[AAR] The Section Attack! a how-to-quide to killing the enemy

[Cpl Steiner]

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

In this quide i will try to explain in words and pictures the basic section attack as taught to me whilst i served in the British Army.Now it has been a while since i was in and i am going off of memory here and Army Doctrines do change from time to time but hopefully what i will explain here will be of use to the switched on PR squad leader who is looking for a good solid tactic for destroying an enemy position.

Here i will explain it using foot soldiers as the assaulting force but this same basic yet solid tactic can be used with vehicles and the same procedures apply no matter what.

Now what makes a good battlefield tactic you may ask? Well that is a 'simple' (hint hint) answer...........SIMPLICITY!!!!!!!!!

In battle (real as well as PR) complex procedures and tactics go to rat shit as soon as the first round is fired and man regresses back to his most primal of instincts and that is FIGHT OR FLIGHT.

To win the fire fight,extract yourselves from an ambush,defeat an assaulting enemy force you need simple tactics,simple commands and more importantly everyone around you that matters needs to know what the hell your talking about.

So here it is...........warts and all.

THE SECTION ATTACK INTRODUCTION

Now a section attack could be part of a deliberate assault,pre planned and rehearsed before hand or it could be, what is known as a REACTION TO ENEMY FIRE.

REACTION TO ENEMY FIRE is when rounds are literally landing around you or your men are taking hits,vehicle taking hits thus forcing you to take action, this is known as EFFECTIVE ENEMY FIRE.

So once you start to take effective enemy fire you have to act and act quickly.

The section commander (a full corporal in the British Army) or Squad leader in PR will give the command to either "BREAK CONTACT!" if in close proximity to the enemy or he will give what is called a QBO (Quick Battle Order) is space allows it i.e. the enemy is further than 100m away from you and cover allows it/terrain dictates it etc.

"BREAK CONTACT!" means just that, to break contact with the enemy so that you can get into cover or bypass the threat etc, this is usually acheived by immediatly firing on full auto at the threat as indicated by whoever spots the threat first for example by shouting" CONTACT FRONT!" etc.

While everyone is firing the Squad leader should be making a faster than gazelles shit appreciation of the situation and formulating a quick plan.

His number one priotity is getting out of the enemies killzone/beaten zone as shown here.



Here our squad has patrolled into the beaten zone of a fixed MMG (Medium MachineGun) position and have now come under effective enemy fire, the commander is assessing the situation and formulating a quick plan, the first four men are trapped within the beaten zone yet the last four have remained unobserved by the MMG.

A quick explanation of the map, the blue dots marked LMG are carrying MINIMI's and the blue dots with one chevron and the other with two denote section 2ic (second in command/lance Corporal) and Section commander (full corporal)

A typical British Army Section (squad) is made up of eight men, two JNCO's (Junior Non Commisioned Officers) and two LMG's (light machine guns) and four riflemen who could be carrying light AT,radio,medkit etc.

For PR the squad leader should have a SL kit, the 2ic the grenade launcher kit and then two LMG's if possible, the rest carrying LAT, Combat engineer or medic.

To use the section attack successfully start to think and act like a real squad/section in PR and you will get better results and a more authentic gameplay.

But anyway back to the tactics..........



So here in Nur our eight man squad has patrolled into the beaten zone of a Takistani MMG bunker who was guarding a possible LZ point, and has started to come under effective enemy fire.

The squad here is divided into two fire teams ,alpha (SL) and Bravo (2ic). Alpha being unobserved decides to pour supporting fire onto the bunker whilst Bravo breaks contact to their rear, where a stone wall is close by and offers protective cover.



As you can see here Alpha first moved slightly into a better position to provide covering fire so that Bravo could break contact, a good thing to remember in PR is FIRE AND MANOUVER I.E. nobody moves in contact without someone else providing covering fire.



In this picture you can see that once Bravo is in position they start to return fire, this then allows Alpha to move closer to the enemy position, again FIRE AND MANOUVER!!!!!!! One fire team static providing covering fire (FIRE) and the other fireteam moving position (MANOUVER).

In this case Alpha being in the better position, with more cover and concealment and with the enemy unsure of their exact location are in a better position to flank and assault the enemy position.

The Yanks use the four F's FIND FIX FLANK AND FINISH Find the enemy Fix him in position Flank his position and Finish him off. This is basically the same as a Section attack and works just as well.

On the above map you can see that the LMG and one rifleman from Alpha has been placed into what is called the POINT OF FIRE. This is basically a flanking,fixed fire support position that allows for the LMG to pour on fire from the enemies flank.

THe section commander and another rifleman then move even further to the enemies flank so that the end up 90 degrees or there abouts to the enemy and hopefully out of his sight (he will be too fixated on the fire from his front and flank to notice you approaching hopefully and even if he did spot you might not be able to do anything about it because he is FIXED into position by the suppressive fire from his front and flank.



From here the section commander is ready to assault the enemy position.

FINAL ASSAULT

Before moving forward the section commander and his rifleman need to do three things in PR (four in the real world) and that is 1) both make sure they have a grenade ready and 2)load a fresh magazine and 3) switch their rifle from single shot to full auto (in the real world you would also fix bayonets!!!!!)

From here the commander and rifleman move forward and stealthily as possible and get to within grenade lobbing range (10-20m) and throw one or two grenades into the bunker.

At this point Bravo and the point of fire need to be ready to do what is known as SWITCH FIRE. and that is fire to the right of the enemy position as quickly as possible. SWITCH FIRE happens at the moment that the grenade(s) explodes. You want to fire just to the right of the enemy away from the assault team (1,2m will do no more) just enough so that you don't hit your own men.

Squad leader, as soon as the grenade(s) detonates you stand up and rush towards the bunker firing a full magazine into the enemy and then move beyond the position, the rifleman is back up if anything goes wrong like a weapon stopage or if the commander is killed etc.

Once the threat is taken out the commander shouts REORG!!!! and the following happens.



THE REORG!

Once the commander shouts REORG! everyone should stop firing!!!!!!!!

Then Bravo will stand up and move to where the Point of fire is, taking the same route as they took because you know that the route is clear of AP mines/booby traps/ied's etc.They move up to and beyond the Point of fire to the point where the commander made his final assault approach (again following a proven safe route) and regroup with the squad leader.

Once Bravo is in position the Point of fire can regroup with the rest of Alpha,again following the same route.

Once the squad is all back together you then move off away from the destroyed position.



You do this before anything else for the following reason.

That MMG position may have reported in that his position was about to be over run and mortar/arty fire may be inbound onto that position as part of a pre-planned enemy firemission. The last thing you want is to defeat an enemy position only to be killed minutes later by accurate mortar/arty fire.

Here the squad moves off 200m away from the destroyed position where they can quickly re-distribute ammo,heal wounds etc before moving off and carrying on with their mission.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I hope that you understood all that..........any questions?

Now i hope that you find this a simple way of flanking and destroying an enemy cache/position in PR with this simple yet effective tactic.

As you can also see this could easily be applied to two warriors of four jackels or a combination of rifleman,jackals and warriors or used on the opfor side aswell with whatever vehicles you have.

Flanking under supporting fire is an old yet effective tactic that can be used under most if not all assaults in both rural or urban terrain.

Anyway i hope you enjoy reading it and i will be happy to answer any questions.

Steiner out

[jax]

Quite the guide, good job! I never see any special ways of attacking unless Swedge is squad leading. I usually see everyone running towards the fire versus proper flanking maneuvers.

[[R-CON]James2464]

Looks like a nice firefight!

[Swedge]

Another really awesome and thoughtful post Steiner.
Will PM you.

Cheers,
Swedge

[Zapata]

If the nme was smart enough they would put both flanks covering elements.

So I request to Steiner a guide how to set up an ambush.

[Cpl Steiner]

Originally Posted by Zapata

If the nme was smart enough they would put both flanks covering elements.

So I request to Steiner a guide how to set up an ambush.

Your wish is my command sir!

I will cover ambush this week if work allows it

[Late]

This guide is brilliant Steiner, hope to catch you in game sometime. And yeah, I like that suggestion about an ambush guide!

[xatu miller]

Very nice guide, much appreciated!

[iOGC_Aenigma]

Only just read this guide but it is great reading. Certainly information I will forward people to.

[Michael_Denmark]

Straightforward, clear, teaching and interesting guide.

Great inspiration. Thanks!