we had time for before we were live.
My team got asked to secure our flank to the South of church from an enemy push and we fought off the attack and support swapped multiple times to keep the south garrison up. Right after my team secured that flank our team finally decided to push West Bend and I got screamed at in command comms to "Send one of my combat engineer teams up to the front to repair a tank." I told my 2 guys to redeploy because we held off the attack in the South. By the time we got to the attack garrison the tank had already fully driven off to the center of the enemy hardpoint. My team fought their way up to the friendly tank, saved it from getting blown up twice, and then once the hardpoint was secure command asked multiple times for people to rebuild nodes so I asked my 2 guys to again stop what they were doing and redeploy back to HQ to do that since no one else would listen and do it.
I don't know where the other 2 combat engineers squads that were holding the church leapfrogged forward to but it definitely wasn't West Bend because on several occasions our garrison on West Bend would go down and my outpost would be the only spawn on point. When my guys were done setting up nodes they hopped up to help me defend West Bend, and we reacted to infantry sneaking in around the point until another Squad Leader (who was suppose to be on attack) started micromanaging me and my guys to "fall back and stay within 70m of the circle" on West Bend and tried to waste our time to "set up mines" while we were actively keeping enemy infantry off the point. I asked my 2 guys who at this point are on their 4th errand in a row how many AT mines they had and they said one. I laughed and ignored the annoying command comms at first and told my 2 guys to keep fighting incoming infantry off the point only to have this obnoxious micromanaging SL (who again was suppose to be on the attack) pop up next to me on the hardpoint and bitch me out in proximity chat on why we weren't placing mines. Pretty much ruined the FTX for me and my support guy that was close enough to hear it and I stopped taking the rest of the match seriously from then on. My team is lucky I didn't log out for the night because that was the most annoying, unintelligent, unprofessional, bullshit I've ever had to listen come out of another officers mouth. What kind of brain dead officer runs up and yells at another officer to stop fighting infantry trying to get in the hardpoint and put up mines.
My 2 troopers got fed up being the teams logistics errand squad after being screamed at in proximity chat so they asked to go on the attack. We spent one life trying to spawn at an attack garrison only for our garrison on West Bend to get taken out again so we gave up, turned around, and immediately went back on defense because our team apparently wasn't capable of keeping the garrison on West Bend up without the 3 of us and I never took my outpost off the defensive point. As a reward for our efforts during hot wash we got told by our ungrateful commander that made our half ass lazy battle plan at the last minute that sometimes we have to suck it up and defend, which again my response is look at the scoreboard and where the hell were the other two combat engineer squads that were suppose to be defending? How did it fully fall on my 3 man? Maybe command should've planned better instead of throwing it on me 5 minutes before rally and dodging all responsibility afterwards. The reality is we wouldn't have even held the point if we weren't staying their defending, and we wouldn't have asked to go on attack in the first place if command didn't let some child SL ditch his position to come ruin my game in proximity chat. The Squad Leader that was trying to micromanage me had less than a third of my score and probably would've scored higher and actually killed something if they shut up, focused on doing their job, and played the game instead of following me around, harassing me, and screaming at me in proxy chat and the commander did absolutely nothing to help the situation. I screenshot the entire scoreboard after the match ended just in case I need to prove a point.
I felt like our commander threw the 2 guys in my fire team under the bus and gave us zero credit for the job we did do because we got fed up with the micromanaging and asked to go on offense for one life. Our team made a garbage half ass defense plan and tried to throw me in charge of it at the last second and we still never lost any of the hardpoints and it's only because we were winning our gunfights. The two other so called "combat engineer" squads that were supposed to be defending vanished after we captured West Bend, never communicated, and I was forced to put the 2 troopers I had through hell to make multiple redeploy support swaps happen that ended up burning them out.
Overall, this is another one of those FTX's that just makes me not really care to participate anymore. I'm tired of getting singled out and bossed around mid match by people that I feel are genuinely trash at this game, can't aim worth a damn, and are too busy staring at their redeploy screens or worried about what I'm doing instead of leading their own guys. Meanwhile, at the same time several other squad leads are radio silent, not actually doing anything, and somehow I'm still the one getting called out by name.

Angels.N · Apr 20, 2025

Element Callsign: Allies Artillery Squad
Element Leader: Corporal Nate Angels
7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
Corporal Nate Angels

Pros:

Great communication from what I heard on Command Chat.
Everything that was asked was done so kudos to everyone that was on the Allies.

Cons:

Getting skipped, when I was a Squad Leader (even if I was alone), I think that is absolutely disrespectful. Especially when it was told in front of everyone in leadership hotwash. If you are to skip me because I only did artillery, 1. I did more than just artillery, I was on defense and I was on attack multiple times. 2. A Direct message to tell me that I would be skipped would've been appropriate and I would've closed my microphone.

Maines.Z · Apr 20, 2025

Element Callsign: AXIS Platoon 1 Lead
Element Leader: Specialist Maines.Z
7th Cavalry Personnel Within Element:
Specialist Leaf.J
Specialist Yee.L
Specialist Lewis.P
Private Daelomin.J

Pros:

Passion by leadership to learn and strategize leading up to the Operation was spectacular
Good mix of crews for myself to command. Made me really think about how to approach the plan
Most everyone listened quite well to my commands which made things pretty smooth despite a loss
Beginning movements were quick and made quite a dent in the church defense twice
My crew was chatty, but not too much so. Quick concise callouts and for folks who don't normally work together, it was very cohesive.

Cons:

HUGE Overplanning. Having a plan A and B is okay, but planning nearly every scenario possible might not have been truly necessary
Not a fan of the concept of "Platoon Leader". We attempted to work comms wise with everything, but when things became hot, the command chat devolved slightly into a typical HLL game
Lost the truck quickly into the first push. We recovered somewhat, but it should have been a quicker move to Plan B rather than trying to stick it out (Mostly on me here)
I personally shut down mid way through because of the cons above as well as a personal issue (Again mostly on me here)
If you have no intention of putting a role into the match, DO NOT allow people to sign up for this role. More than a few were not impressed and would not have attended had the role not been available and it would be properly portrayed as such.

NOTE:

Rumors of a rule-breaker or two in regards to the roles above. Specifically medics. Dozens of hours of planning to fight a certain composition due to mission constraints only to find out that some did not even follow those on the other team is a sure fire way to cause HLL Operations to become barren right-quick-and-in-a-hurry. This will be sent up the chain of command.

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AAR AAR Campaign War in the West (2/4) : Operation Theatre - SME

Leifried.R

Lee.N

Tawfik.Y

Keif.A

Barnes.D

Ackelson.K

Becker.J

Konn.G

Arnold.W

Flick.J

Herber.R

Rhodes.R

Swanson.B

Hazen.D

McCaasic.C

Donk.B

Travis.W

Carmine.J

Angels.N

Maines.Z