BASTOGNE, DFW Adventure Park, Feb 3-4 2007 From Giggles: Time 0830 Date Feb.03.07 Weather 25 w/c20 I arrived at DFW Adventure Park at 0830 and drove to HQ2 were I seen the Meat Wagon and steels tent along with about 25 others and I new I wasnt the only one crazy enough to show up on the coldest day of the year. Ghostwalkers that showed Me, Mustang (we ref'd) Bastitch,Steel and Mad Dog played. (Preacher showed up at about 1300) some others present were the Starbucks Coffee team,Mudrat (who has started his own team, but he ref'd a group of 17 whos wife payed for them to play and about10-20 others yound and old. Ivan was there with his Duce and as normal we started late.. Ivan had all the Info for the game and the Generals (Steele was the allied General)printed out to save time and that all the Generals would have all the info they needed.. at the Start of the game I followed the Germans (8 Players to start)to Bastogne (fuel depot) and they got there game plan and split up leaving just one at the depot (res point) and the others split to find the road and flags the game lasted about 30 minutes with only 3 Americans who got lost and found the depot getting shot. At the end of the first game the Germans got Reinforcements 5 youngins and 3 adults for the sencond game. they had to take and hold the Radar dish after a heated argument with some speedballers and a fire fight they took the radar dish with the Americans slowly trying to flank and a frontal attack over the hill I got beside the pond to watch a teen with a shocker try to fire at Bastitch over the pond his shots were firing short but he kept on trying Bastitch looked at him like What??. at about 1 minute till game over Steele yelled Charge and the Americans Slowly rolled over the hill with Steele charging the Shocker kid ((Every time the kid would fire about 20 shots Steele slipped on the mud and the shots flew over his head as he came down the hill the kid fired again ,, Steel slipped and rolled in the mud ,, the shots went again over his head FINALLY steel rolled behind me and got the kid to surrender.. SNAP that was crazy.. then there was the game were the Americans had to get supplys (those damn tubes again) down the road the battle was like a 50 foot stand off on the road both teams firing at each other paint was flying everywere and the Americans had atleast 3 players without markers who would charge the tubes and the got all the tubes and the game was over. We then had a lunch break and I retreated for the house to take the Wife shopping (Oh Boy) and called it a day.. PS couldnt believe it I wore the Yellow Vest and my Joker mask and didnt get shot... WOW. From Mustang: Begin Trsnsmission Bastogne AAR The day for me began at 0600. Got up and started looking for warm clothes to put on to keep warm. I put on my work pants and some shirts and took a small jacket to wear. I got to the park at around 0810 and spotted Ivan at his Duce and a half. I did not play this weekend but ref'd. I got my zebra jersey and drove down to the "Icebox"/ Meat wagon and Steel's campsite and then met up with Giggles. I had forgotten to call Preacher when I got to the park. The ground was rock solid with ice in the ruts from tires of a ATV. Condidtions were similar to the actual Bastogne but not quite cold enough. The game started with a small amount of Krauts and about 20 Americans. It was fun following the players around making sure they were playing right. Around the second game we had a little argument between 4 Krauts and 8 Americans. Cuss words were used but so I said "Everyone is out. Do it again." So all the Krauts and Americans were sent back to their respective respawn bases. That was about the all the excitement but it was freaking fun untill later on in the day. Later in the day I got to be arty for the Americans and that required a lot of listening and running. Then there was the game at the "Rio Grande." Preacher had his "Deathstick" (his LAW). The cool part about it was when there were two guys hiding behind a bunker. All you here is FIRE IN THE HOLE. The two guys looked and as one guy turned to look he got hit in the rear by the rocket taking him and his partner out. They tried to call for a medic but I told them they were dead. The day was fun and cold. I hope all who stayed there kept warm. Mustang out. End Transmission From Bastitch: Arrived Friday night, signed waiver, went to camp site. Other than the pie faced calf chewing cud by the gas tanks I was alone. Geared up the meat wagon, popped a beer, and settled in with some nearly normal MRE (jambalaya). Steel showed up as I was dining, and I helped (not really) set up his tent, we chatted, then crashed. I spent the next 9 hours in the Chinese hell of "freezing your ass off". My space heater was woefully inadequate to the task, as was my sleeping bag. But I persevered. Next day, after coffee, we geared up. As near as I recall, these were the shoots and I think I have them in approximate order - my recollections are a bit foggy from fatigue and frozen gray matter. Steel (American General) and I shot for the US. Mad Dog shot German, Giggles and Mustang did referee duty, and after lunch when Preacher showed he shot German also. Game one was a warm up game where we had to hold three flags, and I believe there was an ammo dump engagement. I elected to stay with the first flag we found since I'm essentially lazy and had no desire to tramp any farther to guard something. I bunkered down with three other shooters and waited. We were expecting a kraut approach from forward or right flank, but were actually approached from the rear. Nice fire fight, with only two or three krauts at a time coming up, with another two or three in the rear with the medic. I died in a cross fire and had to depart. No kills. Game two I was not real clear on, and ran around quite a bit trying to figure it out. There were multiple objectives (I think) and I died killing a kraut at one of them (I think). After resurrection I returned with a small group only to be ambushed from behind by a ghilly suited kraut that shot us all in the ass. Returning with an even larger group, including Steel, I ended up bringing up the rear since I'm essentially lazy and Steel was not using trails. Ended up laying down long range cover fire at the comm station while the younger shooters went in for a fast kill. Got one kraut with a dropped shot, then traded fire with some kid with a speedball marker. His shots never even came close, while mine burst all around him in the brush. Then I got goggled by a sneaky kraut and spent the rest of the shoot observing since I didn't have enough time to return after resurrection. Then we shot the wall of death. Game three. I volunteered to take a small group to the creek side and hold off any attackers that may be trying it. After a long wait, we had some krauts coming in from behind the wall and moving to the creek side. Then we had them in the creek also. So my little team was caught in a real nice pincer move that whittled us down pretty quickly. After loosing the two guys at the rear, and being joined by the one remaining guy at the creek, we were both back to back in poor cover sniping at what ever we could see. I got shot out and the other guy followed not long after that. I took two in this encounter, or at least I'm pretty sure I did. Game four was a straight forward fight for some tubes in the road. Laying down long range suppressive fire I spent an entire tank of 3000 PSI HPA going through a full hopper and all four large pods, then finished drawing fire armed only with my side arm. I took out four krauts, including one from the bunch that tried to flank us. Heavy intense fire fight, loads of fun. Game five I volunteered for forward spotter and spent the entire match scampering around calling in kraut positions for mortar fire. According to Mustang I hit seven positions averaging 2 or 3 kills each, including one American. I'm calling it 15 kills, and I never came under direct fire. Pretty cool, even when the mortar fire stopped without explanation. Some kind of communications snafu typical of operations. We held our position and kept all 5 barrels in place, even when some hiney kraut bozo tried to set a minefield in front of our res point. Fortunately, I had called in a drop in that area on some krauts trying a flank and the area was cleared. Game six we had a pretty hard short-fall of personnel at this point, loosing about half the shooters to cold and sore feet. We took an informal poll and decided for one more short game, no night shoot. Those of us left went and tried to take the comm center again. Valiant effort, but ultimately unsuccessful. We had some outstanding shooting along the ridge line, long balling at each other and flushing some krauts along the way. I took out two, then got hit. Returning I took out another before getting goggled by Preacher (who was shooting on the Kraut side, along with Mad Dog). Day over. 26 kills, 7 deaths - I love artillery. I spent the evening on Mad Dogs couch, since I am such a weenie and had no desire to freeze my giblets off again. I slept like a rock, waking up in the exact position I started in. Game seven - BASTOGNE. We took up positions inside the city, most of us on the island, with two or three guys outside past the bridge. I was on the east side watching the bunkers overlooking the island on the landward side of the city. After a slow start with light sniping at some krauts across the water on the south side they began to infiltrate the city from the east. I (once more) went through my entire air and paint supply laying down long range suppressive fire at the mainland. I got two guys along the north road, nobody along the eastern side that I can confirm. With about 15 minutes of game left, I moved forward to the bridge area and just hung out with my side arm, waiting for the final push. Our guys on the mainland did an outstanding job of holding off any serious efforts the krauts put out, and the medic ran his ass off keeping them in play. Final result - we held Bastogne. Game eight - We had an ammo dump to reclaim. The shoot was called for a communications snafu, then restarted. I had taken out two krauts and died once at that point, which I do believe I will keep on my daily tally. When we restarted and ran it again I died twice more, but took out two Krauts and one of my own guys who was behind the empty kraut position and I mistook for "one of them". We ended up getting the satchel charge into an empty position, since all the krauts had been killed by then. Both times I do believe we did some outstanding aggressive maneuvers, getting to within satchel throw range of the objective in minutes. Great cover and cross fire - and some nice sneaky flanking by our Starbucks guys. After lunch we had an extended game (nine) with multiple objectives. Take the comm center by 1500, the kraut position by 1545, and return a flag to our res point during this period. I volunteered to take two guys and make a token effort at the comm center to draw krauts off the other two objectives, and once more we had some good shooting along the ridge line. I got goggled and had to return to res point, and upon getting back found that the guys had actually gotten into the comm center, but walked out thinking they were done and a kraut ran back in with about 30 second left. The flag had not been located so I joined up with Steel and some others and moved up to the second position. After driving back some krauts (killed two) past the bridge and into their res point we took their position which was undefended. We held for several minutes watching the krauts move about and longballing some shots towards them. When they made their push, unfortunately, we had sent the medic across the way past the bridge and he was unavailable, so we were picked off one by one. Making my way back to res point I discovered the majority of our forces there wiping off their goggles and trying to catch their breath. They had acquired the flag but most had been shot out in the process. Steel showed up and announced the position had fallen back to the krauts, and we geared up and moved out to take it back. As we passed the ammo dump we heard the call for game over - damnit. 9 kills, 5 deaths for day two. There was talk of running one last game but so many people had departed by then and we were all so damned tired that the generals told Ivan just to call it. American won. Had a ton of fun, even if I did freeze Friday night. I'm still hurting in places I don't want to talk about. Met some great guys from Colorado, some hard charging Starbucks shooters (no decaff for these guys), a couple of outstanding shooters from Mexico, and a bunch of people that I can't even begin to remember. Well worth it. Looking forward to the next one. The German General (Bear) did a great job. We had to push and fight for everything. Even with the vast majority of newbies, walk-on's, and low end gear totting shooters he gave us a hard run for the money. BTW - everybody give Steel a thumbs up for leading a successful campaign against them dirty stinking Nazi bastards. From Steel: AAR for the Battle of Bastogne Day 1 Departed work at 17:00 for DFWAP and arrived at 1745 to 1800hrs. Proceeded to erect sleeping quarters with help from Bastich and transferred the needed gear to said quarters at about 1830-1845. Hunkered down in the Meatwagon (here after to be called the ICEBOX) to gather what little heat could be had from Bastich’s propane heater and partook of MRE’s and ice warm beer… I say ice warm because I honestly think that when I reached in the cooler I felt warmth escaping. After about an hour or 2 of hanging out I decided to head to my tent were upon arrival I discovered ice crystals inside my tent. By the time I had unpacked my sleeping bag I had lost feeling in my feet and fingertips… I don’t mean numb… I mean that I could not feel shit. Thankfully my sleeping bag was up to the task and I weathered the night with little trouble and was for the most part comfortable. Made note that Coyotes were in the area at 0430… Awoke at 0545 and decided to snooze until 0700 however I heard a crunching sound at 0630. Turns out that Bastich was roaming the area and I asked what the crunching sound was Bastich replied the mud was frozen solid… he was not kidding. (On a side note Plano’s forecast for that weekend was a low of 27… Dad said that the temp hit 18… so I am guessing that the low temp was about 10-12 degrees.) We decided to go get coffee at the McDonalds and spent the next hour and a half thawing ourselves out. We drive back to DFWAP and Bastich goes in to buy paint. It is during this time Ivan mentions that the American General is a no show and asks me to be the American General for the battle of Bastogne. I accept which to the best of my knowledge makes me the 1st general to have been drafted since George Washington. The game kicks off with the mission to find flags 3 of them to be exact we find one at a crossroads and I decided to leave a squad of 4 (Bastich commanding) to defend it and split the remaining assault force in to 2 sections… one for each of the trails. The section that I was leading ended up at the comms center (this area represented the town of Long Champs) during this time I was notified that 2 flags were in our possession and the mission had changed… Hold the town of Longchamps and the Comms center that it contained. We were undermanned and coordinating reinforcements was impossible due to someone hot miking the radio. Comms center was lost. I retuned to the res point gathered my forces and mounted a push on the town. During this push the one minute marker was reached and called on the forces to charge… everyone ran 10 feet and stopped. “30 Seconds!” Ivan calls and I yell charge again and rush forward pistol waving. As I proceed over the berm into what is sure to be certain death, I see in slow motion 4 krauts with markers aimed at me, paintballs heading for me and a 5th kraut with a shocker on my left holding people down and also firing at me. The only thought in my mind at this point is “oh shit this is gonna hurt.” It did but not from the paintballs… that first step on the other side of the berm was a lot steeper than I thought and I tripped! As I went tumbling down the hill I could feel the paint buzzing past my ears and going through my hair but no hits. When I came to a stop I looked a ‘Stang (he was reffing) and he had this look that could only be described as disbelief. I took this to mean that I was still in and got up to charge the shocker kid. I returned to slow motion enough to see the paintballs exiting the shocker kid’s barrel heading for me again. I slip (the frozen mud melted) again and fall. I watched, in slow motion, the paint fly harmlessly past. I returned to real time when my skull hit the ground. I scramble forward and surrender the kid (the kid turned to shoot me but giggles declared him out as I was within 10 feet.) The game was called at this point due to time running out… Americans had 2 points (one for each flag) and the Germans 3 points (1 flag + comms center worth 2 points). 2 kills and 1 death Game 2… The Northgate of Bastogne The mission… Defend the Northgate of Bastogne for 30minutes (German forces have res but Americans do not.) Just as I was about to gather the men for this mission that Maj. Hilner (US Army) approached me and asked what the intent of the mission was. I created a sand table and showed him. At that time he recommended a defensive plan and with a slight modification I accepted it, we presented the briefing to the men and moved out. When the defense was set we kicked things off. The Germans flanked to the back side medic in tow but they could not close the distance to the fort do to rear guards and the open ground however they did kill the medic early in this engagement. They pushed to the left flank where the creek was located and were pinned by Bastich and his team. The Germans had no choice but remove this team and to Bastich’s credit he lead what I consider a successful delaying action against a 3 pronged attack but was eventually overwhelmed. That attack then shifted to the North gates’ front, left flank and rear. During this time the defenders started to wear down do to attrition. The towers gave the opposing team hell firing in all directions while under heavy return fire. Preacher and his Death Stick then came to the front and began to pick the fortifications apart. We ended up holding the gate but only by just half a second… and we only had 3 or 4 defenders left. Very intense but another point earned. Score tied. 2 kills for me. Lunch!..... MMMMMMmmmmmmm…I win. MRE’s lose. Yummmy. Game 3… Supplies The Mission…Recover the supply drop. The supplies landed in the road and the Primary mission was to recover the 3 large tubes (weighing about 75 pounds each) with a secondary mission to recover 4 smaller tubes. In the mission briefing I gave 4 specific orders to the men. 1. Move forward QUICKLY with the EXCEPTION of the medic. 2. Lay down HEAVY Suppressive fire. 3. If wounded… call for a medic. 4. If you get one of the tubes HAUL ASS back to the Res-point with it. We took the 4 small tubes and the 2 of the large tubes almost immediately but the 3rd large tube was in enemy territory and gerry was trying to flank to our left cut off a slow but steady advance that we had going toward it. We crushed the flanking maneuver however the attack was stalled because the manpower that was being used to sustain the creeping push was now redirected to hold the left flank AND maintaining covering fire forward. The Medic was running has ass off too. My assessment of the situation is that the left would hold but the forward front was porous and beginning to over extend and we had flankers holding the right. Something would give and the momentum would shift if that last tube was not seized quickly. I moved right and low crawled to the roads edge and got within 5 feet of the tube and I heard friendlies calling to grab it. I dashed out, grabbed the tube and dragged the tube to the edge of the road that I came from and was shot out dropping the tube at the roads edge. Another teammate grabbed the tube and took off with it. Mission accomplished and Americans are in the lead. Little did I know, that if the Germans had seized those supplies they could have built a tank. Game 4… Fuel Dump Mission… To take no less than 3 Fuel barrels to the fuel dump and defend them at all costs. The catch is that German engineers are building minefields in the area and those must be avoided. The Americans had artillery and could call barrages however this would require close coordination between the spotter, the commander, and the ref. I chose a new medic (the old one was winded) and Bastich as my arty bitch ( I mean spotter) and Mustang as the designated arty ref. Hilner and I decided that he would lead an advance team on a movement to contact mission with hopes that the Krauts would be engaged on the far side of the Fuel Dump before the barrels were within reach. A team of about 7 including me, the spotter, and the medic would carry/drag all 5 of the barrels to the designated spot… a flag pole in this case. The mission got underway and again the plan worked. We got all the barrels to the designated area in the 1st 45 seconds and 3 stayed with me to set a 360 perimeter on the barrels while the rest moved up to help support Hilner and his boys who were engaging the enemy at the edge of the dump in a fierce firefight.. The medic stayed hunkered down on rear d with me and bastich moved in to position and began calling in the Arty using the radio. The Arty alone accounted for 17 kills and one Blue on blue incident. We also had a crazy German try and charge the camp guns blazing to assassinate me and bastich while we were coordinating a strike. We both dove for solid cover and drew my pistol and put 3 in that in him… I think he got lit up from 3 sides. End result… We hold the dump. 1 pistol kill + 17 Arty kills = 18 Game 5… LongChamps Mission… The Americans need to retake the commo center at Longchamps to call in air support. ***NOTE Before beginning this mission more than half of both teams departed and about half the refs. With the numbers being so low the opposing general and I decided that the night game would not occur that night due to cold and safety concerns. This made game 5 the last game of the 1st day. We attempted to take the comms tower however this task was not accomplished due to many factors. 1. We were outnumbered… 2. The defenders spawn was closer to the objective than ours. All in all we did make a good go of it given the forces available but we were not successful in push through to the objective. 2 Deaths no kills At the end of game 5 everyone packed their gear and left… Except for me. I chose to camp out next to the bonfire and not leave the field. The night passed uneventfully if you don’t consider that sing-a-long that the coyotes had 300 meters to the east of my camp a big deal. Day 2 Game 6… Champs (not to be confused with Longchamps) Mission… Hold the town against a German assault for 30 Minutes. Gerry has Res, Yanks don’t. For this mission I got my choice of terrain. Since the Germans have shown themselves willing and able to launch devastating flanking maneuvers on the previous day I chose to set my defense on “The Island”. This choice of terrain exposed the right flank to sniper fire However I consider this a suitable trade off given that the ONLY 2 routes on to the island are the main road to the north and a small path to the northeast. The small path was not of tactical significance do to the fact that any attacker would have a 200 yard run across open terrain and would still have to cross a small bridge with no cover. I set the long ballers on the right to suppress the snipers, the medic in solid cover, one inexperienced young man watching the left bridge (just incase) and on the recommendation of some of the Starbucks guys I sent 3 forward as skirmishers. End result of this battle… 4 WIA and healed by the medic and no KIA for the Americans. Mission accomplished. Game 7… The Ammo Dump Mission… Destroy the captured American ammo dump held by the Germans by getting a satchel charge in the dump. Americans Res, Germans don’t BUT Germans hold the high ground. First game ended in a SNAFU with the Germans being misinformed about the area in play. I was a little sore over this BUT the only fair solution was to rerun the scenario Second Game we launched the EXACT same plan as the only other choice was a full frontal assault. We won with a second to spare. Some people on the other side were a little sore at this and began to engage in a “lively debate” as to the fairness of the situation. I chose to take the high road and informed the opposing team member(s) that I would not engage in debate over the fairness or unfairness of a scenario or a ref’s call and then asked that the players on the American side not engage in this discussion either. All the Americans nodded in agreement and that was that. Hey, no one said that the General can’t have a little GhostWalker class right? 3 Deaths no kills Game 8 Mission… 3 Objectives 1. Seize the commo center at Longchamps by 1500. 2. Seize the German green base by 1545 3. Bonus Find and seize the flag on the back road and return said flag to the American Res point. We only needed 2 points to secure the win for the day. I split the forces… 4 to the Commo center and the rest to search for the flag with me. I was not directly involved in what occurred in most of this battle so what I have is second hand information. The Commo center fell but was not held at the critical time (1500) due to a communications SNAFU. The flag WAS found and returned to the American RES point. Green base was seized with out firing a shot BUT when discovered we could not hold. Time expired before we could reclaim it. 1 Death 0 kills Ivan said there would be one more game but both the German General (Bear) and I agreed that both our forces were exhausted and we decided that the game would be called at that point. A few final notes… Bear (the German commander) was an outstanding leader and tactician. He cleaned our clock several times. He was also in every sense of the word a gentleman. I think that if he had the players that we had and not the walk-ons thing would have been different for the Americans. I sincerely hope to meet him again and play with him not against him. The Starbucks team… I am unclear if this is a collection of employees that like paintball or they are a formalized team but either why it was a pleasure and honor to fight with them. If they are not a formal team then I hope that would consider joining us. The boys Colorado… Damn, to drive that far to play for 2 days… WOW! I hope that we met again. One last fact... This is the 666th (forum) post. ROCK ON.