TIME: Saturday, September 13 2014, 2100UTC

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Operation Seattle Spear

by Ollie

SITUATION:

     1st Marine Special Operations Battalion has been given direct action tasks scattered across the north island of Sahrani. The area is thoroughly controlled by enemy forces, but they're not expecting an attack in this region and their armor and anti-air aren't anticipated to be deployed in this area. We've got lots of jumping around to get the tasks done, but our airlift support should keep us nimble and help us out in sticky situations. We'll be like ninjas! Only, with guns. And helicopters. And more guns. Pretty much exactly like ninjas then!

SIGNUPS

Let's get the leadership slots full first if we can: CO, SLs, and Senior Riflemen. If you've wanted to try one, now is a good time! (We strongly recommend starting with FTL if you haven't done any leadership stuff before.)

Italicized slots are going to be lottery slots, that is, you'll state your intent to play it and on Thursday evening EST we'll pick the people at random. If you don't get the slot, consider yourself reserves for the main game (you won't get a specific slot and will instead take whatever's available at the slot screen)

Command

   Platoon Leader: Iron (no respawn, what's the worst that could happen?)
     Platoon Sergeant: Tortellini
     Platoon Medic: Quantus
     JTAC:

Alpha Section

   Section Leader: Quex
     A1 Automatic Rifleman: Fortune
     A1 Rifleman (AT): itookurpoptart
     A1 Grenadier: Fadi
   A2 Team Leader: Striker
     A2 Breacher (Shotgun): Will
     A2 Rifleman (AT): imdancin
     A2 Grenadier: Ling

Bravo Section

   Section Leader: Rageycakes
     B1 Machinegunner: Retro
     B1 Asst. Machinegunner: diet
     B1 Rifleman (AT): Charmander
   B2 Team Leader: Zaldarr
     B2 Automatic Rifleman: Sputnik
     B2 Rifleman (AT): Acid_Trip
     B2 Grenadier: Deadawake

Aircrew

   Aircrew: Chivalrous
   Aircrew: Dizturbed
   Aircrew: Shifty
   Aircrew: Beard
   Aircrew: Hoozin For A Broozin
   Aircrew: Ollie

Reserves:

   Sem
   Thenverizon
   Brensk
   Loen
   Myth
   A suspicious figure in de bousches
   Furryous
   Zhandris
   Edwin
   Saint
   Frog

Latrine Duty:

   Scrub Scrub Mr. Kurt
   SilentSpike
   Brunius

Mission Notes:

• This will be a short-medium mission, probably 1hr-2hrs long. Look below for additional missions.

• As this is a shorterish mission, there will be no respawns. You will have a decently long timer until death, but generally, keep your head down and be smart with your engagements.

• This mission is a very aggressive, mobile mission. CO, you'll need to be always thinking about picking up and moving, picking up and moving. You won't want to just land once at the start and march across Sahrani.

• Aircrew vehicles: You've got a UH-60M Blackhawk, two unarmed transport MH-6J Littlebirds, and two armed AH-6J Littlebirds. That means two slots in the UH-60M (a pilot and door gunner), one pilot in each MH-6J, and one pilot each in AH-6J. You are responsible for deciding amongst yourselves who does what AND practicing those roles. If you can't manage that like gentlemen, don't expect to get slotted as aircrew next time we have them.

• Ollie's built this one with some interesting flexibility in mind. We're very much airmobile in this, but he's given us some options as to exactly how we do that. Hence the vague pilot slots. Go complete his strawpoll and pick what kind of airmobile sounds more interesting to you, and thank him for trying to come up with more interesting ways for us to manshoot! The strawpoll will end late late evening Wednesday night US-time. Not a lot of time to vote, but that way the aircrew lotto players will have a better idea of what slots are available to them.

• Aircrew lotto: it will be up to you to sort out who takes what. We're just going to pick 6 generic aircrew slots. You guys decide among yourselves who takes what for whatever the air setup ends up being from the strawpoll results. This way we don't have to have a bunch of different lottos for the different things, and maybe some people who don't normally get to fly will be able to. If you would like a regular slot after the lotto, please respond with a new top-level comment so I don't miss it, thanks.

• For medics: Sometimes you'll need to be able to shout at everyone around you to immediately do stuff, so don't be afraid of that. Make sure you understand all of the various medical items, when and how to use them, and when to tell someone "no you're fine just keep shooting, this other person needs my help more." Also, you are not a bandage dispenser, you are An Mans and you are useless if you get shot. Dslyecxi's guides are wonderful resources, so consider the section Squad Medic as required reading.

• For pilots: Couple things. First, these are always super high demand slots and we want everyone to try this, but there's no respawn and little margin for error. If you sign up for the lotto, you are expected to put in some practice on your own before the lotto is chosen. Not waiting for us to hold a training event, and not after the lotto. These are key slots and you're expected to know what you're doing for the sake of 20-30 other people and their own funtime. If you win a slot and clearly don't know what you're doing, you won't be winning them in the foreseeable future. Second, because these are high demand slots, if you win one, don't be a douche. That means no flying circles around players while they're trying to brief or organize, no pointless flares every time you're landing just because you can, that kind of thing. It's super disruptive and disrespectful to anyone who wanted a slot and was capable of being mature but didn't get one.

Why the pilot spiel? This is likely to be the most air units we've had in a mission in a while, so this stuff might come up. Please keep it in mind and be respectful toward the rest of the server population. Thx.

Other stuff

We've got a few notions of followup missions to run. Ollie's got a superquick combat thing also on Sahrani that will be playtest ready, Hard Landing hasn't been played in a while and a lot of our current players perhaps have never even experienced it, Ratcatchers is a good excuse to teach more people artystuff (in advance, not day-of), and apologies because I know there are more I'm forgetting that have proven good fun.

We don't have any particular favorite in mind we'd like to run. Do you? Suggestions in the comments pls!

Lotteries:

  Medic - The crucible of injustice has spoken.
   Quantus
  Aircrew - The crucible of injustice has spoken.
   Ollie
   Brensk
   Loen
   Beard
   Myth
   Dizturbed
   Chivalrous
   Hoozin For A Broozin
   Shifty