*sobbing*
Oh my go-
guys I have horrible news
Barry took a bullet too many and has died
*balls eyes out*
It was a simple mission, we were attacking Alma's NE sector from the East by day. We had heli-dropped in two sectors away to the East just before dawn, fought our way through the first sector with no problems, then entered Alma. My men were still rested even after that first engagement. We were able to top off our ammunition too so everything seemed great.
When we entered the city, we were immediately detected by a sentry which I dropped near instantly.
This campaign I've been using 'light' AR's much more frequently than the heavy battle rifles I normally use. So much of my squad was decked out with Commando's or M4's. I also had an FN Minimi as support, an M16a2 for my designated markswoman, but a regular smg (aug para) and a mini-14 in my 2 man squad 2 (couldn't afford to buy a morter and nade launcher for them yet, they are my intended
heavy support team- god I wish I had the explosives with them... woulda made a hell of a difference in the battle.
After that first kill, things seemed to be going smoothly, I fanned my team out taking what (little) cover was available.
But things got sticky really quickly. I was engaged from two different areas.
no one was in a good defensive position yet. Although Barry and I were 'covering' the rest of the team's movement from near some rocks, I wouldn't say we were 'entrenched' too well. Barry was effectively exposed to fire from our left flank since he was in a position to cover the mountainous corner to our right. His only other choice of position with cover would have been the smaller rock closer to the cliff, but that would have limited his line of fire too much. Scope and MD were pretty much in the open, taking the most fire- forcing them to hunker down in the open. The only thing going for them was the long range between them and the enemy positions. Wolf and Grizzly, Bull and Dimitri didn't take any of the initial fire and were able to continue movement south to the lightly wooded area and into cover.
Wolf started supporting MD and Scope with covering fire from behind a tree, while Grizzly, Bull, and Dimitri continued movement South and West. MD, my Minimi gunner, was able to get his composure and started spitting 5.56 at the enemy in great quanitities. Scope, my designated markswoman, strayed from her role and essentially acted as an LMG gunner too. At that point, with their exposed position, they became less concerned about
killing individual enemies, and focused more on
suppressing the growing number of enemy combatants. Barry and I were keeping our hands full on the right flank, doing our best to keep the enemy by the cliff occupied, but our angle prevented us from laying fire on a lot of the guys that were blasting away at MD and Scope.
This was a situation where I was both thankful for being equipped with 'small
er' AR's while at the same time wishing for heavier firepower. The m4's (and commandos, but ill call them m4's too) were good for throwing lead down range fast, which was good for keeping the enemy's suppressed, but, the long range had a severe impact on accuracy. Paradox if I ever saw one...
This is a situation where I still argue with myself whether I should have employed better 'Fire and manuver' tactics or not... With MD and Scope pinned down and in the open, I had the option of deploying smoke to provide concealment in order to cover a tactical retreat to the south (away from fire, and into cover)... But, as I saw it, there were several problems that would have presented:
1) Assuming all went well, I'd have left myself and Barry pretty much alone. with limited cover and
no space for maneuver. (Well, thats not entirely true, I possibly could have ducked into the mine entrance, but that would have put the team two teamates less for the remainder of the fight- two very good shooters less at that)
2) Pretty much everyone capable was shooting as fast and hard at the enemy as possible. I was focusing less on killing and more on keeping heads down. For example, had I switched tactics and fired directed shots at specific enemies, I may have successfully killed one enemy for each shooter (best case scenario) in the round, but that would have left too many enemies with full APs ready to return the favor. So to deploy smoke would leave me (at least) one shooter down for the round...
3) That would not have been
too harsh a situation (1 shooter down for a round), except that the best person for throwing smoke was likely Scope or MD... MD was my primary shooter for suppression fire, his Minimi was the best tool I had out there for the purpose and I didn't want it to stop shooting, and even so, both he and Scope were consistently low on APs from return fire, so I am not even sure if I'd have been able to get them to toss smoke in the first place, and if they did, they might have been stuck in a crouched position cuz they lacked time to get back prone after the throw- and that would prolly be near fatal.
4) And had I used someone else to toss smoke, I'd risk missing good placement due to the toss range, making me have to throw more. Throwing more by itself wasn't an issue, all of my teammates carry two smoke grenades each... the lack of constant fire downrange from people busy throwing was the issue. Regardless, Barry (closest to the smoke 'target') was in no position to be leaving prone for the same reason as MD and Scope.
5) Finally, even if I did get smoke in place, I'd have to wait for it to spread a little, then MD and Scope would have to
stand up, and run across a field... something I doubt their limited APs would let them do too well before they got shot to pieces and/or forced back down.
So... I didn't deploy smoke... wise or not, I am still unsure- but there's no going back to change it now. Things were getting sticky
fast. Bull, Dimitri, and Grizzly continued moving south and west, intent on coming around to flank the growing number of red and black shirts to the north. Problem is, they bumped into an enemy flanking maneuver... luckily my men moved from cover to cover, so I got the 'drop' on the baddies.
(*note: I adjusted image a little to better reflect situation)
Things by this point were pretty bleak. MD, Scope, and Barry had all been hit at least once. I'd already thrown a grenade or two by the corner of the cliff, to less than desired effect (many of the enemy had been 'pushed back' to out of my firing angle). Barry was stuck taking the heaviest fire because he had a better (or worse, depending on how you want to look at it) firing angle around the cliff. For every enemy we dropped, two seemed to take his place (I am pretty sure the sector got reinforced from the north mid-fight).
Grizzly was actually forced to pull back a little when he got bum rushed by two redshirts from between the buildings to the south. Wolf was frantically shooting in all direction trying to cover his teammates, he was in an advantageous position in the sense that he had a line of fire to near every enemy, while taking pretty much no fire himself. He would often fire a burst to the north to support MD and Scope, and then fire another West to support Grizzly in the same round.
Bull and Dimitri were able to continue moving west. Dimitri was (thank god) equipped with a lot of 9mm tracer rounds, so he could walk his shots into the group farthest south pretty easily with huge 12+ round autofires. That allowed Bull to hop from tree to tree to get in closer to a point that he was able to take over the suppression role himself. Since he had a semi-auto mini-14, he shouldered it, and drew his glock 18. He auto fired his entire 15 round magazine
and reloaded each round for four rounds- until he ran out of ammo. But his ammo lasted long enough for Dimitri to get in closer to finish the group off with a little help from Grizzly...
During all this some horrible things happened...
Scope and MD
both got shot up pretty bad... and I mean
bad. Their own fire started falling off as their injuries grew and APs fell. Wolf had been busy providing support for Grizzly for a bit, which meant he was providing less cover for MD and Scope. Add to that an enemy grenade that landed directly next to Barry that exploded, sending him and me flying. Think that was all pretty bad? Think again,
it got worse: Barry had dropped his backpack containing all of our high explosives when the engagement started... ...and he never moved from that spot. Something in his pack went off, creating a secondary explosion to the first grenade.
That sucked.
Before Bull, Dimitri, and Grizzly managed to finish overrunning the enemy's right flank, Barry took his last bullet. Two strong bursts from the group by the building took him out.
But his death seemed to create a resolve to win in our hearts... and we pulled through. Bull, Dimitri, and Grizzly swarmed the left flank, Wolf advanced a little as well, and between the angry fire from the woefully injured MD, Scope, and me (Goron), we were able to pacify most of the immediate threat.
But Barry was not alive to make the final push with us, moving in to the town proper...
R.I.P. Barry Ungar
(*note: Images are not to scale. Drawn from memory. Sequence of events are approximate in timing, but accurate in detail.)
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Topic: What makes a good Tactics game? Also, Jagged Alliance 2. (Read 35479 times)