Well this is my AAR of Irene along with more less the story of making it down. So it all started with a buddy of mine twisting my arm the last few years to make it out. Once the location was let out that it would be at the Packard Plant I knew I was in. So I ordered tickets and started prepping guns and gear since the way Lion Claws plays requires some changes from what we normally play up here. Needed midcaps since we run allot of high caps, changes in velocity to match rules, setting up semi auto for guns etc. We run pretty loose around here for rules because we’ve got plenty of room being mostly outdoor and a small group which seldom has any problems with players. So we got all our gear ready bought the stuff we needed etc. Then there was the mad dash to get my motorhome ready for the 10 hour drive each way to the location.
I ran into quite a few problems there I didn’t expect like my generator not working etc. Most I solved before we left, then 5 miles away from my house loaded and in route we had the serpentine belt fail. Stranding us, I live in the woods, so we’re around 40 miles from the nearest parts store. So two of the guys rolling with us ran to town for parts so we could get back on the road. Then instead of staying at a buddies outside of Detroit we ran to Gaylord and stayed for a few hours. Got pretty cold, and the heater wasn’t working properly. Replaced the batteries in the thermostat and got that back up and running but with little sleep we headed south to Detroit and managed to get there 10 minutes early after a straight drive.
We got setup without much issues, started charging things and walked through the AO got a chance to meet up with a bunch of guys I’ve known online and haven’t met in person which was excellent. Getting to put faces with names and shake hands was honestly great I very much enjoyed meeting everyone down there. I also got a chance to shake hands with Col McKnight and everyone else there which I gotta say was also very nice.
So we walked the site, and my jaw was on the floor honestly. I knew what to expect because I had researched a lot leading up to this. However it’s like researching the Grand Canyon, until you're standing at the edge it’s really hard to realize the scale and all the details. So I took some pictures(in that other thread) and started to try and wrap my head around how to move and shoot in the environment. I also knew going in that it would be quite dangerous, it exceeded that expectation, however that’s part of what made the event. We knew going in that the AO was going to be dangerous and it played into the game itself in my opinion. I will say though any more dangerous and I wouldn’t have played. It was right on the line for my level of acceptable risk, but everyone is different. Enough so that I skipped the night game, I had a hard enough time being relatively safe during daylight I wasn’t risking a night game on that AO. And I want to say this isn’t a complaint just an observation, the AO was the biggest draw to the event in my opinion and it didn’t disappoint but you also had to keep good situational awareness or it could go badly.
That night after much BS’ing around the campfire, and charging batteries etc for the next day we finally got to sleep late. Got up early and started getting into the game after all the formalities. Myself and my guys were still sort of jaw on the ground I don’t think any of us were ready for the number of places you could be shot from and the elevation component. We’re used to woods, and mostly flat without multiple floors etc. So this was a huge wake up call we had to play differently. The only time I was really comfortable was hiding in small scrub brush off to the side of the field for a while;) Otherwise I was pretty on edge the rest of the time with so many lanes of fire.
We started out as 1-2 Bravo under a guy we hadn’t met(good guy), and it worked but it was tough since we all knew each other and what strengths guys had etc. So I helped to keep guys doing the right task etc, since I know each of their play styles as well as what guns they ran and everything else down the line. We made that work for us, but we also were just getting used to the style and feel of the event. After a while our Squad leader ended up having to call it with back problems and I took over 1-2 Bravo and ran it for most of the rest of the game. Since it was mostly all my guys we did quite well with some mistakes by me of course but I think overall we worked well together as a team. Often we didn’t know what we were supposed to be doing in the broad portion of the scenario so we did allot of hunt/kill missions in an ad hoc nature. But we were pretty effective moving around and taking out enemies and working towards some of the objectives.
We did run into a fair amount of difficulty identifying friend/foe with Delta running multicam at a distance it was tough to tell it from other camo and civy. I think tan generally was pretty easy to tell apart, but with the lighting there I know there was allot of friendly fire. I got killed nearly as much by enemy as friendly. I even shot one of the guys I brought down with me because I didn’t see him move into a building, saw a guy there who in my head was moving towards my guys took him out in the shadows. Well it was one of my two guys on that side, thankfully we had a medic handy and got him back up. But there were times when you were taking fire from someone and if there was a question if they were on your team you ended up shooting back if they shot at you. So I would have liked to see a little more differentiation between team colors. Likely this would have worked fine outdoors, or in most AO’s but with the darkness and size of the area, it really make target ID difficult.
I’ve heard some reports that I trust of overshooting from Tan, I don’t think it was my guys or I didn’t see it, I tried my best not to overshoot as well. But that said I’m sure it happened by the guys I heard it from. I know there was a guy I shot from around 55-60 yards out from one long building through a courtyard into another building. He complained I overshot him and I probably did shoot him 5-6 times however with the low FPS and the flight time I had those BB’s in the air already and couldn’t do much about it. As well once the first shots hit over the ambient noise I couldn’t hear a hit call until I saw a red rag come out, I kept putting shots towards him. Granted I doubt with that distance that most hit since he had half his body behind a pylon but I don’t know and I was too far away to talk to him afterwards. I guess all I can say is I did my best to try and not overshoot guys, and I wasn’t overshot that I can recall or at least no worse than any normal game for me. I will say I do believe there were some hot guns running around, I took some hits I would guess were hot but not too too bad. I’ve been shot allot at various distances and I’m pretty dang good and telling you FPS based on a hit and distance. So if I had to guess there were a few guns shooting 30-40fps over the 400fps approx. limit. Especially true since in the morning I was running extra layers, close to my winter loadout of layers and I know with that setup how much lighter hits are, and some of these were tagging pretty hard. Either way not bad at least for me, or my guys from what I heard.
We finished out the day with the Sunday game, after very little sleep from my habit of staying up BS’ing far too late, then charging etc. I showed up after the formalities in the morning, got a sit rep from my guys and all of the pertinent info on where the spawn was etc. Honestly I didn’t have much action and it felt less organized. Really what I should have done in retrospect was sleed Sunday so it would be easier driving home but I did play it through. Overall Sunday was lack luster for me, I spent allot of time guarding an area that didn’t get action. Built out a nice little sniper hide I didn’t get to use in an abandoned bathroom(without my sniper rifle mind you), it led into a room that was around 40 yards across so I didn’t need the range of the sniper rifle to make use of the hide. I took a short nap in my hide since most guys didn’t know I was in there, and there was zero going on outside. Figured if something popped off I’d wake up and shoot some guys. Eventually I went off path and snuck outside the building and headed towards the action but it was too late and the event ended. I should have done that earlier but I was tired and didn’t mind sitting.
Game ended we as a team didn’t win any cool swag, but we enjoyed the game. Local guy did win something so that was cool. And we got a chance to start packing and say goodbyes to all the cool guys we got to hang out with for the weekend. I still feel badly that they didn’t have the same experience I did, but at the end of the day I can only say what I saw with my guys and can only fix that part. So I wish that everyone would have had the time that I did because I had fun but the tan guys who were a problem made it a problem for some of the other side.
Afterwards we packed and rolled for home. Got 30 miles north of Detroit and the automatic brakes in the transmission on the motorhome locked dead. Couldn’t move an inch, no easy way to pull a fuse to disable. So I grabbed my bag of tools, chocked the wheels raised the jacks and got underneath. Managed to disconnect the brakes from the transmission after a while, and unfortunately with no cog in the transmission that meant the rest of the way home Park is neutral basically. So when we stopped for anything someone had to hold brakes or chock the wheels. I drove north to around Gaylord got tired, crashed for an hour, got back up and drove to Escanaba. Crashed for another hour, woke up and burned the rest of the trip home. I was beat, not enough sleep few thousand mg of caffeine and not enough sleep but we made it and we had a good time.
Learned a lot of lessons that will be applied to the next trip down whenever that may be, but despite some issues on the whole we had a good time and loved the AO despite it’s best efforts to injure us;)
Luke
