Real Life Army-Sized Squads

**munchkin** · 09-22-2005, 09:51 AM

This was originally posted in the 1stMIP forum by myself, and could be a possible tactic for any reasonably sized and organised group (ie 42nd, the 7th, etc)

In the Army, a squad normally consists of 12 people, divided into 1-4 fireteams. If by some stroke of luck we managed to raise the membership of C-Team to 12 people who could all be online at once, we could have someone (say, John) leading "1stMIP 1" and "1stMIP 2" over TS.

The SL (of all 12) would handle the overall plan of attack.
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The Team Leaders (the "squad leaders" as bf2 dubs them, leading 6 people each) would handle the administrative aspects (ie supplies, UAV, arty and communication with the commander). Their purpose is to lead their teams to execute a command given by the squad leader in order to complete a mission.Each team has a team leader who answers to his squad leader and gets his soldiers to follow the squad leader's orders.
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In each of the 6-man squads, there would be 2x 3 man fireteams, giving the SL more tactical flexibility.

Do you guys think this would work? If so, how effective and practical would it be?

**YegaDoyai** · 09-22-2005, 10:32 AM

Personally this is the kind of gaming I'd like to see. I can see this working only if the fireteam leaders can also have some ability to relay orders to squad members other than VoIP, for finer detail movement orders etc. As I doubt EA are about to patch the game to this extent I doubt there is much scope/reason for splitting the squad into fireteams.

You should note I've been playing on public servers and only played once on a 64 player sunday night on one of the servers here so maybe it works better than I have seen so far.

**Strag** · 09-22-2005, 10:37 AM

munchkin, this was actually proposed by saik0 a while back, but was deemed (by C-Team members) too complicated at the time. Maybe you can get it going again.

**Phelan Ward** · 09-22-2005, 12:35 PM

It would be very important for the CO to know what was going on, and why he was sending 2 BF2 squads on one objective. You would be almost assured of taking the objective but it would leave you weak on some points of defense.

**munchkin** · 09-22-2005, 07:32 PM

Originally Posted by Strag

munchkin, this was actually proposed by saik0 a while back, but was deemed (by C-Team members) too complicated at the time. Maybe you can get it going again.

Damn, do I feel stupid :/. I kinda never really read through the posts in the C-Team barracks, but I would still really like to see it going here.

**Strag** · 09-22-2005, 10:01 PM

Originally Posted by munchkin

Damn, do I feel stupid :/. I kinda never really read through the posts in the C-Team barracks, but I would still really like to see it going here.

Don't feel stupid -- it's a great idea. Apparently the timing for it was wrong a couple of months ago, but maybe now it'll take off. Go with it!

**ABRA** · 09-23-2005, 02:21 PM

While I like the sound of it I agree it might have limited practical application. That's almost half of a team on (often not full) 64 player servers. I don't know how often you would want that big a troop concentration. And if you are spliting at that point into the 6 man fire team, having a commander away from the action isn't too terribly effective. One team will be more or less on its own.

I do agree that a 6 man squad is too small to have all the necessary elements in two man redundancy(2 man AT section, 2 medics, minimum 1 support, and an engineer to maintain the ride leaves no room for the riflemen). As is if a squad is self-sufficient it often needs to be constantly changing its classes as it shifts from offense to defense, gains or loses vehicles, encounters destructable/repairable map assests and enters new terrain with new engagement ranges.

**Diceman** · 09-23-2005, 03:55 PM

Since BF2 is designed to bring some life-like aspects of battle into play, there is definately a correctness to the notion that we can apply real-world techniques to the virtual world.

But BF2 also glosses over a lot of real-world detail, in the name of fun. I don't know about you guys, but sitting at my computer for 3-4 hours, on guard duty while the rest of my squad slept and I needed to keep an eye for enemy patrols, doesn't sound like tons of fun.

To achieve a balance which allows for maximum fun with maximum realism all under the constraints of real(ish)-time network play (5,000 man server, anyone?), there must be some compromises.

One of them is simply that squads are too small to acheive some of the goals the real army squads acheive. There are ways of jury-rigging squads to do something similar, using the tools that are available within the BF2 world, like spawning on a squad leader. But overall, I think most tactics do not port easily from the Real World to BF2.

I'm not saying it can't or shouldn't be done, just that it would probably be very difficult to do, and I would imagine that a lot of Real World tactics lose efficacy in BF2.

Dice.

**munchkin** · 09-23-2005, 07:34 PM

Originally Posted by ABRA

While I like the sound of it I agree it might have limited practical application. That's almost half of a team on (often not full) 64 player servers. I don't know how often you would want that big a troop concentration.

In my view, the practical applications of a system like this are quite open. It's similar to a commander deploying 2 squads to capture an objective, but with enhanced communication and coordination between the two.

**ABRA** · 09-24-2005, 01:12 PM

I agree Dice, BF2 is defintely a fun arcade game first and a realist sim second. That is how it was designed at least.

In that well-defended capture instance I agree munch. The ability to talk over TS between 2 squads in and of itself is a tremendous force multiplier I think. It is something to be experimented with online I think to really grasp its full potential and limitations.

**Cpig** · 09-24-2005, 08:25 PM

Originally Posted by munchkin

In the Army, a squad normally consists of 12 people, divided into 1-4 fireteams. If by some stroke of luck we managed to raise the membership of C-Team to 12 people who could all be online at once, we could have someone (say, John) leading "1stMIP 1" and "1stMIP 2" over TS.

Munchkin,
You have a great idea but it might be easier to implement U.S. doctrine in these squads. U.S. doctrine is a 9 man squad consisting of the Squad leader and two, 4-man fire teams. I think the 12 man squad (Australian Army?) would be difficult to control for an online SL.

**munchkin** · 09-24-2005, 09:29 PM

I think that you're probably right about the difficulty of control of a 12 man squad (at least for the first few times when this is tried). However, for this I believe that we need 2 squad leaders, and then at least 4 men for each of them, making a total of 10.

**CingularDuality** · 09-24-2005, 09:52 PM

Originally Posted by Cpig

Munchkin,
You have a great idea but it might be easier to implement U.S. doctrine in these squads. U.S. doctrine is a 9 man squad consisting of the Squad leader and two, 4-man fire teams. I think the 12 man squad (Australian Army?) would be difficult to control for an online SL.

Negative on the real life description of a US squad. The United States Marine Corps has always (modern times) had a 13 man squad: three 4-man fireteams and a squad leader. This has recently begun to be rethought: http://www.2ndbn5thmar.com/SLSeries/ssdm.html

**Cpig** · 09-25-2005, 09:47 PM

Originally Posted by CingularDuality

Negative on the real life description of a US squad. The United States Marine Corps has always (modern times) had a 13 man squad: three 4-man fireteams and a squad leader. This has recently begun to be rethought: http://www.2ndbn5thmar.com/SLSeries/ssdm.html

Didn't know about the Marines' squad organization. I was just going by when I was an Army infantry squad leader. But it was rare to have a full squad anyway, seemed we were always short a couple.
If you read the article that you provided the link to, it basically says that squad size doesn't matter and I still stand by my opinion that an Army 9-man squad would be best for this game.

**CingularDuality** · 09-25-2005, 09:58 PM

Originally Posted by Cpig

I still stand by my opinion that an Army 9-man squad would be best for this game.

How would you arrange them in-game?

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