So this weekend, Graham and I went to play Operation Triglav at this new field in Fenton Falls Ontario and it was fun. The weather absolutely sucked and it rained pretty much from the second we got onto the field till the time endex was called (there was a brief lull for about an hour after 8 PM). Unfortunately the weather forecast had said it would be light rain, I believed it and didn’t pack the proper wet weather gear so I was wet, cold and miserable as the game progressed. Talk about lesson learnt, moving forward if there’s any hint of rain I will pack all my wet weather gear, it’s light so there’s no real excuse not to.
We had to march to our CP which was around 2KM from the parking lot and that was kind of fun. Not many times have I experienced having 50ish guys marching together in formation to a single spot. The field is 500 acres in size but we only used about a quarter of it at most, god I can only imagine if we were using the full field, we’d be walking for hours without seeing anyone. Anyway we had to fight to capture the our CP, then we had to fight to “un-jam” our comms. The latter took longer than expected as the enemy forces were dug in really well. Along the way we did do a nice recce of the field and yeah this place has a lot of potential.
At one point during our initial failed attack, it was just a MSF member and I bunked down in a very brushy part of the field and the two of us held out for 30-45 minutes and took out at least 20-30 op-for members. That was fun but we were sitting ducks and it was only a matter of time before we fell. Haha what was funny, with no comms we had to rely on using the vuvuzela Graham was carrying to signal for support and it worked surprisingly well! Later Ray moved the entire team to assault the comms tower and we were finally able to capture it.
A bit later my section was standing down waiting for orders and I was pretty miserable as I was soaked and it was getting wetter… Decided to change my top from the multicam combat shirt to a woodland BDU as well as the base layer from a wicking t-shirt to an Under Armor cold gear turtleneck. Garret was also kind enough to lend me a goretex jacket which kept my torso and arms dry the rest of the night.
As night fell, a few of the guys started a fire which was a huge morale booster for our side. Even though it was very wet they got it roaring and people were drying themselves off which was great, my MC pants which were also soaked dried within 10 minutes and I was nice and toasty (aside from my feet) quickly too. At around 8:30PM, a group of us with NV and two guys without stepped off to find the enemy base. Nick was having fun playing with his new MTM thermal scope and would scan for targets every few hundred feet and never saw anything. As we got closer to the enemy base location, we started getting sporadic radio messages stating that the enemy force had left the field and that the game was over. Ray who was in overall command kept trying to contact game control to confirm but since it wasn’t official we decided to move ahead anyway. Eventually we got to the alleged enemy CP area and saw nothing and finally GC confirmed that the game was over at around 9:30 PM. It was a bit disappointing but I understood as the weather was absolutely terrible.
I decided to come home instead of hanging out, that way I would have a full Sunday with the family instead of it being a write off. I had fun and wish the game lasted longer but oh well that’s how it goes sometimes. Looking forward to playing on this field again in the future.
Edit: Nick posted some thermal pictures he took, hehe I’m in both pictures can you tell who I am? 😉
The cameras didn’t work very well at night (the shine is off the eyepiece on my PVS-14) haha and the last picture shows exactly where my section went. I’m glad I’m not super sore, haha that way I won’t move like an old man at work again. 😉
