This past year has seen the 666th change and grow at an alarming rate. I could probably count who is left of the original core of the 666th by hand, these men have been with this dream since conception, and they ARE the 666th in essence
Honorary Members
AEyes, Lange, Archangel, Fox-One, Acido, Cobra.
They have made this squadron part of their daily lives, dedicating a part of every single day for close to 3 years to keep the 666th alive and kicking. Let us also pay total tribute and respect to the other long serving and dedicated members – friends who i would stand by and honour. This year we welcome the following as Honoury Members
Grunt, Maverick, Scott 68, Moose, Simba, Rat, Sqweege, Outlaw, Xanth, Anaconda, Thumper, Bigman, Cougar One, Rogue, Vortex von Jonkman.
Noire Squadron
Our 2nd squadron – has seen many changes and are still kicking strong. Fox-one resigned his post as CO earlier this year due to personal constraints, handing over reigns to that Aussie – Moose, who breathed some new spirit into the Falcon pilots, then in similar fashion he handed over command to Beagle. Beagle is a person who has shown the 666th great respect and initiative. For one, he has proven himself a serious technical researcher and writer, contributing articles on aviation that would be fit to be published in Janes Weekly. Salute !!! Despite the incredible amount of growing pains in updates and add ons to this sim, the Black Squadron will continue to operate the F-16 Falcon into the new year. In addition and developed by the great Aeyes himself, Noire now boasts its own aggressor squadron, flying the Mig-29. The Migpit was developed over a significant period of time, by Aeyes, and features a full Russian cockpit and controls, even a blonde Russian Bitchen Bettie !!
Rogue Squadron
Despite a seriously ageing aircraft [ironic huh] the F22, is still very active. Ace and Acido handed over command to Maverick, an old 666th member. Rogue Squadron – the Bugstompers, is the birth of the 666th. Formed in July 1998, it had in time operated 4 full squadrons of 16 each. Just about every pilot in the 666th did their time in this fighter, moving through the FTS program before rotating to other aircraft. Rogue saw us through more combat sorties than any other squadron, our last great war against the Esquadron 111th, still to this day honour our combat pilots, [especially Flex and Cobra], and serve fresh in our minds, the cohesive energy, spirit and survival skills that NO OTHER virtual squadron on the net today, have equaled. Under leadership of Maverick, Rogue continues into 2001, flying the F22 and later this year will add the Typhoon to its hangers. Good news is that our old amigo – the mescaline warrior from Argentina – Acido – has been in contact and will be returning to active service this year.
RedSkulls Squadron
Led by an overworked Lange, our EAW squadron – the RedSkulls, have ended up being the MOST active and cohesive of all our air squadrons. These boys fight like wounded tigers [and amongst each other] – competition to be the best have seen them take to the skies in their P-47 Mustangs and Spits every day. Being the youngest of our air squadrons [RS was originally formed by Aeyes], the RedSkulls have carved themselves a vapour trail in the skies above war torn Europe – they have won the respect of just about every enemy or friendly squadron they have flown against or with. They have participated in just about every official EAW event, and despite their few in numbers have corrected this score by sheer numbers in sorties flown and kills.
RedSkulls definitely win this years title of ‘Top Squadron on the Base’. Impressive going RS !!
Ground Operations
Been a shaky year for our ground units. 51Recce changed command with Xanth replacing Archangel as CO. [and now it changed again !!! with Bigman taking over reigns from Xanth]. The squad has been playing on the Rumbles Ladder, where they have carved quite a name for themselves. 51 Recce had until now, been one of the most active 666th units – operating together as friends, and in combat as a team, displaying characteristics of co-operation that instilled a great respect in me.
Grunt’s 51DF on the other hand, despite a tight core of very dependable and hardcore members have suffered the unfortunate brunt that comes with a game like Delta Force. DF players are a breed of their own, not quite dedicated simmers, but not quite ex-Quake fanatics. The average DF player is NOT dependable, he is not serious, and he whores around from squad to squad, trying to get the most ridiculous rank and amount of funny characters in his callsign. Finding good players with longevity has been almost impossible, so the team consisting of Grunt, Outlaw, Mad Dog, Rat, Sqweege, TazDevil and Grommit, IS pretty much the 51DF. With the switch to Land Warrior, 51DF has been given a boost by many 51Recce players [Anaconda, Archangel, Uppy, Cougar One] joining the team. Grunt is soon to be transferred to Germany and Anaconda will be filling in the gap till his return in May 2001.
GFTS, in concept has proven very desirable amongst squads on the internet. Applications have been really good [about 20 squads so far]. The idea of GFTS is to offer a universal combat training school for all squads on the internet playing the Delta Force, Swat3 and Rogue Spear series. Its was also the 666th’s first move towards opening its membership to all squads. Original command was under Ghost [who had left the 51DF before and then did so again !!]. In my opinion, GFTS was concentrating too much on map production, rather than military procedures and training the instructors up to spec. GFTS is suppose to set a pass standard of less than 5%, putting recruits through 12 weeks of hell, testing their staying power, timeliness and dedication. Online activity for GFTS recruits are increased consistently, culminating in Hell Week where recruits spend a continuous 48 Hours NON-STOP online !! This is the year for GFTS. Under new leadership of SFC Rat, we hope to have GFTS operational by end Feb 2001, which in its own, is a huge task.
Last but not least, we have had a new unit, although not strictly military, join the 666th. That is 666 The Kinn, playing MechWarrior 4, and under leadership of ex-51Recce Archangel. On the cards also is a 666th Counter Strike squad.
Goals that we failed to achieve this year
Well, we set high standards, and the pressure on our CO’s have been too heavy. the 666th have failed to find more BBHQ staff to cope with the load of running this unit. Despite too few attempts by some volunteers, we need in this new year to double our HQ staff. We need staff to help with web and TACOPS maintenance plus organising events. Our entire operational planning system [since the incredible OPS planning that went into the 111th campaign] has ceased to exist. Our recruiting campaign is non existent. Squads have failed to grow in members and organisational skills. Squads generally have failed to participate in combat events.
Listed failures last year.
- GFTS was to be operational in Sept already.
- Recruiting slow and irregular.
- Lack of HQ Command Staff, structure, meetings and direction.
- Entire chain of commands have been ignored and bypassed.
- FTS has been on a downwards spiral, shortage of instructors, flight reporting, command.
- Noire & Rogue failed to go operational the entire year. No combat sorties or campaigns were flown.
- 51DF failed to increase its ranks and total lack of combat operations.
- 51SC – does it still exist???
- Despite a respectable amount of Longbow pilots, 666th Killabeez failed to emerge as a squad.
- Total degradation in discipline, SOP’s.
Immediate goals for this year.
- GFTS operational by 1st March 2001.
- GFTS instructors recruited, 2IC appointed, course material completed and tested.
- FTS to return to its former state of glory.
- 51DF to double its core members to 4 squads of 4.
- 51DF to join a Ladder, go operational twice a month at least.
- 51DF Game Server up and running by end January 2001.
- 51Recce to instill 666th SOP’s, rank system and command structure asap.
- 51Recce to work on the process of letting new members in easier.
- 51 Recce to increase its team to 16.
- Rogue to recruit a 2IC.
- Rogue to update their website
- Rogue to research, publish, and document the switch over to Typhoon.
- Rogue to fly scheduled training sorties ‘one flight a day’
- Rogue to go operational 4 times a year.
- Noire to concentrate less on patch versions and more on flying as a team.
- Noire to achieve a scheduled ‘one flight a day’
- Noire to go operational 4 times a year.
- Noire to standardise on fixed wing and wingman positions and fly as a team.
- Noire to raise a core ‘Aggressor’ wing consisting of the Mig 29 and a few F-16 that will act as an instructor team at FTS and keeping operational pilots sharp.
- RedSkulls to choose and stick with one new sim to be incorporated into RS.
- All Air units to participate in monthly ladder on Sierra Hotel.
- 51SC to research and implement the 666th move towards a global battlefield sim like flashPOINT.
- Recruit BB RSM.
- Appoint new Intel, Operations and Liaison Officers and support staff.
- Tech Support Unit to find another staff member to help out at TSU.
- Standardising of websites criteria, download areas, members areas, rank system.
- Research Writers – to research new developments and products in the gaming zone and military hardware. Writers now have the ability to add articles themselves through an article submission program, allowing them to write, edit and publish online. We need to achieve a turnover of at least 4 articles a month.
- The 666th.com to become the place for squads to base their operations from, by offering free hosting, forums, RWBS channels, FTP service etc. Aim here by end the year to have at least 20 air units and 30 ground units based at the 666th.
- The 666th.com to be a place to visit for latest gaming news, patches, downloads, research, maps etc.
- The 666th.com to open its online shop by end-March 2001.
- The 666th.com to purchase and install its own dedicated game server at Rogue’s [T-1 connection]. Beta testing of DF server has already been done].
Immediate orders to all members.
- Every flight and combat sortie to be posted in Current Operations.
- Post flight debriefing and reports to be posted by ALL ranking officers.
- Post combat scores for Ground Units to be posted by all Officers or NCO’s into TACOPS system.
- All squad callsigns to be according to 666th SOP by end January – NO EXCEPTIONS – NO LENIENCY.
- Junior officers and NCO’s need to ‘work’ for their ranks – they need to aid the CO’s in running the squads, and accept some responsibilities, eg Officer on Duty.
- Every squad to have RW/ICQ meeting once a week to define weekly goals, tasks.
- BBHQ meeting for all CO’s and 2IC once a week.
- All promotions and awards, to be passed via BBHQ before being passed out.
XO 666th – ‘MAD DOG’ McEwan dd 30 January 2001
I requested all CO’s to submit a year report but unfortunately this is the only one I have received to date.
51DF 2000 review/2001 preview – by Capt.Grunt
Goals for the new year: #1. to become an effective fighting force, by building a team of no more than 16 personnel. #2. To keep the morale of the team up, by scheduling battles at normal intervals and posting results on the Web site. #3. To keep the team trained, by scheduling inter squad competitions, and friendly skirmishes with other squads. #4. To earn the respect of other squads on the Internet as being one of the best delta force squads in cyberspace.
After action to review for year 2000: a lot happened in the year 2000 some of it was good, most of it was bad. At one point in June we lost over 90 percent of the squad. We learned a lot from that situation, you have to watch out for the guys that consistently try to change things. Those are the guys that will try to overthrow your chain command or get all your members to follow them instead of you. It took awhile to recover from this fiasco and the strong ones are still here, I appreciate your efforts. I think with the 16 member team and the proper leadership we can become an effective fighting force with minimal personnel issues.
Something I feel that has changed a lot and I think will make us a better team is delta force land warrior. A lot of our problems in the past were due to lag, delta force 1&2 both sucked if you didn’t have a fast connection. This meant that a guy could never get any better then his connection. And I think this is what happened during the latter part of 2000, there was nowhere to go. The guys with slower connections just couldn’t get any better. This is why we withdrew as squad and never really pursued any battles. Delta force land warrior I believe is different, the multiplayer code in the game is better. The guys with slower connections have a little room to grow and have done so since the game’s release. When me Anaconda, Rat and Sqweege can go into the team death match and take on 10 other players and whoop the shit out of them consistently, things are going real good.
Personnel issues: Rat and Sqweege should get the most improved award, there kill counts have doubled and sometimes tripled what they use to get in delta force2 . Merge the high kill counts and always being at practice and you have the two best members in the squad. I talked to outlaw awhile ago, and we discussed his role as 2IC and mine as CO. There was a mutual agreement that he would go back to being a follower and I was going also but MD wouldn’t let me. Outlaw is one of our best members as far as kill counts go. He is working some really odd hours and playing some other games within the 666th. I really think he will be there if we ever need him. Grommit and Taz have been on-leave for quite awhile, but they have good reasons and I will not take them off the roster until they ask to be taken off or join another squad. They were both dedicated members and I think they will be in the future. With the addition of Anaconda as 2IC, I think we have a strong base to build on.
Side Note: I really think the 51DF is a special bunch. And it’s going to take special recruits to become part of the squad. Recruiting will always remain a problem and be time consuming. It’s just hard to find guys that can dedicate themselves and are not homo’s.
666th 51DF CPT Grunt’