IDK for sure, but I think that he’s doing that because in one of the books I read, the author stated in general the door gunners held fire while troops were loading to avoid friendly fire incidents. I think that I remember that too, but in Guts N Gunships, in the mission when they were picking up a LORP through the small hole in the jungle canopy, they seemed like they never stopped shooting. Need to go back and read/listen to some of the other ones again, like Chickenhawk, Black Cat 2-1, and Low Level Hell. But I like your idea of not letting the mission completely dictate the ROE in tight scrapes.
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Chickenhawk is awesome reading! I will have to read some of the others too.
I may be doing it wrong, but if I had a choice in the matter I tried to land with my chopper between the friendlies and the bad guys, oriented so one ‘60 could open up and get the barrel glowing good and orange while they loaded on the other side, then take off with a right pedal turn into the wind.
Sounds like you are doing it damn right to me. I’ve had house guests all weekend. Hope that I can fly another mission tonight.
Knocked out missions 2 and 3 tonight. Survived both, but…
In mish 02, I made the mistake of taking up a high hover instead of circling the HQ while chalks 1 and 2 loaded. My rotor speed go low, setting off the warning and I pitched over, just clearing the tress by a whisker. I thought that I was light enough, but no, the DA must have been high. My only complaint about the mission is that the Phantoms only made one pass. They could have brought down a lot more pain on those bunkers before we went into the DZ. Did they CBUs? It was hard to tell. In the 3rd, flying 40 kts at 100 ft was a challenge, but got the hang of it my third circuit of the West side. I only triggered one spot, but that was good enough for my tastes. My gunners ran out of ammo looking for the LZ near the crash site, but finally found it. Not too bad getting out and home. Really enjoying these missions so far. I’m flying it in VR, so not taking a lot of screens.
This campaign would have to take place during monsoon! Lo res from VR. It looks much better in my headset.
A pair of Gambler gunships escorting us.
In formation with Babyface in Chalk 1.
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hmm, did read only the Low Level Hell, will check the others.
btw good read also from Matthew Brennan :
Brennan’s War
Headhunters
Hunter-Killer Squadron
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Continuing the ROE discussion, I notice that if you have the door gunner’s ROE set to Free Fire, that they are a trigger happy duo, and will be low on ammo when you reach the LZ. What seemed like a good idea at the time, was later paid in blood and equipment 
Oh, yeah, you can’t fly around the entire island like that, or else it’s like that scene in Full Metal Jacket.
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Mission 4 was my favorite so far.
This is the sling load delivery, arty spotting, and body bag pick up from Dublin. I had never done sling loading before, so I watched a few video tutorials beforehand. It turned out to be not that bad.
The arty spotting was really cool. Watching the spotting rounds hit, and then having the ability to correct was fantastic.
Getting into Dublin was no easy feat, but it was a worthy cause. Godspeed to the KIA.
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Yes, that was a great mission. The sling loading was challenging to me because while I practiced for about 15 mins in the ME, that was at 10C. Doing it at the higher temp/DA was pretty tough, could hardly hover with the load.
Winning hearts and minds, I see!
That was a good one too. Wish we’d had a little bit more from the Filipino gentleman in the back, I sensed great missed opportunities for comedic relief and potential commentary from him, but didn’t get much. My flying must have kept him pretty frightened.
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There were a lot of undisciplined FC in that town 
. Yeah, I agree. Missed opportunity. The individual might have saved his fellow countrymen the unseasonably warm weather that was to follow, but I suppose that there is no reasoning with an ideology. Overall, the variety of missions has been entertaining. Like the other Reflected campaigns that I’ve done, they are good at getting you out of your comfort zone.
Like sling loading and landing on a ship. I have done plenty of carrier ops in the Hornet and Tomcat, but never landed a helo on one of those stern pads. Gives me new respect for the Falkland Harrier pilots landing on HMS Atlantic Conveyor in the South Atlantic. Also, the downed airman pickup could have had more excited banter during that longish RTB.
One more before guns and rockets! Yeeha.
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good progress there chip, need to fire the first mission finally
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Mission 5 is as far as I have got. At the stage where I have to call in artillery it gives me some options but I cannot reply or call up the coms menu using the \ button which I have bound. Is there annother key required, like a mike transmit switch?
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Scoop, are you using VoiceAttack or VAICOM? I’m have the same issue that you describe when VoiceAttack is running. After spending 2 days troubleshooting, I eventually gave up. As long as it is not running, the built-in communication menus, AKA F10 menus, work fine with with the default “RALT + back slash” key or a mapped controller button. I’m using the trigger on my VPC/TM stick no problem as recommended in Chuck’s Huey guide.
You probably already have these set, but the only other thing that I can think of is how I have the radios configured for this mission.
VHF Nav: not used
VHF: 118.5 (FSB London) ← I think that the fire mission coms are on this channel
UHF: 251.7 (Black Jacks A Co HQ)
FM: 41.75 (London FM homing)
Transmit-Interphone Selector Switch: 2 (I think that Greg mentioned leaving it on 2 for the entire campaign in a forum post, although it doesn’t seem to affect coms)
Some more tips.
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Thanks for laying it out. I had issues with VA/Vaicom, and fixed it (kinda) by mapping the pilot’s cyclic T/R switch and using that to key up the radio menu. In SP is mostly works, in MP it’s hit and miss, some kind of bug with VA/Vaicom that I can’t figure out. Pretty frustrating when I can’t get the rearming menu on the pad in MP.
The Huey specifically requires using the T/R switch in the air instead of the comm menu button which only works on the ground.
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Spotting the artillery was really fun for me too!
Landing on the ship was neat, but shouldn’t the rails be down for landing? I was really worried about striking the tail boom with them up.
Yeah, needed so more ambience on that long flight to the other island. I was a little bored, even with the weather.
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I spend a lot of time landing on frigates. The deck rails always go down after rather than before landing. It is a dcs issue, like runway landing lights coming on after you touch down
(My step son flies as an observer/navigator on Royal Navy Merlins. As an ex Army officer I often have to show him how it is done. He loved hovering inches above the Kilo to help put out the fire. I felt an international incident in the making but with a Merlin)
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That’s a great story Scoop. Thanks for sharing.
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