episode 2

In this podcast episode, the host talks about various topics related to the Charlie Company gaming group. He mentions getting feedback from listeners and asks for suggestions for future episodes and special guests. He also talks about nicknames and the possibility of discussing gamer tag names in a future episode. The host then discusses a recent battalion-wide town hall meeting where alternative games were discussed due to some issues with the current game, Hell Let Loose. He lists several game options and encourages members to provide their input. He also mentions recent game nights and highlights Hell Let Loose as his preferred game. The host then provides a summary of a training session conducted by Master Sergeant Poppy Devil, focusing on tactics and the importance of independent thinking for squad leaders. He also discusses the concept of fire teams within squads and the use of ADRAC communication format. Overall, the episode covers updates, game options, and training tips for Ch Hey, Charlie Company. Good morning. Yep, still morning. Good morning. This is 1st Sergeant GLX Solar, aka Solar, reporting back to you with Charlie Podcast Episode 2. That's right, Episode 2. Episode 1 went well. Had some great feedback from guys that when I posted it and I appreciate all the feedback. Please give me more feedback. Please comment after these, either in the Discord or send me DM messages on what you think, topics you'd like to hear about next week or next time, who should be our next special guest. And we have a great special guest today. That's right, I was able to get a special guest to join me. Call in. I got Whale of a Wash and The Stache joined with and answered some great questions with me and I'll play that at the end here. But this is your podcast. This is some information about what's going on with Charlie and some updates coming up, things happening. But again, I really appreciate everybody listening. Last week I started out the episode, of course, talking a little bit about nicknames. The Iceman was a nickname I threw out there and thanks to all you great listeners, I no longer want the nickname Iceman. I'm going to go ahead and drop that and just keep with Solar. But you'll find out later that there was another Iceman in Charlie Company. And yeah, that's right. There's more than one that wanted that nickname. And again, they were crushed by other members, crushed their dreams by other people in the company. But that's okay. We like the names that we have. And you know, it kind of brought up a fun topic about gamertag names. And maybe that might be an episode coming down the line. Why are people gamertag names the way they are? Why'd they pick them? And we'll talk more about that. But we're going to jump into some news about Charlie Company and some things going on. So some news and notes, things happening within our group here. We, of course, had a town hall meeting recently, battalion-wide town hall meeting, in which we discussed a few different things. But one of the main highlights or main topics was about some different games. As we all know and are familiar with, is that Hell Let Loose is not quite getting to where we all want it, which is, of course, having those private servers so we can get into games easier and join with each other and join other clans or join, you know, skirmishes between each other and things like that. So it's having its little bugs, its little glitches. And so I think battalions just wanted to try and stay ahead of that by providing an alternative game or alternative route on where this gaming group goes if, for some reason, Hell Let Loose can't fulfill, continue to fulfill our need on what we want from this. And so they talked a lot about that and they put out a poll on games that we might want to be interested in playing, such thing as Star Wars Battlefront, Chivalry, DayZ with their, you know, private community servers that you can set up for that and you can, you know, do death matches or you can play their survival mode. Arma was talked about, Minecraft, Elder Scrolls and some other games like that. Battlefield, of course, Battlefield 4, Battlefield 5, Battlefield 1 and all those things. And some OG, old games, old style games, Modern Warfare and things along those lines. So if you weren't able to get a reaction in on those or get some, get posted on those, please either send some messages to WOMBAT or battalion staff or just send the messages up the line through your command staff on games that you think would be good for this group to pursue and kind of go from there. But they had some game nights last night where they played some different games as far as the battalion game nights were and things like that. But of course, we are playing Hell Let Loose and that's what we do right now and that's my game that I focus on. I played Hell Let Loose last night with a couple from Charlie with Bruin and Hog and Giraffe and a few others that hopped in. Tommy hopped in, Recruit Tommy, and we just played some Hell Let Loose. And so it's still a fun game to me. It's still the game of choice for me and we're going to talk more about that as well and things along those lines. So, but as far as Charlie company goes, we had a training last week, Sunday, that took place before game night with Poppy Devil, Master Sergeant Poppy Devil, and he was doing a training specifically for infantry. And so I jumped in on that to take some notes to provide for you guys that maybe weren't able to attend, but it was more than just like squad leads that we were looking to have attended. It was an infantry trainer in general to talk about the importance of tactics and how we want to maybe be utilizing different things within the game, so maybe some real-world stuff. And so some notes that I kind of took from that and what Poppy kind of shared with that and a couple things I think I wanted to highlight that I thought were important. These were kind of, some of these things were specific to squad leads. One of the things that I think that was just a good message, he said don't just rely on the command staff like you're the commander to give you direction on what you need to be doing as a squad lead as well. You know, make sure you're thinking for yourself and making those maneuvers to get yourself into position to continue to do whatever the objective is, whether you're offensive or defense or warfare. Don't wait for command to tell you to do something. Make sure that you're always staying active and engaged in what's happening and not just waiting. You know, make the best decision that that's best for you to implement your objective. The other part that he talked about was fire teams. And we're technically kind of, we're setting up our rosters for fire teams in a sense in how we're running the platoons. And so you know, with us having smaller squads within a platoon working together, that essentially are your fire teams. But if for some reason we're getting the positions where we don't have enough squad leaders, we would like to then kind of see if you can implement these fire teams within your squad. And so what that kind of entails based off the information I'm, you know, talking with Poppy and the guys from that attended the training, is if you're in a group with, you know, five or six players in a squad, infantry squad, then you designate one of those guys in your group to be a fire team leader. And that way you can still break off as a five or six man team to do different tasks and different objectives. Whether that's a flanking maneuver or sending a fire team over to a garrison that's lit up because the enemy is near it or on it, to clear it out and kind of working together with those types of things. Instead of just one squad leader trying to articulate and command all six guys on specific roles that they're trying to work on or trying to do, split that up into two so that you're not trying to have to do everything for everyone at that moment. And so I thought that was a really good point on when you get a larger squad to utilize that fire team aspect of it. And, you know, designate a player that's either a little bit higher rank or one that you've played with before that you that you know can give good information and give good detail of what you're looking to do and have them do that. And so, you know, don't be afraid to split those groups up that way to run within your squad if we don't have enough squad leads to fully fill those platoon roles that we want to do. The other part that he talked about had to do with more communication and increasing the communication to be more direct with this specific format that he calls ADRAC. And so I'm not familiar with ADRAC because I never served in the military and such like that. I, you know, I of course research a lot of military stuff and I find military tactics and I read about it and find it's very fascinating and interesting. And so I have a basic concept of some stuff that I want to do. But the way he put it and how he described ADRAC I thought was also a very good way of using that information in a more military sense. And so what ADRAC stands for is Alert, Direction, Description, Range, Assignment, and Control. And Poppy would definitely be able to describe more of that, you know, detailed. But in kind of going from the notes that I had, alert is, you know, you're bringing the alert or attention to whatever is at hand. So if you are getting shot at from a certain area, that's your alert. Taking fire from X or taking fire from this. And you're giving that direction. And you're giving that direction based off the numbers that's on your dial. So, you know, taking fire from, don't just say left. If you can, try to give the number of where that's at. Because left could mean left within, you know, a 30 degree radius or it could be a completely 90 degree radius on where that fire is actually coming from. And so if you can give that direction from that perspective on that number, that's going to give more detail to that player where I can turn then to that exact position and then be looking at that. And then, of course, description. So what are you taking fire from? You know, is it an MG? Is it a tank? Things like that. And giving that information. Of course, range, you know, pinging it, giving the distance. Distance is going to be very important as far as how you're going to be able to attack that situation. If it's 300 meters away, you're going to have to figure out a different maneuver compared if it's 50 meters away on what you need to be doing. You know, getting, setting up a basic cover fire to suppress that enemy so that you can make a position to attack it. An assignment then is directing those things. So like those fire teams, you know, you're directing that fire team then to make a maneuver into a position after that. And then there's the control after that. And I can't remember exactly what he described as far as the control on that, on how that would be a part of it. But I would say I probably use, you know, a few of these. I definitely probably use the first couple, the alert and the direction. I don't always give the range. But then I usually always follow up, of course, with somehow what's the assignment that we're trying to do. So, you know, whatever your format is, I think in this sense as a squad leader in running an infantry, you want to have bits and pieces. You definitely want to have direction. You definitely want to have description. Don't just say tank if you can't give out details of the tank, whether it's a heavy tank, medium tank, if it's a small unit, if it's a recon unit. Because you want to know what you're getting into. You don't, you know, if it's a sniper compared to an MG, you're going to attack those situations differently. And then those types of things. Then, of course, then assignment. Giving the task and directing your team on how you're going to effectively assault this position or defend this position based off what you're kind of doing with that. So, of course, you know, calling out contact front, contact left, contact rear. Those are important as well. You know, when you're in those moments, you know, they can help too. They can be the determination of being successful or not successful. But if you can give more detailed information on those specifics, those would be good too. And then just maneuvering. Fire and maneuver. He talks about fire and maneuver a lot. If you talk to Papi, that's one area that he always has talked about. And how that can be used in the game itself. And that's another part too, that there's a lot of questions that were asked. Like, so how do we translate these into the game itself? Into the roles that we specifically have? You know, and designating those types of roles. You probably don't want your medic out front leading point, right? You're going to want to make sure that you're designating the right guy to be taking point. Your assault, your automatic rifleman, those types of guys with a little bit heavier firepower. Telling your MGs to be set up at a position, to overlook a position that you're maneuvering into to give a base of fire or defending your rear. If you're already, you're in behind enemy lines and you need to watch the backside in those types of things. And make sure you're communicating together. Moving, moving. You're moving here. You're letting them know that you're moving. So that they can kind of see that they're here, what's happening throughout the day. So, or throughout the game. So make sure you're communicating as well with each other. But it was a good training. It was, started out a little rough. Poppy had some issues going on, but we were able to pull it together and have some good conversation. We have another training then coming up tonight at 7 p.m. with Master Sergeant Happy. That is a training on recon. Recon is a very important role for this game. That is our eyes and ears for lots of things about what's coming down the line. What's, where's enemy pushes coming from? Where do we need artillery at? And in those call-outs, specifically at how you make those call-outs. He's got some great information about how to identify tanks of the different, different types and things along those lines as well. Great insight on some positioning for different maps. And so, Happy's a great, great gamer. He has a great mind for the game of Hell Let Loose. And so, if you're interested in spotting and sniping, you're going to want to join in on here. What kind of stuff he has to say and what he's going to cover. And so, top in and have some great discussion about recon. Next week Wednesday, or this coming week Wednesday, we have armor training with Master Sergeant Demigod. And he's going to be discussing everything armor and going over those types of things. So, if you run armor, you definitely want to make sure you continue to join in on those trainings to hear some updates. If you're interested in running armor, join in as well. And if you do a lot of armor support, you might want to jump in and hear some things that they have to talk about too. What's, what's kind of coming on or what's happening with armor. And some tactics and stuff that they might be discussing to, to be better at the game and improve our skill sets with that type of stuff. So, so those are some trainings going on. Of course, we've got a game night tonight that you're going to want to hop into. Get those reactions in for that. Charlie, Charlie Attendance, head on in there and, and join that. If you're not going to be able to make the game night, that's fine. We, you know, we understand that you can't make every single game night. But we do want people to still make sure they react. And so still get those reactions in so that we know if you can or cannot make it and we can kind of stay on top of those types of things. So get into Charlie Attendance, get those reactions in. One of the things that we really want to see an increase in is our higher ranked guys, our NCOs and senior NCOs, taking those lead positions. We, we need more squad leaders. That's kind of the key to our, our setup of rosters is having more squad leaders. And, and so we need to see more of those for sure. And so make sure you're getting those in right away and filling those, those positions. We, I'd like to see more guys reacting to the squad lead position and then us filling those spots. And if we don't need all our squad leaders, then we can move you into those other, those other spots rather than me having to, or not me, Hogg, but having to take you out of that role and put you into a squad lead position when you weren't really ready to kind of go for it. And so definitely get into those and get those spots filled for squad leads first and then we'll fill in after that. And just look at the roster too, though. Like if you, when I go in to put in my spot, I always look to see, all right, so how many squad leads do we have? Okay, we've got four or five. What are some of the other positions? All right, well we have zero guys putting in for support. Well, we need support, right? So if I see that, then I'm going to put in for support. So kind of see where the voids are at as well and put into those. And so we're going to talk a little bit more about roles as we continue to do this podcast. But again, just pay attention to that and as I said, we need more squad leads all the time. We had some great promotions come through recently as well. We have our first drill sergeant in Colonel Sanders, as you guys might know him as Bred, but we have drill sergeant Bred. And so he's going to be looking at helping all our new recruits, learning the ins and outs of Charlie Company, learning the ins and outs of Discord, and making, you know, helping them with any navigation as far as that. He's going to be playing with you guys on game nights quite a bit too. And so he'll be there to train up and talk to you about those types of things and kind of get everybody in position for that. We've got a couple new sergeants. We've got Sergeant Field Centaur and Sergeant Giraffe. Those guys have been doing a great job taking on those leadership roles as corporals and running squad lead. And they were now ready to move up and take on those more responsibilities. So congratulations to you guys. And of course, Corporal Mopar as well went up to corporal. And so glad to see him. Oh, and Sergeant Shadow Cobra. I forgot about that one. But Shadow, Giraffe, and Field Centaur all moved up to sergeant. They've all been doing great jobs as corporal and leading, taking on those leadership roles. And and same with Mopar. He's been running a lot of squad lead, a lot of spotter. And and so moving up into that corporal position was a natural progression for him too. So congratulations to you guys for your promotions and things like that. We also, of course, have commendations that are out there. And we could use your guys's help, especially though, as I said, those squad leads, those senior NCOs and NCOs. There's a lot of different things that you can get commendations for. It's not just it's not just your, you know, your your activity and discord and things like that are making 25 game nights or 50 game nights. There's stuff in the game, you know, running a medic or running as an engineer or different things like that that you can earn. But not not our command staff is not always going to see that. You know, the commander in a game night is not always going to see all the little details of a single person doing going above and beyond making those things. And so if you are playing in a game and you've got a squad member in your group that is really going above and beyond, send us those that those details of information so that way we can recognize them and get those commendations in for those for those guys for their for their extra efforts that they're doing. And so we do have lots of different things for commendations that we can do, but we need your help to promote those. I think, you know, guys definitely do like to be recognized and further for their efforts and I think it's important then to to use those and value them the way they are. We added a new channel because of somebody some great insight. Corporal Mopar asked, thought that would be a cool idea to have a school circle just within Charlie because we're always putting out different information within the the group of ideas and stuff that we have. And so we added a Charlie school and so if you've got some tactics and things that you utilize in certain roles that you'd like to have posted in there, send that information to us so we can look through it and then we'll we'll get it into that that that school circle for that. So just another way to continue to add value to our company and increase our knowledge and so when you get a chance check out Charlie school circle and read some of the stuff that's in there. Some great pieces about engineering in there as well so check that out for sure. To kind of get here wrapped up with this this podcast for the day as I said I got a special guest that's going to join in so I want to make sure I leave plenty of time to hear that but I want to talk about roles. That's kind of one of the things that I hit on last week with I talked about all the ranks and I talked about all the roles and that's a big key part that we talk about but I want to talk about a role that I think is one of the most important roles in the game and that is the support role. If if you don't already have your support role ranked up to the point that you have access to both the to the supply crates the ammunition crates and the explosive ammo crate then I think you definitely want to be working on that to to increase that rank. I'm not saying that you have to get it all the way to level 9 or level 10 or whatever it is that gets you to the flamethrower but if you can get to that where you're able to provide those three key logistics then you're only adding to your value as a player in the game and logistics is the name of the game for this. This is you are playing this like a real war like a real battle and if you look back at history and the battles and the wars that were won and lost it had a lot to do with the supplies and logistics of those types of things and being on the battlefield able to drop supplies and logistics in key positions is going to help win us those those games and as a support player of course having access to supplies is key for garrisons being dropped for your for your squad lead to do that but it not only allows you to get those garrisons up but it allows for us to get garrisons up in positions that the enemy wouldn't maybe know that we're pushing from. You know supply drops from the sky can be easily seen and heard but enemies moving through the brush and taking cover and and moving behind enemy lines and working together to get their supplies down to get garrisons up into flanking positions or rear positions is key to a lot of our victory and our success within the games that we've been having. Garrison placement has been superb over our last few games that we played and I think that's why we're are showing that we're that's why we've been winning a lot of these games. We haven't really been fully tested with a great adversaries yet but I think because our strategy has been so sound it's showing it's proving it's worth on the battlefield but that support person is the key to that and working together with those things. Of course as I said they have the ammunition as well and so they can drop ammunition for for MGs to continue to stay to lay down fire and not having to worry about that running out of ammo and then they're not then what do they do run around with a pistol or a hammer or whatever but they can continue to put that those ammo boxes down and can use continue to support them that way and of course the explosive ammo. The explosive ammo is a key to a lot of things a lot of reasons why our silver AT guys are being successful. Being able to drop that extra rocket ammo to put that extra rocket into a medium tank or a heavy tank makes the difference for those moments. Being able to have a second satchel in a moment when you need it but also it resupplies our scouts our spotters for their flare guns and so they're able to get up two flares compared to one within a time frame that they needed and so again having information from those recons is is key to knowing where the enemy is coming from and being able to resupply those within those moments is is you know a great aspect to the to the part of that game of that support role. So if you haven't gotten that support role ranked up high enough to have access to that next level of of having all three of those logistics supports to be able to drop you should definitely be working towards those either on game nights or off game nights and getting your your guy leveled up. We need those we need more support players with having those and and so definitely focus on getting those things built up. To me it is the most important role in an infantry squad that is a to me it's a support role and so that's what that's what I wanted to kind of add today for roles that I want to talk about and why they're important and what you can do with them. We'll hit on another one next week if there's a certain role that you would like to have as a topic to talk more about or you have a why you think it's more important then send me that you know comment on it and let me know for those types of things. But now I'm going to jump into a real fun segment that I had I did a call to our our sergeant first-class whale and we had some great conversation about about the game about Canada and and and other things like that and so just just a lot of fun fun talk with him and so let's let's tune into the conversation that me and sergeant first-class whale had today.