"Operation Western Front"

[ultimentra]

Well, if I had to put OPWF into one word, that would be "interesting". I have to say, airsofting at Old Tucson was a fun and unique experience in its self, and maneuvering through the tight alleyways and back corridors was a very new thing for me. The whole place was very MOUT-esque. I thought Old Tucson did very well, their staff was friendly, informative, and helpful.

On the other hand though, TA has alot to work on. Most of the bad things in this game came from 2 things-

1) Lack of experience of the (very) limited admin staff.
2) Player crowd.

The admin staff could very well learn a thing or two from TAC. 49th has seen the effect that NON-PLAYING game staff can have on the smoothness of operations of a game, in comparison to staff that is trying to play and run the game at the same time. TA admin will do well to take heed of this.

Purely their mistakes boil down inexperience. Last minute rule changes, ill informed field admins, and lack of a strict timeframe and FRAGO/OPORDS where the down falls to this game. Many times I tried to get intel from admins over the radio for grid co-ords from the maps they provided us for our objective with no answer, and last minute rule changes were just fuel on the fire.

I appreciate the fact that they made this a midcap only game. However, midcaps do not make any game a mil-sim game. They definitely help, but a milsim game is made of many parts, one big one of which is the player base. These players were not mil-sim players. There fore, the game took on the tone of a usual DP/TA session. There was a bit of cheating going on, and at one point people from the NATO team starting firing at our squad from the parking lot, using peoples cars as cover. (Of course, we did not fire back at them). Theres no rule confusion to be made there, using peoples cars as cover is just a case of bad taste and bad character.

Like I have said before, this just makes me appreciate the honorable and generally easy going community we have here that much more. With this being said, if TA were willing to allow TAC to integrate/coordinate with them on an event like this one in the future, I believe that the fantasy game in question would either turn out very well or very badly.

All being said, they did do some things right. They had maps for both teams with a grid. This will turn out very useful if they begin to integrate it with their organization more. They had a fair handle on direction of game flow, people (in the beginning) were constantly moving about the opsite and there always seemed to be something going on. And they had chronographs. Brownie points for those.

Just a couple more things they need work on in the future-
Work out a better respawn system.
The respawn system they had in this game was a mix of combat challenge and FOB respawn. They had a white rag/red rag medic/kill system that if you have been to combat challenge will sound familiar for you. If you were killed and unable to be medicd with a white rag, or already had been, you would have had to hike all the way back to the FOB. This is one way to make alot of people want to cheat.

If the teams are unbalanced, find a way to tip the game in the smaller teams favor.
The Desert hawks were able to do this very well at the most previous Red Sleigh down game last December where the Russian forces were outnumbered. The staff was able to tip the game in their favor by providing extra medics and moving NATO troops around and distracting them with side objectives and other such things to give the russians a chance. At OPWF, as always, the Russians were outnumbered. However, no kind of leeway was made for us in the objectives or troop movement. Whenever we made any kind of headway into the main part of the town, we were wiped out simply because our numbers were just too little to hold back what was commonly twice our force count. This is what made the Russians "lose" the game and caused quite a few of us to loose interest in the last couple of hours, not just due to heat and fatigue but because of impossible odds.

That just about covers it I think.

Overall, would I do it again? Yes i would, getting to airsoft at Old Tucson in itself was a blast. Would I go back a third time if nothing improved or changed? No I would not.

[IconarmsDealer]

I echo what Ulti had to say. This venue was a blast! All the Negatives aside.It was well worth the $80.00 IMO.
KIley I have a PM heading your way

[The Honey Badger]

as expected...

What did the numbers look like?
Did I copy correctly? Admins actively played?

[ultimentra]

Yes there was 1 non-playing admin the rest were active in game as far as I saw. I didn't really see much of the NATO team admin. I would say numbers were in the 70-80 range. 90 would be pushing it.

[BIO]

Was the crono used on all weapons before game?
I jealous i didnt get to play at Old Tucson I agree that would be an experience.
I sounds like they could of used some help,but if they learned from their mistakes and fix them for future events, that would be a step in a good direction.We all had to start somewhere before we got to were we are and being the first millsim game in Tucson,mistakes will be made,what you do with the mistakes is what counts.

[IconarmsDealer]

Yes there was 1 non-playing admin the rest were active in game as far as I saw. I didn't really see much of the NATO team admin. I would say numbers were in the 70-80 range. 90 would be pushing it.

During Hostage snatch and Grab
NATO-36
Russian-19

[ultimentra]

Wow really that few? I had no idea

[Russell_MaDonald]

I want to thank all of the TAC players that came out to operation western front. I have recived good feedback from the players and intend to implement it in the next op scheualded for may. I also like the idea of integrating some TAC players into our planing and staff and will bring this idea up in our next meeting. all of the points that i have seen raised are good ones and we will adjust for them in next op. Again i just want to thank all of you i had a great time and hope to see more of you next time.

Russell

[ultimentra]

Thats very good to hear Russell. Thanks for putting on the OP.

[Slim]

very fun, and next year will be great now that we know what to look for and implement, also...


i saw a couple camera men /women, are those private picturers or are those pics gonna somehow be posted??? would be some great memories to have.

thanx russ and pat.