Lyramion

The point where 6 man squads shine is Netbat. You can have a variety of classes in to give you lots of information. 3 man Squads have more agility and are harder to react to than 1 full blown 6 man squad.

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Catman1975

You know I hesitated posting in this thread because based on your response to Jaka you want answers backed only by what's most beneficial based on what's best for teamwork and results. When what's best for teamwork and results is whatever the SL is most comfortable with.

To answer your question, "Based on what, I ask this as a legitimate question. Why not?" I refer to my original post where I felt having the additional men helps to support your attack on a control point. As for the assault/medic issue, usually if I'm on a squad led by a TG member (that has is telling his squad how to kit out) if there are only 2-3 squadies the SL wants everyone to be assault/medic. My third point is that many squads, I imagine would be hell for a commander to track on a full 64 man server (10 three man squads is a lot).

I am impressed that you have spent a full two weeks leading squads, but that tells me you only know how well every game and every situation is different, and without going back and playing those same games with a full squad you don't know how different the game would have played out.

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Catman is batsh*t insane and all of his posts should be read with extreme scrutiny and disdain. If at any time you become compelled to relate or agree with any post by Catman, you should seek immediate, professional, psychiatric counseling. Catman recommends 1-800-OMGIMNUTS, he swears by (at) them.

Heretic1

Its a simple concept, small units are easier to control as a single unit leader. If you're working in a squad of three (SL and two others) especially if you're all experienced, you will react faster to varying situations and not have to keep track of THREE more bodies that you don't necessarily need. Precision tactics require no more men than is absolutely necessary to accomplish the mission.

GlobalWarmin

I'm going to have to say a six player squad is supposed to win over a squad of three players, assuming they have equal skills.

Jakaleel

It’s not just about my annoyances/happiness. If the server is full and I or others as a supporting member have squeezed a non-supporting player out, with the squads full/locked you must become a squad of one (unlocked). As more supporting members filter in that squad is the only place to go (or create another squad).

My point is tactics vs game play. Smaller squads work well for scrims TG plays, events such as password night, and specialty squads. For regular play on a TG ranked server, creating less than 6 man locked non-specialty squads especially by IHS, will entice others to follow suit. Remember the total number of squads is nine (9).

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|TG-21| Jakaleel
SAAW Team

Grimmfist

For general server play I would lean toward being a part of a 5-6 man squad for the firepower and possibility of revive. When playing with many of the TG IHS tagged players I think 3-4 would be optimum for manueverability, ability to stay on task and know that each can be every kit if there is a need. The last can not often be said when on the server with many new names; who knows what kit possibilities they bring without asking. The other reason to go with a full 6 man squad would be for specific attacking and defending of flags or positions (more people better chance of succeeding. A 3-4 man squad of veteran players would be great as a flexible response team able to flow between helping defend and attack flags and points as needed by the commander or as the combat situation dictates.

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Crux

Well, where to begin? First of all I didn't start squad leading with the 3rd. I started my squad leading 'career' with those random guys you're talking about above. And my squads over the last few days of tweaking around, while most of the time have been made up of 3rd have not all been made up of 3rd.

Secondly I am comparing a squad of 4 players of caliber "A" with a squad of 6 players of caliber "A". I'm assuming the effects scale as the quality of players changes, but I don't know conclusively. That's why I'm trying to open a discussion so we can talk about it and not just operate on assumptions.

Why does everyone assume automatically that 6 > 4?

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Crux

You shouldn't hesitate. The reason I brought it up is that this is the tactics and missions discussion forum. I wanted to discuss smaller squads from a perspective of tactics, not people's personal preferences or desire to see large squads on the server.

So now we're getting somewhere. You might well be right about the commander. Personally I'm thinking 4 man squads rather than 3. 3 is in most cases perhaps a little too small to accomplish a lot of goals (although it is great for sneaking behind the lines). So if we're looking at say 24 people per side (not including commanders), that gives us 6 4-man squads instead of 4 6-man squads. The question is would a commander find that harder to deal with? Or would he like the flexibility it provides? I don't command much so I'd love to hear someone who does answer!

So unless two situations are completely and absolutely identical in every respect we can't draw comparisons between them? I can't compare the response time and cohesiveness of my small squad with that of a larger one unless we are on the same map, in the same position, with everyone on my team doing the same thing against an opponent also doing the same thing every time?

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Crux

Yes they are. But what if the squad of 3 players doesn't match up alone against the squad of 6? What if two squads of 3 do? Or two squads of 4? Or what if the squad of 3 hides, lets the squad of 6 leave and then caps behind them?

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Crux

50 player cap. 1 commander each side = 24 fighting soldiers each side.

Four squads of 6
Six squads of 4
Eight squads of 3

And of course there is the possibility to mix and match. And let's not forget asset squads. Say a 2-man gunship squad. There are so many combinations, that I sincerely doubt you're going to find yourself bereft and alone on the TG server.

So if they work well in scrims and events, why not regular server play?

I posted this in the tactics and missions forum because I wanted to discuss it from the perspective of tactics. Please don't turn this into an admin discussion.

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Catman1975

The point I was trying to make is that the squad will perform better and the squad leader will apply better tactics based on whatever he/she is comfortable with. I see what you are getting at, but I think for most of us it is hard to look at tactics and apply them if we are in a situation where we are not comfortable.

Yes, now we are getting somewhere. I was focusing on the small number you had in your original post of 2-4 man squads (I was excluding the SL and thinking you wanted squads of only two people in them). I was thinking about a full server with 16 two man squads running around (I know there is a limit, but I was going to the extreme ). OK so on a full server (sorry I'm using a full server as a reference because everytime I'm on our server it's full). 31 per side, 7 four man squads and a three man squad. Now I don't command, I can't keep track of everything being a SL, but it seems like whenever someone starts commanding they are simply overwhelmed by everything going on and I personally cannot fathom keeping track and issuing orders to 8 squads, but then again I can't imagine doing it for five or six squads.


No feel free to draw conclusions. I was merely pointing out that it's all subjective to your perspective. Below is what I was thinking when I read your original post and why I posted about situations being different all of the time.

From your original post, in the second sentence you noticed very high levels of performance from these small squads, which mostly consist of 3rd members. I guess my question is, when you run full squads of 3rd members do you not get the same high level of performance?

The last sentence, there was no "noticeably decreased ability" could it be that you were expecting having problems in the ability to impact the outcome of the game and were pleasantly surprised, when in reality a full squad could have impacted the game in even a more profound way?

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Catman is batsh*t insane and all of his posts should be read with extreme scrutiny and disdain. If at any time you become compelled to relate or agree with any post by Catman, you should seek immediate, professional, psychiatric counseling. Catman recommends 1-800-OMGIMNUTS, he swears by (at) them.

Crux

I'm not quite sure what you mean by this. Are you talking about the player's ability to be comfortable with smaller numbers around them?

Well believe it or not there were some 2-man squads involved. As in squad leader + 1.

Basically this all started because we're working on some new squad-level tactics within the 3rd. Formations, positioning, roles... and as a part of this I started running some very small squads to try and get some concepts working on small scale (since it is easier to coordinate 3 people into a formation than 6), and then see if we could get people used these concepts on a basic level before trying to scale them up to a full squad.

Hehe. It is about proportion. I think a lot of 2 man squads would be *clearly* detrimental to the team's ability to implement tactics.

A lot of this is commander dependent when we're talking about general conquest play. And honestly I never command and hence suck at it (I think I have maybe 1-2 hours in total). But, my thinking is this: if you had 6 4-man squads instead of 4 6-man squads...

A 4-man squad could potentially defend against a 6-man squad's attack. With the advantage of setting up a defensive position, with IDS and a sentry gun as force multipliers, I believe a 4-man squad led by a competent squad leader could hold of a 6-man squad full of equal skill soldiers consistently.

Now if your commander is good, he could use this to his advantage. Placing say one or two squads in defensive positions, he could then match up two 4-man squads against a long 6-man. Except, being in two squads, a pin and flank would be brutal (negating the defensive advantage listed above). Squad 1 comes in from the front and pins them down with fire. Squad 2 flanks and hits them from behind.

But, that takes a pretty high degree of coordination to implement. And of course there are so many variables. Individual skill level. Squad leader ability. Squad leaders are a HUGE force multiplier.

I pretty much always get a high level of performance from a squad full of 3rd. The question comes down to each individual's ability to impact the game. I mean the basic concept behind the squad is that of synergy. The whole being worth more than the sum of the parts. And certainly there is a degree of synergy taking place. Two medics working together are worth more than two medics working apart because they can revive each other. Also when you add people you can set up cross-fire, and flanking, and other wonderful things.

However, the larger the group gets bad things start to come into play too. Squad cohesion starts to decrease past a certain point. Past a certain point it becomes tough to coordinate movements and actions. People walk into each other's line of fire. Synergy stops working as well.

The point of this discussion is, where does that point lie? I'm not posting this thread for discussion because I know the answer and want to share it. I want to talk about it and figure it out Obviously a lot of it just depends on the squad too.

Well, I am used to leading a full squad that impacts the game in a profound way. Please don't take that as arrogance, but that is a normal state of affairs. But I look at the ways a squad can impact the game:
-Defending flags
-Capturing flags
-Eliminating enemy forces
-Destroying assets

So the criteria I was looking at was how decreased was my squad's ability to accomplish the abovementioned tasks with 3 or 4 people total in the squad as opposed to 6?

Some of this is just smart squad leading (finding seams in the enemy's forces, picking and choosing your battles), but so far I've been pleasantly surprised. A 3-man squad taking over a building in a critical position and wiping out large numbers of enemy troops. Punching through a seam in the enemy line and capping flags at the back. Holding a back flag well against a full squad or more of attackers.

I mean with a 33-50% reduction in squad size, in theory there should be a 33-50% decrease in efficacy. But, not all actions are scale-able in game. 6 soldiers capping a flag instead of 3 doesn't cap two flags instead of 1. A 6-man squad is not likely to kill 33% more bad guys than a 4-man squad (due to contact frequency and geographic location). So in practice, a good 4-man squad is capable of managing probably 85-90% of the tasks that a 6-man can.

That isn't to say every squad should be 4 men. Or 5 men. But I guess what I want to challenge here is the widely held assumption that every squad should be 6 men. Because frankly I'm finding that that simply isn't the case.

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MDFubar

Nice post Crux, Great question. From a tactical standpoint I would prefer 6 squads of 4.
Yes, you can overwhelm the enemy with 6 vs 4, but one person can take down 3 or four players. This all depends on the play style, experience, and positioning of the squads.

6 Squads of four gives you more mobility and better flanking options. You can move around full squads faster, you have more spawn points on the map. Four SL's only gives you 4 moving Spawn points, Six Sl's gives you Six moving Spawn points.
The abiltity to rapidly respond to threats is increased, there is also more communication for the CO..six reporters vs four.
Eaxample:

CO directs S1 and S2 to attack Roadblock, flanking from North and South. There are now two spawn points, one on the north and one on the south(if the Sl's stay alive or drop beacons). The opposing force has SB defending, they are now overwhelmed on two flanks but only outnumbered by 2 soldiers.

Co directs S1 to attack Roadblock, they now have one spawn pooint and even if they try to flank..the squad is now split with one spawn point. The opposing force is defending with SB and has the same number of players, if they withstand the first attack..they have time to regroup and set up again. The attacking squad must now spawn on SL or beacon and redploy.

In the BFCL matches I have seen quite a few times that the teams will use two squads vs one. This works quite effectively and you still only have 5 vs 5. The mobility and abiltity to spawn in more locations far outweighs the firepower that you gain with two extra people in a squad.

Now, that being said, this all depends on the caliber of the SL and not really the caliber of the players. Yes, the players make a difference... but more of it lies in the SL and how they handle the situations.

I have led many a squad on non-TG pubbies to being the #1 squad on our server and the requires that everyone works together. these are people who do not Squad-up with each other on a regular basis, but managed to follow orders and get things done right.

Personally, in my squad, I prefer 6 soldiers due to the fact that I will break them into fire-teams when needed. But overall tactically, I believe that 4 soldiers is plenty and more squads are better.

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Guardianx11x

First, let me say that I always assume 6 is greater than 4...

Talking about squads though, a six man squad is not always better than a four man, five man, or three man squad. I prefer to run a five man squad, I can fill all the roles I want without the extra fluff. A three man squad is the bare min. These squads require a little more thinking, and I tolerate less because each player has an increased burden. The four man is the middle ground (obviously) but kinda boring to talk about.

IMO, the measure of a smaller squad is much more dependent on the quality of the squad leader. When the brute force methods no longer apply or take more to coordinate...this are less simple, and it takes a greater level of decipline and foresight. I can see how this could be a potential pitfall, because if you have one bad player he represents a larger percentage of your overall squad strength...this is why I personally only play the smaller man squads with people I know. Not really because they are good and listen to me, but because when I get mad and bit their heads off for playing like they have no brains or balls they wont scamper away crying. All and all, when done right there is no reason why 3-4 man squads can't have the same impact. In the grand scheme of things this allows a team increased versatility.

Sc1ence brings up an excellent point. If you have two talented squad leaders in the same squad. Fixing up fire teams could be an excellent use of resources and could heighten the level of coordination if brute force is required while maintaining the same level of versatility as a three man. Comms are obviously an issue...but things like that can be worked out, and if dont correctly, it is effectivly two three man squads with increased communication. It has always bothered me that SLs cant wisper other SLs over voip. The 3rd has had success when we lead multiple squads of non-3rd players and we are able to communicate with the other 3rd SLs over TS. It is a big advantage.

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