Op: Cracking Sky AAR - 05/14/16

[Canto]

Thanks to everyone that came out today and played! Both teams fought very hard today on extremely rough terrain, hats off to everyone that braved the cooler temperatures and brutal landscape. I hope everyone had a great time with us today.

It's great to always see familiar faces, all you old time Michigan Airsofters; there really isn't that many of us left anymore, it was good to see all you guys!

To all the new guys, I hope you all had a lot of fun today and I hope you'll come out and join us again in the future on a less messy occasion.

This is by far one of the toughest events seen in nearly ten years... Wow to everyone that played through it all!

At the end of the day, tan team left the field as the victor. The event had a final score of 6 green to 7 tan. With a partially completed objective being the decisive factor.

The rainfall of the previous night and early morning combined with an already high creek level created a situation that I have never encountered before. Normally you get one or the other in the lower basin; completely flooded (1-2 ft standing water) and not flooded (some muddy areas but mainly dry). Never an in-between level... The water level was just high enough to flood lower lying areas and deepen already muddy areas). The result was a very unique landscape of muddy areas in an peninsula-island layout. Low flooded areas, deep (flooded) runoff trenches, and isolated dry pockets.

This ended up devastating anything I had originally planned for game-play and 3/4 of all objectives I had planned for both teams for the entire the day. Anything involving paper/written intelligence is useless, high-low ground areas are isolated and seized and difficult to capture, and lower areas nearly impassible and improbable to hold. The Southern Ridge ended up being an isolated island, cut off by the creek itself and then the lower flooded area at the base. I also didn't want to force players to hold or use lower areas, I ended up having to because I was running out of high-ground objectives and terrain to use.

Players ended up concentrating in higher ground and ridge areas and not moving at all because of the flooding. In turn, this caused everything from respawn and FOB location problems, to boundary issues and switching areas... I personally feel this wasn't my favorite event nor my personal best because of all the flooding problems. Simply put guys, I couldn't use most of what I was going to do today because I didn't want to make everyone trudge through areas of 1-2 feet of water and I knew people wouldn't want to (or simply wouldn't).

I took this on Wednesday (May 11th): https://goo.gl/photos/cvx7Jy7SCEma3xP3A

Today: https://goo.gl/photos/4ufXDdv9JbohjADS9

Once again, I would like to thank everyone that came out today and braved the chilly temperatures and brutal field environment. Everyone fought hard and all teams were great today. I hope everyone comes out and joins us on a time when the creek isn't quite as high.

Event Photo Album: https://goo.gl/photos/CNTn37DadDcWzmoH9

I will be posting more pictures when I get them. Thanks Triggs!

[infantry4life]

Canto, as always, great to see you sir. Thank you for the interesting game play.

Tactics were thrown out the window as soon as we got on the North Ridge. One way on and off that that we were less likely to get soaked as a nasty choke point all day.

It was noted that if it was just as wet but a bit warmer, it would have made for a more accurate scenario.

Despite the terrain and the weather, I had fun with the frustration. The field and water literally drained the strength from everyone even more with brave souls that rode the day out.

Green team with Hunter and other Flak members (who were supposed to be with me on Tan ) drove a hard fight. Tan team, radio communication was better than most events so thank you.

All in all, everyone did what they could and I could not ask for much more. It was nice to see females players come out and play. We do not see a lot of that. The East Lansing team that came out, nice to see you lady and gentlemen again. A lot of new and old faces out there which is always nice to see. Tim, I missed you leaving after lunch knowing that both your weapons went down.

I hope to see you all down range again in July with the Extreme Prejudice guys.

[Matt]

Honestly canto, It was a great time, It was a bit of a stalemate at times, but the challenge was fun. Thanks for having everyone out, and as one of the new players I will definitely be looking to attend events in the future, hopefully with less water issues. 

[Orin]

it was a lot of fun, being medic was tough tho, sorry to the guys i couldn't get to, i was having a lot of gun problems and wasn't on the field as much as i wanted, i will definitely come to another event in the future hopefully no mud this is going to take a lot of time to clean out of my pistol and plate carrier.