I noticed that there was a change to Rules & Regulations, that being:
"Added rule nr. 38, clarifies the AAR duties and the Pre-Briefing Procedure."
Which places AAR as a senior role that pre-briefs fireteam members.
This has risen two questions for me.
The standard chain of seniority is:
FTL
AR
AAR
R
Since we dont have dedicated AT or R but LAT, according to Tactical Guide:
Thus making in our case seniority:
FTL
AR
LAT
AAR
The first quesiton is about the above - how our seniority actually looks like?
The second - considering seniority, which relates to who is 1IC, 2IC and next in charge - shouldn’t the AR be the one to lead a prebrief, during the lack of FTL presence?
I guess the decision to select AAR was made, because of latest fireteam setup: 1xFTL, 2xAR, 2xLAT, 1xAAR, which makes him the only odd role.
You’re correct. We did indeed go for a FTL -> AAR -> everyone else setup. Now, I wasn’t there during the decision making. But I presume that it was made on the basis that the AAR has considerably more time available to him than either AR or LAT, both of whom supply critical combat roles that might take them out of the broader picture for a tens of minutes at a time. The AAR, however, does not have that constraint. As he is essentially just a rifleman with boxes for the AR on him, his firepower is less combat-critical and can be missed during combat when orders need to be given out.
Well, if so that doesn’t make sense since the idea of seniority is based on role importance for mission success. AR and AT provide superior firepower and thus shall be decisive on what action to take. You would always want the role of greatest impact to lead. IMO AAR duties as supportive unit can’t be neglected, and running around providing ammo and support while commanding wouldn’t work as good as suppressing and commanding or having to care about armor and commanding.
I think the statement "seniority is based on role importance for mission success" is very debatable as the importance of a role changes over time depending on the situation. For example a fire-team is being engaged by massed EI then the ARs are most important. Armour is approaching within 300m then AT are most important. Leadership is something that should be combined with a role that is not essential during a fire-fight. I think the AAR duties such as resupply and situational awareness using optics are more things that take place between fire-fights. As Kaleo said a FT leader and 2nd should be able to communicate with other command elements and take stock of a situation without the loss of their fire being critical.
PS That said it is interesting that the tactical guide completely disagrees with me here!
PPS It seems AR as 2nd in command is in the Tactical Guide because that is the USMC way of doing things and Dslyecxi was in the USMC.
Not to mention that AR will be receiving shitload of fire, thus risking his life. IMHO we don’t still have enough well trained troops to take 2IC spot after the first fire fight into the mission.
Yeah, while true, this might prove kind of disorienting later on, when the situation would require 2IC to be selected. Tactical Guide on which we rely says one thing, our internal regulations another, so I think there should be a clear statement regarding as what is current situation and what is the reason for it to be different from Tactical Guide.
If thats not clear, there might be situations in future where internal conflict or confusion may arise when 2IC is needed.
Regarding "shitloads of fire" - FTL is the frontmost unit, so he is the one that always risks his life first when leading the team, and since fireteam should have a leader to follow, not a leader that sits behind and gives orders, I can understand Dslyecxi’s way.
See, the fact that the IC is also point man confuses me. Idk if that’s how it’s done in america, but the (limited) training I did always had IC as 2nd man, presumably since the IC often has other things to focus on than watching the ground ahead. It’s also fairly obvious that the IC getting nailed first is a pretty bad way to start a firefight.
Regarding the seniority, I always assumed shactac did it in that order because it means they can put new members in a relatively low impact role while they learn the ropes. FWIW I like our system more, since it means that everyone in the fireteam has an important role to fill.
Abuk, for the very reason of clearing out any confusions, we’ve created "Pre-Briefing Procedure" (Also Rules & Regulations, no. 38). That’s another job of AAR, to follow through Pre-Briefing procedure and inform new guys of things that might be unclear to them.
On topic of FTL being point man; This is nowhere forced, it is at discretion of FTL to assign himself or someone else as point man. I’ll definitely begin assigning someone else as point man.
Yeah, while I understand that reasoning and I think Xerses nailed it, I think it should be written down somewhere as a part of internal organisation rules. I do understand that AAR will prebrief everyone on it, but general rules and differences from TacGuide could be gathered in one place, so everyone can familirize themselves with them on their own.
Other than that small difference, we don’t have anything that we don’t do by the book. We already thought of it and I’m pretty sure we covered any angle. If you find any omission, feel free to point it out.
FTL, AAR, next most experienced member, etc. In some cases you might have two or more guys with same level experience, for that reason it is again confirmed in Pre-Briefing procedure. But even if the Pre-Briefing procedure is omitted or someone forgot, next most experienced guy will take initiative and take charge of fireteam.
Re-opening the talk.
I’ve noticed one practical issue with AAR system.
AAR carries ammo for the team and AR. If he is to be 2IC, he often will have to swap out his bag with ammo for LongRange radio with all FTL equipment.
We know that ammo is crucial to survival and we often run dry.
OFC he can mess around and swap things around, but that is a loss of time, and in combat situation it will prove hard to do (even lethal) often leading to sacrificing ammo bag for possibility to contact HQ/SL.
There are numerous solutions to avoid this - one is to give AAR a LR Radio by default and fill its contents with ammo.
The other is to always to appoint another guy as AAR, giving him the bag and duties temporarily, while the native one becomes FTL.
The last one is to follow TacGuide regulations about seniority of roles and appoint an AR as 2IC.
It seems like there is always one detail you miss out on that makes you draw wrong conclusions. AAR has virtually no reason to pick LR (backpack radio). Only one who is carrying Long Range radio is Squad Leader, and that is two steps above AAR. In 35 operation, there might be one situation where AAR in specific might have to drop his backpack with ammo to pick up long range radio.
[justify]The FTL does not carry a Long Range Radio backpack, only the SL does. The AAR never has to swap backpacks with the FTL since the FTL only carries a small Assault Pack with extra ammo for his GL and some hand smoke grenades.
The tactical reasons why the AAR is our 2IC per FT have been well explained by the first posts from Kaleo and Teddy.
But there is also a community based reasoning behind this that hasn’t been touched upon much so far. The AAR is arguably the least popular class in its default state to pick in the entire FT. He usually wouldn’t get a GPS nor a medium range hand radio. He’s essentially just a rifle man who has to take more stamina breaks than others. However by ShackTac doctrine one of the most popular classes (AR) would be 2IC. We changed this around for two reasons:[/justify]
With the AAR being 2IC we can freely give a very popular class (AR) to newcomers and recruits without having to worry that they might very well be suddenly in charge of the entire FT.
By giving the AAR some gadgets such as GPS and a medium range hand held radio the class itself becomes more interesting and fun to play. Suddenly it’s an ideal learning position for aspiring Grunts and SPCs to constantly listen to channel 1’s command communications. Playing AAR with our setup teaches you how to become a good FTL. Lastly with the perfect split of FTL-AR-AT and AAR-AR-AT you have two almost equally balanced and capable buddy teams where there’s always the same amount of firepower spread out as well as all the special gear such as GPS, Vectors and medium range handheld radios.
Wow thats massive multipost. Thanks for explaining, I didn’t know FTL didn’t have LR radios on them, presumed they had to communicate with SL and HQ through them. I do understand the reasoning of 2IC AAR and making that role more active and interesting, don’t get me wrong. Just after today’s mission I got confused and thought that all FTL had LR and then this impractical problem occured in my head… "what if?".
I might seem to be very picky and grumpy, but I just want to better understand how everything works here, eliminate potential problems and inconsistencies, clarify things I don’t fully get. Hope you guys don’t mind Great thanks for the input!
[justify]Yeah the site had major problems yesterday, both Ryujin’s and my posts weren’t posted at all for the first 15 minutes, then suddenly the flood gates opened and enjin posted aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall of our copy & paste posts. xD
Don’t get us wrong, we always appreciate if some fresh eyes take a new look at our pre-established SOPs. It helps us as well to think again back on why we chose these setups in the first place. Sometimes our decisions are once again confirmed and sometimes they are re-evaluated by fresh feedback.[/justify]
