MISSION COMMANDER GUIDE
From ArmaGoons
Contents |
[edit] MISSION COMMANDER GUIDE
Taking charge of the whole mission is not as hard as you may think. It may even be easier than being a fireteam leader! As a cool cat who gets to ride in a command vehicle and casually walk while a battle is raging about 300 meters infront of you, you need to keep three things in mind:
Awareness
Planning
Communication
"Wow!" you will say, "This sure is catchy! But what does it all mean?"
Why, this shit is real simple:
[edit] Awareness
Means being aware of everything around you - and I mean everything. The entire mission needs to be in your head. At any given moment you must have an answer to the following questions:
What are my forces? - How many squads do I have? What are their roles and how can I use them? What are their names and approximate number of people? How many vehicle do we have?
Where are my forces? - Yeah, where the fuck are they?
What is the objective? - How can we get there? What resistance can I expect?
What is the surrounding area like? - Terrain? Cover? Possible landing zones?
Not knowing these things means not being confident enough in the general plan. Not being confident means hesitation, and hesitation means you'll be running around like a headless chicken while everyone will be expecting a response from you. This is the hardest thing about commanding a mission and easiest mistake to do - not knowing what to do and panicking. This is where you need to learn to be pissed off enough to start arranging things to your liking. Here's a nice rule: If in doubt, call for sitrep.
Tip: Regrouping and setting assembly areas are useful after each battle as things get disorganized during it. You may enter that enemy town as a cool organized force, but by the end it won't be. So organize yourselves together afterwards and calm down. Cool your jets.
Knowing terrain is important too - you need to spend equal time looking at the map and visually observing the area. Awareness doesn't just come from you own observation, make sure you use the terrain to your advantage and send teams ahead to recon the area. Awareness also comes with listening to your squads. Your teams report a BMP coming up fast - don't ignore that shit, add it to your plan. It sounds so obvious but in the middle of a shitstorm it's easy to stick yourself to a plan and ignore reports of stuff happening that might endanger it.
[edit] Planning
Now you know the area, you know your forces, you are aware of your surroundings. You need to know how to get your squads to perform their tasks to the best of their abilities. In a way this is just like commanding a fireteam but on a more epic scale. In a fireteam you always keep your AT guy supported by a rifleman and keep your medic at the back - so why wouldn't you keep your support team at the rear, and protect your AT fireteam with an general, all-purpose fireteam?
Always think ahead and anticipate problems (this is where being aware is important). "Hay there might be bad dudes in that forest on the way to the objective!" well yeah so come up with a plan of action that will deal with this shit with as few casualties as possible. Having one fireteam sweep that area while another covers it is a good start.
Having a plan for everything that might happen in the mission is a good idea and will mean that if something happens you already have a plan on hand to initiate and won't have to put unnecessary stress on yourself by coming up with a plan right there on the spot. Anticipating a threat and forming a plan of action to counter it before it occurs means it will be a properly thought-out plan that will keep people safe, while a plan that you come up with on the spot while under fire and panicking will be a horrible abomination that will get everyone killed. While it's true that no plan survives an encounter with an enemy, plan B or even C will mean that you and your dudes will. Whenever you put together a plan of action for particular teams, come up with a backup plan - always test it to see holes and possible problems and react accordingly. This, again, means you won't be caught unawares.
[edit] CONCLUSION
Don't forget the rest of this catchy fucking phrase shit that I spent all night thinking up. You can't fucking spell APC without an A or a P. You'll just end up with a C and that makes you a Cunt. A cunt who blabbers in Teamspeak, that's who.
If you don't have P then all you are left with is an A and a C and that makes you an Ass Cruiser who gets everyone killed and people hate you for screwing up a simple convoy mission.
And if you don't have A then you are just a Pee Chugger who shouldn't even lead an Air Cav session
