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The Commanders Work at B9

Posted: 06 Jul 2011, 14:07
by Ober-Lix
I think it is time to brake a lance for the commanders of all units at B9, even I was one of them.
Since I know little of how Poldavian commanders worked with their troops, I know there were some very experienced people among them and they gave us at NAF a hard time. Freno, the UN commander, a very good friend of mine by the way, had the hardest job in the game and with the help of crazy dog did a fine job - thumbs up mate !
KVS The commander of 3rd NAF Rangers was the first time at Berget in the position of command and surpassed my exspectations with an very diceplined russian unit. No comparision with the russian consignment of Poldavia. BlackWolf the energic commander of the 6th Airborne NAF, showed his flexability and adjustment to situation changes and had his men under good control. The cooperation between MECH and AIRBORNE worked in my view very well.
To all commanders, Poldavian, UN, Zansian and civillian managers and elders my heart felt congratulations for a job well done.

Posted: 06 Jul 2011, 14:46
by EagleDriver
Having actually served as an officer in the US military, I have seen over my years of airsofting that it can be hard for people to put down the gun and take up a strategic leadership position. It takes a different mindset and you always have to keep the big picture in mind. I want to thank all of the commanders, but a special thank you to our NAF commanders, KVS, BlackWolf, and Ober-Lix, for putting down your guns and leading the charge!

Posted: 06 Jul 2011, 14:51
by A_Muller
I'm still curious on why there was so little coordination between 3rd rangers and the rest of the NAF forces?

My platoon was a recon force and as soon as we did manage to establish comms with HQ it felt like our information never got past rangers HQ, plenty of times we reported enemy advancement on our main base and not once was the base defence prepared for it.

A simple liason officer is sufficient to get info between commands.

Posted: 06 Jul 2011, 15:57
by Macahan
As EagleDriver said about putting down the guns and leading. I feel its needed on the tactical level as well. However i think the problem is that Plt commanders are airsoftplayers, commanding other airsoftplayers. But it would be a real treat to have a combatleader that realy leads, informs and command the platoon, with or withot his rifle.
Great thanks to Plt leader Simon, 2nd platoon, Dingo Coy, 6th airborne.
A clear and presant figure, easy to follow, easy to understand.

Posted: 06 Jul 2011, 17:07
by aidynskas
I'd like to praise the platoon leader of Poldavian 3rd mountaineers, 2nd CO,6th platoon Anders (sorry if the name is spelled wrong). We really felt that we always had a commander that knew what he was doing and were really happy to follow his orders. Hopefully we'll see him next year!

Pold 3rd, 2nd CO, 6th plt, 1st sqd.

Posted: 06 Jul 2011, 17:27
by Jin
It was an great honor to serve under command of:

Tiger_1 - 3rd Mount.Bat commander
Filin - 1st Coy CO 3rd Mount.Bat
Vitex 1st Coy XO 3rd Mount.Bat

That was my second Berget and it was first time when i saw High Ranking commanders walking among their men,travel ten's on kilometers on rough terrain like ordinary soldiers.
Helping with advice,even carry a wepon of tired soldier.

You can count on me on next Berget Sirs!
With you....to the edge of the World:)

Also i was glad to see Ober-lix and KVS but this time thru my scope but anyway was fun)

3rd Mount.bat,1st Coy,2nd PLtc

Posted: 06 Jul 2011, 17:50
by Ober-Lix
EagleDriver wrote:Having actually served as an officer in the US military, I have seen over my years of airsofting that it can be hard for people to put down the gun and take up a strategic leadership position. It takes a different mindset and you always have to keep the big picture in mind. I want to thank all of the commanders, but a special thank you to our NAF commanders, KVS, BlackWolf, and Ober-Lix, for putting down your guns and leading the charge!
I thankyou for your comments. I also have been in command as a high ranking staff officer in the german Air Force for 32 years. Let me tell you, as you might know, airsoft is a different ball game and you will have to adjust to it and put aside your military attitude. You are playing a game and you have to cooperate with the men under your command. Putting away your airsoft weapon as a commander ? No way, you go and do your best with the men. Maybe not all the time but often enough and that´s the fun of it.

Posted: 06 Jul 2011, 18:01
by Redmenace_tv
A_muller you would have to bring that up with your liason officer. It may have something to do with your hq being at the far end of the base to ours and blackwolfs. If you feel that you could help this situation volenteer as a staff officer next year.

Posted: 06 Jul 2011, 20:04
by Gravitas
Redmenace_tv wrote:A_muller you would have to bring that up with your liason officer. It may have something to do with your hq being at the far end of the base to ours and blackwolfs. If you feel that you could help this situation volenteer as a staff officer next year.
Also there's often a much more simple reason on why the base was often a little bit unprepared for the incoming enemy. It's any combination and these together:

1) it's airsoft, so people want something active and exciting to do
2) the enemy often took too long to get to the base (3hours from the report of actually showing up, might be too much for bored guards)
3) half-bored guards had already moved on
4) units that were supposed to be in guard shift (or on hot reserve) had gone on mission meanwhile (not uncommonly without the knowledge of HQ staff, and also not uncommonly as an urgent measure by another situation developing somewhere in the theatre).
5) also with the 3rd rangers in particular; occasionally when we relayed reports of enemy movement the answer was "thanks, we go it covered". And as it turns out; in the end we DID have it covered, as the Poldavians never managed to take the NAF base, until at the very end of the game (when base was intentionally abandoned and Pol drove in with vehicles).

When receiving updates on enemy movements from the field, I used the following system: I had a map. I made notes on it with timestamps, and also some notes to my notebook. When it started to look like an overall situation was developing or the situation became more urgent, then I took the info forward, and also often asked for the info the other battalions had.

This functioned the best on the last day with the assault on Janco: the 3rd had a few recon platoons out there and their info provided to be important on detecting the enemy gatherups and movement. Those I relayed onwards rightaway and I also witnesses Blackwolf taking action based on that info right away, just as it should function. The early days of the scenario didn't have this going as smoothly, that's true.

Naturally in a real situation there's a bit more tech and a bit more organization involved in gathering up all this info and keeping everyone up to taps on it. Now we had just a few men, randomly functioning radios and some shady notes ;-)

Posted: 06 Jul 2011, 21:51
by A_Muller
I do realize that they might have had it covered, but there was never any real acknowledgement of it, mostly responses were indeed something along the lines of: "Ok, thanks". So you felt like nobody really did either care about your intel gathering or bothered to pass things on.
I'm not saying that he had a bad HQ, on the contrary KVS did an excellent job for a first time commander, as already mentioned it really does take an entirely different mindset to play the CO-role and I doubt I could've done it better. I'm just hoping to bring up points and feedback that could improve things even more, just as I asked my boys in Bravo5, and they did deliver feedback, which got me to turn their attitudes pretty much 180 degrees in the right direction accordingly to them.

Feedback, both negative and positive is always needed to improve, it's never meant to hurt someone's feelings or insult people (at least not from my part).

My main point was essentially that we needed better comms, and it should have been established earlier before the game (sorry for nagging you about it KVS).

Until next year I'd love to see scheduled briefings both before and after a day of operations, at least to platoon commander level and between companies to better improve coordination and help you become aware of what to expect, where the resistance is, who will be where and if you can assist them or avoid blue on blue, etc.

And just one last thing, when you still have units out on mission, do not leave the HQ radio unmanned, the comms is our lifeline when out on deep missions without any real strength in numbers.

I guess those are my main points

Posted: 06 Jul 2011, 21:57
by Alberto
aidynskas wrote:I'd like to praise the platoon leader of Poldavian 3rd mountaineers, 2nd CO,6th platoon Anders (sorry if the name is spelled wrong). We really felt that we always had a commander that knew what he was doing and were really happy to follow his orders. Hopefully we'll see him next year!

Pold 3rd, 2nd CO, 6th plt, 1st sqd.
+1 to that. Anders (Precision) did a great job as a platoon commander as well as his deputy Robert. He had a difficult task to control 2 platoons of different nationality and to keep our morale with often changing orders on one side and keep his morale as a commander on the other side.

In general, this year we felt that Poldavian 3rd bat. was well organized and run by competent leaders. This motivated us to follow them. Obviously, we are not real army, so there were some failures from our "followers" side and some mistakes from the leaders but this is fine as long as we keep the right attitude.

I really enjoyed to observe how our leaders from top to bottom managed to move on a battle field a battalion size force of airsofters. Even with few questionable moments, it still looked incredibly good.

Posted: 06 Jul 2011, 23:26
by Panzer [Shepherds]
A_Muller wrote:I do realize that they might have had it covered, but there was never any real acknowledgement of it, mostly responses were indeed something along the lines of: "Ok, thanks". So you felt like nobody really did either care about your intel gathering or bothered to pass things on.
I'm not saying that he had a bad HQ, on the contrary KVS did an excellent job for a first time commander, as already mentioned it really does take an entirely different mindset to play the CO-role and I doubt I could've done it better. I'm just hoping to bring up points and feedback that could improve things even more, just as I asked my boys in Bravo5, and they did deliver feedback, which got me to turn their attitudes pretty much 180 degrees in the right direction accordingly to them.

Feedback, both negative and positive is always needed to improve, it's never meant to hurt someone's feelings or insult people (at least not from my part).

My main point was essentially that we needed better comms, and it should have been established earlier before the game (sorry for nagging you about it KVS).

Until next year I'd love to see scheduled briefings both before and after a day of operations, at least to platoon commander level and between companies to better improve coordination and help you become aware of what to expect, where the resistance is, who will be where and if you can assist them or avoid blue on blue, etc.

And just one last thing, when you still have units out on mission, do not leave the HQ radio unmanned, the comms is our lifeline when out on deep missions without any real strength in numbers.

I guess those are my main points
X2

Many things might have been covered, however if there is a fail of communicating this and letting it drop trough to the other ranks it can (will) be perceived as not being present. My advise to KVS: communicate communicate communicate with the entire command layer, get them involved in your planning, delegate where possible and it will all work out even better! The guys in the platoons were thirsty for havoc and were available for this. SITREP meetings with PL's should take place in a structured manner and not fall away for whatever reason. (This Is constructive advise chap!). I can very much imagine that being a first time BATCO for such a large force can be a serious bitch and stress mounts to perform. Especially having seen the expression on KVS and the entire command when it turned out that there seemed to have been several people who subscribed for Berget and the battalion didn't even show up chewing down the force-numbers of several platoons. This pretty much does not make it easier. As such and as previously mentioned these are some constructive suggestions to take steps forward to improve and in no way meant to hurt feelings as did Muller state. Hope you find something useful and valid in this chap, thanks KVS.

Additionally, those who deserve extra credits should get them as well and Gravitas, I speak in name of many when I say that you earned your stripes massively from several platoon leaders, myself and the men under my command.

All in all 3 Rangers stood, dealt and punched and i'm proud as are my men that we've been part of dealing by the 3rd and can look back at being part of a group that earned it's stripes!

Posted: 06 Jul 2011, 23:41
by Appelby
I can say that it was especially hard because I was bumped up from 3rd in Command to XO of the Un Forces because of some health problems. I found it hard but the rest of the guys thought i did a good job. :P :D

Posted: 07 Jul 2011, 00:18
by BetaCat
Our Commander, Olli, did an exellent job planning the ops and keeping everyone informed about situations at ongoing game! He had scheduled briefings both before and after operations even for squadleaders. He shared the intel with us (or at least need-to-know -stuff), so we knew much what was going on in the field (we we shared the same info with the rest of the squad).

If the squad were up for a mission, it did get one. If it were too tired, it was allowed to rest. At least my squad (and I'm sure that everyone else did too) felt that they were noted in every matter.

And Pete did exellent job too keeping the Firm up and running at Janco. Because him (and the other guys in the office), our intel from the village were up to date and we knew much more about the surrounding events as well.

So, thanks guys. It was an honour to serve under your command! We'll see you at B10!

Posted: 07 Jul 2011, 00:22
by Lokke
@A_Muller:

It's actually good to se someone else make critical suggestions.

I do, but it is usually drowned in the chouros "this is airsoft"

Offcourse it airsoft. But we can make it better.

The realay stations we (Poldovian) got this yer did not work. Unforgivable.

Yes, we could do that manually. Placing a com team uphill to forward orders...

Anyway. The Puxing range we have to accept. Not the relay not working.

This year the Poldovian forces did not use the koordinating power of a HQ. I think that is a sorry.

Because of that, mostly important intell from teams, was not used. Commander to buissy fighting in their own smal area. Poldovia had the HQ resourses to coordinate intel, but it was not used.

As a coy commander this is not forgiveable. I need al the intel I can get from HQ. And I report what I have. If only location.

All in all, it was very frustraiting. But : "hey, its only airsoft"..