This is an After-Action Review of a Coop mission, which took place in the afternoon of December 31, 2006. It could be said that this was a pre-new years celebration, because this was THE most intense mission I have ever played up to this point, in any game. It was three hours long.
I apologize for the poor quality of the screenshots…I was running at lowest settings to reduce lag, and my resolution was only set at 800×600. For future AAR’s I’ll have my game set at higher settings.
Also, there were two Humvee M2’s to the south of our starting position, near the road. We didn’t know they were there until after the mission.
Mission
Date: December 31, 2006
Game: Armed Assault (demo)
Difficulty: Veteran
Island: Southern Sahrani (SaraLite)
Mission: 01: Cooperative – 8
Description: Get back in one piece!
Day Time: Night
Weather: Rainy
Objectives
Team
8 Riflemen.
Ignatz (Owner in-game) – Team Leader – M249 SAW, 4 x 200Rnd. M249 Belt, M9, 6 x M9 Mag.
Xavier – M4A1 QDS CompM2, M136 Launcher, M9, 4 x 30Rnd. Stanag SD, 3 X M136, 6 x M9 Mag.
Leedeth – M4A1 QDS CompM2, M136 Launcher, M9, 4 x 30Rnd. Stanag SD, 3 X M136, 6 x M9 Mag.
The rest were AI, each was equipped with an M4 Aimpoint, 8 x 30RnD. Stanag, 2 x M67 Frag Grenade.
We all had Nightvision Goggles and Binoculars. Basically, Xavier and I (Leedeth) had supressed M4A1s, and 3 anti-tank rounds with launchers each, while Ignatz had the loud M249.
Duration
Real Time: Approx. 12:00 pm to 3:00 pm PST.
Game Time: Approx. 2:00 am to 5:00 am.
The Mission
First we did a few trial runs, assaulting the town from the south (it was set to the map defaults – noon and sunny). We got owned every time so Ignatz set it on night rainy. He led us north-east around the town to assault it from the east.
I was assigned to watch over two stationary infantrymen to the south, and took cover between two buildings, behind a tree. There was a Ural directly to my south-west, across the road, which would prove useful later on. They left the AI to watch my back and went to clear the buildings to the north, and recon to the west.
The buildings were cleared (no enemy was present), and they carefully made their way to a church. They discovered 3 infantry in a patrol on the north road, and we marked it on the map. A decision was made to have Xavier dispatch of three stationary infantry, and me to kill the two I was watching, as well as the three on patrol. We got them successfully, but I only took out two on patrol. The third we didn’t know what happened to, so we left it on the map. The others we took off the map.
Ignatz called the AI and I over to the church, which we called the Safe Zone. He positioned our AI to watch all the angles.
We discovered a military base in the form of tents, some equipment boxes, and two bunkers (represented as blue boxes on the map). Xavier took out the two in the north bunker, while I moved west on the hill to watch over the base and the two infantry in the south bunker.
I was not confident in taking them out since they were far away and were small targets in my aimpoint, and they could simply duck down into cover when I started shooting.
Ignatz and Xavier moved north around the hill to recon the collection of buildings to the west, and found a water tower and a warehouse. Xavier climbed up the tower, and Ignatz gave him a short lecture about using ladders (it’s quite different in ArmA), because falling down one wouldn’t be good (like what I did in Red Orchestra one time).
I spotted a rifleman exiting the base and running towards the west town (marked as “1 go north” on the map). This was bad. It meant the enemy knew where they were, and sent out a man to see what the hell was going on. He got really close, and Ignatz had to fire a burst from his M249 to take him down. Bad mistake. The enemy definitely knew where were were now.
We heard engines in the town. This was definitely not good, and sure enough, I saw a BDRM and a squad of infantry high-tailing it out of the base and towards their position. I didn’t have much experience with OFP/ArmA, and knowing that it was well within armoured vehicles’ capabilities to devastate infantry, I lost it over TeamSpeak.
I offered to help, but they said I should stay here and continue surveying the base. Xavier took out the BRDM with his M136 launcher, and produced an awesome explosion, which could be seem from my position, and probably for miles around. They fought off the rest of the troops, while the base continued sending one infantry at a time, which I thought was strange (do they respawn or something?). Unfortunately, Xavier got taken out, but he respawned, taking the place of one of our AI.
Ignatz returned to the Safe Zone, and we continued looking for targets in the town from there. Many were taken out. I ventured out to the north bunker to take out the two infantry in the south bunker. It turned out there were a lot of infantry in the base, because I emptied all my M4A1 magazines into it (at this point I had half of my bullets left for it). I reported this over TeamSpeak, and Ignatz ordered the AI to open fire. It all went to hell then. We had to get out of there. I started crawling back to the Safe Zone, but Ignatz told me to sprint back over. I got taken out, and respawned, taking the place of one of our AI. Now we had lost all of our anti-tank weapons (we weren’t about to go back for them). Ignatz ran over to the Ural we spotted earlier, while the enemy flanked us from the north-east, taking out most of our AI before they could react. Xavier tried running over to the Ural also, but got taken out, and respawned, taking the place of our last AI. Ignatz drove the Ural right over to our position, and reported that the truck was really badly shot up. Its condition was red. He also said that a tire was probably shot out, because the steering was off. Xavier and I mounted the truck, and we drove north-west around the hill, then straight north.
An interesting thing I noted in the game was that the gauges actually lighted up, and that they really moved while driving. And we didn’t drive with the lights on…Ignatz turned it on for my screenshot.
We drove west, and wrapped around south and east, to rest near the extraction point. At this point we dismounted the Ural and ran, then crawled our way to it. No luck. There was no radio command to call in the UH60, nothing at all. Even when Ignatz crawled right into the marked point. At this point we were thinking maybe we had to clear the whole town before we could be extracted.
Ignatz crawled up into the military base, tried to get into the BRDM. No luck, and we couldn’t blow it up either. He continued up, hoping to find some anti-tank weapons in the equipment boxes, but it turns out an enemy was manning the BRDM, because he was killed by it.
Damn. He didn’t respawn. But he did come back as a seagull. He did some recon for us (unrealistic, but hey, we wanted to win!).
We decided to get to the “Seize the city” objective. There were a few soldiers on our way there, and we took them out with no resistance, even though we had unsupressed M4’s. Xavier picked up an RPG-7 that Ignatz spotted, and took out the BRDM. Unfortunately, I missed my chance to cap a screen. I also picked up the second RPG-7 that was lying around.
Here’s a screenshot as proof of how long our mission took. We got to the square, and Xavier had to leave at that point. Later we found out he had to get off because “he got yelled at”. An AI took his position, and started running around. We found it hilarious, because he took the Ural and drove it around the town and stopped somewhere in it. At this point the mission was practically over, but I continued on, with Ignatz providing reconnaisance.
Ignatz found two soldiers, and marked them on the map. I took out the north one first by coming behind him. Then I backtracked and came on the west side of the south one. I pulled my sights up on him and just before I fired, he turned in my direction. Wow. Anyway, that was basically it. I was pretty sure we had taken out all of the infantry in the town, so I took the Ural (which the AI had), and drove it to the extraction point. Still no luck.
I took some screenshots of the sunrise from a hill, which came up rather slowly…
This was the point Ignatz found the two Humvees, south of our starting position. I ran over there, but Ignatz suggested I drive the Ural over there and blow them up. I ran back, drove it over, and got out, at which point the AI got out and started running back to the extraction point. It was hilarious. Anyway, here is the results. I narrowed it down to the best two.
Unfortunately, I missed the third RPG shot, because the humvee’s lights were blinding me. I wanted to get it off quick, before the fires went out, and so I missed. Stupid me. I should’ve stepped 5 metres to my right.
Lessons Learned
- Do not sprint in from of enemies. Instead, crawl. Unless ordered to.
- Always have an anti-tank weapon on hand.
Conclusion
Well, in the end, we weren’t able to finish the mission. I’m quite sure we cleared out the town, but we still didn’t get an extraction.
This is definitely THE most intense mission I have ever played, in any game. The enemy AI was smart; they knew how to flank, they could hear our shots and acted accordingly. This is why I love OFP/ArmA. But one thing I didn’t understand though was why the AI in the BRDM didn’t jump out to shoot Ignatz.
Well, that’s it. I hope you’ve enjoyed my first After-Action Review. If you have any thoughts, please leave a comment! And be on the lookout for more on the way in the future!
I’d like to send props out to Dslyecxi, whose AAR’s inspired me to make my own.
Updates
We went back to explore the mission a bit more.
This is the tower Xavier was in. When I was playing the mission I thought he was in a smallish water tower, not a huge one like this. Now I think he was pretty safe from threats up there.
The view from the tower. I didn’t know he had such a high vantage point.
We also found a freaky Santa picture hidden in the chimney. Probably an easter egg. :D You can do this by going into third-person view by hitting enter, then aiming your view downwards.
Copyright
Please do not distribute, copy and paste, post, etc. this without my permission. Link to it instead.
© 2007 Christopher D. Lee. All Rights Reserved.
Also posted on:
5.SS clan forums: http://thefifthsswiking.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=1625
Mod DataBase forums: http://forum.moddb.com/thread/19526/
Bohemia Interactive forums:
http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bin/ikonboard311/ikonboard.cgi?s=33e0b03af065832a1cb884fd2f3e83ce;act=ST;f=64;t=56790
