A view from an Infantryman...how I play RO2

The job of the Infantry is two fold. First is to close with and eliminate then enemy and take the ground from the enemy, and second is to prevent the enemy from closing on him and taking the ground he holds.

In the game the Infantry is armed with period era weapons and a few fantasies here and there. The standard issue for both sides was a bolt action rifle capable of accurate fire out to 450m, but far more practical at less than 250m. The sub-machie gun was a standard for leaders and special troops, in a pistol caliber, and acurate out to 150m, but used more near the 50m mark. Not saying troops can not hit further out but what is called the maximum effective range is determined at the point the average soldier can see, aim, and hit a 'standing' man not moving 50% of the time.

The mobile 'light' machinegun made it's appearence in WW2, both sides were armed with a very capable light machinegun for the missions and tactics of each army.

In 'The Game' if you use the actual techniques of survival on the battlefield the game is far more enjoyable, 3-5 second rushes, rather than head long sprints, firing from cover across the front not nose on nose, and other techniques of survival out on that battlefield.

We will look at each weapon and a few tactics here and there to hopefully give you a view on how it is and was done back in the day, and even today based on the introduction of many tactics and techniques during WW2.

Defense: When you are defending first you must understand you are already generally starting anywhere from 50-150 tickets less than the attacker, so already you are at a disadvantage. So explain the reasoning in attacking the attacker already with a serious disadvantage. Moving targets are far easier to hit than stationary targets in cover and concealment, so in defense, defend, you do not have to go to them, they must come to you. Find a nice covered position and fight from that position, and think, you 'jack in the box' your head in the same spot every time you shoot you are going to die, as I am waiting for you to pop up again in the same spot.

Attack: All maps are winnable in the attack if you understand what is actually needed to win. "Hey diddle diddle, charge down the middle" is not a winning strategy. Fire and maneuver, 3-5 second rushes not 100m long track runs, simple proven techniques. Get up, run, say "he can see me now", and get down, move to right or left a little and repeat. Momentum is the key, you lay down and slow, all you do is allow the defender to adjust to you and set up a defense he will bleed you out.

The proper utilization on important roles are the key to victory in both attack and defense. In the game these rolls and those who fill them have far more impact on winning the game than any other aspect of the game.

I would suggest 'training' on low population maps than on a full server with expierienced players. Understand the role as it really is not the Hollywood perception more than not the average player is armed with.

Commander: It is your primary job to command and communicate. You can not do that efficiently if all you want to do is get up front shoot and throw smokes. It is you job to be on the map, and like a chess board move your forces to counter what the enemy throws at you. You must understand the grid/keypad location system, and keep your forces advised on what you are doing and what the enemy is doing, that multiplies your combat power far better than any smoke grenades. As the commander you must anticipate what the enemy is going to do and when, set your arty marks, as well as tell your squad leaders where to place theirs based on that.

Fire your artillery as blocking, suppression, or actual killing missions based on your anticipation of what the enemy is doing.
Blocking artillery: prevents the enemy from moving to a place you do not want them to move to. Use that to isolate re-inforcements moving to an objective and preventing that re-inforcement in that the force must move through your artillery, or are forced to go around slowing them and giving your force time to accomplish the mission.
Supression Artillery: Get the enemy's heads down and reduces the accuracy of his return fires, pretty simple stuff really.
Casuality Mission: self explanitory artillery on them when bunched up to maximize the number you kill.

Always get your recon aircraft up 30sec prior to any arty and have team leaders adjust marks as required, 2 mins can change a lot under those marks.
Keep you troops informed, if you hear arty and it is not yours let your team know it is not yours and to take cover. If no air recon ask for recon troops to scout flanks and let you know what they see. A recon troop should be your snipers as they have magnification and sight range, but a good basic rifleman will do.

There is a time when the mission is not winable. Whether out of time or tickets. In the campaign game this can be important as it does have an effect on your combat points. Expierience will tell you where you need to be when time wise in the attack to potentially win, or when it is time to back off, retreat and let the timer run out on the attack. Why give the enemy a bigger and better win combat point wise?

The key to the role is you map and communication. If you are not communicating with your Squad Leaders, keeping your troops informed of whats going on around them, and yes telling them where to go and what to do when they get there you are not playing Commander effectively.

And yes you will meet resistance from many players who feel that they are the only priority in the game. If they do not like 'your' game as the Commander, ask them to mute you so they can play their game as they wish.

Squad Leaders: It is your primary job to control the localized firefight, keep your troops informed and motivated. You are also the mobile spawn points of a good team. Too many times respawning troops spawn way too far away to swing a battle on the edge, and by the time they get to the firefight is usually capped and over with. Where with you in a good covered position can have troops spawn on site immediately and swing the battle your way. When they spawn tell them where to go and what to do. You are the 'sergeant' and you all have watched enough Hollywood stuff to understand the role. Artillery marks should be directed based on need from the Commander, all those marks all over do create command problems for Commander, and when the Commander states do not move marks arty being called, DON'T move them

Machine Gunners: It is your primary job to suppress the enemy so your maneuver sections can move on the objective, or defend the objective. Machineguns should be positioned to fire across the front from covered positions, firing nose on nose allows the enemy to sound and muzzle flash locate you and you are now the primary target of any smart enemy trooper. Short 'blip' bursts to make that muzzle flash harder to see. And after 1 min no matter what displace, for that good enemy trooper out there is moving on you for that 'quality' shot at your brain housing group 1 in above that muzzle flash and dark blob poking over that little rise.
Conserve ammo, again short bursts, even if you don't hit, the human enemy will rethink his movement plan, or where he pokes his head up to shoot. When short on ammo call for resupply, keep those guns up.

Medium Machineguns fixed: If you take that 'job' your job is to suppress areas the enemy will move to or through, keep that gun firing even if you do not have a target, sense shoot where you think they will move to or through. That gun firing has a physiological effect on the enemy as well, two fold, enemy will not move through areas he sees bullet splashes, and yes human players will now 'focus' on eliminating you, rather than what actually needs to be done.

Marksman: You have a dual role and priority. First is the elimination of enemy crew served weapons (MMG's, LMG's, and ATR's, and snipe dumb tanker TC's with that open hatch, or drivers with hatches open) and primarily Leaders. It is NOT your job to be in the middle shooting low priority 'troops', but to the flanks cutting the head of their team (leaders), and cutting their firepower by eliminating those machineguns. Always understand where the enemy leader can be on a radio, and get into a position to over watch that radio itself, or cut of the Leader's movement to and from that radio. And look for those standing there with bino's, priority target.

Second is you are the eyes and ears of your commander if no air recon, you need to be on the flanks observing, and communicating with the commander.
Just a heads up and ask anyone who plays with me, from the flanks I rack up massive counts of leaders and LMG's as they are too engrossed with nose on nose to worry about cover to their flanks. The enemy almost always suffers from Tunnel vision. Another mission is to suppress problem areas. You see a LMG barrel out a window firing you don't have a hit shot, but ping one off the window or cover and the LMG will move, giving your troops a chance to move before he resets his position. Know where the enemy radios are and over watch them, keep their commander off them and no enemy artillery. You can swing the battle for your team far more on the flanks than in the middle playing rifleman with a scope.

Marksman should have good commo with the Commander, even back then your role was that of the scout/sniper.

Tank: OK understand in the game you are no more than a mobile bunker, a 'support' vehicle using your mini artillery (HE) and MG's to suppress the enemy. Without infantry support you are going to die if you play assault vehicle as the players are not disciplined enough to guard the tank from enemy ATR's and engineers. In reality a 'engineer' or two should be assigned strictly as tank escorts to protect it as well as clear obsticles, but we know that will not happen more than likely. I watch many a tanker try and 'hit' directly personnel where HE is a 'splash' weapon, fire in a location where the fragmentation will take out the bad guy(s), high in windows, to the left or right of sandbags or walls, etc. Also when positioning your tank seek hull down positions, minimalize your target profile, and face your front armor towards the main threat, sitting fully exposed in a field does not lead to a long life as a tanker.

ATR's: By this time in the war the Anti-Tank rifle was essentially obsolete and incapable of 'killing' a 1942 era medium tank. Your role though can be accomplished again from the flanks where the enemy tank's side armor is not as thick. Aiming points are essential, just slamming rounds against plate is generally useless. Pick a weak area. From the front fire at tracks to detrack the tank, turret ring the point between the hull and turret, vision blocks, and just to right of main gun. From the sides, lower hull among road wheels center below turret or in engine compartment area. Again try and get flank shots, far more effective. Also think it through, detracking a tank and making it immobile sometimes is far more advantageous than killing it knowing it will return fully repaired and armed in about a minute. With new tank issues scuttling is not an option if you just detrack it, unless tanker knows what he is doing the tank is not longer a high threat.

Understand you are limited in personal protection, make it a priority to find a submachinegun off a 'dead' troop for your secondary weapon, just a hint.

Engineers: For some reason this class is avoided in many servers and it is a 'fun' role. You have a submachinegun and satchels, so you are capable against the troops as well as tank. Plaus you can knock down bunkers and other obsticals out there. One of the most important missions out there is the engineer supporting the tank, protecting it from close assault as well as clearing the way for it as it advances.

You are the base of your force, you are the manuever element, and not just charge foward bullet stoppers. Learn how to do the 3-5 second bounding rush. Find a 'spot' to move to, jump up, run to that spot saying all the time "he can see me now" and at now, drop, roll to the right or left a little bit and repeat till you get to your 'target'. Fire from around cover not over it if possible. Your 'job' is to be alive when you accomplish the mission assigned, Not running track meets, dieing, and repeating till you get ;lucky and get to wherever.

One other trick from an expierienced player. I bank on my enemy playing 'jack in the box' to where he will shoot, drop behind cover and pop right back up in the same position and I have my weapon aimed right there waiting for that 'brain housing group' to pop up into my sights.

To the really expierienced players out there who understand 'smoke' is NOT the coverall solution for all situations, and it does not make your troops bulletproof, we expierienced types look foward to the opposition throwing smoke. Because that now says, "here we come, HERE" and we begin to sweep that smoke with auto weapons waist high and we kill the bad guys who can not see where we are shooting from, and can not understand why they died in that smoke, with that baffled "how did they see me" question on their mind and we tell them we don't have to see you. Just sit there and think a minute about that alone.

Smoke should be used to isolate an objective from his supporting fires, not blind your supporting fires trying to suppress the enemy in the objective area. And fighting in a 'cloud' against an expierienced 'dug in' group will not go well.

Example on Bridges, our groups and we are training others to isolate the bridge on the right and left with smoke, the tank drives up on the bridge gets to the ammopile and wrecked car, turns sideways with the tank acting a true 'bullet proof' cover, and the troops can actually see the ATR's and or others firing at them. They are not running around in a cloud, blind, just a thought.

One of the biggest issues in unintentional 'friendly fire' incidents are the result of someone using an opposition weapon and based on the sound a friendly shoots him. Most in the game are not disiplined to 'check their targets' and shoot first if they hear a bad guy weapon going off where it should not be going off. Again just another 'thought'.

Most games out there have guide books on 'how to play', and RO2 should be no exception. Though a Modern Field Manual for training the US Army Field Manual titled "Combat Skills of The Soldier" should provide all the 'basics' on how to shoot, move and communicate within the game. This manual is the 'basic trainer' guidebook for the Infantry, providing a wealth of knowledge on how it is done in real life, and in 'game'.

I use these 'basics' as I learned them all those years ago, the concepts work in game with just a little adaptation and creativity of the user.

US Army FM 21-75 "Combat Skills of The Soldier"

https://archive.org/stream/milmanual-fm-21-75-combat-skills-of-the-soldier/fm_21-75_combat_skills_of_the_soldier#page/n0/mode/2up

Also as a training aid that works well to help understand the 'game' as it is played, FM 7-8 Infantry Rifle Platoon and Squad
https://archive.org/stream/milmanual-fm-7-8-infantry-rifle-platoon-and-squad/fm_7-8_infantry_rifle_platoon_and_squad#page/n3/mode/2up

This manual will give you an understanding of how the Infantry 'Team' works effectively. The formarions tactics and techniques of an Infantry Squad and Platoon in accomplishing the 'mission.


Another need to read: https://ospreypublishing.com/world-war-ii-infantry-tactics-pb

There are going to be people who resist the game the way I see it as 'fun'. Like a football team the quarterback calls the play, the troops communicate the situation as it develops, and the game is called based on what weaknesses you find in the oppositions team. If no one communicates, and information is not updated how can you 'win'. I have played on servers in games where not a word is spoken other than the standard insults and other childish actions, and once game is lost it is everyone's fault but theirs, and I ask how do you know?

When I am the commander I play 'chess' on the map, and we win. Some will call me a 'radio hugger' but I understand the role of a combat commander and where he is most effective. That is 'my' game and how I play it.

The last Guide was spammed and totally disrupted by the 'few' who find it 'fun' to ruin things for others. I don't care if anyone reads this or even wants to use it, but at least I took the time to provide some information and hindsight into the game based on my experiences, real life and in game.

I am hopeful that we can maintain an adult conversation here, but.....................

And if I need to drop it and 'repair' it again, I am not going to, which now will be the 'go' for the usual suspects to ruin it for the rest...such is what we deal with it
n today's culture.