CAMPAIGN REPORT | ALLIED | 02-16-2013

To everyone who was there thanks for the help on the attack. There are still a few things we can work on, so here is the AAR for any suggestions.

The Plan:

101st would load paras at 9:00pm EST. AEF formed armor at Clervaux? and Lancers set EWS off at Waremme. Once paras were 2mins out Lancers pulled off Waremme and set missions to Gouvy, and the AO was ordered. Once EWS was triggered on the town by paras, AEF and Lancers would roll town hard. Lancers setting up FRUs and AEF bringing their armor column. The 101st paras were to jump the AB and keep as much in the AB as we possibly could until the armor and FRUs were set in place to take over from the outside. We decided that a good option was to keep the 101st paras going for the duration of the attack to keep maximum defenders around the AB area, allowing the rest of the allies to get in and cap CPs.

What Happened:

at 8:50 101st dropped a load of 25 paras on the Spawnable in Diest. Captured it and moved to the Paal Diest CP and captured that as well. Causing a panic in Diest. We then immediately loaded paras from Wiltz for Gouvy at approximately 9:03pm EST. AEF got their Armor column going from Clervaux and Lancers set off EWS at Waremme, and someone else set EWS off at Sprimont. While 101st paras were loading light EWS went off on Gouvy. We decided to just stick with the plan and roll accordingly. Paras lifted with a load of 33 at approximately 9:06. When we were 2 mins out I called out on our Operation channel that we were and Lancers got missions ready. 101st Dropped the AB and started camping the Inf spawns and Armor spawns. many of the paras reported back 5+ kills.

I'm unclear as to what when on at the AEF and Lancers end, as I was flying paras. Once we were all dead we reloaded another plane and I grabbed the 2nd plane so we could fly more paras to target faster. We had two planes going none stop for quite awhile dropping some on the spawnable and some on the AB. We dropped a total of 165 paras on Gouvy. Once we captured the spawnable I saw jsilec saying we needed more inf on the ground so I decided to move all 101st to the FRUs. I started to bring another FRU in, but by the time I got set up we had already taken both spawns the city and just captured the AB as my FRU went up. I started walking to town and before I got there we captured Gouvy and all made a shift to St Truiden to clear it as reports were it was in bad shape.

What needs work:

As paras were lifting I remember seeing canukplf say something on the Operation channel that we needed to work on timing. Things kind of rolled up fast and I think we really need to work out our times better. I have a pretty good idea as to when paras will arrive on target (this case 5mins), and canukplf is really good at estimating what time the armor column will arrive. We really need to come together in the initial planning of the OP about 30mins or so before we kick it off to hash out times so we all arrive at the same time.

Jsilec pointed out towards the end of the Operation that the continued paras on the AB may have been more beneficial if we would have stopped after the 1st Drop and came in on the FRUs already set. We had discussed doing this in previous planning, but decided that if the paras were a close flight we'd be better of just unloading them on the AB to keep the Axis in close the the AB area for fear of us packing the bunker. In hindsight I think we could have benefit more from the paras coming in on FRUs after the 1st drop to get the push in with lots of inf.

I had a lot of fun in this operation and I think it is definitely something we should start to refine and use again next week. Thanks to all the Allied Pilots that showed up to help keep the LW off the C47s backs. With 165 paras out the door no C47 was shot down even with the Red square that was over Gouvy. The only mess up was on me when I dropped a load of meat bombs 50ft below minimum altitude.

Thanks again for everyone that came out to play. I look forward to next weeks Op, and am very interested in the other point of views out there for this attack.

S!

Shad0w64 - 101st CO