Murphy's Law of BMS Combat - "Friendly Fire, isn't."

Murphy's Law of BMS Combat - "Friendly Fire, isn't."

 

Being new to BMS means you make a lot of mistakes. It is virtually impossible to pick up the game and become an expert after one flight. I am sure some savants like that exist, and I sincerely hope they are on our team when the shooting starts. However, for everyone else, BMS is a learning experience from start to finish. 

Every time you take to the virtual skies in your Lawn Dart of Justice, there is a general expectation that you will learn something. If you aren't learning, then you aren't trying. On this flight, I learned not to allow myself to become comfortable and complacent. 

Complacency is one of the biggest killers in the real world, right after Communism and using fabric scissors to cut anything that isn't fabric. I always thought you needed to be skilled, experienced, and knowledgeable to become complacent. No, it turns out that stupid people can do it, too, and we do. 

My first blue-on-blue incident in BMS sticks out in my mind as a harsh learning experience. A lesson that should never have bore repeating. I will refer back to the point that I am stupid. We rolled into the target, and it was ripe for the picking. Armor, vehicles, infantry, and bears oh-my crossing the 38th parallel. 

We rolled into the target and hit them with MAVs and CBUs. It was beautiful. At one point, I saw a unit retreating down a road. I rolled in on them and let it fly. I dropped stupid low and even did a couple gun runs. I was a cocky little shit raining fire from above for the freedom that we love. 

It was a friendly unit pressing the attack after we made a hole. I had not used steer point lines to draw kill boxes; I just guessed, like a real fighter pilot would, because there is a lot of guesswork behind deploying precision ordinance, especially when those targets are close to friendly forces.

Lucky for the dudes on the ground, I continued being stupid by dropping my bombs well below the established release altitude. Only one CBU-87 actually worked as intended, but it deployed so low that I only managed to hit three Bradleys instead of decimating the entire formation. 

                                                     

So now I use streerpoints and mark everything that I can. There is no such thing as too much situational awareness, and BMS gives you the ability to maximize it. I learned from that mistake that I could use the airborne controller to declare ground targets. If it comes back anything but friendly, light it up. So weeks of sorties followed without incident. These were the halcyon days. 

Fast-forward over a month, and now I am a little more humble and seasoned. I started playing on my first online campaign with friends and strangers. So now losses like that are unacceptable, and the stakes are a little higher because it's not just "my game," it's "our game," and I don't want to be the weak link on the team. None of us do. 

Day 3 of the 1980s Revamped KTO campaign over at Enigma's community was the day I became the weak link on the team. The two days leading to this were mainly SEAD/DEAD and CAS missions on armored formations crossing the DMZ. Occasionally, the Gomers send up some MiGs so that our F-15s and 16s can have a little treat. It was a good time, and there were lots of explosions. 

The enemy kept pushing the same corridor, and we kept reminding them that this was a bad idea. The flight just before my incident was something special. I actually earned my first air medal to spite being shot down. The flight lead had been hit, and I was able to find him and call him back for his rescue. I was annoyed the manpad had got him, and I couldn't find it to get revenge. I ended up sort of taking over the flight and directing the rest on targets and lead them home. We killed over 100 vehicles in very short order. 

We did flights like that multiple times a day. It was rinsed and repeated: Frag the flight, grab CBUs, fly to the steerpoints, drop, land. We did it so many times that we started to know where they would be coming from and going and where to hit them the best. 

Each time we went out, I would draw the kill boxes, mark the friendlies, and establish "no-go" zones so I wouldn't have to face the reality of killing three Bradley fighting vehicles. It was routine now and second nature—just what you do. 

Day 3 is on and in full effect, and we are taxing out to strike the same corridor and remind the Koreans that unification isn't going in the direction they had planned. Just as we were about to head out flight lead had a issue with coms. 

We quickly hopped out and hopped back into the simulation, and now I was the flight lead. Right then, I should have done what a competent leader should have done and canceled the flight. I looked down at my HSD, and it was void of all my little kill boxes and no-go zones. Instead, I leaned into the complacency and rested on our laurels. We have gone there a dozen times before.

I know what I am doing. 

You fucking idiot. 

Just as we rolled into the target, we saw the enemy formations—right where they had always been. I saw a group pushing South from across the DMZ. I rolled in and let her buck. Behind me, I left a path of destruction that made my strikes before, which earned me a medal, look like amateur hour. 

I set almost every vehicle ablaze in my first pass. I then went on and hit units I saw dug in along the Northern side of the border. Safed up my guns and went home. 

We land and I find out that I am responsible for the deaths of probably 200-400 Friendly Korean troops. They were all packed into M113s and crossed into the North. I am not sure the AI is smart enough to know it was a mistake or what, but they found themselves between two enemy armored and mech units. So they turned around and went back to where they were. 

I set about 30 M113s on fire. 

The second I noticed something was wrong and could be a problem was when I should have scrapped the mission. I got careless, complacent, and stupid. I know it's a video game, but it did not feel good to come back and find out what happened.

That is a weird emotional rollercoaster to try and articulate. To go from feeling like you just did a repeat of the best sortie you have ever had, and this time you actually flew back...AND LEAD the damn thing. I cannot express how much I wanted to uninstall the game, crawl into a hole, and sell my entire simpit. 

I took a breath, drank some water, and went back up an hour later. Stopped a strike package of MiG-19s and IL-28s trying to become heroes but instead became craters. Kille 37 more ground targets in two more strikes, 10 of which were MBTs. 

I draw my lines. When they aren't there, I don't fly. 

“There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again.”

― George W. Bush