Situation Reports / Headquarters
TFCO SITREP/10 - March 21 + TAFFCAST
Welcome to this month’s monthly SITREP from Headquarters. If you're joining us in the last 30 days or so Welcome to UNITAF - I hope you're enjoying your time here so far. The SITREP is a monthly to bi-monthly update which contains a range of changes both past and upcoming as well as the discussions and focuses from up and down the chain of command, it's designed to keep everyone up to speed with the thoughts of the senior Chain of Command.
For more meat on the below summary, you'll find it further down in this SITREP.
- TAFFCAST 3
- Activity and AAR Review
- Recruitment Policy Updates
- Promotions
- Awards and Citations + New Awards System
- Proposed changes to Recruit / Private Ranks
- A planned promotions policy
- Officers and UNISTAFF update
- Public Server update
- Daesh Dawn replacement
- Changes to 2ICs
As a special treat, you can listen to this audio version SITREP/10 if you like.
Activity and Recruitment
Firstly, let's talk statistics. By now the SITREPs must sound like a broken record, as we enter our 4th simultaneous month of attendance growth, month on month. Not just that, but if you look at Task Force Strength, it's now in it's 6th month on month in growth. Seeing the first period of a 100+ Total Force Strength; this is an important benchmark since it indicates not just our rostered size, but our active size, as there are always people in the process of becoming active or joining and those in the process of retiring or going inactive.
Obviously it doesn't take a mathematician to work out that a slot deployment of 850 slots in March, against a 108 total force is around 8.5 slots per active member in March, which to be honest - is a bit insane.
Next, let's look at deployments and as you can see - it speaks for itself, a heroic effort from our Mission Support and Field Leadership teams.
One thing I can pinpoint though is this nose dive in Server Performance, which continues into early April and I'm sure was noticeable. Some missions had been launched accidentally without Headless Client support, which has a big impact on server performance. This was fixed in mid-April. so we expect to see that back to normal, in SITREP/11.
For almost 2 years, UNITAF has operated a mostly open door recruitment policy, whereby the COC would induct and enlist applicants on a near constant basis. The last few months have seen two recruitment halts due to, let's call it "overcrowding". We have a great problem to have in UNITAF, that is more people want to join than we can support, and the people already wearing the patch want to play even more missions that we can provide. As we speak, we have something in the region of 30 applications pending.
This is a great problem to have, and for now our efforts are focused on the latter problem, how can we ensure we can support those wearing the patch today. So what does this mean for recruitment?
- Firstly, we're have set a hard limit on the rostered force of 120, this is the roster size that we'll aim to remain at for the time being.
We are in a very fortunate position, and we are content on using this to raise the bar with our new recruits, which we are finding to be much more attentive, dedicated and passionate as they have in some case waited nearly a month in order to be able to wear the patch.
In this live episode of TAFFCAST, we discuss a brief update, plans for UNITAFs 2nd Birthday and move on to discuss how UNITAF started and what makes a good leader and how UNITAF chooses leaders for it's organisation. Followed by questions submitted by the live listeners. We were really happy with the engagement of the live broadcast and will look to carry this similar format forward - so expect to see more soon. We'd love to hear your ideas for topics too.
Promotions
This SITREP is somewhat delayed, in that it's been 6 weeks or so since the last mainline SITREP, but here are some of the notable promotions since then. Most obvious is the promotion of Capt Kevin to Executive Officer, and 1Lt Ben to First Lieutenant. As we've talked about in previous SITREPs, the working model of the ORGCOC right now is in rules of two, with each post having two persons, so that there is full redundancy in the COC, and that also extends now to the Commanding Officer.
2Lt Mattjamco also took command of 2 Troop, and we added two new Corporals with Cpl WhiteWolf and Cpl LegacyStetson taking up the posts.
It's also great to see so many Specialists and PFCs, I'm also aware that we are mere hours away from our first Master Specialist Promotion!
There were of course, a large number of Pvt and Recruit promotions as well.
Awards and Citations
We recently saw a large update to our Awards System. Awards are now graded and can be given attachments to recognise outstanding achievements. Most all medals now either have stars or oak-leaf attachments in Bronze, Silver and Gold - allowing you to upgrade your medals over time, and show off as you collect them.
Example of the new JSAM with attachment variations.
With that, we also added a number of new medals. Specifically we wanted to ensure that we recognised the outstanding work that our Game Masters and Mission Support teams do on a daily basis.
Next up, for those attending a large number of Practices, we have the Field Exercise Service Medal and those go to:
The Combat Operations Service Medal also gets an update, and it's great to see so many people having achieved it as well.
ORBAT Role Availability Feature
We also added a handy tool for ORBAT-wide role checking - to all ORBATs.
Candidate and Recruit Rank Changes - Recruit Training Changes
Earlier in the SITREP we discussed a more selective intake procedure. Along with that I'd like to share some current thinking surrounding the Candidate and Recruit ranks.
It's more than likely in the coming months, that the Recruit Training contents will change. The instructors are keen to remove some subjects and add some more. We expect this will take form of two sessions ;
- Recruit Core Infantry Training (for Candidate to Recruit promotions)
This is not confirmed, but you'll see that the main difference here is that the current requirement for Private is Tier II in Core Infantry, which requires 2 Core Infantry FTXs, rather than do the same one twice, it's proposed that instead, Recruits do an advanced session as a requirement of becoming a Private, as well as Tier II in Core Infantry.
Promotion Policy
Following feedback from the ORGCOC, a full review of the ranks and promotions policy is underway. We want to ensure that the requirements and expectations of all ranks is really clear, and we don't think that these have been updated in line with other structural changes to UNITAF over the last 2 years.
We'll be updating the ranks section of the site with clear requirements for every rank, probably in time for the next SITREP.
In addition, we'll also publish a promotions policy, that clearly outlines the process to follow from one rank to the next, specifically when choosing between multiple applicants for a single promotion.
Officers and UNISTAFF
The Role of UNISTAFF has changed over the years, and currently we just wanted to make you aware that all UNISTAFF Meetings are and have been for the last 2 months Officer/UNISTAFF meetings. What this means is that the Officers in addition to UNISTAFF are having the majority of policy discussion. This group of 5-6 members of the Senior Staff meet on a weekly basis and officially every other week.
Public Server
A very quick note on the public server. It is currently not working but if anyone would like to work on fixing it, they are more than welcome and we'll put it back up as normal. That is the Liberation server, for anyone not versed.
Daesh Dawn Campaign Replacement
We are currently working on a new concept for a deployment, probably called a 'Patrol'. In the latest ORGCOC meeting we discussed having a non-Zeus driven server which is private and persistent, MSO style for anyone versed in Arma 2. The server would be it's own campaign, ran just like any other UNITAF deployment except that there would be no mission support roles by default. Using an automated persistent mission file, Field Leaders could plan and execute patrols in a insurgency style server storyline.
We feel this is a great way to increase the number of smaller ORBATs, specialist missions with Snipers, Aircraft and the like, without burning out our Game Masters.
Discussions and work are still underway - this was touched on in TAFFCAST 3 as well - and if youre interested please speak to Capt Kevin for more information.
Automatic Rifleman (2IC) - Second in Command - Policy Change
For a while now the ORGCOC have wanted to change the default 2IC policy away from the AR role. Effective from the issue of this SITREP, the 2IC role is now dynamic, and you can find the new policy in P3-3 Roles in the fireteam and as below.
Patreon
A special mention to those who have supported UNITAF on Pateron, please do let me know if you have, as I know some people have done it under a name not related to UNITAF, which makes it very hard to thank you personally. But it is nevertheless, much appreciated.
Slot Priority
A big topic from previous SITREPs has been the slot priority system. There has been a slight lack of progress on this front this month, but I do hope to have a rather substantial update in the coming weeks for that. Along with some unique tools such as a tool that will tell you who is "next in line" for a slot and so on. So keep your eyes peeled. That said a lot of work has been done in the background on this.
UNITAFs 2nd Birthday Celebration
UNITAFs Official 2nd Birthday will be Celebrated on June 1st 2021. We will look to plan a number of special events from June 1 to June 6 to celebrate this milestone.
None to report
It's been another great month for UNITAF, please do let us know your feedback, including the new Podcast on Discord.
Major James
Another thing to remember here is that this entire graph now, from last April to this March is overshadowed by the global COVID-19 pandemic, so we don't even know what effect the easing of restrictions worldwide will have on our activity, but more on that a bit further down in the SITREP.
We do see a slight drop in Leadership and Communication ratings, I'm not 100% certain for the reason, but of course we'll continue to track it.
Let's talk recruitment
- Secondly, we'll stop inducting and processing new recruits continuously, this will take the form of "Intakes" where 6-8 applicants are inducted and taken on within a 2-3 week period.
- The timing and size of intakes will be directed by the rostered size, so for example if the Roster size is 110, then an Intake of 10 will be planned.
We're also looking at some potential changes to the process of Candidate and Recruit ranks, which you can find in the Perspective section of this SITREP.
TAFFCAST
Or use this feed URL in iTunes and other Podcast players
https://feed.podbean.com/unitaf/feed.xml
Captain
O-3
Kevin
First Lieutenant
O-2
Ben
Second Lieutenant
O-1
Mattjamco
Sergeant First Class
E-7
Luke
Corporal
E-4
WhiteWolf
Corporal
E-4
LegacyStetson
Specialist
E-4
Bex
Specialist
E-4
Mectus
Specialist
E-4
STORM
Private First Class
E-3
Wavan
Private First Class
E-3
Chelmy
Private First Class
E-3
Fire Hawk
Private First Class
E-3
Hrusi
Private First Class
E-3
Grezvany13
Private First Class
E-3
Dreolic
With the addition of the Support Operations Service Medal - and a massive congratulations to those, as indicated below who have received it so far.
- Recruit Advanced Infantry Training (for Recruit to Private promotions)
Discussions are ongoing on the above, and if you'd like to have some input - the best place to start would be j6-training-and-sop.
Not withstanding the potential of seeing the following event!
Headquarters
United Task Force
Major James
Chairman
UNITAF
