CMC101

CMC101 - An Introduction to The Cutthroats Mercenary Company
Instructor: Boa

Salute Air Warrior pilot! Salute Cutthroat!

This class will familiarize you with the Cutthroats Mercenary Company, our history, and our goals. Those of you who are a Cutthroat or aspire to be one, this class is absolutely required if you plan on being an effective member of our Air Wing. A lot of this information can be found on the other Cutthroat pages. Consider this the one piece summary. At the end of the class, a detailed timeline is presented for those interested.

Some History:

The CMC was started on June 5th, 1996 by Boa and Cobra and later Ckb, Buz, Momo, and Germ. Together we formed The Cutthroats Squadron as a way to oppose the strength of The Muskateers squadron which was the only other squadron that had any real presence in those days.

Eventually, Earthlink and CompuServe servers were combined and the fledgling Cutthroats found themselves amoung much bigger squads with lots of history and reputation. And, most importantly, we found that this complex new world contained major power vacuums in terms of game balance. Upon our arrival it was obvious that C-land was incredibly outnumbered and the game's overall underdog. Thus we moved into C-land and in doing so began our long tradition of siding with the underdogs. This became apparent when The Damned, a truly huge squadron, moved into C-land leaving B-land almost empty. We packed our gear and duffel bags and shipped off to B-land setting a precedent for our occasional migrations.

The Cutthroat:

A Cutthroat is a part of a family. There are many of us who have met in real life and who would turn to one another as good friends. We have never strived to be the biggest team in Air Warrior, just the best (as Dice likes to point out). We really do stick together online and always treat one another with respect and honor. Each member is expected to participate in the CMC community and to act in a responsible and courageous fashion when online.

Organization:

The CMC is an Air Wing composed of two squadrons: The Swashbucklers and the Buccaneers. The overall commander is the CAG (Commander of Air Group). CAG is assisted by the Air Boss who also acts as CAG on occassion.

Each squadron in turn is lead by an SL (Squadron Leader) who's repsonsibility is the coordination and orders to specific flights. The 2 squadrons are further divided into 6 flights (3 flights per squadron). Each of these is lead by an FL (Flight Leader) who's job it is to keep flights together, organized, and on target.

Here's an example of how this works. CAG and Air Boss confer on private channel. CAG orders: "Bucs kill Grog, Swashbuckler bring goonies". Bucs SL decides to put Bluebeard on fuel, Yellowbeard on Ammo and Maint, Greybeard on ack and tower. Swashbucklers SL orders Crimson to fly with goonies, with Blackbeard as close escort, and Redbeard as a CAP team over Grog. Greybeard FL knows that ack must be down before the rest of Bucs get to the base so he hustles his team into action, they take fast fighter bombers to the target. Bluebeard FL knows that there are lots of fuels to kill and they're not easy targets so he assigns A26s for his flight, but to be safe only 2, the rest in fighters as escorts. Yellowbeard FL decides she'll take an A26 gunned with the rest of the flight in heavy fighters. Crimson FL tells flight to grab 2 goonies and 2 close fighter escorts. Blackbeard's FL decides to fly a mix of FWs and P38s while Redbeard's FL tells team to grab spitfires.

Communications:

While detailed explanations of our communications structure are available in other classes, allow me to present a quick overview. We use our newsgroups to plan operations, talk about new recruits, share war stories, etc. It is this aspect of the squad that truly sets us apart from other squads and brings us, the Cutthroats, closer together. If you are a Cutthroat who doesn't use this mechanism, you are missing out on 75% of what our squad is all about. The Operation plan is posted usually 3 days in advance of squad night giving each squadmate plenty of time to prepare for the mission. If you consistently come unprepared, you cannot hope to either advance in rank, or really become an intergral part of the squadron. You will also miss out on all the fun!

The Cutthroats are a very diverse group of people. The newsgroups allow us to get to know each other better and everyone gets a say in the direction that we are heading. This ensures loyalty and is a way to access information about the squad that would otherwise be difficult to acquire.

CMC Timeline

1996

1997

1998

Well, that's all for CMC101. Thank you for attending. If you have any questions regarding this course, you can e-mail me or post on our public newsgroup.

~Boa 10/10/96