What goes up makes others go down

With a decent GroupLink-script, you can do just about anything. Seriously. The majority of the ridicolously long 12-hour session today was on the training mission. Mix exercises with theory. Add a few thought-up-on-the-spot operations and you have an entertaining and highly-educational playground. U_U, h3adache, Stealth, Ices and Quicky all learnt today. From the nervous and uncertain commands of Stealth when I put him in command to the cross-country hike from Levie to the Everon Airfield. Just as before, I had help from a few OFP-vets who came and left on a regular basis.

We started off with a few exercises, one of them ending in chaos with nobody listening to me. I lost my temper for the first time during an excersise and forced them to run across the runway as punishment. After that some of the lads went on a patrol with the OFP-vets available at the time, while I stay back with h3adache and Stealth and teaching them the GRT (M203) attached to our main rifle the AK5.

The session's first OP ended with disaster. Our objective was Levie and we took it without any concerns, no casulties and OK on the ammo supply. Our aerial scout and transport was however forced down due to fuel shortage, leaving us stranded just south of Levie, forcing us on a several-kilometer hike cross the country back home. We had a contact on the way, but everyone performed outstanding and everybody made it back in one piece.

Well, almost everyone performed outstanding. One of the OFP-vets (whose name I will of course not mention) behaved in a manner I do not recognise him as on the forums. His way of responding to orders was laughable as he down-right ignored and/or made up his own just for the fun of it. He distracted my lads away from the patrol and had a negative impact on them, an impact which made my job much tougher even several hours after the OFP-vet in question left the server. And when he started firing upon friendlies in the middle of an engagement I was this close of kicking him off the server. I am truly ashamed of his way of acting, as he otherwise is a respected member of the community and an excellent player as he showed before he started going rebel on me. I do not want him to participate in the project anymore.

Next up was orientation. I was sick of people not even being able to drive a car to Montignac without getting lost. This had to change. I took them out on a patrol in the more secluded areas of Everon and asked them each in order where we were. They all got it right, and just when we were about to head back our aerial scout/transport spotted BMPs in the vicinity of Entre Deux. We loaded up and headed out. While we were training orientation I thought it might be a good idea to train parajumps as well and see if they could locate the rendevouz without getting lost. They all got there, although not very fast. It still surprises me how the hell I could've gotten there first when I was the guy who jumped the furthest away from the rendevouz...

This Op was a disaster too, as they seldom come alone. Only this time we didn't turn it into anything good like making it back in one piece. Stealth and U_U got whacked during the assault on the BMPs and h3adache was injured badly. Since h3adache also was our medic we were in a tight spot. Quicky stayed back to cover h3adache while I went for a transport out of the area (our aerial scout/transport once again crashed). I got toasted just 500 meters from the link-up point by a russian RPG. h3adache and Quicky got killed just 20 minutes later by a russian patrol.

Next up was command. I put Stealth in charge of a Shilka-hunt patrol. Stealth clearly wasn't prepared for this as he repeatedly asked the same questions to me over and over again, had no idea what to do, got lost, asked his squad for suggestions a billion times and used their aerial scout/transport way wrong - which ended up with the pilot (me) getting shot by the very same Shilka they were after. Stealth had to go in the middle of the patrol and OFP-vet Redkid siezed command. Once found out that Stealth had forgotten to bring along AT-weaponry on a Shilka-hunt Redkid ordered a withdrawal without any further casulties.

Next out was U_U, who led a standard seek & destroy-patrol in the area N/NE of Entre Deux. Although making good use of cover/concealment and taking it slow and careful U_U really had no idea where he was and where to go. We never saw action on this patrol.

The thing we did next was a simple yet fun and effective orientation/co-operation excersise. The rules are simple; the players are paradropped with big leaps between themselves into hostile territory with only simple weaponry and one smoke shell (green) each. Their job is to toss the smoke shell once the aerial scout/transport appears, which is combing the area. If they've chosen a safe and easily spotted LZ they will get picked up, otherwise they will lose and probably end up dead behind enemy lines. No communication what-so-ever with the pilot is allowed of course, although the players will have voice comms. Then the players have to decide, do they want to link-up so they together get more smoke shells to use and cross enemy-filled territory or will they work alone and take a safer route? It's simple, it's fun and it works as a training exercise no doubt.

We also practised how to respond to being fired upon when in unarmoured vehicles. U_U, Quicky and Ices learnt quickly and used cover fire, 40mm grenades and smoke shells efficently after just a few tries. Eventually the only serious threat I could pose as an OPFOR was them having a go at each other as they constantly drove over each other and crashed into one another. Vehicle training tomorrow kthxbye.

After that we just had a go with some co-op missions and also had a few rounds of Bjällbo. They co-operate extremely well when I lead them but as soon as I die or split them into smaller groups they get nothing done at all in a weird state of democratic anarchy where they all have to agree before they do anything and it still won't go as they plan. If one guy takes the leading role until he goes asking the others for advice again he goes through the orders way too slow. Rest assure this is something I will beat out of their heads with a butt-stock. How you beat stuff out of heads with a butt-stuck is beyond me, but you get the picture.

This state of democratic anarchy eventually led up to one of the most hilarious session of OilWar I've ever seen. As always in that mission I kicked the bucket in the beginning. Don't know what that mission has against me. When U_U, Quicky and Ices snatched the UAZ to drive to the Fuel Depot they went way off-target. "OK, just drive off-road to the south round these woods and we'll find it", Ices advised. "Bah! There's a road here, I'll just follow it and I'm sure we'll end up right", Quicky replied. They were oblivous of the columns of russian tanks that rolled by them, just meters away from getting spotted. They drove past patrols and didn't notice them, not even when they started firing at them. Quicky soon gave himself the nickname Rally-Quicky. It wasn't until 7 PM when Quicky remarked that he probably had to go to bed now since his parents were going up and he didn't want them to notice that he had been playing all night long that the 12-hour session ended.

Now for the results; h3adache and U_U are still the top players. They may not be leader-material (yet) but they are the players that are most willing to learn and least interested in whining. They are mature and learn from their misstakes. It's a joy fighting with them under my command as they are bright enough to react and adapt without me baby-sitting them but they are mature and responsible enough to see past things like most kills and being the front man. Put them in support and they can sit and watch a direction for 15 minutes without a word, still doing their job with 100% concentration at times when even I get impatient enough to let my guard down.

Ices and Quicky are very similiar when it comes to OFP, but very different when it comes to personality. They are both active and keen to point out issues and they are both hungering for command. They may not be as good as h3adache and U_U on taking commands, but they are still easy to command and play with. They do what their told. These are the lads that don't want to play with the big guns, these are the lads that want to play with the big responsibility.

Stealth. Right, here's an issue. Part of me says he'll learn, that he's just nervous and has probably not done anything even remotely close to this before. And he really means well, is eager to improve and play. He's the lad that goes on MSN, pushing me to start training at 16.00, before I've even had time to eat breakfast since last night/morning's gaming. The other part of me says that he's a hopeless case. He lacks the patience and the quick and tactical thinking that OFP-players must have. His range-estimation is laughable, his leadership skills are non-existant, he gets nervous and unreliable in OPs and exercises. During engagements on patrols I don't even know if he's in a firing position or if he's running about trying to figure out what the fuck he's supposed to do. I sure as hell ain't hearing that KSP90 putting down covering fire, that's for sure.

But then the first part of me says "I was once where Stealth is right now, wasn't I?"