Volunteer Commando Battalion - British Co-Op Squad

[SteveVCB]

www.volcbat.com

The Volunteer Commando Battalion (often abbreviated to VOLCBAT or VCB) is a British-based co-op squad; despite the name, we are based along the same lines as a light role infantry platoon. We use British kit and tactics to create a realistic, but most importantly, enjoyable ArmA experience.

The squad originally formed in 2002 as RSF, but became VOLCBAT in October 2003 as a result of a major reorganisational effort. We played OFP up until around February 2007, at which point we switched over Armed Assault. We converted over to ArmA 2 in the summer of 2009, and are still going strong.

For more in-depth information regarding the squad, have a look at our information pack; weighing in at 25 pages, it should give you a fair idea of what we're about and what we get up to.

VCB INFO PACK (right click/Save Link As... to download)



If you're looking for a well-established squad that's full of decent blokes and strikes the right balance between fun and realism, and you meet the following requirements:

- 16 years old or over
- decent grasp of both written and spoken English
- good sense of humour
- willing to learn
- can attend at least one game a month
- own a legal copy of ArmA 2 and Operation Arrowhead, doesn't matter where from
- possess a microphone and Teamspeak 3

... please feel free to head over to our forums and post an application. We'll do our best to get back to you ASAP.



Frequently Asked Questions

When do you play?

We have two official games a week: Sunday and Wednesday nights. Both start at 8pm GMT, and last in the region of 2-3 hours. Sunday is considered the main night, with Wednesday being used for training and more casual sessions.


How many members do you have?

We have at any given time between 50-60 members on the books, including reserves (members who would still like to participate, but are temporarily unable to due to other commitments or issues). A typical game night turnout is around 20+, so we're almost always guaranteed close to a platoon's worth of bods. Obviously, on paper we have enough for almost a company, but what's the point of pretending to be that big if we're only going to have a section's worth in each platoon in practice?



Do you have a public server?

We ran one for a while for ArmA 1, but we retired it as it ended up being more trouble than it was worth aside from cheaters and people complaining about being banned or kicked on the forums, we also had a lot of people applying to join us, believing that we were an Evo squad.

We have, however, run occasional open nights, so if you want to get a feel for what we're like, but aren't sure if you'd like to commit to joining yet, keep an eye on this thread for announcements.


I'm from [insert country here], can I still join?

Yes. We have no problem with people from outside of the UK applying to join; we've seemingly always had a quite a few overseas members, and this isn't likely to change any time soon. Bear in mind, however, that we tend to start games at 8pm GMT, so if you live further afield than Europe, the time difference may be an issue for you. However, if you're willing to turn up, we're willing to let you join in.


I'm under 16, can I join?

I'm afraid not. We implemented the age limit for two reasons: firstly, the average age within the squad is around the 25 mark, and we'd like to maintain that level of maturity. Secondly, the banter can be extremely raw at times, and at the risk of sounding patronising, we don't think it'd be very responsible of us to subject under 16s to it.


Is military experience necessary?

Not at all. Although prior experience is always a bonus, a total lack of it won't put you at a disadvantage. we'll teach you all the skills and drills you'll require during Phase 1 training.



Do you play Evo/CTF/Domination?

We have occasional casual games of Evo or Domination between scheduled games, but other than that, no, we're entirely co-op based.


Do you play MSO (Multi-Session Operations)?

Yes we do! We've taken quite a shining to the format and will often give it a shot.


Do you play any other games?

Not officially, but at any given time a fair number of our members will play a wide variety of games together, from flight sims to RPGs.


What addons will I need?

We use a variety of British addons, as well as ACE. However, we'll sort you out with everything you'll need once you complete your Phase 1 training. Up until that point, you won't need any addons whatsoever.


Would you be interested in a TvT match/Joint Op with our squad?

We're more open to these opportunities than ever, if the circumstances are right. Enjoyable scenarios and missions in the past involving PvP (which in our own flavour we prefer to call Force on Force) generally involves low tech weaponry and generally infantry/light vehicles only, focussing on good tactics, teamwork and maximising potential for lengthened firefights, surpression and battlefield movement. As far as joint ops go, ask on our forums and we'll see what works: not everyone plays ArmA 2 like us, so we like to ensure that everyone involved is looking for the same sort of thing before we consider committing to anything. We've had a couple of excellent games with Romeo 2.5 in the past though, so we're certainly open to the idea of joint ops.



Can I join as a pilot?

We decided when we converted to ArmA 2 to finally close our air wing, 243 Flight. We employed aircraft in various roles for seven years, and despite trying several approaches, we found in the end that catering for infantry and aircrew at the same time was problematic at best: either missions were skewed in favour of one branch, or weren't much fun for either. In the end, we decided after much deliberation to focus exclusively on the infantry side of things. However, in the event that we require pilots, the roles will be filled by volunteers on an ad-hoc basis.


Can I join as a sniper?

No. We're all about section attacks, fire and manoeuvre and inflicting MFV on the enemy, so if you join expecting to spend a game crawling around dressed as a bush, zapping people with a Barrett, you'll be sorely disappointed. Besides, in the rare event that we require a sniper, the role will be filled by a member of our Patrols section.


Can I join as an armour crewman?

While in the past we deployed the Warrior IFV, this has become the exception rather than the rule, and so we do not actively require or train AFV crews. That said, training sessions in the past have included the skills required to man these weapons, so it's certainly a case of 'rifleman first, crewman second' if it's ever needed.


If you have any questions that havent been covered here or in the information pack, post on our forums or send a PM to the latest poster (most likely to be active and get back to you quickly), and a member of the squad will try to answer them for you.

Thanks for reading, and hope to see you on our forums soon!

[SteveVCB]

We play two "proper" games a week (Wednesday and Sundays at 8pm), and turnouts are usually around the twenty mark. We've had a major rush of new members and are still getting applications posted, so assuming all goes well, we expect the turnout to steadily rise over the next few months.

[Pathy]

Just posting a quick update to any who are interested. We've had a string of good games on the go, deploying with a full platoon (27 blokes) in some cases! One of our members got some footage from the last two games, which may be of interest to those thinking of getting involved or wondering about our playstyle.

The first video is from an Operation in which 3 Platoon, 1VCB had been tasked to conduct a deliberate assault on an insurgent roadblock where it was suspected atrocities had been committed. Our initial plan had us moving into an adjacent forest before initiating the assault, on what intel had indicated was roughly a Platoons worth of Enemy. However, en route, the lead section was contacted from the forest by an Enemy depth patrol, and we were forced to fight through the forest, before breaking into the position. As always, however, we'd planned for contingencies and conducted an extremely effective platoon attack against what turned out to be company sized enemy forces! The video shows 1 Sections perspective, providing fire support for 2 and 3 (FSG) Sections as they continue the assault. The mission ended with 5 casualties (out of 27) for us, and between 60-80 Enemy dead.


The second video is again from 1 Sections perspective, in a different mission, showing them moving into position, providing fire support for 2 section, then advancing and assaulting the Enemy position under covering fire from 2 section. They then engage an Enemy QRF along with the rest of the Platoon, before withdrawing. In this mission, 3Pl had been tasked to assault an enemy compound and adjacent vehicle checkpoint, in order to disrupt an Enemy supply route. We were to then hold the position against the enemy QRF, and withdraw once they were destroyed or we could no longer hold the position. We completed this mission with two losses, and around 60 En dead.


Thanks to Mcvitties for providing the footage!

[SteveVCB]

Just a quick update on what's been going on in VCB lately.

Games

Since moving over to ArmA 2, we've played two full-length (no less than two hours) missions a week without fail, with the exception of one Sunday which was scrubbed due to technical problems. Turnouts have been fantastic; when we started having a second game night, we thought they'd be very small-scale compared to Sunday's games. Now, it's become very clear that not having enough people to do anything interesting is the least of our worries, with pretty much every mission having around thirty guys turning up. As a result, we've moved on from basic fighting patrols and the like to full-on platoon attacks, which is obviously a lot more interesting than a dozen blokes trying to knock over a single enemy position.

Some recent games that proved memorable included:

A convoy mission, in which we escorted a truck carrying medical supplies to a series of villages. On the way, we dealt with ambushes and IEDs, before being re-tasked to dismount and destroy a target of opportunity in the next valley.

A platoon attack, which had us assaulting an enemy AAA position, destroying their guns and capturing their radar system after almost a solid hour of close-in fighting.

Another platoon attack, this time with the enemy being co-ordinated by one of our members. The result was two arse-clenchingly tense hours of FIWAF, bumping and being bumped by enemy patrols, with the mission finally culminating in a last-ditch advance on the objective.


Training

We've been running at least one training session a week, focussing mainly on platoon battle drills. However, we have covered some subjects that are more out of the ordinary, such as beach assaults. Footage of that particular bloodbath can be found on our forums in the Game Photography & Discussion thread.

In the weeks to come, we intend to cover ambushes, OBUA, and run a section on section exercise, which all promise to be both educational and gratuitously violent.


Expansion

The number and quality of applicants we've had in the past few months surpassed our expectations, and we now have almost seventy members on the books. As a result we intend to open a third rifle section in the near future, and expand the Fire Support Group to eight men. Also, we are considering opening new wings, opening new possibilities up both in terms for roles and missions.

We're still recruiting as always, so if you fancy some slick platoon-sized ops and lashings of MFV, pop over to our forums and post an application.

[LondonLad]

For those wanting to see the type of gameplay style utilised by VCB I recommend gaming with us on a VCB Open Night on Tuesday 1st September.

More information can be found here http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=84269 (The title of this thread states the 25th August - This is now incorrect as the date has been pushed back to Tuesday 1st September @ 7PM GMT (UK))

[Pathy]

Since it's been a few weeks since our last proper update, heres the recent news in VCBs world!

Administration and Training:

VOLCBAT continues to expand, and we've been very lucky to have the large influx of like-minded high quality members we have! As a result, we've now opened up a 3rd Rifle section, giving us even more flexibility on Operations.

We've conducted multiple training sessions since we last updated, the main ones being the Ambush training, which saw VCB members learning the dark art of conducting an ambush, perhaps the hardest of all infantry drills to master. We also conducted a Force on Force exercise, that saw two multiple sized forces going head to head over a 2km x 2km AO. Both sides conducted patrols, recce's, and put in OP's in order to try and locate the enemy andcomplete their objective. It was an intense experience, requiring members to use every bit of their training that they could muster! I'm sure nobody who participated will forget 2 sections Snap Ambush in a hurry!

With regards to future training, continuation training is ongoing, and with 3 additional servers kindly provided by LondonLad, we're actually in a rather unique position where we can break down into individual sections for training!

Games:

It's not all training, and thanks to a good series of missions, we continue to have fantastic turnouts both on Wednesdays and Sundays; it's not uncommon to have a full platoons worth of guys on, with 3 rifle sections, HQ, plus FSG. As before, this is allowing us to do increasingly advanced stuff, and in many aspects we're operating on the same level as a real Light Infantry Platoon (just don't ask us to get out of our chairs and run!).

Open Co-op Night:

In addition to our private games, we also held the VOLCBAT Open co-op Night. With 25 odd guys on for the first game and 37 guys on for the second game, we certainly had a fantastic time, and by all accounts, so did our guests. We enjoyed ourselves so much and were so impressed with the public who came along, that we infact plan to hold another one before too long, and hope even more people come and join us for a game!

To take some quotes from some of the public playing with us (I hope they don't mind! (and if you do, i'll remove your quote!)):

HELL YEAH !
I been playing OFP/Arma/Arm2 since the OFP demo days

Can honestly say was one of the best games ever , good craic working together

And your server is rock solid and runs really well too :-)

That was awesome fun guys, thanks!

I had a great night.

........

I'll keep an eye out for other VOLCBAT public nights. This is how the game should be played.

As a guest attending to both missions I definitely had a blast! Aside from being unused to British military jargon and the game not liking to show multiple markers at one time it worked really well.

So, next time around (Date yet to be decided!), whether you want to join VCB, see how we play, are curious as to whats possible, just want some good co-op, or are part of another squad and just want some action of a Sunday night, please feel free to come along.

Recruitment:
If you're interested in working closely as a team whilst using real life tactics, doing true to life scenarios, but without the real life risk of bodily harm or death, the inconvenience of having to visit hot dusty places, or the requirement to address everyone by their rank, then VOLCBAT may be for you. We're always looking for more guys with a good head and a good sense of humour to jump in on our "realism, without the bollocks" playstyle.

If this grips you, then be sure to check out the details in the first post of this thread!



I leave you with a visual summary of what VCB is all about, as conceived by our rather talented in-house artist, Steve:






.

[Pathy]

It's that time again; time we did another update! Now, I could use this opportunity to post an update in the existing format, but to tell the truth it would offer very little new aside from repeating my last post; we're still playing large, platoon level ops, with awesome missions, awesome kit and awesome members, and we always recruiting....

Instead i'm going to post some screenshots and abit of an informal write up of our last mission, so that anyone interested can see just a little bit better what we're all about.

Operation Turnscrew

This was a mission to engage and destroy a small group of insurgents who'd been mortaring local forces and civilians in order to terrorise the local populace. 3 Platoon (thats us), A Company, 1 Volunteer Commando Battalion, were tasked with neutralising the Enemy, which we intended to do through means of an aggressive fighting patrol right into the Enemys Area of Operations. We had 28 guys in on the mission, which translated into 3 rifle sections, an HQ, and a 4 man Fire Support Group.



We formed up and kitted up at 0525 in our patrol base, with first light 5 minutes away. With the sun rising over foggy fields as we moved off down the track, the Prelim Move was pretty atmospheric! We passed through a couple of predesignated RVs, before breaking track and heading into a forest we'd earmarked as our FRV.



Once into our FRV, we sorted any remaining bits of admin out and took a better look at the ground and situation before proceeding. 1 section and FSG (Fire Support Group) were to provide fire support and moved north out of the FRV with the intention of using the high ground to cover the assault in. 2 and 3 sections, along with HQ, moved south then east, with intent of using a treeline to offer some cover for the assault.



However, as soon as we entered the treeline, a contact with an outlying patrol ensued, with fire coming in from several directions. Breaking through the contact, we continued to push on towards the objective. In the meantime, 1 section and FSG had also hit contact to the north and were engaging the enemy position. We pushed up through the treeline to link up with them, under heavy fire from an emplaced machinegun and several supporting infantry.



A set of QBOs (Quick Battle Orders) later saw 1, 2 and FSG putting down a massive weight of fire onto the enemy position, whilst 3 section put in the assault. Clearing through the position, the entire platoon held a Reorg on the other side, before forming up and moving back to the FRV. During it all, we'd suffered 8 casualties from the original 28, and killed 20 enemy in the process. Despite the small numbers of enemy, we had a very intense firefight and been challenged throughout. All in all, a fantastic mission

The Team (well, the survivors at least!)

There are more images from this mission in our Gallery!


If you're interested in getting in on the action, please visit
www.volcbat.com

Cheers!
Chris.

[Pathy]

Operation Topgun

"You can be my wingman anytime....."

We finally got together with the closest thing we have to a sister unit, Romeo25, for a Joint Operation in the form of Operation Topgun. With a platoon from each squad being put forward, plus our FSG being able to operate as a Company asset, we had around 47 guys on our server (which held up beautifully) for a Joint Op neither squad will forget in a hurry and for all the right reasons!

Our mission was to seize an important crossing point called Objective Iceman, which was defended by an enemy company, dug in and prepared to fight to the death! 2 Platoon (R25) were to provide fire support for 3 Platoon(VCB), then to continue the assault, whilst 3Pl were to assault and secure the south side of the crossing, then provide fire support for 2Pl as they secured the North. This was to be part of a larger fictional battlegroup effort in which other forces were simultaneously securing Objective Maverick, in order to allow an advance northwards.

After each Platoon did their O group, the Platoons moved off with 5 minute interval between them, and met at the Company Assembly area. Once we were both sorted, 2 Pl moved off towards their start line and 3 Pl off to our 'line of departure'. From there on out, the action kicked off, with 3Pl doing sequential section attacks through the enemy position, then supporting 2Pl as they moved through and onto the North side of the crossing. A section of VCB guys was moved across to support 2Pl in clearing and holding it, as no sooner than they had, the enemy launched a large scale counterattack that had everyones sphincters clenching tightly!

One of our members managed to capture footage of the assault going down, so theres no need for me to describe the action in detail, as a picture paints a thousand words and a video, several million.....Enjoy the action from VCBs point of view!



Everyone from both VOLCBAT and Romeo25 really did themselves proud, and by all accounts those involved had a cracking time!


If you want to get in on the action with the best two British Co-op squads out there, you know where to find us!

-Chris.

[Pathy]

Just a quick update:
Unfortunately our webhost has suffered some sort of network failure, meaning that the VOLCBAT site is completely unavailable. It will be back up when the host resolves the network issues at their end, but in the meantime we ask anyone trying to access the website to be patient, and anyone interested in joining to contact myself or Steve (guy who started this thread) via PM! Apologies for any inconvenience!

Cheers

[Dr_Chris]

First of all we at VCB hope that everyone has had a great Christmas and that your New Years resolutions are holding up well.

In between our few festive drinks (hiccup!) and the piles of Christmas food, we have had plenty of opportunities to play ArmAII around the holiday season. As well as several very successful and enjoyable missions, we have had a few late Christmas presents! Read on for more.


Operations - Just a couple of examples


Operation Portabello

This operation saw VCB starting on the Southern coast of Chernarus after a beach insertion. 3 Platoon were tasked with pushing North East up a road towards the OPFOR occupied town of Kamenka, taking out small positions on the way.

The fighting patrol pushed NE up the road, successfully clearing OPFOR positions en route and inflicting maximum casualties. The 3 Pl then put in a recce on the town of Kamenka in order to gain intelligence on enemy numbers, patrols and combat support. This then lead on to an assault by 1 and 2 Section on the town, with 3 Section providing fire support. The town had been well fortified and the OPFOR consisted of veterans of multiple battles with both UK forces and CDF forces.

After a drawn out, ranged fire fight and upon the arrival of a QRF to the town of Kamenka, the decision was made to withdraw from the battle in order to regroup with the rest of A Coy. Taking several casualties, 3 Pl were able to withdraw from the area and injured blokes were seen to by our Pl medic.

This was our first full Operation using ACE.

Operation Cumberland

3 Platoon VCB were tasked with securing the area of a downed US Marine UH-1 and to locate and extract the crew.

After patrolling in to the last known area of the aircraft from our FUP, 1 Section came under fire from an enemy patrol in woodland to our North. After 2 and 3 Section moved up to support and the enemy patrol was wiped out, we were able to locate and destroy the crashed helicopter. Unfortunately all of the US crew were found dead nearby.

A quick sweep of the area was carried out in order to wipe out any remaining OPFOR and we moved back through our RV points to our vehicles at the FUP to the South.

Naturally, this then turned in to the rally phase, which involved much screaming from the people in the back of Land Rovers, all at the mercy of psychotic drivers.



New Equipment/Procurements

We have been lucky enough to procure several new bits of kit and modifications in order to enhance our gaming experience, whilst keeping it realistic and bollocks free. Here is a (non-extensive) list of what we've got:

- Server updated with ACE2
- UKF Jackal
- Customised infantry using the new Multicam that is now being made standard issue across all UK forces.
- RKSL Lynx
- Kellu Island
- Podagorsk Island

...as well as a few other bits and bobs. Looking carefully at some of our screenshots both here and on our forum may give a bit of a clearer picture.




A big post for a big set of news! Thank you for reading and if this sparks up interest about VOLCBAT or you think that you might enjoy playing as a member of the unit, then please feel free to head on over to our website + forum where you will be able to browse more screenshots, have a read of what we're about and apply should you so wish.

A few screenshots from recent Ops

1 Section, chilling out in the romantic glow of a cylume


The survivors, trying to look warry


Thanks!

Dr_Chris