The job everyone needs, yet no one wants
Squad Leader.Firstly, it’s a trick; we play it on ourselves as overgrown children who carry too much responsibility. Don’t be SQL; it’s noisy, and it’s hard work. Everyone will talk loudly in command chat and spoil my fun. The squad will expect me to provide outpost targets and have some mythical, unique plan for their victory.
Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo!
That’s the trick; you play on you.
The reality is that if you follow some basic rules of engagement, you’ll do just fine; your squad will do fine.
The squad leader was one of the first roles I got full class rank at, along with support. I chose SL often because some impatient idiot would start SQ and leave and rejoin, leaving them leaderless, and all too often the SQ would be spawned and go to battle with no CO (commanding officer).
This guide is based upon the assumption that your squad is your friends’ and clan mates, and your squad is called Baker.
The beginning of a match can require two different approaches.
1) Set up an outpost at the front line. and build a garrison. Or organize your squad to role flip,
2) Build nodes at one of the HQ spawns.
A consideration might be that your squad is a defence squad; the difference between attack and defence, at the beginning, is building a defence garrison on the 2nd point quickly and before the enemy takes control of the midpoint.
The 1st option requires the SL to get into a transport truck and head to the front line before the neutral territory divide. Both plans can be achieved if you use coms to relay your plan while you’re traveling; 2 members can provide supplies to get nodes built, swapping from engineer to supply. and at the opportune moment a 3rd or 4th can supply a box for attacking or defending a garrison; you might find the commander is already on the same sheet as you and has dropped supplies to the 2nd point. If that’s the case, stay safe and get that garrison built.
Look at the map and work out with your best guess how the enemy will try to get cap control should they win the middle cap.
The Map
Some matches have cap points down the side edge of the map. I mean maybe three consecutive points. And when this happens, it leaves a wide side of the map open to travel freely with trucks, tanks, and half-tracks, often unchallenged. Be aware of these open, perhaps uncontrolled areas as being a weakness for your team to maintain full map control.
Look at the map often; get your team to look at the map if they are able when talking about movements. Learn the names and nicknames of cap points that are not in play so you can use them as quick references when relaying info or instructions to your squad.
One example is the hockey stick and orchards; on the SME map, they are between Dugout and Bre Court and Cattle sheds and even AA battery.
A hockey stick is a trench that’s shaped like a hockey stick.
Orchards is a big-looking state manor with walled gardens and a lot of cover, allowing many exits in all directions should a garrison be placed there.
The importance is that they are strategic positions on that map that will nearly always have enemy outposts and garrisons for flanking and covert troop movement regardless of if Bre Court or Dugout are a cap point. and map control.
only Baker squad marks set by Baker SL can be seen by Baker squad,
The only exceptions to this are the main Cmdr map icons, so use as many icons as you can as often as you can.
Map Control
Map control is the strategy of denying the enemy the ability to build garrisons, park half-tracks, place and use OPs for attacking, or even bringing tanks or supply trucks to the front line and beyond. It generally requires at least two squads; two to defend and three would be great, but if you consider you have 50 men, 4 of those are recon, and a further 6-9 might be armour, that leaves about 36 men, the commander not included, 2 defence and 4 attacking squads. So to keep and maintain map control, the team has to spread out around defence and attacking cap points. If defending as prementioned, spread out and seek and destroy any and every spawn and asset that allows the enemy to attack the 800m wide, 400m deep grid around the cap. That’s your ideal 2-squad patrol. In the ideal squad, you’ll have people feeding you data, infantry movement, enemy garrison, and outpost speculations. tanks, trucks, and halftracks—all the data you get, try your best in every situation to mark them on the map for all squads to see and use with their own manoeuvres. It’s not always easy to relay chat to map data, but being as precise as you can will help a lot for countering the enemy. Ways to do this are to use as much zoom as you can prior to marking the info on the map; e.g., if the dead squad mate says the garrison is on my body, zoom in on the map and place that garrison mark as accurately as you can. The difference can be the effectiveness of artillery on that position or other SLs duplicating your icon and sending one of their squads to eliminate the threat. details matter.
Map Icons
The map icons that we use to mark threats and objectives can be used in many ways. one of which I don’t see enough of is the place garrison marker. By using this and relaying it to cmd (the other SLs), it might prompt them to not build a garrison that scuppers your plan within 200m, or it might prompt them to donate a box of supplies, preventing you from needing to double drop supplies from within your own squad. Use your green place garrison marker. It also is a clear indication for your SQ support guy to drop supplies, as is your place supply marker; it is different from requesting an airdrop supply marker. Don’t confuse the two, or the commander may drop from the air, and that’s always spicy when the enemy sees the plane and parachute.
Accurate tank markers are also helpful, especially if the tank is stationary. If other SLs have placed tank markers, troop markers, garrison markers, and OP markers in a part of the map your squad is patrolling, then it’s good to duplicate them onto the map with Baker markers, so your squad can gain some situational awareness and act accordingly.
Other uses for squad map icons, such as defend, attack, move, etc.
Often, after an allied recon plane flies over, I use the green squad icon, such as defend and request supplies” (only SLs and Baker Squad will see them once placed). I use them to duplicate either the individual recon marks of the enemy, or I’ll announce that the concentration of the enemy is between them; again, this visual aid will help each of your squad know which way to look for targets. or avoid getting stomped.
Also, a tight concentration of recon marks can give some speculation of potential garrisons and outposts. The amount of enemy and the proximity to cap points can also be telling of their strength at that time.
Tools at the SL’s disposal
The squad leader, like everyone, has the map, binoculars, and smoke grenades, the outpost, and a whole squad that can all share the burden of success.
Rifleman,
Automatic Rifleman,
Medic,
Assault,
MG machine gunner,
Antitank gunman,
Support,
Engineer,
Each of these roles has a variety of classes within, and you’ll find some players are more skilled in some roles, while others are more or less advanced. less advanced, this just means that they may not have unlocked some vital equipment that is enabled with others in your squad,
For example, the level 3 assault guy will have the use of satchels, the same with level 3 engineers.
The anti-tank is different for Russians and British troops than it is with Germans and Americans. the latter has one less class within.
The main difference for all is that the second-class antitank man can build a field gun/cannon with the use of 50 supplies from a support man. anywhere in home territory and up to 400 m behind enemy lines.
The other consideration to the use of classes in these roles is the primary weapon as well as the special features. e.g., SMG or rifle, or in the case of an engineer, a shotgun complemented with either a shotgun or MP40 The German option is the better one for breaches, whereas the US option is a hard-hitting shotgun. The consideration is whether you, the SL, dictate the loadout you want at hand or allow the player to choose for themselves. If they are unable to use all classes, would it be wiser to ask them to swap with another squad member who can? It’s teamwork that wins matches. So it’s a consideration worth discussing and justifying in some situations before a specific game-changing manoeuvre.
Strategically, it’s better to have a squad that can become proficient in all roles rather than have the same guys doing the same job time after time. Playing together and sharing the roles for given situations will allow all the SQ to rank up their roles come the end of games when scores are compiled for each role played.
This is not wholly relevant to being a good SL, but it is relevant to training and developing a squad. So you can evolve all and create fun for everyone. Behind the scenes, each low-ranking player has their own agenda of what role they want to progress and play often. That won’t ever change. Being aware of this and using it may help with morale.
In public matches, I can wait by an OP for up to 4-5 mins for someone to switch to support so I can build a garrison for the team at the OP while I watch the near-silent squad spawn on the OP and run away to fight, ignoring the support request.
I found that adding to the request, “It’s not a career; I just want a box of supplies,” often made enough difference for the public squad to then comply and, in many cases, then start using COMS and blend with the squad in a more proactive fashion. Hearing from a squad mate, I’ll do it when I’m dead; it just gets them executed by myself.
Opportunities come and go like raindrops.
Opportunities come and go, and the faster team structural manoeuvres take place, the bigger the difference in keeping a cap, taking the next, and even strengthening recently captured points. There is no point rushing off to attack the next point until defensive garrisons are in place, or you’ll find your whole team back trying to recap old ground with less momentum. because the hive mind was attacked/moved forward.
Swiftly placing garrisons equals momentum; OPs just help refine the map control. and create a safety zone between garrisons and the enemy if the SQ works together and doesn’t go rogue.
Which brings us to Obedience. A well-tuned squad knows what each other is capable of from experience and will carry out a role swap request swiftly, completely unfazed by the need to redeploy and the loss of life. There are times you’ll want your front man, the best at sneaking or the best at obliterating enemy pushes, to move and feed back; the best way sometimes to gain map control can be to move quickly through the enemy area in the hope you blow 2-3 or more ops and the enemy SLs are unable to replace them. Who in your squad can do this and either survive the assault or not give up the rest of the squad’s spawn location doing so?
He who dares wins.
Find your front men; use instructions to use smoke to add confusion to your enemy’s response. Sometimes the medic role might help; he has more smoke than most. If it’s safe, get an explosive specialist to plant a satchel and retreat to safety 25m from the bomb; this method is ideal for clearing stronghold houses. The downside to bombs is that if unannounced in coms, both cmd and proximity, when placed amidst a full-on frontal attack, you could wipe out friendly soldiers and lose the momentum. So it’s a dangerous call.
There will be times when your squad identifies an enemy garrison or enemy nodes.
Depending on what stage of the match you are at, you might respond in different ways.
1) Set up an op and spawn an MG, and spawn kill the enemy if they are using it, and the MG gunner can operate with a degree of cover or distance. Use your binoculars to identify the spawn waves and the spread of the enemy when they spawn. Use pings to relay the info to the MG gunner and use coms to start and stop firing when the spawn wave is dead; save ammo.
2) Set an op and spawn a proficient anti-tank man to Bazooker the garrison from a safe distance.
The chances often can be, you push to dismantle, get within 10m, and a spawn wave of 5+ spawns; you kill 4 but get dropped by the 5th.
The opportunity has gone because the next spawn wave 10-17 seconds later will be a defensive redeploy of 10+ enemies.
You’ll now be glad you had an MG as overwatch while you and an assault guy pushed to dismantle or even placed a bomb for kicks and giggles and then repositioned. If you elected the anti-tank rocket or the satchel approach, the supply guy you’re using should be able to replace the explosive by dropping the appropriate ammo box.
So as well as recognizing who is a good front man, you need to know how to form a demolition squad. by redeploying on a freshly placed outpost at the same time. To complete these types of one-off manoeuvres, the same would apply if you shot the driver of a supply truck, destroyed the truck also, and, as quickly as you can, you won’t know if the dead driver has respawned on a recently placed garrison and intends to retrieve the truck and may even bring backup, bazooker, or bomb the truck and get the demolition team resupplied and ready for the next eventuality. Also, an MG can destroy the problem that might arise if your squad is busy defending the last cap and is under pressure. If the garrison is safe, follow up and have the demolition team just spawn on OP and do their job once they die, and then go back to battle on defense. You might regret it later in the match if you don’t destroy enemy supply trucks because the driver was killed, and that seemed enough.
Written by MrSly
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