Warfare

We conduct war as a team

Our community was first and foremost founded on the necessity for a tight knit group of community content creators, modders, and Arma enthusiasts. As such, mission structures, tactics, strategies, and objective execution can vary situationaly. However, despite this, there are basic tenants of warfare we recommend members understand, the first of which being that you are members of a Team.

One of the first things you learn in the Forces is that everything is done as a team.
There's a specific safety in this principle. If you ever find yourself alone and separated from your element, the prospects of survival diminish, significantly. And as such it is imperative that one remain an active member of their combat element. For if one were to be wounded or find themselves in enemy contact, the formation allows for a concentration of martial power - thus the bundle of twigs becomes the fasces.

Rules Of Engagement (ROE)

Rules of engagement are rules or directives to military forces (including individuals) that define the circumstances, conditions, degree, and manner in which the use of force, or actions which might be construed as provocative, may be applied. They provide authorization for and/or limits on, among other things, the use of force and the employment of certain specific capabilities.

In Coalition, some missions may have ROE set by command or the mission maker. Since this is Arma, and we are here to have fun, ROE are not 100% rock solid. If you walk up on an enemy and he is danger close with his gun up, drop him and report it. That said, if he is 100+ meters out, its night, and he can't see you. Then you report and mark the contact, and wait for further orders. We use a 3 stage ROE system in our missions. If you are familiar with range or firearm safety you might already know these. The stages are as follows.

• Weapons Green: Green does not mean go, in this case it means weapons safe no round in chamber. For the most part since we have safe start you will never encounter weapons green.

• Weapons Amber: Weapon loaded, chambered, and on safe. In a mission this means fire if fired upon.

• Weapons Red: Red means hot. Weapon loaded, chambered, and off safe. Engage at will.

Understanding Enemy Contact

With the above duly noted, your actions as a team start with communication, specifically relaying what your team encounters and how they react to it. For more information on this see our comprehensive guide on Communications and Marking

Types of enemy contact

There are two main forms of enemy contact; "soft", and "hard". Soft contact being defined as your element's observation or encounter with an enemy force - who is oblivious to your existence. Alternatively, hard contact is defined as your element's reaction to receiving enemy fire.

Lesser forms of contact include "sporadic fire" and "audio contact". At some point the enemy may engage you from a considerable distance, hurling volleys that may be essentially inaccurate fire. If struck by these rounds they will wound and in rare occurrences kill if they strike a lucky blow. This is commonly referred to as "received sporadic fire".

Audio contact is more disconcerting for light infantry elements than anything else, and refers to actively hearing a vehicle, though generally uncertain as to what the source actually is. This could be a civilian vehicle driving by, or a suicide bomber, or even an enemy IFV/APC or tank. With this being said, one should not dismiss the audio contact as the civilian potential and expect imminent contact with enemy mechanised and/or armoured elements.

Reacting to contact, cover and concealment

In day to day life it is easy to become complacent in our movement. How we saunter from room to room or from street to street requires limited awareness on our part. But in combative environments one's survival hinges on their ability to find cover and concealment. Cover can be any obstacle that would effectively stop an enemy's bullet. Concealment, however, may not stop incoming rounds but will obscure the enemy's view of you and thus their ability to accurately shoot you. At this time, our AI mod will instruct AI to still fire at you if they sense you're within a particular piece of concealment, however the fire is generally inaccurate and sporadic.

With that being said, move with purpose, always with a keen eye for your next piece of cover. Ultimately this principle carries over to formations and reacting to contact as a formation.

So in the event of hard contact, seek cover behind the nearest thick tree; hard wall, hesco, or boulder, and use your senses to locate the source of enemy fire. Generally we use sound. The sound of the bullets ripping through the air around us or the sound of their weapons firing. In low light levels one can also look for enemy muzzle flash to find their targets. Finally, once determined, call out their location on the radio or through local speech referencing any landmarks and their azimuth.

Example: "Enemy contact, on the hill, bearing 267, by those trees."
Here we're noting to our group that the enemy, is on the hill, at azimuth 267, by the treeline. This information should be transferred up the chain of command by fireteam leaders so that command can better understand the situation on the ground. But for the infantry element, its greatest strength is in concentrating the group's fire on the enemy.

If you're generally certain of their location, although you don't directly see any individual enemy troops due to distance or concealment/cover - place a volume of fire on their location to suppress them. If engaged, our AI will cease fire and seek cover, allowing us to suppress them and better understand their location. You and your element may fire thousands of rounds in a large-scale firefight, and yet wound or kill only a dozen enemy fighters. This is entirely acceptable, as the objective is to overwhelm the enemy with our volume of fire. We can always get more ammunition, we cannot always get more troops.

MOUT and understanding Battledrill 5

We don't specifically use pre-defined battledrills, however, for those familiar with them this is the assault of an objective in an urban condition. Above we talked about engaging targets with volumes of fire, preferably over a distance eliminating the chance of reaction time incurred in close quarters fighting. Here we're talking about clearing enemy entrenched positions in garrisoned villages and city blocks. If ordered to enter and clear an urban area, the importance of formation and communication transforms ten-fold.

Clearing a structure

The act of physically clearing a structure and marking it clear is the bread and butter action of our offensive MOUT operations with the Coalition. Let's walk through the process of approach and clearing of a building. We begin with "stacking up" on the doorway, see image 1 below. In an ideal moment of preparation, the first person in the stack should be a rifleman or grenadier, followed by the team leader, another rifleman or grenadier, and finally the autorifleman bringing up the rear. Avoid sending autoriflemen in first, they wield heavy and cumbersome weapons not well adapted to room to room fighting.