(AAR) Op: Reality Check 3

[MrSpank]

Too often airsofters forget that actions involving armed forces don’t actually involve combat. The majority of military actions result in armed forces acting as an occupation force. Trying to deal with the locals. Trying to prevent the locals from joining with insurgency. Trying to understand the locals. All while trying to actually accomplish traditional military objectives. While most event organizers don’t bother with such things, Monty tackled it full on. This type of event isn’t something that is just thrown together over a couple of weeks before game day. This was planned out months in advance. Involving building up the field, creating props, getting 30 role players on board, and getting them ready for such an event. Of course, there are also the missions to plan and contingencies to work out. While this was the third in this series, it was the most ambitious. Done on a scale much more ambitious than the two prior outings of this series.

Once deployed, NPC’s boss lady, Ariel Peemessng B’otch, gave orders to the platoon leaders. Squad leaders for NPC first platoon were given asked, “what do you value more, money or women?” My answer was “women.” As a result, my squad’s (1,2) first mission was to track down the local prostitute and extract intel from her. This meant that we were immediately tasked with entering the region’s main town, Zuluvinquat. NPC squad 1,1 was also tasked with retrieving something from that town. Due to these circumstances the entire first platoon was involved in securing the town. 1,1 would secure the Western and South Western perimeter and search for their objective, while 1,2 would secure the East and South Eastern perimeter, while I would mingle with the locals and locate the local prostitute.

The townsfolk included local government, law enforcement, merchants, banker, and even children. The UN also had a contingent of peace keepers stationed in the town. The townsfolk and the UN did not act as our competition or adversaries, there was another faction of actual players for that, the RDF. The townsfolk and UN had their own priorities and acting in accordance to the characters they were portraying. Some of the townsfolk were more inclined to help members of RDF, some more inclined to help NPC. All of them were equally suspicious. The UN Peace Keepers were there to observe a ceasefire, one of the many things pre-established prior to the event on the event’s website and Facebook page. They also functioned as the game’s admins.

Knowing full well what I was getting into when I signed up for this event, I knew that public relations was going to be just as important as shooting the enemy/RDF. My teammates were prepared for this. Besides the Roctavian money we were provided to bribe locals, we also brought snacks. Cigarettes and ability to light them is also great. I made sure everyone on my squad understood the type of attitude they should maintain when inside the town. They were to maintain a cautious mental state, but a relaxed posture, never pointing their weapons at the locals. When we entered town, I assigned my guys to do their respective perimeter watch, while I went to work public relations magic. Accompanied by one bodyguard.

It is just as important how you speak with someone as it is important with whom you speak. While being generally friendly to all the townsfolk, I quickly found the local chief of police. He proved to be very informative. He turned out to be very forthcoming with information. Sometimes so forthcoming that valuable intel had gone right over my head. He was able to find me the local prostitute that the boss lady needed to get intel from. This also led to our first encounter with the blue-hats. Interestingly enough, the brothel was located with in the Peace Keeper’s security zone. How very curious, indeed. UN had tried to shoo us out of town, but they were unwilling to escort us out. I was hoping that they would, because it would have given a chance for another squad to grab the prostitute. Also an opportunity to see more of the area of operation with protection from UN (thinking that if RDF decided to attack us, they would have ended up firing on UN forces, and demonstrating to UN that we are on the same side, or at least earn some favor with them). The peace keepers refused to leave their post, and told us to clear out. We backed away but did not clear out of town. My platoon leader was not able to give me any guidance, just reminded me that “we don’t take orders from the UN, they don’t pay us.” He too had managed to win over some hearts and minds while in town, specifically of the chief of police. The chief happened to appreciate fancy American cigarettes. As far as the mission at hand, the police were going to help us get our woman. In the mean time I checked on my sentries. While there I also tried to calm down a worried shop keeper because some of my men were taking position next to his shop.

To the South of the town was the oil pump station. My sentries and I had partial line of sight on that location. Saw small groups of what was most likely RDF fanning out. Heading North, possibly probing the area, looking for us, or whatever their mission objectives were. We could hear that there was something going on at the pump station. Some townsfolk might have been arguing with them. We couldn’t tell what they were yelling about. Some shots seemed to have been fired. We couldn’t tell at who or from where. We maintained our ceasefire. We held the perimeter, watching RDF make their way Northward, closer to our lines, my men getting tense trying to restrain their instincts to fire at our enemies. We held until the enemy proved more anxious than us and finally broke the ceasefire. My men held the line. Those advancing directly from the South were stopped in their tracks. First squad of first platoon reinforced us. I had tried to calm down the shop keeper and direct my squad. A stray bullet or a ricocheted snagged me. Fortunately for me, one of the members of 1,1 was able to drag me to safety where 1,2’s medic was able to bandage me up. The RDF advance from the South and South East seemed to have been halted for the moment, so my platoon leader gave the order to pull back. On the way out of the town the local cops delivered on their promise, a prostitute to go! I grabbed her and hauled her out of the town with my squad.

We had her in the bush. She was searched, but didn’t seem to have anything that could be intel. Strange for a prostitute, she offered me 500R. She claimed to not have anything for us. Either she truly didn’t know or she was holding out on us. If she was holding out, we needed a cop to interrogate her properly. This meant that I had to go back into town. To avoid more problems getting her out of town again, or risk losing her to other forces, she was left in the bush with the rest of my squad doing overwatch. It was risky, potentially stupid, but I went back into town alone.

When I entered town this time, the atmosphere was very different than earlier today. It seemed more crowded. More tense. The townsfolk seemed angry about the eruption of violence earlier. Lots of yelling. Things were being thrown. I had to locate a willing police officer. The police seemed busy with something. Or they didn’t want to bother with me. This was when I would make new contact, who I would dub ‘Officer New Best Friend Officer Friendly.’ The Peace Keepers were interfering again. Harassing me about my purpose in town and why I need a cop so badly. I skated the truth, saying that there was a mater that required the expertise of local law enforcement. The blue hats refused to allow any cops to leave town. I tried to assure them that it was just a matter of filling in The Firm on local laws and that the cop needed to speak with someone above me. Still no go. The cops and I decided to go into the police station, away from the UN forces to continue our discussion. Meeting with the cops in their station was more productive. They were willing to help The Firm. After all, it is to all the townsfolk benefit that a private company bring in investment, in more than once sense of the word. Knowing that the way we came in was being monitored, I wanted to leave the station with an officer though an alternative route. I first suggested we al-le-yoop over the wall, but for some reason they weren’t inclined to that suggestion. Alternatively I asked if they have some sort of backdoor, which they told me they did. It was a crawl space out. In the excitement and rush of achieving some sort of progress I let my better judgment slip away. The exit was towards the North. Climbing out of the hole after the police officer I found myself face to face with a number of peace keepers. It was quite comical. Like something out of a cartoon! Staying on my feet, trying to get the hell out of there as soon as possible and not answer any real questions, I tried to play it off by thanking the police officer about the advice I pretended he gave me and lovely words about how The Firm will be bringing great investment for his town. Trying to be as sly as possible and still acting like all was well and peachy keen, a report runs in, yelling about al-le-yoops, and wanting to know what that was about. I tried to explain that The Firm was going to bring basketball to the good townsfolk, but for some reason he seemed uninterested in that. Didn’t even take any notes. Just turned around and left while I was still talking to him. How very rude these reporters can be. I bid farewell to Officer New Best Friend Officer Friendly, and hoped that he would meet me soon.

I got back to my prostitute in the bush. From there I was able to observe that RDF had finally made it into town. Unlike us, they came in with guns up. Took up positions in the Southern half of the town in an aggressive posture. They didn’t seem to stay there long at all. They made a slight push up the West side of the town’s Eastern tree-line, but then pulled back.

Fortunately, Officer new Best Friend Officer Friendly did arrive, eventually. He did an official interrogation, but yielded the same results as my interrogation. He then took her for further investigation at the police station and search the brothel of possible intel. We had set a time frame to make contact and location to rendezvous with results.

PMC 1,2 got into a defensive position while we laid in wait. We made contact with a civilian. He was a displaced oil worker who told us about violence happening at the pump. Then we made contact with another civilian, a young boy. We gave him some snacks, which unfortunately seemed to have encouraged him to sit in our position. I kept checking the time, making sure we don’t spend any extra time at this location. Officer New Best Friend Officer Friendly was supposed to make radio contact before approaching our rendezvous point. My comrade reminded me that this kid might actually be spying on us, so I stopped announcing the time to the rest of the group. The guys tried to get to know the kid better. Asking him questions also served to get his focus away from making any mental notes about my group, our purpose, and maybe get him uninterested and just leave to go do something else. Eventually, that is what he did. The police officer failed to make radio contact via radio at the scheduled time, prior to rendezvous. I was tempted to bug out at that point, but decided against it. I waited out to the last minute of the planned rendezvous, and then he showed up. With intel! Platoon 1, squad 2 finally had what we were sent to get. We made our way back to boss lady at the comms center and delivered it to her. Finally, mission accomplished. Boss lady already had new orders for us, but first some more out of the ordinary tasks. The intel we had retrieved was an official Polish letter. We had to translate it and then figure out how this was any use to us. Another unusual task was that boss lady had some electronic components she wanted buried, which I proceeded to do. After burying it, and obscuring evidence of burial, but still leaving specific markers that only those in-the-know would recognize when it would come time to dig it out. Then we made contact with two more civilians. Boss lady didn’t want any outsiders talking to her directly, so I intercepted their approach. Keeping them at a safe distance from our comms center. Both were oil workers, one of which was the one we met earlier. He was glad to see us. They offered intel, but for a price. They were interested in money or ammo. It was decided to give them a handful of ammo. Their intel wasn’t useful. We already knew that there was combat at the oil pump station. We already knew that with the RDF was present a high value target for us. We knew all of that because 2nd platoon was the one doing the fighting, and boss lady had already given us marching orders to reinforce them.

1,2 was dispatched immediately to the pump station. Heading directly South and cutting West at the downed helicopter. Making sure to avoid being spotted by townsfolk by avoiding the town entirely, but still maintaining a hustle to show up in time to make a difference in the push on the pump station. On our way there we received reinforcements. Three more Russian comrades fresh to the scene in search of adventure. Unfortunately they were not briefed and even worse, somewhat misinformed. I did my best to get them on the same page while we marched to the pump station. When we arrived the station was already under our of PMC 2nd Platoon. The HVT had managed to slip away, South across a valley. PMC 2nd platoon was currently engaged with RDF on the Southern outskirts of the pump station. We deployed to assist in their push on the Western end of the line. We proved ineffectual at advancing the line. No progress was made in either direction. 1,2 doubled back and regrouped, and then attempted to flank from the West. This proved disastrous. What seemed like easily traversable terrain proved to be overgrown swamp land. Stumbling through that mess we ran into a lone gunman that pinned down my squad until we successfully took him out and confirmed that he was RDF. In case this guy wasn’t just a lone wolf, we didn’t want to get caught in this swamp again if his buddies showed up. We made a straight line out of the swamp, to find out that with all that stumbling around, we made nearly zero progress Southward. We were back at the pump station, regrouping with the rest of 1st platoon. RDF were along the same line as before. No movement in any direction. Until a civilian showed up, looking specifically for me. Seems that the townsfolk thought I was in charge, and sent him to locate me. According to him, some very bad people were about to take a convoy through their town, and they wanted us to stop them. He couldn’t really give any details, and in retrospect, it was probably a trick. I conveyed this intel to my platoon leader. With that, he broke off with 1,1 to investigate. Soon after, RDF made a push for the pump station. Slowly tearing through our defenses, tightening their noose around our collective necks.

Respawned as our own reinforcements with boss lady back at the comms center, we were given new intel. There was a mysterious other faction involved in the local scene here. Armed group not affiliated with RDF, PMC, or peace keepers. Their goals seemed preposterous. Their methods violent. Involving kidnapping and terrorism. The latest intel was a threat to the local town. A unit was dispatched to warn the local police force. My squad was sent into town to poke around to see if we find anything suspicious. While there, smoke and explosions. It seemed like the entire South Western part of town had descended into chaos. The townsfolk freak out. They think we are to blame, so they start yelling and attacking us, throwing debris at us. I ordered an organized withdrawal, avoiding returning violence but sticking together while getting out of there as quick as possible.

Back at the comms center, boss lady sent us back into town. Something I dreaded having to do. What awaited us was a scene of carnage. Angry townsfolk with casualties piling up. Peace keepers were coordinating the recovery process, while we were burdened with the actual casualty evacuation process. The chaotic atmosphere was charged with panic and urgency, noise and confusion. Victims of the terror act had various injuries, so the had to be marked and treated differently. We used real tags to label the type of casualties. Had to strap people down to stretchers, and carry them to the designated LZ in the refugee area North of the town. For ‘Africans,’ they were especially heavy. The ‘helicopter’ arrived and we had to load them properly. Those that didn’t do the necessary preparations for this event were confused as to what was going on, and failed to appreciate how much effort went into organizing this element into the game. The confusion on their faces was quite apparent. Which is rather unfortunate. After a successful CasVac we re-entered the town and were hounded by reporters wanting all the juicy and gory details of what just happened. This was not the end of our troubles though. There was still another explosive in town. All the PMC units in town scoured the town again, this time discovering the explosive, and promptly get the local ordinance specialist from the local law enforcement to deactivate it. This was one of the most stressful and exhilarating airsoft experiences that involved no combat whatsoever.

After so much excitement, I wanted us to report to boss lady on all of our success. Also didn’t want to stick around town long enough for some local madmen to try to stick some other bad juju on us. It was a good call because at that very moment RDF were making a push on the comms center. We arrived just in time to get them in their rear from the higher ground. Pinning them down, because they were already engaged with the few forces left at the comms center, and whipping them out with other PMC units returning from a different mission. We were mighty proud of ourselves when we made it back to boss lady at the comms center. Debriefed and regrouped. We had lost a number of PMCs by this time. It was evening, starting to lose light. Not everyone had the strength or preparation to go the full intended 10-12 hours. Intel was coming in that RDF was suffering even worse attrition.

Our next mission involved transporting the various UN resources we recovered across the AO to the UN compound, East of the town. Suddenly, something rather strange occurred. A female peace keeper had approached our position with a bomb strapped to her. She was halted and surrounded from a safe distance. Seems that after we left the town, something transpired involving the local terrorists. I was too low on the food chain to be briefed on whatever that was, just that this peace keeper was a hostage that managed to escape. The terrorists made incredible offers to get their runaway hostage back. We didn’t comply with that, we had other maters to attend to that involved working with the UN. After successfully transporting the supplies to the UN compound we awaited the UN transport to arrive with it’s UN security detail. We were finally working directly with UN forces. When they arrived, we got a bit too comfortable. Unknown forces from the South began firing on us. A coordinated effort between PMC and UN peace keepers manage to eliminate that threat. This taught us to not relax. With a greater sense of urgency we began loading up the transport vehicle. Unfortunately we failed to post sentries around the compound, and enemy forces managed to sneak into it, and assault us from with in. The peace keepers were first to mobilize a counter offensive and clear the compound. Clearly, it was best to get the hell out of there as fast as possible. Our little convoy turned around and headed back to the town. Still unknown to most of us that it was held by hostiles. We approached cautiously, and ended up fighting our way uphill through cumbersome terrain. Our combined force pushed into the town from the East and North sides simultaneously. With caution but great fury we managed to clear the town, like a flood washing the town clean Southward. Afterwards, we proceeded to salvage from this town UN supplies and return it to their convoy. There was a tremendous amount of it in this town, of questionable origins. Every time we felt a sense of calm, somehow a firefight would break out, but quickly put down. As the sun set, and the enemies disappeared, the UN/admins declared an end of this operation.

It was a shame that the operation had to end so quickly. It didn’t stretch the full planned time span. So we didn’t get to do any night operations. The rain storm the night before forced the admins to cancel and/or rearrange certain missions, which led to some confusion and sense of disorganization on the part of the admins for the RDF forces. That was one of the reasons why so many RDF had quit earlier in the day. But the combat with smaller forces, seeming coming out of nowhere and sometimes seemed to disappear, that was the most exciting combat moments for me. This was Monty’s biggest endeavor and the first one in a long time. So any hiccups on his part I find excusable. But the biggest drag to this event was not due to administration or the storm the previous night, but the people that came physically and mentally unprepared for this event. There was ample warning and emphasis on getting to know what was to be expected beforehand. The people that took the time to get themselves ready for Op: Reality Check 3, they are the ones who enjoyed it and got the most out of it. Real deployments aren’t all about running around shooting and kicking doors. Reality Check for milsim players, accomplished.

[Moondog]

Great AAR. I really wish I could have made it to this game. Can you post links to photos?

[MrSpank]

I don't have event photos.
There were photographers and a bunch of helmet cams going, but not much released so far.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIRedo7 ... ata_player
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=do8pxGy ... ata_player
The townsfolk had their own game going on outside the main combat factions. A game within a game. Life went on in that town even when neither RDF or NPC factions were present.

UPDATE:
Peace Keepers getting survivors out of the blown up building.


The more severe casualties were strapped to boards. And then carried out.



They were also tagged for quick reference for those that would be dealing with the casualties as they were processed further. Some were less severe, also tagged but left aside, so we could deal with the severe ones.


Not all the casualties were cooperative with the rescue effort


Suspicious items inside store


The British peace keepers under assault


Just earlier that day making peace with the forces that assault them


Reporters fighting for the scoop!


Some of the townsfolk, living out their day. It was like they had their own event, and the two main factions were just something happening in their background.




Yes, that is a child who got a jump on him on that RDF soldier. And next to them is the mayor.