We Were Soldiers Once… and Young Mission

Name: We Were Soldiers Once… and Young

Author: R3DL1N3

Mission Type: MP (NTTR)

Controllable: UH-1H/CA

Full Brief: Lt Col Moore, “Gentlemen, we are moving into the shadow of the valley of death. We are going into battle against a tough and determined enemy. Enemy strength? We have no idea. But we have our orders. Simple orders from High Command: find the enemy and kill him. Nothing more.

We will be landing under fire gentlemen. Men will die. When Crazy Horse was a baby, he nursed at the breast of every woman in the tribe. The Sioux raised their children that way. Every warrior called every woman in the tribe ‘Mother.’ Every older warrior, they called him ‘Grandfather.’ Now, the point here is that they fought as a family. Take care of your men. Teach them to take care of each other. ‘Cause when this starts… each other is all we’re gonna have.

Let us pray.

Our Father in Heaven, before we go into battle, every soldier among us will approach you each in his own way. Our enemies too, according to their own understanding, will ask for protection and for victory. And so, we bow before your infinite wisdom. We offer our prayers as best we can. I pray you watch over the men that I lead into battle. You use me as your instrument in this awful hell of war to watch over them. Especially if they’re men like these before me, deserving of a future in your blessing and goodwill. Amen.

Oh, yes, and one more thing, dear Lord, about our enemies, ignore their heathen prayers and help us blow those little bastards straight to Hell. Amen.”

1. Lift at Firebase Falcon, time 1035. Slicks embark troopers of 1st and 2nd battalions, 7th Cavalry. Head due west towards the Ia Drang valley, in the central highlands east of the Chu Pong Massif.
   
2. Fly nap of the earth, using the dry creek bed for cover and follow the road towards the west end of the valley. Spec Ops say there are Viet Cong and NVA units with Chinese–made RPGs and 23mm antiaircraft cannons. Expect Charlie to patrol the area.
   
3. Deploy troopers in the clearing in front of the roadblock, LZ X–Ray. Direct the elements from the 21st Field Artillery regiment at Firebase Falcon to begin bombardment. Use artillery wisely.
   
4. Slicks return to Firebase Falcon for more troopers. Gunships support the assault with mini–guns and white phosphorus rockets.
   
5. This is a war of attrition. The side with the highest enemy body count wins. Each player gets 1 point per hit and scores unit hit points for each kill; but looses 50 points for a crash or 10 points for an ejection. Slick pilots receive triple points for every hit by Cavalry units that they disembark!
   
6. Refuel and rearm when rotors stop. Re–slotting deducts 25 points from your personal score.
   
7. Pick up and drop off chalks as many times as you like, even in the field. It happens automatically when you land and open the cockpit door within 100 metres of a chalk. Disembark troopers the same way: land and open the door.
   
8. Calm your nerves by switching on the FM radio tuned to Armed Forces Radio Vietnam, transmitting out of Saigon on 30.00FM.
   
9. If pilots available, F-5E-3 Skyraider and F-86F Checkertail flights out of Saigon can also support the assault, but beware: Chinese Shenyang J-5s of the Vietnam People's Air Force 921 fighter regiment, the so-called Red Star squadron, may be patrolling the Chu Pong sector.
   

Are you wondering what was going through Custer’s mind when he realised that he’d led his men into a slaughter? Don’t. Custer was a pussy. You ain’t. You need us, you call us!

Play as Lt Col Nguyen Huu An, commanding the Vietnamese People’s Army from a bunker on the slopes of the Chu Pong Massif. Move inside the column, grab them by the belt, and thus avoid casualties from the artillery and air.

Download Link: Here

Author and Misc Info: Designed by Redline, Kez, Nrgized and Shagrat

Awesome! Looking forward to giving this a go. Finally a real chopper oriented mission.

Howdy,

Question. I flew this for a few minutes. Landed in the clearing to pick troops. Nothing happens. IN the radio menu there's no pick up option and there is no message that anyone is getting in. I fly to the LZ no obvious disembark command (something about a VPA squad ) I then fly back to the PZ and when I land I get a Chalk 1 loaded message.

Whats the parameters for loading troops? I want to make sure this works properly before hosting this tonight with the guys. Is the whole PZ clearing usable or do I have to land within five yards of the waiting troops. It would be good to explain some of this in the mission, esp since the only way most people are doing insertions in DCS is CTLD and your are not using it here. Thanks.

Los

You embark by landing next to a chalk. They jump in the Huey automatically. All the group have to be within 1.5 times the rotor diameter of the Huey (about 20 metres) and untasked in order to embark. To disembark, just land. They jump out. Simple reason is that the mission puts the chopper pilot in extreme danger, landing under fire. Messing with F10 would make it much more difficult and unrealistic.

Thanks. I'll make that clearer in the instructions.

hosting this tonight with the guys

By the way Los, let me know how you chaps get on. I'd love your feedback.

On the embarking-disembarking question, I'm currently working on improving the scripting for that. I'd like it to happen when the pilot opens the chopper door. That would be even more realistic.

We are going to run this mission this afternoon. Thanks for the clarification.

Los

We flew three player in this mission for about an hour. As the sever I got a fair amount of scripting errors, typically over by the LZ, which locked me up, but hitting enter cleared them to prevent a full crash.

Also we could not see the troops we landed on the map to send them orders to go attack stuff. Otherwise...was fun.

Thanks for the feedback. You definitely shouldn't be getting any scripting errors. What were they saying? I've since posted up a new one, v0.2, with some important improvements.

EDIT: Actually, I think I know what it might be. I hit some script errors when I inadvertently hit non-coalition objects. The scoring system uses the coalition of the target to determine +1 or -10! Some objects don't have a coalition, e.g. surrounding buildings and stuff. Fixed this issue in v0.2

I didnt have time to scrutinize them too carefully given that I was at low level at over 100 knots with my screen frozen. But nothing in the scripting errors gave me any obvious clues.

Lol. Yea. Know the feeling! If it happens again, best thing to note is the first line number, and the first part of the error message. That typically is enough to identify the issue.

Can we get this in Caucasus too please....Pretty please

Sure. I could do a Caucasus edition. Just need to find somewhere to represent the Ia Drang valley and Chu Pong mountains. The trees won't provide cover. That's the main disadvantage. I'll have a shuftie anyway.

Probably better to wait until the new map is available? It might be a while, but it'd save doing it all again after 2.5 arrives.

Sure. I could do a Caucasus edition. Just need to find somewhere to represent the Ia Drang valley and Chu Pong mountains. The trees won't provide cover. That's the main disadvantage. I'll have a shuftie anyway.

:thumbup:Awesome

Hi R3DL1N3. Awesome mission, but it seems the embark / disembark is very inconsistent.

We ran the mission with 3 Hueys and put in a couple F-5E for the non-heli guys and had a good blast so far.

The automatic embark/disembark worked only sporadic... and never for all Slicks.

How do you try to trigger embark / disembark within the scripts? How do the troops board (store a flag in a table for the player helo and spawn group when "disembarking"?)

Another issue is, that if troops are spawned in the middle of a MP mission, there is a small hick up/delay for the clients, that especially 5 ft above the ground in narrow riverbed is.. let's say challenging.

The longer the mission runs, the more it hits FPS, as the spawned units seem to cluster and spawn based on time interval, with no maximum limits or cleanup?

Unfortunately DCS keeps dead objects and this clutters the performance later in the mission it seems.

Moose framework uses a pretty cool Spawn function that can handle a limit to units for multiple spawned groups, so you only spawn in a new group, if the number of units falls below the limit.

BTW similar problems in the Huey down mission, guess it is mostly the same script.

Both missions have the background music which is a nice feature, but I recommend two minor changes.

1) currently the soundfiles are at 44.1kHz resolution, hi quality stereo and more or less 15-20MB in size.

A mono 8kHz or 11.5kHz with 0-2 quality .ogg file saves up to 10 times reducing the sounds to about 2MB overall.

This reduces the time to upload the mission in multiplayer, tremedously.

2) the music plays as a sound to all (coalition?) action, which means it can't be stopped or muted. Some like it, others don't. In addition the volume can't be adjusted.

A good compromise is, to put the "music" on a radio channel with a radio transmission/zone action in the ME (116.0 MHz - the default VHF/AM for the Huey). Now you can mute the VHF radio and adjust the volume, individually. Only drawback currently is CA Ground Commander won't hear it...

Overall a really cool mission coming up there, if we can tweak and optimize a bit, this will be an awesome and immersive show! :thumbsup:

P.S. The Abdi car in the "Huey down" mission is in the wrong coalition, I guess you noticed already. If you need help to fix it to the blue coalition, let me know. It can be fixed in the "mission" file inside the MIZ-archive.

Great feedback. Thanks.

I've found the embarking/disembarking working pretty reliably; not sure why it wouldn't work. I'm trying to get away from F10 for chalk transport. It's keyed off the door. It triggers when a door changes to 90% open. But the range to chalk needs to be less than 100 metres. And the chalk must be not more than 100 metres spread apart. Otherwise, no embark. It always chooses the closes chalk, i.e. smallest centre-point distance from helicopter. Does that make any sense?

Good point about clearing up the clutter to maintain FPS. I'll add that to the next version. The number of VPA units is currently limited, but dead groups are not destroyed. I'll fix that. Many thanks.

Yes, same script for Huey Down.

I've dropped the music decibels down by 10 and tracks are mono `ogg` files. Not fiddled with the frequency. Good idea. They do play to all. So yes, that would help: transmit on a radio channel. I like it.

On the Abdi question: yes, he's red, and immortal initially. If blue, the Somalis attack him. Not good.

EDIT: I also like the idea of adding F-5E's. I'll make that a standard part of the mission.

Great feedback. Thanks.

 

I've found the embarking/disembarking working pretty reliably; not sure why it wouldn't work. I'm trying to get away from F10 for chalk transport. It's keyed off the door. It triggers when a door changes to 90% open. But the range to chalk needs to be less than 100 metres. And the chalk must be not more than 100 metres spread apart. Otherwise, no embark. It always chooses the closes chalk, i.e. smallest centre-point distance from helicopter. Does that make any sense?

 

Good point about clearing up the clutter to maintain FPS. I'll add that to the next version. The number of VPA units is currently limited, but dead groups are not destroyed. I'll fix that. Many thanks.

 

Yes, same script for Huey Down.

 

I've dropped the music decibels down by 10 and tracks are mono `ogg` files. Not fiddled with the frequency. Good idea. They do play to all. So yes, that would help: transmit on a radio channel. I like it.

 

On the Abdi question: yes, he's red, and immortal initially. If blue, the Somalis attack him. Not good.

 

EDIT: I also like the idea of adding F-5E's. I'll make that a standard part of the mission.

Wow, Ok the side-doors or the Cockpit doors?

I wasn't aware of the door requirement/condition, but I am 99% sure I had the side doors open (gunners hot) and was so close to the chalks my blades ran over their heads.

How do you check that the Client-Huey in MP is landed and the door is open?

About the Abdi issue, why not simply make him "invisible" (AI won't detect the Unit) in Addition to immortal?

That would prevent any AI from firing on him.

Ah, and the music can be louder if put on a radio frequency. Especially the Huey with open side doors is far too loud, you barely hear some titles, yet with radio you can tweak volume to your preference easily.

Wow, Ok the side-doors or the Cockpit doors?

I wasn't aware of the door requirement/condition, but I am 99% sure I had the side doors open (gunners hot) and was so close to the chalks my blades ran over their heads.

How do you check that the Client-Huey in MP is landed and the door is open?

 

About the Abdi issue, why not simply make him "invisible" (AI won't detect the Unit) in Addition to immortal?

That would prevent any AI from firing on him.

 

Ah, and the music can be louder if put on a radio frequency. Especially the Huey with open side doors is far too loud, you barely hear some titles, yet with radio you can tweak volume to your preference easily.

Yea, you've got to land then open the cockpit door. I'll try to make it clearer in the instructions. Technically, the "landed" event occurs when the velocity drops below 1 metre per second and remains there after the "land" event. In other words, landing means touch the ground and come to a stop. Door opening is cockpit parameter 38.

Good idea for Abdi. Making him invisible and blue would make it easier to spot him on the map, I guess.

Next version: music on the radio, normal decibels! Great idea.

So we land and open cockpit doors for both missions?

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So we land and open cockpit doors for both missions?

Yes! And for the Gazelle too. Sorry for the confusion. But I think it's closer to ideal, compared to mashing around with backslash and F10. I chose the cockpit door versus the side doors on Huey so that embarking-disembarking operates independently from gunnery.

Yes! And for the Gazelle too. Sorry for the confusion. But I think it's closer to ideal, compared to mashing around with backslash and F10. I chose the cockpit door versus the side doors on Huey so that embarking-disembarking operates independently from gunnery.

Clever, i like it! Thanks for the clarification and all your work, your missions are very enjoyable.

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Version 0.3

• Creech AFB is red, Nellis AFB is blue
  
• Added Skyraider and Redstar flights
  
• Play music on 30.00FM
  
• Destroy empty groups every five minutes
  
• Added Group.destroyAllEmpty function
  
• Fix embedded quotes: single not double
  
• Always play a tune every five minutes; players can turn it off now
  
• Briefing about Armed Forces Radio Vietnam
  
• Fix chalk embarking-disembarking briefing
  
• Guard conditions for events with no initiator added
  
• Resampled audio files to 22.05kHz; no normalisation
  

Clever, i like it! Thanks for the clarification and all your work, your missions are very enjoyable.

Thanks mate :thumbup: I'm glad they're enjoyable. But thanks too for the testing and feedback. Makes the mission much better.

Probably better to wait until the new map is available? It might be a while, but it'd save doing it all again after 2.5 arrives.

Good point Neil. The Caucasus map is kind of sucky: low detail, poor collision model. Still, I suppose it's the free one. So may be a Caucasus location would still be useful to some. Trouble is, I'm finding it pretty hard to pick a suitable spot. I know it pretty well. There's plenty of mountains, but all poor quality in comparison.

• Creech AFB is red, Nellis AFB is blue
  
• Added Skyraider and Redstar flights
  
• Play music on 30.00FM
  
• Destroy empty groups every five minutes
  
• Added Group.destroyAllEmpty function
  
• Fix embedded quotes: single not double
  
• Always play a tune every five minutes; players can turn it off now
  
• Briefing about Armed Forces Radio Vietnam
  
• Fix chalk embarking-disembarking briefing
  
• Guard conditions for events with no initiator added
  
• Resampled audio files to 22.05kHz; no normalisation
  

Nice update. Will test in the next days.

MP testing on Saturday, if we get enough people.