Project Reality Forums

Fire Teams

Fire and maneuver tactics are the basis of which all modern infantry tactics derive.
It is security and tactical flexibility, it enables squads to maximize their survivability through heightened security and their combat effectiveness.

Fire and maneuever encompasses much. But the concept is as simple as your ABC's.
It's in my view how PR was meant to be played but unforunately not used widely enough, public matches, clans or other.

Fire and maneuver is used in all infantry operations to great effect, movement, offense and defense.

In the act of movement (towards a known hostile location) would it not be safer for you and more deadly for your enemy if you leapfrogged (bounded) on his position?

Under cover of your team mates you advance, find cover, bring your rifle up and then your squad mates do the same. Continue until contact has been made. That's fire and maneuver during movement.

Once contact has been made, establish effective suppressive fires over the enemy with some of your squad andorder the other half to flank around and close in on the enemy to clear them out. That is fire and maneuever during offense. If the enemy has fire superiority, his vantage point and fighting positions put him at an advantage, he has accurate machine gun fire on you and grenades are exploding around you.

Order one team to lay down heavy fire back at him as another team rushes backwards in retreat, perhaps popping smoke as they go. Once they are in position the rest of your guys do the same, and so on until you have safely broken contact with the enemy and can reorganize a new strategy of attack. Fire and maneuver in defense.

This is so simple, there is no need to over complicate this. The majority of PR players actually do have some thing in their head and can easily grasp my method of implementing Fire Teams. Organized clans will make the most out of it as they are familiar with each other. But Public squads can get by just fine using this in public games.

Here's how you set fire teams up;
1. Good Squad Leaders Usually designates kits. Designate a fire team also
2. Me, Jim and Tim are Fire team 1. Bob, Dave and Jenny are Fire team 2
3. Designate a fire team 2 leader. Dave, you are fire team 2 leader.

That's it, but you have to use them in order to get the full effect.
i.e "FT1, hold this position and cover towards the marker. FT2 Assault this position"
"We'll move down this road, FT1 on the left, FT2 on the right"
"FT2 fall back, FT1 is covering"

This is not a new concept to PR, but there are still a very very small proportion of players, particularly in public matches who use this. Secondly, I've seen no-one use a designated FT2 leader.

The reason for a FT2 leader is; cuts down on micro-management of SL, Squad leader issues orders to FT2, FT2 leader undertakes those orders as he see's fit.

i.e SL: "FT1 cover, FT2 assault the building"
FT2 Leader: "Roger, Bob throw your rope go in over the roof, me and jenny will take the back door"

Simple really, when in doubt, do whatever your FT leader is doing and if you have a good SL (and only a good SL will use this) your tasks will always revolve around providing mutual support for one another, thus increasing your ability to survive and your probability of engaging enemy on your own terms and winning.

Final thoughts.

I like the idea of a designated base of fire element and a designated assault element for an assault infantry squad.

I tend to lead squads the majority of the time, so myself along with the squad medic and AR are the base of fire element. A loss of these three men purely from a low level tactical point of view (a firefight) is more costly than the loss of any other.

Squad Leader attack and observe markers help to direct machine gun fire and area fire from the medic.

Riflemen, Riflemen specialists and grenadiers form my assault element. These weapons and equipment are perfectly suited to the task of aggressively closing down on enemy positions and clearing them out with gunfire and grenades.

grenadiers can prep enemy positions by softening them with grenades and then obscurring them with smoke. All while under heavy suppressive fire from FT1.
Grapples are used to appear where the enemy least expects you and hand grenades are pretty self explanatory.

I usually have FT2 leader as a grenadier. It makes not a huge amount of difference really, but I figure if he's good enough to lead a small team then he's good enough to use a grenade launcher properly.

Thanks for making this post in my stead. I've used fireteams with leaders. It helps tremendously when you're far away directing the SAW and are unable to give tactical orders. I ran into one such situation when my squad was Soloing a cache in Al Basrah. The cache was under a bridge next to a hideout. Now, I hate camping firebases but I really didn't have a choice. My fireteam leader was brilliant, I gave him strategic orders using the map, he handled the tactical. It was amazing, smashed the cache, returned to formation and leapfrogged through insurgents to kill another cache. Took a carbomb to disorient us enough for the INS to finally take our squad down.

It seems as though you and I think very alike Roulette. I would love to play with you, or against you. Send me a PM with your Xfire so we can get a game going.

Sounds like in that situation you did what made perfect tactical sense in a low level firefight.

You had your base of fire cover the enemy spawn point with accurate fire whilst an assault fire team moved unseen into a position where they could destroy both the cache and the hideout.

Camping is non existant in PR as far as I am concerned, What you did was not camping, it was providing a base of fire, you were supporting your squad and therefore your team.

I bet that the success of this objective went a considerable way in helping your team.

that's what PR is about. And no Pr player who knows what PR is about can argue with that.

I'll PM you my xfire, we'll arrange a game sometime.

Mumble really helps this, as 2 seperate fireteams do have the danger of producing more coms traffic.

Thanks, forgot to mention that.

Yes, Mumble is a godsend.

Use mumble to communicate within your FT

use voip when issuing squad orders and relaying squad relevant intel.

i.e FT2 Leader: "You two frag the room, I'll cover, then we storm in" - Mumble

SL: "FT1 take up position and cover the FB, FT2 move around the hills to the north, dont get seen, and take it down" - VoIP

Mumble is nice for dealing with blues. But I've found people use it far too often. One game I was playing had mumble being used for basic squad chatter. Someone 55 meters from you talking could be heard like the green in your squad. Made it very difficult to lead. I only use mumble for talking to other SLs and for asking blues to go about. Whenever I do a sticky Mechanized infantry group (an APC dedicates itself to the support, transport and welfare of a single infantry squad) I always use mumble so that I can talk to the squad that I'm attached to.

But back to fireteams. Since the new patch, I've never really found a use for limited kits aside from the obvious medic and AR or the occasional combat engineer for myself. Grenadier, marksman, H-AT and L-AT all require too much distance to be used effectively by my assaulting teams. I have only ever have a member aquire one of these weapons in specific situations, all of them, were defensive. My cover team, all had their kits taken, officer, medic and AR. What do you think about using these limited kits? I for one have never found a use, my assault team is always occupied with getting into grenade range under covering fire through stealth or assault.

Fireteams are great when they work, but terrible when they dont. you need to have good fireteam leaders in order to be successful.

one thing that many who play PR fail to realize is a thing called "force mass." this basically means, the more guys, the better. everyone makes the mistake of splitting up thinking that they will be able to flank and destroy. while this is sometimes true, most of the time, especially when defending, it is best to keep everyone close together (with combat spacing) this allows for more men to fire at a concentrated target.
so when your making and using your fireteams, never forget that when you split your squad, you reduce each teams combat effectivness by 50%.

cheers. will try this out.

I have 3 things to try out now...

1. Fireteams
2. Spec Ops (3 (INS) or 4 (AAS) men squad with specific kits for all-terrain, if you know what I mean).
3. HMMVV squad

cheers for this guide! thanks!

The only thing i would add to fireteams is the need for at least 1, maybe 2, SM keeping an eye on the rear and side flanks.

It's all well and goo having fireteams leap frogging each other but as soon as you start firing on an enemy position, any enemy in your area will move towards your position and if they are already behind you or on your flank then the go straight for the fireteam that was shooting, kill them and then you've got enemy behind you and in front and you dead.

Fireteams are easy to teach and implement in any gameplay, though rarely done, the hard part is teaching someone not to fire at the enemy when you already have 2 SM engaging.

Everyone wants to shoot too, not take cover and wait just in case the enemy is flanking. If i am ever not SL, which is rare, I make a point of running just behind my SL and when ever he stops to engage enemy, or in an area that can be easily flanked, I watch his back.

This is how i die as SL 80% of the time i reckon and can be prevented by having 1 person watching your back. Even if the die, at least you have a fighting chance knowing that an enemy is there.