Experiences of a PRT Commander

[Filamu]

YOU'RE ON FOOL! Wicca will crush you like a thing that gets crushed by Wicca.

You mean like a paper box, or are they too solid?
Anyways, with OD-S on NATO we cant loose!

[-.-Maverick-.-]

So I quess the whole OD-S is switching to NATO?

Dayum...

[Filamu]

So I quess the whole OD-S is switching to NATO?

Dayum...

Yeah, thats the plan atleast

[Aquiller]

It would be nice if every CO from PRT's past could write down couple of words here about their experiences. Maybe some pictures, too?


Muttrah 16 (C8 B1)

Operation Scar Tissue (<3 RHCP)



First battle in campaign, all were eager and ready to finally get some action. We've picked Muttah as it was (and still is) the PR"s Goddes when it comes to maps, layer 16 - weren't prepared to counter Cobra/LAVs.

The plan was to dig in North City and survive until an opportunity for a breach will show. NATO was pushing hard, taking advantage of their scoped SAWs and overall better infantry skills. Soon it became a blood-filled stalemate. The K/D ratio stabilized and was slowly going against us.
It was that very moment when I ordered troops to gather as much trucks as they can. We tried couple of times to breach the defenses of Docks with 1-2 squads, but we failed.
Finally, after some good intel from our scouts, we've seized the opportunity at south entrance to the Docks. I've told several squads to mount trucks and rush through it directly to the Docks main hangars.

It paid off - several minutes later, Docks were greyed out, and soon after capped. NATO didnt retake the flag although they tried hard and almost succeded. Great opponent, great game.


We also had a fall-back plan if the North City was going to be overrun by NATO.




Commanding in pubs is nothing when compared to PRT, obviously. Much more organized, great communications and obedience - I really hope someday the same could happen on any random public server!

[Scot]

Hehe, you wouldn't want Michael Denmark posting in here, he's already got his own thread

[Aquiller]

Hehe, you wouldn't want Michael Denmark posting in here, he's already got his own thread

He deserves his own thread, for a great organizer and CO he is.

However I'd like to see some input from casuatly, for instance.

[Michael_Denmark]

Nice plans L4gi.

Im pleased to hear you learned from Aquiller.

Congratulations on all those CATA 3 victories. Seems like CATA dominated campaign 8 of the Project Reality Tournament.

***

I like your way of thinking here.

C8B4 - Kashan Desert 32, MEC
We decided to go with this map, because we were fairly certain that the opponents would not expect us to take it. CATA3 had suffered a humiliating defeat back in C7 on Kashan 64. We also wanted payback.

Slow down the enemy by disrupting capturing of first flag
Surprise enemy armor by moving through the middle like idiots

***

Questions:

1. You seem to view of the battle as an invitation to make use of surprise when possible? Is that conclusion correct and if yes, what in PR, has made you evolve to think like that? (if anything)

2. Is it possible to read the evaluation of these battles

***

Thanks for sharing your experience.


All the best,
Mike



---

Edit:

Hehe, you wouldn't want Michael Denmark posting in here, he's already got his own thread

Why wouldn't he want me to do that Scot?

What team did you play on in campaign 8 of the tournament?

[L4gi]

1. You seem to view of the battle as an invitation to make use of surprise when possible? Is that conclusion correct and if yes, what in PR, has made you evolve to think like that? (if anything)

2. Is it possible to read the evaluation of these battles

Thanks for the kind words and sorry for taking so long to respond, didnt see that someone had replied.

1. Pretty much, yes. During all of the years I've played, I've seen that using tactics which might look really crazy on paper usually tend to work well. Tactics that no one expects are harder to counter. Al Kufrah is a great example. We discussed our tactics for many hours, and always came to the conclusion that it will most likely end in a stalemate, since no one wants to make the push and try to break free. Thus we used what we did.

2. Unfortunately not. I no longer have access to the CATA forums. I will ask Orthas if he would be so kind and send them to me. They arent anything special, I dont remember if we even had any really in-depth evaluations.

[Michael_Denmark]

Copy and no problem about the time - thanks for your reply.

Yes, the surprise factor, is a great one - when it works out. Would like to play against you in the future, when i get a more useful gamer-pc. Cause you seem to be good in the offensive - and i am good in the defense. Could be an interesting match.

Would love to read those evaluations, regardless of their depth-level. Also if possible, any related discussion, specific doubts and so on.

**

Hm, think we old tourney commanders, should have a possibility, in a limited time-period or not, to access our old team barracks.

I mean, after all, every single one of us, did deploy a hotel amount of work while we were in command. The ordinary player have no idea how much work we actually put into this.

Personally i would love to see which of my logics (if any) actually survived my absence 1+ campaign, after my resignation. To see that, would maybe be an directly extended and also learningful part, of the PRT CO experience?

[L4gi]

I'd say that CATA2 mostly used things similar to yours, but started slowly changing with Afvalbak. Aquiller did his own thing in CATA3, and when I started commanding I also did my own thing. Your battleplans are very indepth, mine are more like a general outline and the beginning of the battle. Everything else comes along the way when the situation evolves.

[Michael_Denmark]

Oh, ok, thanks, had only recieved a little amount of info on that part.

Afvalbak? Have no idea who he is? Bonsai and Hunter i naturrally know very well, the others i don't know.

I defiantly wanna play against you some day.

[L4gi]

Hehe, im always up for a good game.

Afvalbak was the CATA2 CO after Hunter. Dont remember how many battles exactly, half of the campaign I'd say?

[Michael_Denmark]

Copy, so CATA 2, has had 4 commanders until today?

[L4gi]

After you yes, IIRC.

[HunterMed]

A reunion party for CATA COs here? Cool

As intro just as l4gi posted:
C5: Sign up as grunt for PELA, promoted to NCO, promoted to SL
C6: SL
C7: GSO, 2iC, CO

I could kick my *** for that archiving my battleplans :/

I'll try to post my Batteplans here too. But I guess I have to do it mostly without pictures...
So even it looks like not much work: It was much work

Many productive discussions, brainstormings and meetings about any battleplan.
Every battleplan had two threads minimum. Brainstorming and Planning.
Both threads often had several pages with several pictures and detail ideas worked on.

Battle 1 Qinling

My first battle as CO
What was especially difficult for me were the random flag placements. So far I was used to static flags and a pretty detailled position plan with AORs (area of responsibilites) and zones (sword, shield, safe).
I tried to stick to that system though during my CO time as I found it very useful.

I thought about doing a detailled plan for all flag positions, but I realized it is just too much to do.
So I tried to create a general plan for any flag.

Here two pictures I created for that battle:

http://img403.imageshack.us/i/generalfl ... nling.png/

http://img249.imageshack.us/i/generalquinling2.png/

Of course the directions of the units can vary and only the basic idea is in these pictures.

My evaluation of that battle today is:
I was too defensive and could have done more in the offence. But the constant attacks on our flag didnt allow any units except Cougars (Spec Ops) to move away at least that was my impression from the CO-post.
Surprisingly we got air-superiority for some time but we didnt use it good enough... Most probably because many of the gunners and even pilots had to be found on short notice and the protocol (whispers etc) werent in use correctly.
End result was: 1-0 for NATO, CATA started with 50 points more though.
I still thought I did pretty well for my first CO battle

Also memorable about that Battecycle was that while CATA2 lost with 0-1 CATA3 won with 1-0 tickets.

Battle 2 Muttrah City

I'll just post some excerpts from my evaluation back then from that battle.

Situation was like this: NATO capped North City and then we had a nice stalemate between NC and the west city. You know the big road going from west to east. Just like a perfect place for a stalemate battle... Just like the river in Qwai River.

Our plan was to hold NC the whole round.
This did not work.
Due to the hard push right for our FB they managed to push us back.
Of course also their heavy assets did their part very good. APC and Huey attacks made it very hard for our infantry to hold or to get back the ground.
After NC was lost I ordered phase 2.
Defend East and West city with counter-attack possibility.

The plan for Phase 2: NC is lost worked to a certain degree.
We launched a counterattack with Vipers twice.
Both of those attacks reached NC and could hold ground for a time.
At one point Vipers managed to get to the Northern area of NC but then got pinned and destroyed by APCs.
So the counter-attack did not work, but it was clear that it will be nearly impossible to cap NC back and it wasnt the goal anyway.
Vipers and Cougars made NATO retreat and concentrate on their backyard. It also disguised our defence line and took some pressure from it.
I read in the CATA 2 victory thread that these attacks kept NATO guessing what we do next - this is a good sign!

Our plan for defence line worked pretty well.
Tiger A managed to hold the line constantly against infantry attacks, APC and cobra fire.
Also enemy RP was taken down once succesfully.
APCs were taken down as well as enemy snipers.
Tiger B didnt get settled in their T-Building because it was under constant attack by APC, cobra and infantry before our squad could settle in the building.
That lead to ticket losses.
After retreating to construction site the situation got better and Tiger B improved on their k/d ratio.
Leopards held East city as well and managed to shoot down cobra once.

Result: CATA2 won, not sure anymore with how many tickets.

Battle 3 Sunset City

We chose Sunset City because CATA2 just is a natural infantry killer team. At least that were my experiences...

My plan with pictures: I only have the pics on my harddrive but sadly not my written text...

http://img91.imageshack.us/i/plan1.gif/

http://img708.imageshack.us/i/plan2.gif/

Of course this looks very easy but dont think I just drew that in 5mins and it was good. There was a lot of time invested in any battle plan.
And discussions of many detaills in the according CATA forums.


As you can see I concentrated on the center as I expected NATO to attack constrution site with full force. This did not happen in the beginning though...
They attacked on our weak flank, the east.
Leopards were ordered to build that FB but were interrupted by NATO HMMVs pushing through the east. After a while though Leopards, Cougars and Vipers could push out the NATO forces (I think nearly the whole team) to the city wall in the north.

I remember watching the k/d ratios from Vipers especially... This was some cool sh*t

Well after that NATO chose to switch the flank and attacked constr site and could push us back, but then again we pushed them back and after all we ended up with Sunset city free of enemy troops and pushing NATO over the river.
After that there was some stalemate and the round ended.

Also memorable was that CATA2 was short 1 squad in that battle, that made me especially proud in such an inf map

CATA 2 won, not sure with how many tickets.

Here some eye-candy Gotta promote my videos where I can

Battle 4 Bi Ming

Sadly no pictures... I have to do it from heart...

We planned to rush Bi Ming from the start and surprise them. NATO said often CATA2 was too defensive all the time. So the surprise element was on our side clearly.

This was imo the best battle as the plan worked out so cool.

Again an excerpt from my after battle evaluation:

Munitions first phase
We had no contacts at munitions and Tigers reported clear area.
Due to Dragons losing 1 truck early we only had one FB on Munitions flag in the south of munitions.

Bi Ming first phase
We caught them with their pants down really.
They did not expect us to push that hard for Bi ming and already managed to push them outside Bi ming village completly and setup the fight in the NW and N of Bi ming Flag.


Bi Ming second phase
Heavy fightings all around Bi ming - with no clear results. Both teams took deaths and the k/d ratio was most times 5-8 deaths in our favor.
I got reports of enemies crossing the road and pushing from Comms.

This was the coolest moment btw

Munitions second phase
Tigers and Dragons were sent to Comms flag to cap it.
No to very low resistence at Comms and the flag was capped very fast.

Bi Ming third phase
Flag is uncapped and Vipers, Leopards and Cougars still struggle with probably the whole NATO team excpet one squad defending and building FBs at supplies.

Tigers and Dragons are sent to Bi ming to support capping.

Defence of Bi ming
Tbh I am not that happy with our defence in the first minutes and attack waves.
It was way too chaotic and squads moved out without any order. Also my orders with AORs did not bring much order in the chaos at first.

...

After all we capped Bi Ming and held it.
CATA2 won again, not sure with how many tickets...

Battle 5 Qwai river

Random flags again.
No pictures or battle text on my harddrive :/

The idea of the plan was this though:
Move slow and with a plan.
We setup a mechanized inf squad and an armor squad to move together.
So we really thought about how to move and use our advantage on that map.
The advantage obviously was that we have APCs and even better tanks.
This worked out very well imo.
We moved slow but steady and pushed NATO back step by step.

We were pretty lucky with the flag placement though. We got Temple and even one flag closer to our main, I think where the barn is.
The Third flag naturally capped by NATO was Mine in the north east.

1 squad was on temple the whole round
1 squad was on the fishing village and the souther bridge and patrolling there.
Mech infantry and tank squad where first north of the northern bridge and had tough firefights up to the northern edge of the map.
We pretty much pushed them off from our side though and managed to cross the river between the Mine flag and the norther bridge.
Close to the bridge though.

Then we set up a FB there, with luck as one badass managed to drive a truck through the northern river crossing passing at least 1 NATO with a LAT on the Mine entrance.
I remember that so well because I looked at it in the BR file because I couldnt image how that was possible

Then we pretty much stayed there and attacked the Mine a bit. I think we destroyed their FB as many US soldiers came walking from the US Mainbase.
While that was happening I ordered the Southbridge/FV squad to cross to and defend the northern bridge end (on the US side)

CATA 2 won, dont remember with how many tickets...



Again a video
There you can see several screenshots maybe you can understand it better then...



Greetings
Hunter

[L4gi]

Great to hear from you Hunter. How are you?

[Wicca]

DANG, we need a NATO CO thread

Here is all the NATO commanders i can think of.

Mars, Eddiereyes, Scot, Smeg, Jigsaw, Funk, Tirak, hmmm. Well yeah thats everyone, i joined late c6 so i wasnt really aware of all the COs.

[Web_cole]

It does say PRT commanders Wicca, don't think it's specifically CATA

[L4gi]

Its just that most CATA COs posted something before you noticed it.

[HunterMed]

Actually it would be very cool to read some words from NATO COs too indeed!

This could become a very nice thread with different point of views of the same battles...