Good tactics...

[Bringerof_D]

So ever since i've started playing PR in .65 i've been wondering. what do you think is "good tactics" or "good judgment" in a situation. And from that i'd like to know of some situations where those came to be challenged either by another player or the situation itself.

Whenever i led a squad if we were engaged i would order my boys to advance either to a better location or to take the enemy location. This almost always put us in an advantageous position. This is true both in real life and in game. One of the first things you learn in the military is never to stay in one place. even if its out in the open, always advance to advantageous locations whether that means finding a better spot than your enemy or pushing to take the enemy's. Push into an advantageous position and take cover there. this was my tactic for most flag attacks. once you hunker down in a good position you no longer have to find the enemy, the enemy will come for you.

my problem came when my squads would sometimes say that that's horrible tactics. that in PR we need to stay alive so taking cover was the "good idea." but there's a very fine line between taking cover in a fight and being afraid to move. often my moves would be ridiculed as vanilla style run and gun tactics.

in some cases they are right however, if the enemies fire power is over whelming than we would immediately be mowed down if we moved from our cover. in these cases we try to take out the big guns before moving. And of course when we are already in the most advantageous position.

This line of logic applies for almost any elimination game, if you're losing men where you are and theres a position where if taken you will stop losing men. if you have to lose a few more to get there thats worth it. if you stayed then they will whittle you down till everyone is dead.

[Bringerof_D]

The only reason I can think of to say no to a SL is if the order they are giving you will lead to your immediate death without completing the assigned task (I.E. getting killed for no gain). An example would be "Cross this road!" and you look at the road (a very wide one I might add) and you're seeing red and green tracers flying all over the place, explosions going off all over the place, an enemy FAV is prowling around the area, and the last 2 guys to attempt crossing the road got killed less then 3-5 seconds after they left cover... that's kind of in the "No can do, sir" category. It's a little more complicated and situational then that, but that's my opinion on that.

However, if we're talking about tactical and medium to long term goals, squad members don't really get a say in that. If you want a say in that I suggest you Squad Lead (and for the benefit of everyone else, get on the appropriate vent/mumble/TS channel).

it is in that situation though that many of my similar decisions became turning points in the battle. theres no cover on this side of the road save for the bump that IS the road, there was great cover on the other side. with the LMG suppressing i charged across the road myself first with the rest of my men behind. i died the rest of them survived. the battle was won because despite everyone else thinking the run would be impossible, they made it and secured a great location.

on another note i believe the term is "absolute liability" if there's a good enough reason for it, one can be ordered to run down the open road so the rest of your friends can figure out where the sniper is... or to distract the machine gun long enough for them to get away

[Trooper909]

it is in that situation though that many of my similar decisions became turning points in the battle. theres no cover on this side of the road save for the bump that IS the road, there was great cover on the other side. with the LMG suppressing i charged across the road myself first with the rest of my men behind. i died the rest of them survived. the battle was won because despite everyone else thinking the run would be impossible, they made it and secured a great location.

on another note i believe the term is "absolute liability" if there's a good enough reason for it, one can be ordered to run down the open road so the rest of your friends can figure out where the sniper is... or to distract the machine gun long enough for them to get away

Why not smoke the road first?
Or fallback to flank that MG?
falling back can do the same as the tactics in your first post with less casultys at times.
Not a fan of charging to my death myself I try to RP it kinda as in would I do this in real life.

[Truism]

You're talking about having a bias for action, which is good in every pretty much every arena of life. If you imagine all conflict as being a series of decision cycles that must be adapted to in the next cycle of decisions, then anyone who refuses to make decisions starts falling behind in the turns and his enemies' tactics will rapidly adapt to counter his static ones.

Generally speaking, if in doubt always do something that will bring you into conflict with the enemy as quickly as possible, on the terms most advantageous to you that you can think of. As soon as you do that, reassess the situation and see if you could be doing it any better, if you can, do that. Always try to work out what you are good at compared to the enemy and use that strength to target some kind of weakness that the enemy isn't very good at defending. Finally, avoid anything that you can't kill.

That's good tactics in PR for someone with no tactical grounding.

[Pirate]

Engagements at long range where the enemy has a lot of cover will rarely turn out worthwhile if you're the one attacking. They'll just keep reviving and reinforcing. I've found that having a portion of your squad to pin down the enemy while the rest flanks always tends to yield the best results. It's amazing how often just one person can wipe out an entire squad because they are focused on the noisy main part of the force.

[Exterior]

I can say that moving fowards in a firefight is usually the right idea. Sitting still olny makes the enemy know where you are, if you keep moving you may confuse them.

On the the note of I only say no to my SL if.... The is no ifs, ands, or buts in combat. If your CO or SL tells you to do something you do it because good leaders won't tell a fellow marine to do something they wouldn't do themselves. They are family. If your task has you die and brings the rest of your squad to saftey well so be it, you did your role.

Example: I was on yamalia skirmish a couple nights back, the 49th server. I am mainly an infantry SL. I ordered my squad to stay in the trench and keep advanced. Grenades were blowing up left and right, keep your heads down I said, they did. We pushed(capping all flags) up to their main. The rest of the team kept stopping of running around out of the trench and getting eliminated. My squad push to their main while having a squad K/D of 50ish to about 12.

So all in all keeping on the move is a good stratagy.. And never say no to your superiors.

[goguapsy]

Flank from behind or sides (big scene I mean - not just a squad vs another squad, more like a squad vs a cache)

[RHYS4190]

Two words of advice, is you usually don't have enough people to secure and area, so the enemy can usually walk straight on top of you, so basically you got the have eyes on the back of you head all the time, watch every thing and scan continually.

best tactic in Pr i find is really trust your instincts, try to anticipate what going to happen next where are they coming from and work from that,


there is really no golden rule for tactics in PR it all really off the bat, but a lot can be said about intelligence and information gathering.

Iv seen entire teams massacred because one of are team who was acting as a look out spotted them as they where making are there approach.

basically in a defence, if a enemy walks straight on top of you with out you knowing they where coming you failed.

[Minion508]

Best think I can say is ALWAYS use suppressive fire while moving.

[L4gi]

I always use brute force to reach my destination. If there is an enemy in my way, he's going to get steamrolled.

[Bringerof_D]

Why not smoke the road first?
Or fallback to flank that MG?
falling back can do the same as the tactics in your first post with less casultys at times.
Not a fan of charging to my death myself I try to RP it kinda as in would I do this in real life.

on the other side of the road was sufficient cover. retreat would mean moving into even more open ground. in that particular situation anyway. But yes retreat is a very viable option in other situations which i have used. problem with retreat in a game is you have to turn away from your enemy to run.

i've read some very smart comments here, i'll keep note of some of the ones new to me. thanks alot guys.

@Truism: thats exactly what i think! keeping in motion and always be moving towards a better situation is the only way to fight. which is why advancing under heavy fire is very necessary to me. in most if not all cases, the best positions are either where the enemy already is or in their general direction

[Oskar]

To counter some of the problems you've mentioned, Bringerof_D, there is a thing that a few others here have touched on. Fire and Maneuver. It's one of the staples of infantry tactics.
You can't win by just holding firm and shooting at them, and rushing isn't a viable tactic a lot of the time either.

What I would recommend is you have one element of your squad in a stationary position, covering the other element or team's movement and suppressing the enemy when needed. Always use this technique, especially in a firefight. This makes it safer for the attacking section of the squad, and will likely split the enemies attention.

Have a section of your squad, perhaps the SL, Medic and AR as your base of fire, and a couple of Riflemen, Specialists or Grenadiers as your assault element.

This guide will probably help, it explains most of the basic concepts of infantry combat. The guide is for ArmA2, but most concepts can easily be translated to work in PR, especially this section. Scroll down to "Team Movement Techniques" and "Attacking".
tactics

A lot of this can be difficult to use in a "public" squad, but usually people tend to understand the concept of the two teams. I simply put 3 players in each team, and call the teams 1 and 2. Team 1 will have me as their leader as I'm the squad leader, and team 2 will normally have a rifleman, specialist or grenadier as their fire team leader. You might wanna get a friend to do this though.

This makes it easy to use fire and maneuver techniqes, simply by saying: "Team 1 hold here and cover, team 2 rush forward to this position!"