1/A-CO, 1-2IN - Alpha Company, First Platoon

After action report

Objectives:

Find the crew of a downed heli on the south-east of FOB Iron Wall. Additionally, destroy any enemy AA equipment and scattered camps in the jungle.

Accidents:

4x WIA: 2LT J.Drake, SFC C.Brock, SGT D.Shade, SGT A.Pendergast, 0xKIA, Lost 1x STRYKER GMG

Areas of Strength:

Preserving supplies - Towards the middle of the mission most squads had exhausted both their ammo and medical supplies, yet they were able to continue operations due to sharing equipment and doing frequent checks. Medical - Even though the need for a lot of medical is an indicator that something else is going wrong, medics did manage to keep KIAs to a minimum compared to the overwhelming amount of WIAs.

Areas of Weakness:

Break contact - a lot of time was lost in not breaking contact in time and staying on track. Widowmakers are not after every single bad guy in the area! Focus is required to stay on mission and complete objectives rather than chasing enemies. Platoon level comms - TLs not replacing SLs on squad net when they went down made it extremely difficult to communicate. Additionally, sometimes multiple TLs would pop on net which made things even more convoluted.

Suggested Improvements:

Either a better balance in AI numbers, or drop down their spotting skill in jungles. We all are aware of this issue with AI being able to see through tall grass and vegetation in Arma. An enemy squad in a dense jungle can easily overwhelm a player squad.

Overall Outcome:

Positive

Summary:

Widowmakers left base under the cover of darkness after getting a call from 3cab that their bird crashed in the jungle. Widowmaker squads immediately formed convoy and headed south east to the suspected crash location. The convoy ran into a small checkpoint which they paid off. Other than that, the road was uneventful. Once boots on the ground in the search area, squads split up to investigate some initial suspicious smokestacks.

It was immediately clear that the jungle was littered with small GSIM camps and squads quickly found themselves surrounded in contact. Ghosts and Scorpions took the brunt of the enemy forces while Spartans and Phoenix moved to begin the search. It didn't take long for Widowmakers to hear other gunfights going on in the jungle, and using sound, were able to locate the 3cab pilots. Unfortunately by the time Spartans and Phoenix were able to close in, the 3cab members were surrounded by GSIM and knocked out. Squad medics and CLS's rushed in and were able to save 1 of the pilots, CW2 Beaudoin.

Phoenix escorted CW Beaudoin to our staging point from where he was brought back to base.

Once 3cab members were recovered, Widowmakers continued their search for the responsible AA pieces. When closing in on Gadjadji Lawan, it became clear that this small hamlet was converted to a heavily armored AA site with about a company worth of GSIM residing inside or closely around it. Squads had a hard time moving in since there was no confirmation of civilian presence, and thus mortars could not be used. After some time, and a brutal fight to get fire superiority, the platoon was able to take over this village and destroy all AA pieces and ammo caches.

Widowmakers took a quick breather to recover and have supplies air lifted in after continuing their search, now looking to destroy the remains of the downed blackhawk since it was impossible to recover from its location and the damages it sustained without great risk to additional assets or other personnel. So Widowmakers asked the surviving pilot, as well as drones, to locate this wreck and move towards it. This movement was sluggish and time consuming due to all the sporadic enemy fire and inability to break contact properly.

Eventually Windowmakers made it to the heli site, planted explosives, and exfilled the AO from 2 separate LZs. Some fireworks destroying the blackhawk marked the end of the mission.