South African Arma 2: Operation Arrowhead military simulation community, Arma.co.za, has recently spruced up its website and forums. The community is three years old, and is kicking off 2012 with a recruitment drive.

At the core of the community is the Zulu Alpha Mission Team, who are looking to recruit new players through a selection course and training period, beginning 7 February 2012.

Selection courses run every 2 months. Those interested should be dedicated, serious gamers who have the time to invest in being part of South Africa’s only military simulation Arma 2 Mission Team. The selection course consists of several phases that include basic land navigation and teamwork.

Arma 2

Successful candidates will undergo extensive basic training in areas such as small unit tactics, CQB, helicopter work and basic parachuting. Once they complete the course, they will be badged as qualified ZA operators, and will be able to take part in custom direct-action missions.

Arma.co.za has recently migrated to running their own gaming server utilising many realism mods such as ACE 2 and ACRE, designed to simulate real-world military combat.

Arma.co.za is frequently involved in creating and participating in missions, with modes including co-op, against AI and against international Arma groups.

Arma 2

We had a chat with Christian “joedamage” Lau to find out a bit more about the community and the requirements of joining.

“[Players] need Arma 2 and Operation Arrowhead, which can be bought as “Arma 2 Combined Operations” from Steam, Gamersgate, Direct2Drive etc. and downloaded, or if they buy a CD key from www.sprocketidea.com, we can ship the content on DVDs,” said Lau.

He stated that this is not for profit, but to assist gamers getting started. “Additionally, there are several mods and other bits and pieces that are needed. The community is very helpful in getting new people started as it can be a bit of work,” added Lau.

In terms of internet connection requirements, Lau said that playing locally on a 384kbps ADSL line should be fine, as their server is hosted locally. “We’ve also played on international servers quite a bit with 384K lines without major issues,” said Lau.

Arma 2

Having become a certified ZA operator, we asked how often direct action missions occur.

“We schedule missions usually 2 weeks in advance to allow the mission commander time to plan and to allow him to run close-in reconnaissance if required. Missions are played on Sunday evenings, starting at 20:00. We try to schedule a mission for every Sunday evening, but at minimum, every two weeks,” said Lau.

“In terms of the ZA Mission Team, we require regular attendance on Tuesday training sessions, and regular attendance at missions on Sunday evenings. Otherwise they will be dropped from the team. In terms of just playing casually (on any of the other days) there is no requirement,” added Lau.

“The community is lead by an HQ element, namely Joedamage (me), Burga and Headtrauma; but backed up by many other members who perform all sorts of important tasks. We’re all long time Arma 2 veterans and work hard to bring all the elements together to produce exciting and realistic missions for mature gamers,” said Lau.

Arma 2

In parting, Lau said that “Arma 2 is not like Battlefield or Call of Duty, in that it is a simulation and not a game as such. Ballistics are modelled properly, the distances involved are much greater and you can die very quickly if you’re on your own.

The Arma 2 codebase is also packaged and supplemented by Bohemia Interactive as Virtual Battle Space (VBS) and sold to several international military organisations as a training aide. Several of our players are ex-military, including an ex-Royal Marine and ex-SADF personnel.”

To learn more and sign up for participation, head on over to the Arma.co.za website.