Ghost Recon #1

It is a shame that this classic game is not listed on the site and many of my most memorable experiences occurred in that game.

We were playing 5v5 hamburger hill on river, a small map with a high ground on both sides of the river overlooking the smoke. If you don't know, hamburger hill is a game where points are scored based on the number of people in the smoke each second.

The rules of engagement are no proximity ball, no respawns and depending on agreement with the opposition, no sensors.

The map River, is one of my favourites, one side of the river has the advantageous position as they have better cover, even though they can't see the smoke directly from cover. The teams have an equal chance of gaining the advantage so the initial skirmish for position. As we always play without respawns, getting killed has real consequence as you sit out the game, listening to your team mates on teamspeak.

in this story, we won the hill and had 1 guys at the path leading down to the smoke, 2 guys in each of the cracks that let them see anyone approaching the smoke and the remaining 2 covering the sides of the hill to prevent flanking. This is the strongest defensive position on the map but unless you get points or eliminate all the opposition the game is a draw.

The tension slowly built. Then the silence was punctuated by the snap of rifle rounds as one of the flank guards engaged the enemy. Teamspeak lit up as the combatant reported his contact. The left crack guard left this post to support the right hand flank guard (he could cover from his position by turning round) the opposition was now a man down.

Suddenly the score tally started climbing for the opposition and the smoke on the map turned red, the colour of the opposition team. During the engagement they had got a man past our sentries. We needed to eliminate them before they got enough points to win.

Taking a grenade I lobbed it over the wall, remember I had no view of the smoke from my position. BANG! now the enemy only had 2 men left. The rest of the match was a stalking game as we split into 2 pairs and hunted them down.