Author Topic: Operation Lamplight March 30th, 2001 (Read 774 times)

LePaul · « **on:** March 31, 2001, 12:00:00 PM »

Sorry guys, especially Jeb044 and Sabre, but last night's Operation sucked.

Myself and a few others signed on and the chaos in the chat buffer just never ended. I was told to go to group 3 (A24) but had no idea who else was sent there too. Upon asking who was flight lead there, Im told "You do it". Great. Now if I only knew who else was there. While trying to get information, like target, fuel and ordinance, a whole volley of Lancasters leave 24. Myself and 2 others are there, scratching our collective heads. When finally told our target and config, no one *really knows* where the refinery is. Infuriated with the CO/CM's lack of help, we take to the air. A few folks have told us where the refinery MIGHT be, but Cobra gives us the exact fix for it.

Its a very long, uneventful flight to target. When we finally do reach the target, its already been levled. Joy. Octavious is manning my guns from dying earlier on and suggests checking south to hit the radars. Our 3 Lancs head there and just after we've landed our first bombs, we hear "Logs Closed! Thanks guys!". Say what?

So after all of that work to get to target, we are told to auger in and have a nice night.

Utter bullpuckey. I don't know where these CMs/COs learned to make events, but they SUCK SUCK SUCK. Did I mention suck? I've played many of these events and this was by far the worst. Three guys worked awful hard to get to a target, find it dead, then hit another, and told "Thanks for playing, go away".

Sorry if this comes across really really bitter, but I know I'm pretty peeved that the event was such a shamble. You CMs/COs need to take care of your players if you intend to have people join these things. Its obvious Jebo44 and Sabre just plain forgot about our flight, and that is inexcusable to me.

Thats my 2 cents, feel free to flame at will.

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Paul J. Busiere

Aces High Arena handle: BD5Pilot
http://bd5.checksix.net
BD-5 "T" (TurboProp) 90% complete, first flight in 2001 (We hope!)

Zigrat · « **Reply #1 on:** March 31, 2001, 12:37:00 PM »

i thought the event was fun , but thatsjust because my group didnt listen to the CO of the allied side at all

honestly, tehres a short list of people who in my mind qualify to be a CO

Cavemanj
Ripsnort
Hangtime
Hblair
funkedup

lol well thats about it. Those are the only guys who I would be comfortable following, mabye add a few more in. Many are as good or better pilots as those guys, but when it comes to forming a sound plan that has a good success rate, those guys are it.

I see alot of these CO guys that dont have a clue what they are doing. Practice being a leader in the MA before coming to the SEA because its exponentially harder leading 50 guys than the usual 8 in the main arena.

LePaul · « **Reply #2 on:** March 31, 2001, 12:46:00 PM »

I agree with that list.

Some of my best memories of teamwork in Aces High are when flying in Ripsnort's missions. Now that I am in a Squad (332nd), when those guys are on, its great fun as well.

I just wish those that desired to be a CO or CM had the experience to do so. I know this is a volunteer kinda thing, but if you can't lead, you are only pushing good people away from future events.

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Paul J. Busiere

Aces High Arena handle: BD5Pilot
http://bd5.checksix.net
BD-5 "T" (TurboProp) 90% complete, first flight in 2001 (We hope!)

Cobra · « **Reply #3 on:** March 31, 2001, 01:03:00 PM »

You want to make events better????

Then I think we need more players become involved in them and actively volunteer to lead a flight element or CO a side.

That is THE only way these events will get better. By having the players themselves take leadership roles. And not just the same players every time. Different ones, so that everyone can:
A.) Get a taste of what its like
B.) Get experience so they can help the next round of volunteers.
C.) Spread some of the responsibility.

The PLAYERS involved play a large role in determining how well an event goes.

This was Jebo's first time CO'ing in here, and I thought he did a good job. Do you know why he CO'd last night. Because no one else would step up to the plate.

Some words to help make it better.

1.) Get there early. Last minute shows who do not read the Order of Battle help to cause the confusion.

2.) Volunteer to pitch in and help. That also helps lessen the workload of the guy who volunteered to CO.

These are player events.

Cobra

[This message has been edited by Cobra (edited 03-31-2001).]

Zigrat · « **Reply #4 on:** March 31, 2001, 02:33:00 PM »

ah i forgot cobra on the list

anyways i fdidnt mean my post to vati as a putdown.. its definitely appreciated that he stepped up to the plate!

But without using the mission planner for special events, i think the whole thing becomes quite hopeless. Right now theres a mission planner bug since they need to close fields, but if the COs were picked ahead of time and submitted missions to the CMs to post before they closed the fields, the missionswould still show up

all in all, i think its very diffivult to organize one of these htings by "word of mouth" and that a requisite for being a CO should be familiarity with the msision planner

thats what i was tryin to say

Jebo44 · « **Reply #5 on:** March 31, 2001, 02:51:00 PM »

Thanks Cobra but the guys do have a point.

I am new to this game, only been in for about 3 to 4 months so I make mistakes. I waited for 10 minutes for someone else to volunteer and no one did.

My mistake was that I did not make missions. Lesson learned. I did not think we had enough time to make them, my bad wont happen again.

Zigrat when you dont listen to the CO or if you see that I am having problems, you not offering advice, only causes more problems.

And yes I agree with your list, but if you did not notice half those guys were not even there last night and the other half showed up late. However if you give me enough time to plan then you may change your mind about how compitent of a leader I am.

Some of you old timers in here dont have much patience for new comers and thats fine. But it seems that is the nature of this game now, newcomers coming in everyday. Maybe you should realize that some of us just have to learn.

And keep in mind that I offered to give up the CO spot after when more folks came in, no one took it again. I tried, I goofed, I WILL do beeter next time.

But anyway I really appreciate your support Zigrat and LePaul.

Cobra thanks for voicing the facts here I do appreciate that.

[This message has been edited by Jebo44 (edited 03-31-2001).]

snafu · « **Reply #6 on:** March 31, 2001, 04:10:00 PM »

Hi all,
I gotta say I thought it went a lot smoother than people posting here would have you believe. All the instructions where communicated via the text buffer, Pilots were assigned flights and targets. All you had to do was pay attention. As Jebo44 said he jumped in as CO because no one else took on the role. (I ended up as Group 2 Flight leader for the same reason). The endless "I want this", "Where do I go", "What do I do" and other white noise flashing up in the buffer did mean you had to pay attention (Expanding the text display helps a lot). I think we all agree that properly setup missions in the planner are the only way to go in future but come on guys people were arriving right up to take off time and demanding assignments. It wasn't as though this was a last minute scenareo If you want to fly at least get there in plenty of time. Perhaps closing the arena 15 mins before scheduled start time might be an idea. At least then Co's etc can have a static number of pilots to work with. I am definately not a leader (I did a mission in the MA once & No one, as in zero, zilch, joined).

Some people are better suited to following orders than giving them I suppose. but I certainly would not consider knocking anyone elses efforts unless I was prepared to jump in and help out.

Just my 2c worth.

Follow this link for an AAR on the mission.
http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/Forum7/HTML/000376.html

TTFN
snafu

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snafus Homepage

[This message has been edited by snafu (edited 03-31-2001).]

Dinger · « **Reply #7 on:** March 31, 2001, 04:30:00 PM »

First off, being good at organizing MA missions is well and good, but that fact alone doesn't make you a good scenario CO. Worse, being a good FL is different from being a good CO. I've seen flight leaders who suck be great COs and vice versa.

Second, follow your CO. If a newbie CO wants to do something silly, send a message on private suggesting why that might not be the best course of action.

It's tough work commanding a scenario, but that doesn't mean we should make it tougher by not helping the CO or doing our own thing.

Third, not all scenarios go according to plan. Some are great fun and some suck. I don't think I've ever seen a scenario that went down *perfectly*. So take it easy.

Finally, I will make a note about bomber scenarios. Bombers take a long time to get anywhere, but, unless there's a second frame in the works, Buff drivers should be allowed to RTB (with log off, of course), even if takes forty minutes. Last week Fd-ski left "the lights on" and one guy coaxed his wounded B17 80 miles on one engine before landing at the base. That's what scenarios are all about.

Jebo44 · « **Reply #8 on:** March 31, 2001, 06:01:00 PM »

The old saying definetly applies here. "If you fail to plan, plan to fail."

We did throw the missions together, but we still accomplished the objective.

I learned that I wont volunteer if I am not prepared. There will always be people that criticize or think things should be done differently. And we all know we needed missions. No hard feelings on my part I still need you guys to cover my butt up there

So next time we will be better organized and everyone can learn from the mistakes I made.

As in the MA we can only be good if we work as a team. For you experienced players remeber most of us NewB's would love to have some help when CO'ing missions, if you see things falling apart help them to fix it. Don't ignore them or it wont be fun for anyone.

<S> Snafu thanks for your support

[This message has been edited by Jebo44 (edited 03-31-2001).]

Sunchaser · « **Reply #9 on:** March 31, 2001, 06:27:00 PM »

Jebo44, your efforts were much appreciated, Thank You.

Actually, Zig, we did follow the COs instruction as far as the fog of war allowed.

I do believe that our element led by hblair was tasked with bombing the city and we did exactly that.

The icon setting put a scare into us when 109s appeared way back but they did not see or could not find us after the icons were set short and we were not attacked.

From my perspective it went well....but that was one of the few event missions I have survived so my opinion is a bit tainted.

I have no desire to CM an event or CO a countrys' effort but thanks to those of you who do step up.

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When did they put this thing in here and WTF is it for?

Ozark · « **Reply #10 on:** March 31, 2001, 07:08:00 PM »

Jebo44, you got the first one under your belt...it gets easier from here on.

<S>

Jebo44 · « **Reply #11 on:** April 01, 2001, 04:02:00 AM »

Thanks guys at first I thought I was going to be the guy on stage that everyone was throwing ruined veggies at

But that is not the case... I learned alot from last night and I am thankful that you all are patient enough to allow that for me

Thanks again for your words of encouragement!

daddog · « **Reply #12 on:** April 02, 2001, 01:11:00 PM »

Been out of the loop for a few days (just had our 4th child) and I am now playing catch up.

1st I am head of the weekly events. Absolutely every event that we post and try has to be approved by me. If you try one that "sucks" then you can thank me for that.

2nd My weekly events team works hard at writing and researching events, (two or three hours) posting them for approval, making changes when errors or problems are found, creating tables and saving them, (two or three hours). Then the day of the event they try to show up early and get it all set up. Once players come in they try to get a C.O. early on and that is no easy task. After the event, they close down the arena and pour over the tables for an AAR, (one or two hours). Several hours go into each event. Hours they could have spent flying. Make sure you thank them for that.

3rd Jebo I was not there, but heard you did a great job considering it was your first time. Thanks for stepping up and giving it a shot.

4th Zig I hope if someone who is not on your list of approved C.O.'s does try it you will follow them and let them try and offer your support. If we could get an experienced C.O. and mission planner every time that would be great, but it will never happen every time.

Ding, sun, snafu, thanks for your post. Lepaul I am sorry you had such a bad time, but if every event went perfect for everyone then I would have nothing else to learn. I know some of you realize how much work we put into these events and I am not addressing you, but others may not. In defense of my team if you can do better, then write up an event and send it to me. I will put it through the same hoops as everyone else. If it gets posted I will let you run it and tell 60 guys what to do. If it goes well and you can keep everyone happy. <S>. If not then maybe we both learned something.

gospel · « **Reply #13 on:** April 03, 2001, 10:52:00 AM »

Thanks for all you do Daddog, S!

Cobra wrote:

"This was Jebo's first time CO'ing in here, and I thought he did a good job. Do you know why he CO'd last night. Because no one else would step up to the plate."

S! Jebo, thanks for volunteering

. Must have been tough. The responses that I've seen makes me hesitant to volunteer to be a CO for an event

.

gos

Jebo44 · « **Reply #14 on:** April 03, 2001, 03:25:00 PM »

Gospel,

Don't let my experience scare you off from CO'ing. Actually I have only heard of two or three folks that were not happy with the way I handled the operation. Actually now that a few days have passed by I think the mission was a better success then I first believed it to be. There will be occasions that the mission planner may not work or other features may not work in the way we desire. I believe that a CO or XO that can only plan a mission in the planner is to dependent on that device. A good CO must be able to make appropiate decisions at the drop of the hat. Only time will tell if those decisions will be the correct ones. And honestly, the success of a mission or decisions made by a leader is really in the eye of the beholder.

Many historians believe the Pacific Fleet Comanders during WWII, were inferior to their Japanese counterparts. But yet the those same commanders won the war