How to Lead & be a good NCO or Officer

Leading in the context of FPA is an issue that we deal with on a mission-to-mission basis. There are plenty of operations where it is absolutely necessary for the players to organize as a group, and a hierarchy, that will cooperate to achieve mission goals. This is a certain fact regardless of the seriousness of the mission, or whenever it is a Sunday or a non-Sunday mission.

Within this page the basic outlines of Squad and Platoon Leader behavior will be described and demonstrated via practical examples. Keep in mind that the concept of leadership is very dynamic and requires a thorough understanding of warfare, something that, despite us playing a video game, must always be considered. Arma is, regardless of what people say, still trying to emulate modern conflicts, and as such it requires modern approaches to warfare.

Team-to-Team Coordination

The core of every military organization is a squad. This group, regardless of how big it is, acts as the most numerous and the most basic formation that are then further supervised and organized into bigger elements, like platoons, companies, special forces, etc. However, commanding an entire squad for an individual NCO is not an easy task, as a result of the responsibilities the squad leader has to bear. As a result of this, squads are further subdivided into teams.

In the context of FPA, our squads are almost always divided into precisely two teams, with some exceptions. These teams are typically commanded by two Team Leaders, one of which may be the squad leader as well, though that is always subject to change depending on the context of the mission, especially if it's not a Sunday mission.

What a Team Leader does

Team Leaders, or TL for short, enjoy a special privilege that is not available to other NCOs and Officers, and that's the ability to exert authority and fight in a battle without the need to know the bigger picture. A TL as a result of this has a much lower burden of obligations compared to an individual squad leader or an officer, or a specialist.

The TL always has at least 2 people under his command, but sometimes it is possible to have even more. These people should traditionally be assigned during the planning phase or in an ad hoc fashion during the course of a mission. This is necessary as individual teams are the most likely to suffer casualties, and circumstantially may have to divide or consolidate themselves to achieve proper coordination. That way, TLs can properly issue out effective orders to their subordinates without fracturing the squad as a whole.

How to utilize Team Leaders

As a benefit stemming from their lack of deeper knowledge about the situation in the mission, TLs have the ability to increase their immediate tactical knowledge by focusing on only the situations relevant to their individual squad and the specific team they're leading. As such, some actions can be effectively undertaken by them:

• Reacting to threats. A TL that keeps his team cautious and keeps track of what's ahead can easily respond to any threat, and due to the small nature of a team, this makes it easier for them to form an offensive or defensive response.
• Holding Bases of Fire. An effective BOF is one which a team detects and utilizes efficiently. TLs can seek these BOFs and coordinate with the other team(s) in their squad as a means of pouring more fire into the enemy.
• Maneuvering. A TL can easily commander a team or squad vehicle, or organize movement on foot through what they find ideal terrain pertaining to their situation. They can also execute bounding maneuvers on an individual basis, or with other teams.
• Completing lesser tasks. A Squad Leader can assign a task to a team pertaining to a specific issue. Perhaps a house needs to be occupied or a position has to be entrenched. On that basis, the TL collects his team together and organizes the action independent of their squad leader's input, managing only a portion of the squad, but much more effectively.

Squad-To-Squad Coordination

Nobody likes a Squad Leader(SL) that doesn't keep good tabs on the situation or refuses to get involved with deep problems. As a person of leading authority on the ground, you're tasked with deciding the fate of an entire group of people during a single operation. Of course, in the consequences of a video game, there is no problem if you perish, but the stakes are high and you don't want to give your riflemen a quick death.

There is however an art to decisively lead in combat, and that lies in proper coordination with other squads. The coverage of a squad is particularly small when only one cover a singular objective, limiting your intel, field of influence, volume of fire, and the ability to deal with the enemy. A big aspect of this revolves around the ability of the SL to minimize his responsibility on micromanaging individual squad members, relying more on giving people tactical information sourced from other units, and sending their information back to other units.

Squad Leaders and Subordinates

The troops subordinate to an SL, the squad's riflemen and TLs, need to have a degree of independence to perform properly in fighting circumstances. The act of micromanagement over individual troops on every single basis causes considerable friction and puts the troops at odds with the squad leader, and also making them more dependent on the squad leader's decision making.

Generally, there are a couple of things that a SLs need to consider when interacting with their squad:

• Designate tasks. An easy way to utilize your squad members to their fullest extent and to give them something to do is to assign them small tasks as a squad leader. By generally ordering individuals or an entire team to complete something that is in particular need of completing. Even just sending them out to dig a trench at a particular position will distract them from any mischief.
• Consult the riflemen. There are often situations where additional input from troops can help you make the right decision. Be constructive and ask the squad members to help you on whatever issue might arise. After all, multiple heads are better than one, and relying on your own orders, especially when there's massive opposition to it from the side of the squad members, is not good for the squad.
• Don't micro too hard. Combat wears people out and you can't always assume that people will maintain perfect pacing in a warzone. Expecting them to be on the edge and with sticks up their ass 100% of the time is often too much. Especially in the case of downtime, discouraging squaddies from talking to each other and occupying themselves when there's no orders is frowned upon and can cause lots of friction.

Squads in a Wider Context

Of course, a big advantage that SLs have is the ability to sidestep the chain-of-command and communicate with each other on issues. In general, squads should ensure that they are cooperating on achieving objectives as much as possible, whenever possible. Even if you have a situation where you may be operating on orders of a higher officer force, always ensure that you have at least one squad with you.
To achieve this, you may want to consider some of the following:

• Attach your squad to a lone squad. Sometimes individual objectives may be tackled by only one squad or less. Attempt to hail them and divert your efforts into reinforcing them.
• Send and respond to emergency calls. Very often you might wind up biting off more than you can chew. To resolve this, simply attempt to disengage and call for support. There are many cases where a single squad can't handle a combat scenario.
• Stick close and maneuver together. The typical maximum range for every rifleman is around 300 meters. On that principle you can define a radius within which a single squad can put fire down. On that principle, you can also mutually coordinate squads. By keeping them apart and yet close together, you can create a perfect killing field while also not bunching up individual squads. Of course, effective range reduces depending on the environment and the conditions you're facing. Bad weather and urban environments require you to be even closer than usual in order to not get lost and cause friendly fires.
• Share intel. Intel is the key to survival. This is thus very self explanatory: If you ignore sending vital information to other squads, especially when it's of their concern, they will risk their lives.

Planning an Operation

The core to every success in an Arma mission is good planning. The AI might be stupid, exploits might exist, the difficulty may be light, but good coordination and good organization of the platoon is what makes us tick. As such, the Platoon Leader's (PL) role is to plan out the way a mission will be conducted, in accordance to intelligence, limitations, strengths and weaknesses, compositions, terrains, and, most importantly, the need to preserve vital objectives that can be failed, as well as the lives of everyone deployed on a mission.

Of course, there are multiple scenarios to consider as well. Players may get involved in infantry-only or combined arms or air-mobile missions. Sometimes, they may rely on To do this is not simple. It requires a lot of forethought, knowledge of how to assemble infantry, how to utilize assets, and how to read the map. However, there are a few useful pointers whenever you assemble a plan.

• Never convoy. Ever. Convoying is only utilized in low intensity COIN scenarios where you cannot guarantee a constant threat, and as a means of rapid transit in non-combat conditions. Convoying through a front-line makes you a shooting gallery for the enemy military, particularly if you're trying to break through their lines. Issues include negatives like being unable to see what's in front of you and behind you, only being able to inaccurately engage targets, getting stuck in bottlenecks or where there's a blockade or a destroyed vehicle ahead of you.
• Plan out general movement patterns. Requiring the friendly units to adhere to a very micromanaged behavior can lead to particularly clumsy and inefficient behavior from all units involved. Try to refer them to individual waypoints and staging areas rather than having them to adhere to a strict route. Use that only as a measure of last resort.
• Prepare to attack before you attack. The biggest mistake you can make is drive into the enemy without dismounting all the infantry prior to an engagement. The more ground you cover, the more guns you have, the less people are seated, the more firepower there is. Ensure that you determine when infantry units should dismount from their transports if you have them.
• Use support assets tactically. A key tenant of combined arms is tactical deployment of support assets. CAS aircraft, armored vehicles, heavy weapons and similar additions to the platoon have to fight targets in sync with the regular forces.
• Survey low-intel areas. Be careful behind enemy lines where you have no intel. An ambush may be waiting for you in any corner. You can prevent massive losses by sending advance search parties and surveying all points of interest in an area prior to entering it. Finding high points and areas which are poorly visible to defenders, but easy to traverse, are ideal for avoiding these kinds of problems.
• Relegate authority. In certain cases, you may encounter a situation in which you do not have the ability to keep control of every single military unit as a platoon commander.
• Utilize phase lines. Phase lines are arbitrary or physically determined lines of advance that can be utilized by friendly forces as a means of synchronizing their movement. The general principle behind their operation is to By establishing a phase line within the battle space, you can
• Consider the terrain. How poor is the visibility? Do you have a close-range high ground? Are you defending inside or outside of your base? There are many negative and positive factors that you can determine by just checking what situation you're inside of. Always consider utilizing the terrain to your best advantage -- even if you're pushed all the way back to your base camp, you can still find a way to structure your defenses in a way that is tactically sound.

C3I

C3I, or Command, Control, Comms, and Intel is a key system utilized by modern military organizations as a means of evaluating multiple aspects of a combat situation. The purpose behind it is combining the abilities prevalent within officer and squad leader authority, the ability to command units, transfer radio orders and information, as well as collect intel relevant to the war scenario you find yourself inside of. These components are then formed into cohesive information which is transferred up and down the chain of command.

The key aspect of C3I is the immediate transfer of information and changing of orders based upon intel collected in the field. To ensure that information gathering works adequately, all units need to consider reporting key information to the highest possible degree, and utilize the best available technology they have available to acquire said information. These are typically formed through surveillance drones, advanced thermal imaging, recon infantry, fixed wing surveillance, scout vehicles, and the like. These tools are used by soldiers to collect intel, which is then directed to the command network via radio. The officers in charge change the situation depending on this newly collected intel, and tweak the situation on an operational level to accommodate the plan to the new information that's been gathered.

Of course, a key way to determine your intel situation is by means of determining how intense your intel actually is. For purposes of denoting this information, we've determined several ways of evaluating operational intel, separated into three categories.

Low Intel

Low intel situations are determined by the following factors:

• Few information about enemy compositions.
• Little to no information about locations of the enemy.
• Low quality intel-gathering equipment (no binoculars, long range optics, long range radios, etc.)
• Lacking support in surveillance and recon assets.

In low intel environments you have to consider that every position can host possible heavy resistance. In that scenario, the best course of action is to work the area of operations on a case-by case basis. Locations and objectives are scouted slowly and carefully, and a plan is formed as more intel is gathered. This kind of lacking intel typically requires the most time to gather, and can bring the pace of any mission to a crawl. However, to ensure minimal friendly casualties and a successful completion of objectives, a slow pace has to be undertaken.

Medium Intel

Medium intel situations are determined by the following factors:

• Moderate but partially inaccurate information about the enemy and their disposition compared to us.
• Knowingly outdated intelligence with an assumed estimate and prediction.
• A relevant knowledge of enemy compositions that allows the leadership to outline their force in some areas.
• Information about specific occupied positions, like towns, structures, fortifications, points of interest, etc.

Medium level intel is the most common one that the platoon will receive during missions. Inaccurate information should be considered and adequately compensated for every time a plan is divulged by exercising caution and reconnaissance. This effort is best augmented with an assorted array of surveillance tools, such as observational or attack helicopters, scout vehicles, recon infantry, drone surveillance, and optical tools.

High Intel

High-quality intel encompasses all information that we are known to be exact. In some scenarios, the platoon may know exact enemy forces operating in an area, their patrol routes, their precise force compositions, as well as possess pre-existing visual imagery depicting what their positions may look like.
In a high-intel environment, an approach may be treated more lax. As more information is acquired, keeping your guard up is not as mandatory as it has to be, and equally so attention can be focused in areas where intelligence is lower.

However, one has to account for the deceptive nature of high intel.