Team Leadership Guide

This article is designed to help newer players start to get a grasp of how the leadership of a small unit works. After some quick tips about preparation, we will go over communication, intelligence, and initiative. You should also read the Formations guide.

### Team Preparation

It is important to ensure your team has the proper tools for the task at hand. I recommend that all squads have one **Grenadier**, one *disposable AT launcher* (M136-HP), and one **Gunner** for suppression. Make sure you know who your *"second in command"* or, *"2IC"*(for short) and battle-buddy teams are.

## Communication

The radio offers the largest force multiplier available to an infantryman. Use it well, and you can easily overcome the obstacles you encounter. Fail to use it appropriately and your team can get pinned in an open field with no hope of rescue. See the Radio Guide for more information on how to set up and make calls with the radio. So how should you use the radio as a team leader?

The simplest task of a team lead is passing information up and down the chain of command. This involves sending team location and status, and Contact Reports up to your squad leader (or the ground commander, if appropriate), and spreading both orders *and information* to your team. If you are a 2IC and find yourself thrust into the team lead role, and this is all you communicate, you will be okay. However to be the most effective team leader you can, you need to go above and beyond just sending info up and down.

Going beyond the basic transfer of information, you need to communicate with your sister-teams directly, bypassing the squad leader. Your sister-teams are the first responders if your team is in danger. But they can also provide help in many other ways. This includes, but is not limited to, organizing Fire and Maneuver tactics (base of fire/bounding/peeling/flanking), ensuring the squad stays on-line in a firefight, and organizing responses to threats such as the utilization of disposable AT or organization of Talking Guns. To be an effective team leader you *must* take the initiative to organize these things.

## **Initiative**

Your squad leader is juggling many moving parts, trying to get his teams (you) where they need to be, calling up your contact reports to the rest of the unit, and ensuring threats are responded to appropriately. A large amount of being able to communicate effectively is being able to take initiative. You need to be able to effectively read the situation and organize the proper movement.

While giving orders a squad leader may tell you to move along a bad path, during a dangerous time or to a poor position. It is your responsibility to your team to pick a good path of movement, time of movement, and position to halt movement (for whatever reason). Your squad leader may tell you that they need you not to move to a better location (most often so that you are not on top of another squad's team) and in these circumstances you have to make the best out of a bad situation.

There may also come a time when you have to step up to take over while your squad leader is incapacitated. It is important that you understand the whole squad situation when you do step up, and act in the best interest of the squad while you are in charge. See the Squad Lead Guide for a full overview of information relevant when stepping up.

## **Intelligence**

Although a team leader is typically not tasked with gathering intelligence, all team leaders must be knowledgeable of the possible intel they are giving the enemy and the locations of known hostile threats.

Keeping information on your position secret is the number one way to keep your team safe. A defilade is the safest place for your team to move. They are in complete cover, and any direct-fire munitions will fly harmlessly overhead. If deflate cannot be found, wood lines make a good alternative. Your team members can quickly take cover behind trees, and the trees and bushes will keep you hidden.

Briefly touching on gaining intelligence, while hills and tall buildings allow you to see far, more than one or two persons utilizing such a position quickly become a target for any forces visible from those locations. They should be used briefly for planning routes and assaults, but no more than a single fireteam on foot should take those positions.