Operation: Reforger
On 13 September 2003, Team Blackjack elements played in the Operation: Reforger scenario game that was run at the Georgia Airsoft field in Athens GA.
Operation: Reforger was a lot of fun. Team Blackjack enjoyed meeting members of C.R.A.S.H. and the other teams that were there. We had a really good time, the scenarios were fun, everyone was great and we learned a few things along the way.
Elements from Team Blackjack that deployed to Operation: Reforger were:
CloudCaptain: Balin Deloach
Masque: Beth Giles
Sixgun: Aaron Stanfield
Echo5Hotel: Jim Hunsinger
Cindy Hunsinger (Team name forth-coming)
Tail-Gunner: Chay Butler
Guest Troop/s: Patrick
The Event
The Staff of Georgia Airsoft wrote the scenarios to be reactive to the actions of each of the teams. For instance, if you succeeded in mission 1 you would then go to mission 2 but if you failed mission 1 you would then go to mission 1A instead.
The Team Blackjack elements took the role of a SEAL team with some missions to accomplish.
In our first mission we were to move from one point on the field to the objective point on the dam. Our initial movement was great and everyone was doing a good job of moving fairly quietly and within the formation. Once we engaged the enemy force the Blackjacks did a good job with what they had. Our medic (Patrick) did a great job of staying low, staying alive and moving to get to us to keep us going when we got wounded. While we did not accomplish our objective during this mission we did get close. The team did a great job of charging the one opfor guy who was tearing us up on the right side of the trail. A quote that will go down in infamy from this mission was "A.J., wanna try an experiment?" The mission ended with most of the team pinned down by the opposing forces. A few of us tried to make a last ditch effort and made a dash for the objective. One made it within five feet of the objective before being gunned down but you know what they say about close.
In the second mission, the team was to plant a demolition charge on top of the dam to destroy it and then get to their extraction landing zone. The initial movement was good and then the plan fell apart. A two-man demolition team started out crawling along the water-line of the damn, trying to stay low as possible to avoid being seen. The rest of the team took cover and continued to exchange blind fire with the opposing forces hidden in the tree line. The demo team came under fire and were both wounded. The team medic, in a display of stealth and courage crawled out to the wounded men and began patching them up. More team members crawled out to more exposed areas to better engage the opfor and continued to pour on the cover fire. The demo team got patched up and were on the move again. Within moments the opfor opened fire into the group again, killing the medic and one of the demo team. The last demo team member continued to crawl across the muddy water-line of the earthen dam as the rest of Team Blackjack continued to exchange fire with the opfor, rounds passing closely overhead. Suddenly a flashlight illuminated the lone demo team member. Incoming fire pelted the ground to both sides and the front of him as he struggled to bring his own weapon to bear against the blinding light. As he returned fire, the rest of the team all converged fire on the point of light and quickly eliminated the threat. Sporadic fire continued between Team Blackjack and the opposing forces. Team Blackjack lost several more members to hostile fire as the demo team member continued to slowly crawl across the dam, toward the objective. When he got to the objective he engaged one last guard, killed him and then planted the demolition charge. The last two members of Team Blackjack then dashed back to their LZ under sporadic fire from the opposing forces that were left.
In the third mission, the team was to enter the area of operations, locate a downed pilot and get him back to the extraction LZ. This one went very bad for us as it had become so dark in the forest we could not see someone standing right in front of us. We moved about 15 meters into the forest and in that space of time we had two men fall up to their knees in stump holes several collisions and the point man falling twice and spraining her ankle on the second fall. The all clear was called and we evacuated our fallen comrad. We then jointly decided with the Georgia Airsoft staff that since the degree of darkness, combined with our lack of familiarity with the field layout did present a high possibility of serious injury, we would take an alternate mission.
The alternate mission turned out to be defending the town from a numerically superior force, not very much numerically superior though. We were down to four players since we lost three in the evacuation of our real-world casualty. when the attack on the village came we initially held them off fairly well. Then we took our first casualty as one of our team members bravely tried to illuminate the enemy positions with his weapon-mounted flash light. One of the team shifted to our left flank to take up the slack and cover another team member while he reloaded. The enemy forces took advantage of the momentary lull in action and flanked to the left. Coming from two different fronts they eliminated yet another team member and moved in to trap the third in a cross fire. The third tried to run for cover of the right side of the town but was gunned down during the mad dash. The final Team Blackjack member, valiantly held the right side of the town for a very tense 10 minutes before also being eliminated by the opfor.
After the alternate mission was over, Team Blackjack broke for the evening, socialized a bit, went and made their presence known at the local Waffle House establishment, raided the local Wal-mart and then retired for the evening. Many other players continued to socialize and watch DVDs on someone's laptop.
The next morning, Team Blackjack as well as many members of the opfor (Team C.R.A.S.H.) decided against pursuing any morning missions. Instead, the raffle was held. There were several items being given away in the raffle to include a couple of gas blow-back pistols, some electric blow-back pistols and some Blackhawk knee pads and elbow pads. Team Blackjack team members came away with the knee and elbow pads and one electric blow-back pistol. Special thanks to Airsoft Atlanta, Airsoft Tactical and Athens Paintball for providing the raffle prizes. What was left of Team Blackjack then socialized a bit more and then packed up and headed home...tired and sore but satisfied from a weekend of enjoyable gaming.
After Action Review
All in all I felt that our team did excellent with what we had. We were playing on unfamiliar territory, in the dark, with no night vision goggles against a team that had some familiarity with the field and night vision goggles. We also had three people who were completely new to airsoft which I must say they did very well for it being their first time. We also ran into some substantial radio communications issues. We did good on movement and we have a lot of potential, we just need to polish it out now. Pat did a great job as the medic on the team and I must say that during our second mission everyone did a good job of laying down suppressive fire. I was very happy with how we operated but we do have a lot of room for improvement. We need to get some more hand signals down, like that really would have helped out there this time!!!. We also need to get some battle drills going but we will discuss all of this later on. Good game everyone, it was a lot of fun!
All and all the scenario was great, the game play was great , all the teams and players were great and I think everyone had a good time which is what it was all about. To the Georgia Airsoft Staff...Top Notch! See you again soon for the regular airsoft game weekends.
~ Echo5Hotel