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Some infantry thoughts - Mjolnir - 09-26-2016

So for some time, I have been thinking of making a thread like this, it's only now I've summed up the willpower to do stuff. Before I start, I should point out that these are suggestions and I am not attacking anyone by this, this is just based on my observations (also, I need to lead more).

So, without further ado, to the meat of the post.

First, a Sun Tzu quote:
Quote:If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.

The key point here is knowing yourself. And the relative points of knowing yourself are: Keeping your objective in mind and knowing your forces. 
So first, your objective. So many times have I seen small groups of SF or lightly armed guerrillas n hit and run missions get bogged down in fights they shouldn't be in. Sometimes a leader just needs to stp, take a step back from the current fight and assess whether you even need to be in it. If not, then break contact, disappear and either continue on mission or try from another angle. But also, the reverse is true. If you are going to specifically attack a position, then bypassing forces on the way there may well not be the best idea. Getting shot in the back sucks. Another point here is make an assessment what you actually need on the objective. If you don't need the full team actually in the place, leave the rest outside in positions of good overwatch. If you need to defend something, give yourself some space, some places to withdraw to if needed. 
Now, knowing your forces is an important one. This works as both a team leader and as the overall leader. Nothing hurts my soul more than when something happens where players carrying standoff weapons such and MMGs and HAT weapons end up getting into close range brawls. A 7.62mm MG with someone with a scope or binos can be effective out to as much as a kilometer away. A Javelin or equivalent will kill any tank from 2.5km. A guy with an MMG (or basically any beltfed tbh) is basically worthless in CQB, especially compared to the use from a distance. As is a marksman/sniper. This is especially true with ACE, as now it is childs play to reorganise teams if it''s not to your liking. 


The second part is basic infantry tactics. There are a few main parts to this. First, about momentum. While it would probably seem less pertinent with Arma, momentum helps, especially in missions where you are a smaller team trying to achieve your objective before being overrun by reinforcements (apparently all FHQ missions  Tongue) then just getting shit done asap is key. Sometimes an extra casualty or 2 is worth not all dying as you are overrun by waves of enemies. However, momentum DOESN'Tmean being hasty. Hasty gets people killed. You want to be smooth, because smooth is fast. An example of this wuld be, say, on an attack on an airport, when the fire support starts firing, for the assault team/s to move almost straight away. Maybe for the teams to take some intiative and move onto their objectives without having to be ordered to.
Next, we have bounding, and to a lesser extent, peeling.Bounding is like the one most critical thing which all other infantry tactics are arranged around. Ideally, if you are moving somewhere as a team and you come under fire, you should automatically move to bunding to the nearest cover. Or, to use British Army speak, RTR. Return fire, Take cover, Return appropriate fire. You fire when contacted to begin suppression, bound to cover, and once in a position that is decent enough to fight from, return the correct amount of fire to suppress them, generally at a slower rate than the initial burst and move. If the team can do this on their own, while reporting to the commander, it easess his burdern immeasurably and makes it much easier for him to sort out reinforcement for the attacked team. The other thing is peeling. Peeling is immensely helpful for either repositioning in a fight, or breaking contact. It is however only useful if you can just do it and you are already in a line formation (usually refered to as a baseline when in a fight). And contrary to Dsylexi's video, it's usually only done one man at a time, but with each man setting off ~3-5 seconds after each other, creating a continous movement and also an unending stream of fire from the majority of the unit. 
[Image: Right+Peel+Snip.JPG]
Covering Arcs. I really shouldn't need to write about this, but even the smallest unit needs to cover 360, because this isn't WW2, the battlefield is 360.
And finally, suppression. Suppression in real life is like a tug f war, you either win or lose it. The more you suppress, the more you have the opportunities to suppress. Leading to more opportunities. But one thing people don't realise is that accuracy plays a significant role. You can't just hose off bullets and hope, they have t get close to the enemy. Theres a reason why you use a 3-5 round burst with a machine gun. Then you get 3-5 rounds in the vicinity of the enemy, rather than 17 rounds nowhere near. To increase the effect, you increase the rate of bursts rather than the length. But even a lone rifleman with ironsights can be effective with good fire. And good fire requires good control. Because 4 guys firing at the same target is not useful when there are a dozen other targets in need of suppressing. 


I'll leave it there for now, and add more stuff when I think of it.