by Callahan » Sun Nov 20, 2011 10:22 am
AAR
LOW IV
This event had a great amount of sign ups, large interest from the players, and the Admins were fantastic. The planning on their side, including the player handbook was an essential that brought clarity for all the players.
I was USRF on Supply, and our Supply team consisted of 8 outstanding people who really clicked and made things happen.
My major complaint with this event, cannot go against the administrators, but rather the leadership of the USRF. I realize there is a lot of CAG personnel here who may opt to defend Phoenix, and I'm okay with that type of teamwork. However, after spending $30 to be let down significantly in this regard, I have every right to mention it so that Phoenix may better himself as a leader, and work on his command potential.
The biggest point in writing all of this, is to provide perspective to the commander of how people under his command were doing, their morale, their beliefs, which I feel is critical if you are to improve yourself.
Failure in effective planning:
The plans were very half-hazardly drawn out in our forum, it was a paintshop job that was unclear. Follow up battlefield planning did not seem to work as well as it should have, that I cannot confirm / deny, only perspective.
Failure in the chain of command:
After Supply made repeated attempts trying to contact you for orders, and calls for assistance, it seemed like it fell on deaf ears, or one who was too distracted because you had an ineffective chain of command.
A chain of command doesn't have to have specific names, it could be units and you can fill them as people arrive. But having something laid out, with manpower levels, and leadership who are reliable in place.
Radio Utilization:
Part of the planning phase should have identified the communications sector. There are multiple teams out there, and there is a Chain of command / hierarchy in place to manage them. For the USRF it seemed like this was probably one of the bigger problems, failure in comms.
In the future, I would recommend that you have a RTO - Radio Telephone Operator, assigned to you, with a sole job of staying in contact with units in the field. In this manner, you can effectively deploy units, obtain rapid sit/rep requests, and overall organize the flow of operations.
Radio Channel Assignments:
This was not mentioned during the entirety of the planning phase, that is at least according to the forums. This would be good to have, to reduce confusion, to increase cohesion / awareness.
Taking the weight of the world:
Due to the above mentioned information, it was clearly evident that you were trying to manage too much. An assault was orchestrated right beneath our spawn area and to the left, it ended up with a mass of people running and getting suppressed / taken out in rapid fashion.
This kind of micromanagement neglected other teams, and scattered the troop forces beyond reeling them back in to be an organized force.
Command Post:
I cannot confirm / deny that something like this existed, but it may have been of good use to have an area, locked down by a team of defenders, in which you and your RTO could have concentrated on better comms and effective battle planning.
Casualty Collection Point:
As forces get taken out, this method could have been a general rule employed to all units of USRF. And it could be simple: If you go down, immediately from respawning return to the Command Post / CCP, and prepare for new instructions.
This would have enabled you to effectively re-enforce positions, in an organized manner. There is constant accountability from your troops, and is very applicable to Airsoft.
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To conclude, I am hoping to provide constructive criticism, not troll, or belittle you in public. After short discussion with other personnel there, it was very evident that these type of concerns came up with them as well. In other words, it was mutually shared.
I realize it must have been difficult taking on a large force and managing a large force, and I commend you for rising up to the challenge.
Callahan
Haha I really don't care much about winning or losing since I think this was the first Op my team won. (I'm assuming green team won?)
It's all good, we've all done stuff like that on accident before.
