Organization of the squad. To make a squad effective their need a good Squad leader. SL need to organize the Squad accordingly to the mission, enemy resistance and the terrain the squad are facing. To ensure 360° security and avoid friendly fire, a squad should move in an organized way. Each squad member is assigned to cover a different direction, depending on his position in the formation. One should always have an appropriate amount of space between the squad members, striking the balance between mutual support and not presenting a grouped target. The only exceptions here are when in confined areas (Close Quarter Battle), or when stacking up for room entry In Real life, we normally separate the fire team and Squad formation. But in BF2 it will be easiest to handle a single squad and divide the squad into a red and blue element if we need to break up the Squad. The goal is to get the squad to mission objective in one piece. The squad needs to cover a 360 degree cover at all times to minimize losses due to enemy attack. There are three basic formations we can use when moving from A to B. a. Squad Wedge. The squad Wedge is the squad's most common formation. This formation is good in wider / open terrain. It secures good cover and firepower to the front and the flanks. It is easy for SL to control his team, but can be difficult for the individual soldier to maintain without training. b. Squad Line. The squad line provides maximum firepower to the front. This formation is best suited when meeting an enemy in front is almost certain. It secures maximum firepower to the front, and therefore not good security to the flanks and rear c. Squad File. This is the easiest formation to handle, and the easiest formation for the soldier to understand. This formation is best suited when traveling in closed terrain vegetation with limited visibility. It?s easy for the SL to control the team, and can easily and rapidly change the formation to a line formation if enemy contact is met. It secures good firepower and security to the flanks. As SL you need to designate every Squad member with a spot in the formation. Every man must know his place and his Area of responsibility. The last man in the formation has the responsibility to secure the rear at all times. The SL positions will depend on the SL and his style of leading, my personal favorite is to be in the middle of the squad. The use of red and blue elements is god if the SL need to move manpower to a specific strategic point, or if we make enemy contact and needs to engage the enemy. Red are the manpower in front of SL, and blue are manpower behind SL. Fire and movement. When a unit makes contact with the enemy, it normally starts firing at and moving toward the enemy. Sometimes the unit may move away from the enemy. That technique is called fire and movement. It is conducted either to close with or destroy the enemy, or to move away from the enemy so as to break contact with him. The firing and moving take place at the same time. There is a fire element and a movement element. These elements may be single soldiers, buddy teams, fire teams, or squads. Regardless of the size of the elements, the action is still fire and movement. The fire element covers the move of the movement element by firing at the enemy. This helps keep the enemy from firing back at the movement element. The movement element moves either to close with the enemy or to reach a better position from which to fire at him. The movement element should not move until the fire element is firing. Depending on the distance to the enemy position and on the available cover, the fire element and the movement element switch roles as needed to keep moving. Before the movement element moves beyond the supporting range of the fire element (the distance within which the weapons of the fire element can fire and support the movement element), it should take a position from which it can fire at the enemy. The movement element then becomes the next fire element and the fire element becomes the next movement element. If your team makes contact, your Squad leader should tell you to fire or to move. For instance: ?Red team fire, Blue team prepares to move?. He should also tell you where to fire from, what to fire at, or where to move to. Some basic principles: Before moving to another position, the soldier makes a visual reconnaissance, selects the position offering the best cover and concealment, and determines the route he takes to get to that position. The soldier develops a plan for his own movement. He runs the shortest distance between covered positions. Remember that moving from solid cover to solid cover is always preferable, but not always possible. An example: Contact drill 1. Pointman will call out ?CONTACT FRONT!? 2. SL call out ?LINE FORMATION, LEFT OF POINTMAN? (left/right depends on vegetation, geography etc). 3. The element forms a line towards the enemy contact 4. Last man deploys smoke on the fly if the tactical situation calls for it. (I know PR and smoke is bad, but it looks cool though) 5. All members will engage on full auto, until threats have been eliminated. 6. SL will call ?CLEAR!? If threat is not possible to defeat, SL need to consider a fallback command for regrouping at nearest rally point. Retreating must be done in an organized manner. Last man entered the line is the first man out. He will move behind second last man calling ?Last man John?. This will tell John he is the last man, and that he should prepare to move. The team will in this manner retreat to a safer point one by one until the whole team is fallen back, and have taken line formation again. Continuing Retreating in this manner until it?s safe to fall back to nearest Rally Point for regrouping and setting up a tactical perimeter and calling for air or ground support. Wedge formation Line formation File Formation
