I’m fascinated by ChatGPT. For work, I work as a Financial Analyst, and when I was in college I wrote a ton of papers. From a description and opinion on the state of Jewish and Palestinian conflict after the 7 Days War, to some convoluted scientific mumbo jumbo about detecting the amount and strength of bacteria by calculating the RGB from a picture of a culture, I’ve done a ton of analysis and writing in my day. Accurate? Maybe not. Did I comprehend what I was writing? Even more likely to be no. And yet, here I am again, writing about a game that I have significantly less hours on.
I was curious what AI would say about playing Officer, and here’s what it wrote:
“In the game Hell Let Loose, an Officer is a player who takes on a leadership role within their team or squad. Officers have access to unique tools and abilities that allow them to coordinate their team's efforts and help them achieve their objectives.
Officers can issue orders to their squad members using the in-game communication system, and they can also call in various types of support, such as artillery barrages or supply drops, to assist their team on the battlefield. They can also build and destroy certain structures, such as fortifications or bridges, to help their team advance or defend.
Becoming an Officer in Hell Let Loose requires teamwork, communication, and strategic thinking. It can be a challenging but rewarding role for players who enjoy taking on leadership responsibilities and working with their team to achieve victory.”
Obviously, some of this is clearly not refined. Bridges? Yeah, destroying them isn’t really a thing (though making bridges on Carentan and other maps would be an amazing concept, especially if we move to the Pacific theater in future updates. Yet the portions related to “teamwork, communication, and strategic thinking” are correct. From my experience, it is rewarding because it’s so difficult. A true HLL player and SL thinks about not only what they did wrong in matches, but what they would do in the future. They run through scenarios, talk to other people and get better.
But how do we do that? Where do we start? This is the ultimate SL guide so that you can start thinking on your own and becoming the SL your squad deserves.
So let’s start out with the loadouts.
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Loadouts
Standard Issue (level 1)
Primary Weapon
USA: M1A1 Thompson
Contains 6 Mags
German: MP40
Contains 8 mags
Soviet Union: PPSH 41
Contains 8 mags
Secondary Weapon
USA: Colt 1911
Contains 4 Mags
German: Luger P08
Contains 6 mags
Soviet Union: Tokarev TT33
Contains 6 mags
Utility (while different titles, same overall loadout for every faction)
Bandage x2
Smoke Grenade x2
Frag Grenade x2
Compass
Binoculars
Melee
Point Man/ Junior Sergeant (level 3)
Primary Weapon
USA: M1 Carbine
Contains 12 Mags
German: Gewher 43
Contains 12 mags
Soviet Union: SVT 40
Contains 12 mags
Utility (while different titles, same overall loadout for every faction)
Bandage x2
Smoke Grenade x2
Frag Grenade x2
Compass
Binoculars
Melee
Field Engineer (level 6, only US)
Primary Weapon
USA: M1 Garand
Contains 19 Mags
German: Karabiner 98k
Contains 13 mags
Soviet Union: PPSH 41
Contains 5 Drums
Utility (while different titles, same overall loadout for every faction)
Bandage x2
Smoke Grenade x3 (except Soviet, which has 2)
Frag Grenade x3 (except Soviet, which has 2)
Compass
Binoculars
Melee
The infamous barracks… Pick your Poison and remember to pick the right camo.
First Steps
You’ve made the decision: I’m going to lead a squad. Now what? Here’s what I normally do:
Start the squad
You can either start a open squad or closed squad. For someone like me who usually plays with friends in a VC in Discord, this is usually my choice. However, if you don’t or you’re ok with playing with random players (or just want to change it up) you can create an open squad.
You can also change the designation of the squad. However, in my experience the only one I find useful is the artillery marker. The reason being is that if you mark yourselves as offense, defense, or support, this can be fluid throughout a game. Even artillery can be. However, sometimes it’s nice for soldiers looking to join a squad to see what the squad intends to do, as it does indicate that at least the squad has a plan.
Pick a spawn site
Depending on your responsibility, the spawn site you desire will change. For example, if the third point is on the Northern side of the map and the first role for your team is building nodes or backup garrisons, you may want to spawn on the south side. Likewise, if your squad is going to be the artillery element, dropping center is ideal.
It’s important to communicate to your team about which spawn site you are taking and whether you want your squad mates to spawn at the same location or even wait for you to establish an Outpost.
Explain the squad’s and individual squamates responsibilities and expectations
The role of your squad will change what type of roles you will need the squad to take. For example, if you have been designated to establish the attacking garrison, you will need a support player to provide supplies. You may even need a player to keep from spawning if you are going to establish a red zone garrison, since it requires 100 supplies instead of 50.
If you know your squad mates, you may want to consider their strengths and weaknesses in terms of class utilization. If you have a great machine gunner and don’t need them in a different role, allow them to play to their strengths. While not ideal in the long run, as I’m a proponent of expanding one’s skills and not only specializing.
From here, the gameplay starts evolving as the game changes. We’re no longer working on a procedure list, but now relying on the following principles in regards to your responsibilities.
Responsibilities
In my limited training time for squad level tactics, I've come to realize one thing: it's a lot easier to be a squad member than it is to be a squad leader. In a way, the key principle for any squad member is to DO YOUR JOB. As clearly demonstrated by the lack of cohesion and communication in many squads in Hell Let Loose, the job can easily be misconstrued. Yet going back to the biblical principle, everyone is a part of the body; whether that be a foot, a hand, an organ. It's not a matter of a difference in significance, but rather responsibility. It doesn't matter if you're providing support, resuscitating fallen comrades as a medic, or even blasting enemies in the trenches with your Assault class. Everyone has a job.
Why is this relevant to playing SL? As the liaison between the Commander, other Squad Leaders and your squad, one of your main responsibilities is to understand the Commander's intent (i.e. what the Commander is trying to accomplish, his strategy, etc...) and to carry it out, whether that be directly or indirectly. Sometimes, you will be lead by a competent, direct, and organized Commander who will delegate tasks. The level of detail will vary from specific to ambiguous to not at all. With that in mind, the SL has to be able to interpret the Commander's intent.
In my opinion, there are levels to Squad Leaders:
The SL can (I'll never rule out they actually may not be able to) play the game. They may have never created an OP or Garrison, and they have not heard the Command chat before. Depending on the player's experience, they may not understand anything related to OP/Garrison placement strategy or other moderate to advanced HLL strategy. They may not even know much in terms of map strategy. This is usually a new player. As previously mentioned in my last blog, everyone has to start somewhere.
The SL has a rudimentary understanding of the squad leader role. They can place OPs and Garrisons. Command and squad chat is utilized, though it may be in an inefficient manner. They attempt to carry out direct orders from the Commander, and there is very little coordination between themselves and other squads. They may request assets, but there is lack of awareness in terms of resource strategy and availability. They may
The SL is proficient in the basic SL tasks and can carry out basic strategy with instruction. They consistently ping enemy infantry, tanks, light vehicles, and spawn points. Their Garrison and OP placement follows proper placement tactics and timing (look out for a blog about this concept). They request supply trucks, drops, and other assets in advancement of the Commander's intent, reliably for direct commands and somewhat for indirect. They can relay commands succinctly and accurately, balancing between too much and too little information. This applies to alerting other squads to pings, movements, and other intel in the Command chat. They can coordinate with other squads on a basic level.
The SL can not only coordinate their squad with the Commander and the other Squads when given instructions, but they can also anticipate both the Commander's intent and enemy strategy. They have a plus for Situational Awareness, using both verbal communications from the Squad and Command chat as well as map indicators and visual indicators on the field. They continually assign tasks to their squad, rely on their feedback and develop a level of cohesion in not just their squad but between other squads. This is the ultimate SL.
Game-Winning Strategy: The Equation
As you may be able to tell, one of the most important parts to being a SL (and likewise to success in any given match) is communication. If I was in college, I might even try to explain this in some fancy, unnecessary way like as an equation. It would probably look something like this:
W(p) = TOAPavg * (K/D) * SAWA
Yeah... Overly complicated right? Well let's break down the variables.
I. W(p) = Winning probability
Ii. TOAPavg = Average Time on Attacking Point (essentially, how long are you soldiers on the points that lead to capping winning objectives like third, fourth and fifth points)
Iii. K/D = Kill to Death ratio (as a team)
Iv. SAWA = Situational Awareness
Some of this is easily quantifiable, some next to impossible. Frankly, I made this up. The point is not about turning HLL into a Moneyball type scenario, but rather that while there is Commander's Intent, the Intent is always based on one variable: winning. For the most part, the strategies and tactics that come from Command are based on maximizing the variables from the above equation. This makes sense in the light that the way that you win the game is by holding the majority of the points by the end of the game.
Average Time on Attacking Point
The reason why the equation above doesn't always work (like Moneyball with their BABIP) is because of the fact that by the end of the game, it's not a matter of who has held the majority of the points the longest. Some of my favorite matches were, for the most part, clusterfuzzles (I know, I can’t think of a cleaner yet close enough way to describe it). Yet we won the game because of some miraculous end game push. Therefore, one can theoretically have a huge chance of winning the match, yet lose because of losing the point in the last few minutes. However, this would be considered an outlier.
Going back to the principles of the equation, what stands true is that what we are trying to accomplish is holding the majority of the points. Obviously, it's not as simple as that. The other factor is that not only do you need to be on point (ToPavg) but also maintain the majority of the people on point. Thus, this is why we have K/D as part of the equation. While this isn't 100% correct in assumption (seems like a common theme, that there's exceptions), it remains correct in principle. Capping and maintaining the point requires having more players in the circle than others. It's important to note that unless you are capping by proximity (which only happens when no enemy players are within proximity of the circle, which is uncommon, it requires players to be in the circle to capture and defend.
Kill-to-Death Ratio
Whenever defending or attacking on any point, many times if the point is heavily contested the struggle is just getting on point. In my past experience, I've instructed my squad to find a concealed position inside the circle, just in an attempt to make progress on the circle. The thought process being that pushing further into a heavily fortified position increases the risk of death, and thus respawn and time away from the point. This works sometimes, but only when you have personnel superiority, which you don't always have. This is especially true when the match is finishing up and third point is the position being fought over. More often than not the enemy will have OPs and possibly a garrison on point, leading to sizable spawn waves that detract from capping progress.
Spawn outside the point --> Advancement on Point --> Eliminate Defenders --> Eliminate Spawns
As my friend M80 famously and memorably repeats, one of the best strategies is violence of action (VoA). It's a simple statement that can be complicated to implement. Essentially, the best strategy (and where it becomes important in our equation) is that to cap these points you need either 1) a sizable and overwhelming number of players pushing into the point in a coordinated and effective fashion or 2) firepower from what we would term a 'battlefield multiplier'. The reason being is that whenever the enemy is entrenched on a position, fire superiority is the only way to advance your position. Without advancement, they will not only continue to hold the position, but continue to spawn.
Battlefield Multipliers can be anything from Armor, Airstrikes, Artillery, or Reconnaissance. Essentially, they support infantry in bolstering their numbers by not allowing the enemy to maneuver effectively. This can be done by not just eliminating the enemy in their entrenched positions, but by also eliminating their spawn points. When infantry is coordinated with these multipliers, it can be tremendously effective. Many times, the only way to accomplish this is with these multipliers.
Situational Awareness
In my opinion, the basis of success in HLL is unquantifiable. It's more of a qualitative variable. Yet like the best chess players, anticipating and knowing what your opponent is doing allows you to act multiple moves in advance and thus prevent your opponent from getting comfortable in their game plan. While you may not be able to coordinate your team fast enough to utilize this information, without situational awareness you will always be reacting, and oftentimes too late.
Verbal communication
Whether it be proximity, squad, or command chat, verbal communication is vital to the spread of both immediate and long term intel across the entire team. While I’m sure I’ll go into more detail in a future blog because of the importance of verbal communications and because it involves multiple streams, I’ll go over some basics as it pertains to Squad Leading:
Keep your channels separate and clean
This is certainly easier said than done. One of the most challenging aspects of SL (especially for new ones but even for experienced SLs) is being able to not only listen to your squadmates and other leaders but also maintain auditory situational awareness. Enemy footsteps, OP and Garrison noises, tank and artillery shots are key pieces of intel and with the multitude of audio flooding your eardrums can be difficult to not only hear but also communicate out. While I don’t have a concrete step or tip, an important piece is learning to be able to focus on important audio.
Communicate relevant information and commands to relevant channels
There is absolutely a balance to the amount of information you distribute. As previously mentioned, being a leader means you have a lot of audio coming and going. Not just you, but all leaders. In addition, blowing up your squads comms is not advisable either. Since you are at a deficit in terms of your ability to filter relevant audio, you must rely on your squadmates to pick up on them. Thus, the more you speak into the squad channel, the less they can hear the real-world audio cues that lead to intelligence. Keeping intel (and commands to your squad) to the bare minimum will allow everyone to be as informed as possible without distracting them from their jobs.
Rely on Squad for supplemental SAWA
With the deficit in auditory sensory, it is critical to rely on your squad to be your eyes and ears. It’s not your entire responsibility
Map and Compass pings
What many times can be detrimental in verbal communication is the obscurity or ambiguity of the information, especially when using proximity and squad channels. In one of my previous blogs, I talked about using DDD (distance, direction, and number) in order to communicate the position of the enemy when coming into contact. This is based on real life engagements, but since we are playing HLL, one of the beneficial aspects of the game is the ability to ping enemy positions or other locations of interest quickly with pings and markers.
Spawn Indicators
When OPs and Garrisons both light up and become locked (in the case of Garrisons), they’re great indicators of both enemy movements and positions. In fact, one strategy that we will hopefully go into more depth on our Spawn placement blog is actually placing garrisons and OPs in strategic locations in order that you know where the enemy is coming from.
Two examples come to mind. One is when on Recon. When a Spotter and his Sniper are attacking artillery or even hunting garrisons and nodes, a Spotter can set up their OP near the enemy HQ. If they are away from the OP and don’t vae line of sight, they will be able to know when enemy vehicles are leaving center HQ. The other being setting up garrisons and OPs in multiple locations around the defensive point, between two and three with the additional OP. In this way, not only does your team have multiple spawn locations in case of overwhelming force, but the additional bonus of enemy movement if either the garrison lights up or is eliminated.
Setting your Garrisons and Ops around the defensive point can be extremely useful on multiple fronts.
Visual Observations
Unfortunately, you can’t spend the entire match looking at your map. Many times, the most important intel is through your eyes. Whether that be an enemy airdrop, tank, or OP, it’s important that not only does a SL be able to spot said indicators and relay them, but give the pertinent details related to them.
This means being able to differentiate quickly between different indicators. If you proceed to try to eliminate a enemy airhead that you spotted in the distance, only to find out it was a munitions drop because you don’t know the difference, you may now be in a compromised position. For friendly armor squads, they many times live and die on knowing the type of enemy armor on the field and even the direction they are facing. This is critical.
Conclusion… For now.
There’s so much to being a SL since it’s at the very core of the strategy of HLL. Yes, Commander’s Intent is there to guide you and your squad, but there will always be an element of freedom to work within that Commander’s intent, which means you have to make tough decisions. Sometimes, you have to make decisions that don’t follow the rules or even make sense to other squads and the commander. Sometimes, it’s gambling. No matter what, you need to make a decision.
In a future blog(s), we will go over the Commander role and will include a lot more in terms of strategy in regards to Spawns, Attacking, Defending, and other roles and gameplay. Yet the best teacher is by playing the game. Get in that seat and start making decisions, and most of all be decisive. Your squad will respect you a lot more if 1) you make decisions without hesitating, 2) respect your team and listen, and 3) care for them. That may sound silly on that last point, but people typically will listen and do things that don’t make sense if they know that you are trying your best to take care of them and the team. But people see through bullcrap. You can’t fake it, and can’t even manufacture it. For that, I have no advice, but can only say that it’s possible and there are many great squad leads out there.
The funny part about ChatGPT: no matter how much information it could scrounge up, it couldn’t capture the human aspect of being an Officer in HLL. The struggle, the chaos, and the beauty of working together as a team. Being a Squad Leader in many ways is more rewarding than other roles. Thankless, but purposeful.
Please feel free to comment, subscribe, and share this if it helped you. As always, I hope to see you being a great squad lead on the battlefield.
