1. Introduction
This guide is intended to give a crash course into the essentials of controlling a squad in ArmA2. The UI, whilst pretty dire from an ease of use standpoint, is very functional, giving very in-depth control over the behaviour of your soldiers.
So a brief overview should set you on your way to becoming an awesome squad leader, though I would recommend throwing a squad into the editor to play around with and get comfortable with issuing commands before taking it into a fight, especially online.
It should be noted that not all menus related to controlling the AI will be featured, only the core set for controlling and modifying behaviour will be covered. Also I am not an expert on this, I merely have spent the last couple of days playing around with squads in the editor to get to grips with it all.
2. Your Squad
Your squad is displayed on the bottom left of your UI, this consists of a series of portraits which show you how many are in the squad, their current condition and armaments they are carrying.
Selecting members of your squad is pretty straight forward and can be done in a few different ways. Opening the Quick-Command menu will select all squad members by default, this can also be done via the keyboard by pressing the (`) key. To select individual members you can either mouse over and left click on a soldier whilst the Quick-Command menu is open or by pressing the F1-12 key for the corresponding soldier.
3. Command Menus
There are four main menus that control and setup the behaviour of your squad. All can be accessed with hotkeys and some from within other menus. Once in the menu the mousewheel is used to scroll through the options and left mouse button to selected that option, the menu can be cancelled by pressing backspace.
4. Quick Command
This is the control menu, by default it performs a context action based upon what you're aiming at.
5. Engagement
This menu sets the behaviour of your squad when targetting the enemy.
6. Combat Mode
This menu sets the behaviour of your squad whilst moving.
7. Formation
This is pretty straight forward, your squad forms the shape selected. However, the chosen formation can be a very important factor in the survivability of your squad whilst in combat.
You should think of the formation as a plug to an enemy position, picking the shape that best fits the engagement. Wedge is the default, which is a very good all round formation, providing a good base of fire to the front whilst giving flank protection on both sides. However depending on the combat situation other formations can often be more favourable, although this heavily relies on your intel of the enemy positions.
Example:
Should you attack a town you know enemy troops to be defending, often a line formation provides a better base of fire if taking it head on than a wedge.
Although should it be one of the larger towns, it is doubtful that a line of soldiers is enough to give adequate cover across its breadth, especially to your own flanks. So here you may wish to opt for an Echelon formation, putting the face of it towards the main body of the town.
8. Team Assignment
This at first can just seem like a complete pain in the bottom. To do it properly can take a few minutes to setup, luckily Arma2 is the sort of game that hands out time like candy, but I assure you, once you have it setup to your needs you will be commanding like a pro.
What it does; you can subdivide your squad into teams, with coloured call signs (red, green, blue etc.) This allows you to pull off some fancy tactical maneuvers when in a fight. I will give an example in the next section, in this one I will explain how to set it up.
Begin by deciding how you wish to split your squad, the most common will be between a fire team and an assault team. One will be used to setup in good positions lay down heavy fire, the other to push forward. Taking the squad seen at the start of the guide I will now split those into the teams
Step 1:
The best soldiers in my squad to use for the fire team will be the two machine gunners, so Using the F2 and F3 keys, select the units.
Step 2:
Now press (9) to open the Team Assignment menu. Choose the option 'Assign Red', you should here an audio acknowledgement as well as the squad number changing to match the team colour.
Step 3:
Repeat steps 1 and 2 with the rest of your squad (the riflemen) this time choosing the 'Assign Green' option. This will form your assault team. You can see in the picture below the squad numbers are now different colours.
Step 4:
Now to use them; whilst you can select the squads through the Team Assignment menu, the better method is to use a hotkey. As mentioned, pressing the F key corresponding to the squad number will select that individual, however holding shift then pressing the F key will select everyone in the same team as that soldier.
9. Putting it All Together
Between the varying landscape, possible enemy positions, your own approach to setting up your teams you can pull off any manner of tactics for any situation. But just to tie this all together I will give an example of how I would approach an attack on a small town with my squad.
The scenario:
This town is garrisoned by several infantry squads.
First of all I will form my plan of how I wish to approach the town. I have decided upon attacking from the south-east, using the building and the walls as cover to close in.
So to begin I need to sort my squad out. I will split them into a fire team / assault team setup. I like my troops to be pretty tight in combat, so I will leave their targetting behaviour on 'Disengage'. As I am starting off fairly close to the town I will also set my combat mode to 'Stealth', this should have them move fast enough whilst ensuring they are sticking to cover on the way in. On top of that, I am fighting a pretty close ranged battle with lots of cover so I will have both teams on 'Stay Crouched', this is particularly important for the fire team behind the wall as they will maintain a good over watch without frequently proning.
I want my fire team to setup behind the wall next to the barn overlooking the whole town, so shift selecting one of the team members with the corresponding F-key I give the move order. The assault team I want to secure the eastern part of the town, I again, shift select a soldier from that team and give them the move order into buildings to the east. You can see in this screenshot the fire team is setup behind the wall with a good vantage over the area, the assault team is just ahead of them making their way down.
I have come under fire! any plan you have had has just gone out the window, you're simply going to have to roll with the punches from now on. Importantly, as soon as the first shots come in, you want to press (`) to select your whole squad and change their combat mode to 'Danger' if it wasn't already. This will ensure they are acting as effectively as possible, keeping hard to cover and advancing slowly. Remember to keep moving both teams about as appropiate to forfill their designated roles and enjoy the fun!.
10. Tips & Tricks
~ fin ~
This guide is intended to give a crash course into the essentials of controlling a squad in ArmA2. The UI, whilst pretty dire from an ease of use standpoint, is very functional, giving very in-depth control over the behaviour of your soldiers.
So a brief overview should set you on your way to becoming an awesome squad leader, though I would recommend throwing a squad into the editor to play around with and get comfortable with issuing commands before taking it into a fight, especially online.
It should be noted that not all menus related to controlling the AI will be featured, only the core set for controlling and modifying behaviour will be covered. Also I am not an expert on this, I merely have spent the last couple of days playing around with squads in the editor to get to grips with it all.
2. Your Squad
Your squad is displayed on the bottom left of your UI, this consists of a series of portraits which show you how many are in the squad, their current condition and armaments they are carrying.
Selecting members of your squad is pretty straight forward and can be done in a few different ways. Opening the Quick-Command menu will select all squad members by default, this can also be done via the keyboard by pressing the (`) key. To select individual members you can either mouse over and left click on a soldier whilst the Quick-Command menu is open or by pressing the F1-12 key for the corresponding soldier.
3. Command Menus
There are four main menus that control and setup the behaviour of your squad. All can be accessed with hotkeys and some from within other menus. Once in the menu the mousewheel is used to scroll through the options and left mouse button to selected that option, the menu can be cancelled by pressing backspace.
- Quick Command (spacebar)
- Engagement (3)
- Combat Mode (7)
- Formation (8)
- Team Assignment (9)
4. Quick Command
This is the control menu, by default it performs a context action based upon what you're aiming at.
- Mouseover nil
Orders the selected soldiers to move to that location. - Mouseover own squad member
Selects that squad member. - Mouseover friendly vehicle
Orders the selected soldiers to board the vehicle or to disembark if they're already onboard. - Mouseover enemy unit
Orders the selected soldiers to attack that target.
5. Engagement
This menu sets the behaviour of your squad when targetting the enemy.
- Hold-Fire
Your squad will only return fire on enemy troops. - Open-Fire (default)
Your Squad will attack any visible troops within range.
- Engage
Your squad will break formation to attack any target you have specifically given to them. - Engage at Will
Your squad will pick their own targets and will break formation to attack. - Disengage (default)
Your squad will maintain formation at all times.
6. Combat Mode
This menu sets the behaviour of your squad whilst moving.
- Safe
Your squad will move very quickly. Does not use cover whilst moving, will not be on the lookout for enemy troops. - Aware (default)
Your squad will move quickly. Stays loosely to cover whilst moving, they will be scanning for enemy troops. - Stealth
Your squad will move slowly. Moving from cover to cover. They will move in two groups, one group moves forward to the next cover, the second group moves then ahead of them to the next cover creating a bounding motion, often one member of the squad will go far ahead as a scout. - Danger
Your squad moves very slowly. Moving from cover to cover. The entire squad sits in cover, slowly moving forward to the next cover in smaller bounding motions. Often they will remain in cover until immediate threats are dealth with before moving on.
- Stand Up
Your squad will stay stood up, can be useful for traversing long distances on foot. - Stay Crouched
Your squad will remain in the crouched position, most useful for close quarters, cover laden combat. - Go Prone
Your squad will hit the dirt, useful for quiet movement or long range and open engagements. - Keep Low
Your squad matches your own stance.
7. Formation
This is pretty straight forward, your squad forms the shape selected. However, the chosen formation can be a very important factor in the survivability of your squad whilst in combat.
You should think of the formation as a plug to an enemy position, picking the shape that best fits the engagement. Wedge is the default, which is a very good all round formation, providing a good base of fire to the front whilst giving flank protection on both sides. However depending on the combat situation other formations can often be more favourable, although this heavily relies on your intel of the enemy positions.
Example:
Should you attack a town you know enemy troops to be defending, often a line formation provides a better base of fire if taking it head on than a wedge.
Although should it be one of the larger towns, it is doubtful that a line of soldiers is enough to give adequate cover across its breadth, especially to your own flanks. So here you may wish to opt for an Echelon formation, putting the face of it towards the main body of the town.
8. Team Assignment
This at first can just seem like a complete pain in the bottom. To do it properly can take a few minutes to setup, luckily Arma2 is the sort of game that hands out time like candy, but I assure you, once you have it setup to your needs you will be commanding like a pro.
What it does; you can subdivide your squad into teams, with coloured call signs (red, green, blue etc.) This allows you to pull off some fancy tactical maneuvers when in a fight. I will give an example in the next section, in this one I will explain how to set it up.
Begin by deciding how you wish to split your squad, the most common will be between a fire team and an assault team. One will be used to setup in good positions lay down heavy fire, the other to push forward. Taking the squad seen at the start of the guide I will now split those into the teams
Step 1:
The best soldiers in my squad to use for the fire team will be the two machine gunners, so Using the F2 and F3 keys, select the units.
Step 2:
Now press (9) to open the Team Assignment menu. Choose the option 'Assign Red', you should here an audio acknowledgement as well as the squad number changing to match the team colour.
Step 3:
Repeat steps 1 and 2 with the rest of your squad (the riflemen) this time choosing the 'Assign Green' option. This will form your assault team. You can see in the picture below the squad numbers are now different colours.
Step 4:
Now to use them; whilst you can select the squads through the Team Assignment menu, the better method is to use a hotkey. As mentioned, pressing the F key corresponding to the squad number will select that individual, however holding shift then pressing the F key will select everyone in the same team as that soldier.
9. Putting it All Together
Between the varying landscape, possible enemy positions, your own approach to setting up your teams you can pull off any manner of tactics for any situation. But just to tie this all together I will give an example of how I would approach an attack on a small town with my squad.
The scenario:
This town is garrisoned by several infantry squads.
First of all I will form my plan of how I wish to approach the town. I have decided upon attacking from the south-east, using the building and the walls as cover to close in.
So to begin I need to sort my squad out. I will split them into a fire team / assault team setup. I like my troops to be pretty tight in combat, so I will leave their targetting behaviour on 'Disengage'. As I am starting off fairly close to the town I will also set my combat mode to 'Stealth', this should have them move fast enough whilst ensuring they are sticking to cover on the way in. On top of that, I am fighting a pretty close ranged battle with lots of cover so I will have both teams on 'Stay Crouched', this is particularly important for the fire team behind the wall as they will maintain a good over watch without frequently proning.
I want my fire team to setup behind the wall next to the barn overlooking the whole town, so shift selecting one of the team members with the corresponding F-key I give the move order. The assault team I want to secure the eastern part of the town, I again, shift select a soldier from that team and give them the move order into buildings to the east. You can see in this screenshot the fire team is setup behind the wall with a good vantage over the area, the assault team is just ahead of them making their way down.
I have come under fire! any plan you have had has just gone out the window, you're simply going to have to roll with the punches from now on. Importantly, as soon as the first shots come in, you want to press (`) to select your whole squad and change their combat mode to 'Danger' if it wasn't already. This will ensure they are acting as effectively as possible, keeping hard to cover and advancing slowly. Remember to keep moving both teams about as appropiate to forfill their designated roles and enjoy the fun!.
10. Tips & Tricks
- When mixing infantry and vehicles, team assignment is essential!
Whilst controlling a squad of nothing but infantry it may seem not as worthwhile, to ensure you're easily control different assets within a squad successfully, whether it be armoured support or some transport, make sure they have their own teams assigned so you aren't sending your poor 5t truck driver into the middle of battle. - If possible have your different team assignments in the earlier F-keys for ease of shift selection!
If splitting a 10 man squad into two 5 man teams for instance, have a member from one team on F2 and a member from the other team on F3, you can quickly then shift select the teams without having to stretch to the F keys further away. - A fairly reliable way of having AI pilots transport you!
Everyone has seen that AI hover that blackhawk in an open field yet somehow manage to roll it over, I find it best to never ever alter their altitude manually, rather fly them to roughly the destination you wish, select the pilot individually and tell him to disembark, he will pretty much always find a safe open place and perform a perfect landing, just remember to tell him to get back in afterwards. Note that this doesn't help with them taking off, make sure you never tell them to take off in the direction of hills or nearby trees, they seem to have a lot of trouble climbing in the first few seconds and will often crash. - Faster 'Danger' movement!
Should you be in a position where you want your squad to move from a position fairly quickly whilst maintaining a decent cover, you can individually tell your troops to move to the location with their F-Keys rather than the whole squad, they won't spend so long waiting for each other to move up and still run between cover.
~ fin ~
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