We are definitely being sorted into the newb rubbish bin. The other day I joined NWA [UK] with mael and we led a squad. Iron Ridge was the map. We as insurgents. Our performance was anything but newb and I know that we represented our name well.
Mael and I loaded in and we were really short on spawn points. Insurgents were really well organized and so was the enemy, this was a heavy mumble use server. Immediately had some randoms join our squad in a breach and secure operation on the western edge of the city. OpFor were trying to establish a base of fire in a highrise apartment building overlooking an AT weapon that was deployed to cover a main road coming into our west. Mael went to go get some ammo for the AT guy and I went to secure the area.
As I entered the building another squad ran up the stairs so I secured a small entry point in the bottom, mumble chat was riveting and confusing. Their medics were hiding out in the brush to the west of the building, they attempted to retake the bottom floor waiting for us to clear out so that they could save tickets by reviving their buddies on the top floors. It was only 2 guys trying to resecure floor 1, but I had a blast fucking with them and killed them both twice. With glee, I cackled as I thwarted their attempt to revive. I gunned him down as he entered, then I tossed a nade on him just as he was getting revived. After the nade, I hopped out the northern window and circled the building to the south and flanked both, emptying a whole clip into the medic and AR support that ran up to help secure a revive location.
Mael had gone to pickup ammo for aforementioned AT weapon, in securing the area I verified the guy already had a new crate sitting next to him, so we were ready to jump to our next mission.
CO/SLs had already asked for a FOB to be setup near a hidden cache. By the time Mael and I hooked up in the supply truck, the hidden cache was known and we were in a panic to get the truck up there before the inevitable enemy armor showed up.
I chose a spot two and a half grids west from the now known cache. Mael started driving there and we got lost quickly. Between the IEDs in the streets and the tank traps blocking roads, it was a total cluster getting out of the city to the northern hedgerows.
Eventually we got there, I chose a spot, and we dug the fob. I went to go put down an AT weapon at the junction of a pair of hedgerows... Thats when we heard the rumble of a MBT and APC in the distance. APC was heading up our ass and the MBT heading from our west. Mael grabbed AT real quick and hot footed it into the woods. By that time the squad the APC dropped off to our west was all over the FOB and using it as a meat grinder. I spawned a few times like a lemming and failed horribly. By this time we had gained a few more blokes that were working with us pretty well. As we dispersed from the known northern cache, I tasked them with covering a bridge that crossed from the northern hedgerows to the city and their only other known cache at the time. I figured we'd catch at least a few displacing south back into the city from the hedgerows.
Some of the squad groaned that they thought enemy armor was going to use the NW bridge rather than the NE bridge we had camped at, instead OpFor ended up using the far east bridge and didn't come into the city. Eventually the ambush detachment got into some infantry contact and swept them out. Mutiny was averted by the infantry action when the bloodlust of the squad was satiated.
We came back into contact with that APC that had tore up our old FOB and must have caught the gunner taking a deuce because we rolled the SPG technical within a quarter mile of them before we took incoming fire. We tooled it out of there and forwarded their position to the rest of the squad. They took out the APC pretty quickly. From the deep western woods.
At this time, the SLs called me out and asked me to switch Mumble channels to SL. Atleast, I was on Mumble i thought. As I entered SL Mumble chat I hear brit voices talking about how we're newbs that can't read rules and 'most likely its just their flavor of the month and a week from now we won't see them anymore'. I just caught the tail end of the conversation, but could hear the rank disgust that all prejudiced better-than-yous carry in their tone when new guys are on the scene.
My opening line is 'Hey, thanks for the heads-up on the mumble SL chat, we're new to your server and been playing the game for a month or so. Willing and happy to learn/take criticism'. My basic corporate policy defuser when I walk into an obviously tense and awkward 'oh here comes the new guy' whinefest.
They tasked us with setting up an FOB further west nearly in the corner of the map and we hopped to. I took the SPG technical we had previously had and escorted the supply truck there and back. Some pretty bitching off-road driving on this map, seriously fun Ironman Stewart type shit. Especially considering the physics on that technical is so arcadey, with the best shocks/struts, tires and engine you would ever afford to have on a rusted out truck with an SPG welded into the bed.
Mael bounced back to main to pickup another supply truck. Picked up an Ammo truck by mistake I think and we tasked another Squad mate to go back again and pick one up. This cache was a little south and a lot west of the previous one, near a small cluster of oil derricks and related housing.
Had some awesome squad mates that followed orders really well. We got there and back with the crates pretty quickly and started in on our supply role.
I started playing Sim FOB (thx mael), and placed a fox hole for over watch, two 50s and AT setup in complementary overlap in the field at the corner of the hedgerow that had the Cache in it. Fob was setup about 3.5 grids NW of what is now a known cache.
Also setup a couple of mortars and started requesting targets. Little did I know they already had marked a shitton of stuff on the map but were too lazy to bring out their binocs and request the fire missions. Consider that I am one of the Mortar gunners and new to gauging distance, I have nearly 0 depth perception in this game, I know people talk about scale and that equates into each grid equaling an amount of meters and then its all fractions from there... another case of how vital map knowledge is.
Some lessons I learned while playing sim-FOB. never setup a HMG/AT nest anywhere near flat terrain in a 4-5 foot grass high field.
Always give your shovel brothers a break and have them swap out at overwatch/cover. This excludes SL who should either be placing assets or shoveling.
A few squads started using it to great success. they tried pushing armor at us through the hedgerows and we had three squads laying in ambush all over them. We covered our flank, really, if anyone had challenged our FOB from the south they wouldn't have ran into too much resistance, just a guy with a pair of binocs and an technical SPG that was nearly out of ammo.
Mael did a stalwart job on hiding the truck and also overwatch. Pretty much an ideal troop to lead.
I dispersed the group from the FOB defense, kept one guy back with me to help with manning the mortars. Eventually sent him off with AT to go help out. We shot some mortars and at most got 2-3 infantry kills. Really need a training session with mortars and map scales though. Maybe there is a quick reference sheet out there that has maps and scale on them.
We bled them hard with that FOB and a solid hedgerow defense. Chatter on mumble SL was sporadic and while they were speaking I couldn't hear our squad's BF2 VOIP so Mael ended up doing quite a bit of leading for the squad.
FOB was never really challenged and Mael and I were getting a little bored. They pushed up real hard on our cache and Mael manned the SPG. We stopped the technical a few times and switched to the front MG gunner spot to lay down some suppression fire. we eventually found their stryker and MBT north east of the cache surrounded by our troops. I drove Mael up to within range of both and we realized somewhere in transit that we only had 1 round of SPG ammo left. BTW, I have no idea how to reload that thing. I heard one guy said that you have to use an ammo kit and another said you needed to use crates? so not sure which is what.
Experience was awesome, the euro PR servers are a ton of fun, much more organized and have stupid little rules like 'MUST USE MUMBLE' so, have to be careful what you do on which server.
