Situation Reports / Headquarters
TFCO Minor SITREP/10 - Tiers, Roles, Allocation Update

Good afternoon all. This month with lots of little changes taking place to some key systems I wanted to issue a minor SITREP with updates to progress with the Tiering, Progression and Slot Allocation systems.

 

Aircrew

As planned, Aircrew has been split into fixed-wing and rotary-wing Tiers. Obviously this is a logical step forward - however this has given the opportunity to update our roles and SOP in these areas.

 

Changes in Tiers

Prior to the split, fixed-wing roles were considered the higher tier aircrew roles, but with fixed-wing gone, Rotary roles have been rebalanced. Attack helicopter roles were doubled in base tier requirement, but can be 2-UPed if needed from Tier 2 in Rotary.

• Rotary Pilot (General) base tier requirement increase from T-I to T-II
  • Pilots at a base level, should have observer experience before flying
     
• Rotary Weapon Systems Operator (Attack) base tier requirement increase from T-II to T-III
  • Weapon Operators of Attack Helicopters (Cobra/Apache) should have more experience than that of dumb-fire assets.
     
• Rotary Pilot (Attack) base tier requirement increase from T-II to T-IV
  • Pilots of Apaches/Cobras to have a higher base tier requirement than that of dumb-fire assets.

 

New Roles Introduced

Both aircrew tiers have received new roles to provide better guidance for ORBATs, but also more refined experience expectations.

• Rotary Observer (General) new role introduced at T-I
  • This role is a multi role, co-pilot/observer, to be used in assets such as the AH-6, MH-6, UH-60 and UH-1Y, the observer is learning how we use aircraft in combat, but also navigating, observing with optics and assisting the pilot. They may also fly as a co-pilot under instruction.
     
• Rotary Pilot (Multi) new role introduced at T-III
  • Classifying a AH-6 pilot and a AH-64 pilot in the same tier needed to be addressed, and now we make a distinct difference between 'Attack' helicopters or Gunships and 'Multi-role' or 'Multi' aircraft, which we will define as any aircraft with Pilot operated weapons rather than gunner operated weapons, and that are specifically dumb-fire. These pilots need more experience than un-armed pilots, and can perform a number of different roles in addition.
     

• Fixed-wing Pilot (CAP) new role introduced at T-II
  • Provides ORBAT clarity, in the Aircrew Review CAP is Junior to CAS
     
• Fixed-wing Weapons Systems Officer new role introduced at T-II
  • Similar to the Rotary Observer, junior member of the aircrew who can learn in a combat environment, while operating weapon systems or optics.
     
• Fixed-wing Pilot (Multi-role) new role introduced at T-IV
  • The highest tier for fixed-wing are now multi-role aircraft, i.e. dual CAS/CAP capability.

 

Special Forces / Minimum Rank Operations

Instead of rolling out our special operations orbats as PFC+, we've decided to take a Tier-led approach to this going forward. This has an added benefit of the ability to deploy special operations units on larger conventional ORBATs.
 

These roles belong to their respective combat areas, and are generally the highest tiers in them. We've also planned to make these 'Qualified Roles' more on that in the next section.

 

The following roles have been added:

• SF Commander (T-V Field Leadership)
• SF Team Leader (T-IV Field Leadership)
• SF Sapper (T-IV Combat Support)
• SF Medic (T-IV Medical)
• SF Missileman (T-IV Anti-vehicle)
• SF Marksman (T-IV Marksmanship)
• SF Operator (T-IV Core Infantry)

You can see these with full descriptions on the roles center.

 

Qualified Roles

The tier system is an experienced based system, not a capability based system. We'll soon start to phase in a capability based system which will track people who we deem capable of a role, even if they don't have the tier for it. 

Priority will always be given to those who have the most experience, but priority outside of that will be given to people who have the capability those will the experience and the capability are always first.

A number of roles (or role areas) in the future will have a mandatory capability requirement. The best way to look at this is like the Twitter verification tick. Roles like pilots, and field leaders will be verified at each tier by someone senior in that area to confirm they are competent in that role. 

These roles will be listed on the Roles Center, and ORBATs clearly, such as:
Tier IV Qualified instead of Tier IV

 

How would this effect ORBAT priority?

Priority is always highest tier first, and in the case of multiple persons with the same tier - then hours can be used to work out priority. In Tier Qualified roles the priority order is;

1. Tier+Qualification
2. 1UP+Qualification
3. 2UP+Qualification
4. Tier, no qualification
5. 1UP, no qualification
6. 2UP, no qualification

 

Please note that the 'Qualified roles' and they way it works with auto-up-tiering will not start immediately - but consider this a heads up of what to expect on that front. As with any of the requirements it is recursive, so all slots will always be filled with the next most experienced person, irrespective of whether anyone is qualified or not.

 

Slot Allocation Priority Update

Ensuring newer members of UNITAF have access to the first wrung of the progression ladder is important, and the following changes from SITREP/9 are upcoming in the next 1-2 weeks.

'L' Plate slots

Limited to 1-2 per ORBAT, 'L' plate slots only let someone with no combat hours slot into that role for that role area, they are limited to entry level roles in each combat area, and will ensure everyone gets a chance to build their Tier 1 hours across any area. They must have practice hours though, to use it. 

If the 'L' plate slot is not filled, then it will open as normal.

 

Penalty for Reprimands

If you receive a reprimand for a policy violation you currently loose UP-tier privileges for 7 days. We will extend this penalty to adding a delay to ORBAT releases, initially around 90 seconds will be added to give a time advantage to those with accounts in good standing.

 

Penalty for Activity

Some conversations have taken place about 'slot-hogging' and while we hope the 'L' plates will really help here, we will add small time penalties to someone who's been in a specific combat area slot for a large part of the last 30 days, to try to give a chance to those who haven't. This will be a minor time penalty and will only apply to the specific combat area. It won't effect the UP-tiering system since the penalty is seconds.

This only applies when your level of activity, exceeds the average of the entire active force, this is measured with something called the 'Activity Index'.

 

Manual Assignment Guidance

To better communicate when we have manually assigned someone to an ORBAT, ORBATs will now show the method of manual assignment. The valid MA reason codes are;

• MA - Manually Assigned (this person does not have the requirements of the role, but is under the instruction of a supervisor)
• MA-S - Manually Assigned Supervisor (this person is supervising someone else in their immediate ORBAT unit)
• NMQ - Next most qualified (this person doesn't have the role requirements, but is the next most qualified person, and has been slotted manually)

Major James
Chairman
UNITAF

---