501st Newsletter Issue #7

CT Sideways, Chief News Editor
Wednesday, March 6th, 2019

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     Another week has passed in the 501st and as always, the news team is dedicated to bringing you the most up-to-date information from the 501st Legion. This week will continue the latest progress from the Galactic Campaign and includes a look back at the unit's history from the perspective of the one and only, Battalion Commander Jay. Stay tuned for more.

     This week in the Galactic Campaign, the Republic organized their own counter-attack against the CIS invasion of Pantora. Third platoon rallied at the crash site of their captured Munificent-class star frigate that they had previously boarded on Negev. Meanwhile, first platoon had attacked an abandoned Pantoran Defence Force fortress being used by the CIS, where they destroyed the droids and secured it. Fourth platoon performed a looping defense during the night to secure the southern flank preventing armor from coming to reinforce CIS forces in the area. Second platoon did a patrol to limit vanguard actions from the Confederacy and secured a communication relay. First company as a whole pushed the CIS away from the Pantoran capital, rescued civilians from bombing runs and moved them to the capital. Avalanche reports that the platoons performed exceptionally well. Acklay was deployed via lifepods to the south of Yaygin, a small town with even smaller significance, along with Onyx Beskar. Together they pushed through scouting forces to secure a point of interest called Lynchpin, which had been a larger pivot point and fortified position for CIS movement on Pantora which could later be used as a large Republic forward air resupply point and a potential fallback location for our troops.

    This week we had the honor of speaking with our own battalion commander on the foundation and formation of the 501st. As of today, the 501st is one of the largest communities within Arma 3 accounting to around 10% of the active player base, but we wanted to take a look deeper and understand the history of such a large unit. The unit was founded on paper, on May 19th 2017 and was the first of the “starsim” units, which are communities with light military simulation elements set in the universe of Star Wars. In the beginning it was Jay and a few of his close friends, including CC Cruisie and several other individuals who enjoyed playing Arma 3 and its mods. Their group had grown extremely fast due to publicity and new updates to the Star Wars Opposition Mod, but it was not until midway through 2018 with an event known as the “July Massacre” where literally hundreds of people joined looking to participate in such a large experience with like minded people. The retention of most however, was not very long as there was a very large and glaring issue of memory leak, which caused the server to crash every hour and a half and most modules to break even before then. Despite these issues the unit kept moving forward and still managed to hold their own platoon-wide operations.

     Initially the only field training exercises the 501st had started off with was their own campaign style mission some may know as: FTX #03. Centered around taking back a Venator from CIS forces, it wasn’t easy. They got the job done and even exceeded their expectations by claiming the vessel as their own. Next the 501st went to Tatooine where they discovered their new best friend: the entrenching tool. Before then the tool was not used as it was today but due to the large open areas troops and squads began to put the tool to good use. This is also when the Magnaguard was first used in the 501st. While initially used as Spec-Ops droids, they are now used as “mini bosses” in operations until it’s later designation as a bodyguard to important CIS individuals. Throughout this time the unit had to grapple with several main issues, some of which the unit still struggles with today. Being the first of its kind, the 501st had to come up with very basic ideas, like how it was going to operate. Many different ideas were thrown around and no one wanted to replicate the rise and fall of their community like the old type of "milsims" that have come and gone before their eyes. The Star Wars setting allowed them to do something different compared to everyone else and the ability to avoid copying a real life military. This allowed the 501st to feature large air assaults with sometimes overwhelming odds stacked against the heroic clones. Although operations in the beginning had to be fast due to the memory leak problem still present in the mod. Major Jay reminisces about a time he and a squad of seven men cleared out 28 droids in less than a minute while bleeding just to get the operation done in time. Another issue that plagued the unit in the beginning was that of Aviation’s role in the unit. Not only their role, but how they could fit into the unit. Originally, Razor was mostly there to deploy troops and run reinserts, which had fed into a negative overall outlook at Razor. There were many times where they were disrespected and made fun of by general infantry. However Razor never lashed back and they stayed professional, courteous, and always did whatever was assigned to them to the best of their ability. While some of it’s past still lingers over to Razor to this day, they have been able to get over it and do not let it reflect on what it means to be in Razor today. With the many changes of leadership, doctrine and rules, Razor is now a shining beacon in the 501st. The 501st would not be where it is without its aviation detachment due to their professionalism and courage in the field.

     Necessary changes to a growing unit and a place where people can become friends and all enjoy the shared love of Star Wars. When Major Jay was asked on what the heart of the unit was he had this to say: “I ask myself the same question, and my best guess the camaraderie between the people and the squads.”



    We look forward to posting more information regarding the formation of all the elements of the 501st and letting you have all the information on the long history of one of the largest communities in Arma. Until then, we hope you have a good night and steady progress to all our friends in the 501st.

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Promotions and News:

Avalanche HQ -

Player is the new Avalanche XO. Benjamin is now Avalanche RTO.

Avalanche 1 -
"First platoon goes way back, way back before me. I don’t know if I could give the whole history, but 4-5 months ago, first platoon was in a really bad state. Since then, everybody has put in 110% effort and we’ve come such a long way. First platoon is doing great, but while we have come far, there’s always room to improve and so much for us to do" - CS Point

Avalanche 3 -

"3rd's doing good. Crisis smells and whatever he said in his quote is completely false.” - CC Ewik

Avalanche 4 -

“The quote above is correct”- CS-M Crisis

Acklay -
"A helpful way to get use from clankers is to melt them down with a trusty BT X-42."

Onyx -

George, Zora and Moon have all been promoted via billet today and I'm sure that they’re excited to start their roles. Additionally, we’re opening up AnS for RTO basic qualified members and medics and it will be ending in April. We’re excited to see what comes out of this session!

Razor -
“Let's go with 'Be Inspired'. That's what Razor worked on this week.” - CX Scuba

RTO's -
Turkey, Zulu Zeros Atlas and Purdy (CI-C to CI)
Benjamin and Dimitri are the new heads of training. There’s a new instructor chain and Platoon RTO course next weekend for 3 weeks

TCW Mod team -

Koop broke his microphone this week.

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DID YOU KNOW?

Shift + K can be used to determine wind direction for throwing effective smoke grenades.

501st Trivia

Lieutenant Euler is known for leaving Siege matches the first time he dies when his peeks don’t work.

501st Discord

501st Patreon

501st Donation page

^{501st News opinion doesn’t necessarily reflect the opinion of the entire community. If you’d like to help the news team, you can in many ways, including but not limited to, signing up for the news team, submitting an article, posting a piece of media or getting publicity for an event. For those interested, please contact either CT Sideways or CI-C Daedalus for more information. Your voice matters, let it be heard. We’re currently looking for journalists to collect stories, media and content and story writers to write articles. Also please consider donating to the 501st to help pay for server costs and help keep this community alive and well maintained. Photo credits: CM Lich, CW Archon, CW White, CT Swanny}

^{Chief News Editor: CT Sideways}

^{News Editor: CI-C Daedalus}

^{Writers and Journalists: CT Sense, CT Daku and CT Connor}