Realism, Part 1

By J.N. Cobb

To excel in Full Spectrum Warrior™, you must stop thinking like a one-man army and start thinking like the leader of a disciplined and well-trained team. Sending your squads in with guns blazing will certainly get them killed, and that’s something you can’t afford in this game. The realism extends to the rules of engagement, so if two of your team members are injured (or one dies), the mission is over, and you’ve failed. The U.S. Army has a strict “no casualty” policy, at least when it comes to training the men who will send other soldiers in harm’s way.

Move into position.

There are two basic kinds of orders in Full Spectrum Warrior: movement orders and fire orders. Movement orders direct your team through the environment, keeping them safe from enemy fire as they progress toward the mission objective. One of the toughest things for action gamers to unlearn is the habit of charging into a situation with guns blazing, trusting their superior stamina and firepower to give them an edge. There’s no such edge in Full Spectrum Warrior; this Rambo-style approach is the exact opposite of what real soldiers are trained to do.

What’s the Rush?
The first basic move command is called the Rush, and it represents a straightforward advance from where your squad is to where the cursor is positioned. It also provides several different types of formations to choose from, so you can take advantage of the position once they get there. The basic movement formation is the Wedge, which keeps your soldiers spread out enough to be mobile, but close enough to support each other if trouble starts. Near corners, your squad will take up the Corner position, which allows the point man to peek around to see what’s ahead. The only drawback to this formation is that only the first two of your soldiers can fire. When behind cover, you have the Cover Object, Line formation where all four soldiers can fire at once, and the Cover Object, Stack formation, which allows your team to bring either two or four of their guns to bear, depending on the height of the object.

Go from cover to cover.

You’ll need to decide if your team should line up behind cover, arrange themselves to shoot around a blind corner, or go two-by-two with half the squad covering the other half that is moving. Always make use of your Global Positioning System (GPS) map before you order a Rush, and always make sure your soldiers are going to be safe when they get where you’ve sent them.

Bounding Overwatch.

Bound and Determined
The second basic move command is the Bounding Overwatch, or Bound. This command instructs half the team to move forward, while the other half covers them. You must also select a fire sector (the area where your soldiers will look for enemies, and also where they’ll aim if any shooting starts) before you send them on their way. Then, as both halves of the team move to the chosen location, they keep the fire sector covered and return fire if the enemy opens up on them. The Bound is an essential element of field tactics, and it illustrates one of the basic tenets of battlefield strategy: keeping troops covered while they’re moving. It is difficult to move and fire at the same time, so unless you know there is no enemy, you should plan to use Bound. The only exception is if the enemy is spread too far apart to occupy one fire sector. If so, you should regroup your fire teams and try another approach—this one is too dangerous.

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