Newb question about Tactics at 1st contact w enemy infantry

[Shan~Man]

I'm interested in opinions on 1st contact w enemy infantry in generic situation- not just "kill him b4 he kills you"

Your moving thru trees or bushes and take fire but cant see them. Do you drop and freeze or back away and advance from a differant direction or ?

Also, any recommended links on squad tactics appreciated.

[Cpt.Future]

Drop and freeze sounds like a bad idea, but it always depends on the situation.

You should be able to hear where the shots are coming from. So running in the opposite direction and keeping bushes/trees between you and the enemy seems like a good idea. Then you can drop and wait for the enemy to follow you. Be aware that when the enemy can't shoot at you anymore, he will most likely start throwing grenades where your last known position was, so back away far enough that you stay out of the nade kill range.

Read this:
https://www.realitymod.com/forum/f138-infantry-tactics/104645-pr-guide-tips-tricks.html

[Web_cole]

The very worst thing you can do is drop and freeze; if you are under threat of imminent death and you need to drop to get into cover, then sure. But if everyone in your squad drops and stays rooted to the spot, it becomes a turkey shoot and you are the turkeys.

Basically you should be doing one or all of these three things: 1. Taking cover, 2. Returning fire, 3. Flanking.

1. If you are threatened to the point that you will become/are a major target for the enemies engaging you, take cover or fall back and take cover. This isn't the end of your fight however; you should be constantly re-assessing the situation and looking for an opportunity to return fire or flank.

2. When you are sufficiently removed from the immediate combat that returning fire won't be a serious risk to you, do so. There are a few different kinds of return fire in this situation; indirect suppression is where you cannot see/don't know where the enemies are but you fire in the reported direction/on the squad marker anyway, direct suppression is where you do know where they are and can place accurate suppressive fire down, and killing shots is pretty self-explanatory. If you can kill, you kill, if you can't go down the list until you find something you can do. This is one new players struggle with a lot, because they don't understand how important it is to maintain fire superiority (fire superiority = you are not pinned/suppressed and can shoot. If you can't shoot, you're pretty unlikely to kill anything), which even indirect suppression can go a long way to achieving.

3. Movement is incredibly important in most close range infantry engagements. When you meet an enemy squad you should be drawing a map in your head of the likely disposition of those enemies, based on what you've seen, the weapons fire you can hear and the reports of your squad mates. That will allow you to make reasonable decisions on what to do next, like intuiting a good grenade throw, or where to position yourself to most effectively cover the enemy movements. Of course the flip side is also true, so you should move before YOU get grenaded, and to stop them being able to cover your movements. And you should move to make their suppositions about your position outdated, and to make it harder for them to make good decisions based on that. And you should move because attacking from an angle the enemy doesn't expect you to is a very effective way of killing them. Assuming roughly equal casualties, the longer the contact encounter goes on the more it becomes about movement.

[QuickLoad]

Depends on your situation, in urban combat you wanna run the hell away from wherever you're taking fire from, so if you're taking fire while taking a stroll down the street - don't identify shooter, don't look for shooter, don't return fire, run to cover asap.(sometimes the situation will force you to move into an uncleared zone, and you may have to move into a different hostile shooter's position in order to find cover.)

In more of the countryside combat, when taking fire from a far away target, let's assume you're inside of a bush. Once you've recieved contact(which will usually be far away), you want to crawl back into the push, and crawl down the length of the bush, atleast 5-10 meters, but usually more. After doing so, you can try to take a peek through the bushes and ID the shooter if you get a chance.

When IDing the shooter, you want to go on squad comms(or local if you're cut off), and identify with either the clock or the azimuth.
You can say "Contact 12O'Clock, 250 meters one guy."
Or, "Contact North(360), 250 meters, one guy."
Of course, you can always just say "Shots coming from north".

The worst thing you can do for your teamates is 'Enemy!' and fire blindly into the direction that you recieved fire from, and sad to say, this happens waayyy too much.

[Shan~Man]

Thanks guys for the detailed responses, EXACTLY what I was looking for. My 1st response was to drop, find cover and wait and watch if no further fire was recieved, usually eating a nade shortly after....

I just watched a video last night that I believe followed Web_cole's tactics to the letter. My jaw sorta dropped at the skill as this guy moved, flanked and killed.

I am determined to get better. I've been reviewing previous Tournament battleplans and battles as I am interested and registered for the upcoming Tournament. I'm new of course but hope to learn more and contribute to my Team and new hobby.

Idea?: Can you guys post links or names of players I can search on youtube that you think practise good tactical techniques?

[Web_cole]

Idea?: Can you guys post links or names of players I can search on youtube that you think practise good tactical techniques?

Here's a few Youtube channels that are worth checking out imho, with some suggested videos:

Murkey Squad Leading on Muttrah (Murkey also has a lot of great tutorials on his channel which I'm sure you would appreciate ShanMan.)

A very co-ordinated cache assault

Holding the T

The perks of patience and positioning (and luck)

I assume you've found Alex and Phil but:

A round I squad led the other day, kind of went to shit after a while but eh (Also Alex is a great medic)

HYYYYPE

(Also, shameless plug)

[Shan~Man]

Yes, I have watch several of the videos listed in the above links already and find I much prefer this playstyle over running around in unorganized squads....but you have to start somewhere to build skills. I have the time and determination.....but the shameless plug link was great fun!

I will continue my studies

[Pronck]

When in a squad and being engaged upon, reach for cover and unleash hell on the enemy. When you start firing like mad-men you force them also to reach for cover allowing you to change the situation you are in. Try to take a few enemies down and grab the initiative.

When alone, just run or sneak away and reposition. Then pick them off one by one. You might not kill them all, but keeping them pinned is good enough.

[Web_cole]

Idea?: Can you guys post links or names of players I can search on youtube that you think practise good tactical techniques?

A few more:

Some nice squad comms and teamwork

Cool dual-perspective clan match, intense firefights, risky revives, suppression and flanking. (Sound is a bit messed up though.)

Really aggressive squad play with some super tight comms (also pay close attention to the use of sound effects; for instance around 6:10 he hears a guy prone and crawling, realises it cannot be a friendly and intuits that there's a guy in the tower above him.)

Effective use of smoke, suppression and explosives to clear an entrenched position

And a very awesome little video on the wonderful T-Shape that needs way more love than it has gotten

[Brozef]

Always have your back to a wall, or a corner.

[Mouthpiece]

The very worst thing you can do is drop and freeze; if you are under threat of imminent death and you need to drop to get into cover, then sure. But if everyone in your squad drops and stays rooted to the spot, it becomes a turkey shoot and you are the turkeys.

[..]

The one thing I'd like to add that these general rules may change in rare instances. For example, you may be presented with situations where killing the enemy while standing still in open can be more viable then taking cover first. It's a matter of if you can neutralize them before they become a sufficient threat to your squad and yourself.

One more thing. We must face the fact that PR has some arcade-y/game-y aspects that people sometimes forget to use and then get mystically owned by the other team or are driven into a boringly long stalemate that cant be broken. Aspects like rushing/overly aggressive assaulting and even defending (by moving out of the "known camping spots") style is sometimes hard to punish therefore making those things a viable tactic. In some servers there are rules against rushing the first flags of enemy. But there are no rules against being generally overly aggressive, yet not biased enough to lose the ability to quickly switch this posture to a more defensive one if needed. Though It's understandable that overly aggressive style can be punished easily if it's used in wrong situations or the person is not very experienced in killing/evading/sneaking.

It's the same with things like bounding overwatch - on paper it seems a really viable tactic, yet in PR it just doesn't work most of the time as the general pace is lot higher then in ARMA, for example. Of course, it may work if the people employing this tactic are dedicated enough, but the necessity is mostly not there, as AR is a really (somewhat OP) powerful tool that even one guy with it can lay down *effective* suppressing fire.

[Prancer]

The one thing I'd like to add that these general rules may change in rare instances. For example, you may be presented with situations where killing the enemy while standing still in open can be more viable then taking cover first. It's a matter of if you can neutralize them before they become a sufficient threat to your squad and yourself.

One more thing. We must face the fact that PR has some arcade-y/game-y aspects that people sometimes forget to use and then get mystically owned by the other team or are driven into a boringly long stalemate that cant be broken. Aspects like rushing/overly aggressive assaulting and even defending (by moving out of the "known camping spots") style is sometimes hard to punish therefore making those things a viable tactic. In some servers there are rules against rushing the first flags of enemy. But there are no rules against being generally overly aggressive, yet not biased enough to lose the ability to quickly switch this posture to a more defensive one if needed. Though It's understandable that overly aggressive style can be punished easily if it's used in wrong situations or the person is not very experienced in killing/evading/sneaking.

It's the same with things like bounding overwatch - on paper it seems a really viable tactic, yet in PR it just doesn't work most of the time as the general pace is lot higher then in ARMA, for example. Of course, it may work if the people employing this tactic are dedicated enough, but the necessity is mostly not there, as AR is a really (somewhat OP) powerful tool that even one guy with it can lay down *effective* suppressing fire.

Just adding to your comments about bounding overwatch:

I've never seen it used in game, and I've never particularly felt the need for it. I think the infantry small unit tactics here are a lot more similar in theory to the lop-sided squad structure/tactics that militaries had in WWII than the mirrored fire team system used today.

Have 1 AR or MG lay down suppressive fire from a fixed position, while the rest of the squad advances to kill. Having a DMR or sniper help with the overwatch could help as well.

Most firefights can be won with just a single "leap" of fire and movement. We don't need mirrored fire teams and bounding overwatch for the simple reason that engagements don't last long enough over a great enough distance.

[Spec]

I think the main reason bounding overwatch doesn't work is that the coordination just isn't commonly good enough. You're still playing with relatively random people or casually with friends, the hardcore military roleplaying isn't really as common in PR, so these tactics just won't be used very effectively in the first place.

Then again, I haven't played in a while, maybe things look differently today in general.