Improved Squads Idea

personally i prefer that the mapper could just select this map can have 6 squad leaders. And then 6 people can become squad leader.

However the squadleader should not be a weapon class. Aka a regular mg, rifleman or smg could be the squadleader. Making squadleader purely a rank.

The current class called squad leader which calls radios etc, would be renamed then to platoon leader. And he would be able to throw smoke and call arty. This way you can have multiple smaller squads fighting without too much smoke spam and arty spam.

Of course ideally the mapper would make the squad amounts a realistic amount, and personally i hope that if say 10 players are on a 64 player server that simply not all slots are selectable untill more people join.

This would in total leave more freedom for players and mappers in maps. If one squadleader is just a horrible retard players could just opt to demote him or simply go to another squad.

This might provide some information for what was in the German squad: http://www.dererstezug.com/SquadFormationsInOpenOrder.htm

From what I understand the average size was ten men.

I think there is some merit to this idea. I'd love to see a more realistic squad line-up, like you see in many DH maps.

For example, a 25 man team would attempt to mimic a platoon as closely as possible:


Two 10 man squads each consiting of:

• 1 Gruppenfuhrer (ie. Seargent) armed with an SMG, binoculars, and regular grenades.
• 8 Infantry, mostly riflemen but potentially one or two SMGers thrown in to the mix.
• 1 Machinegunner

So then you have 20 players, and 5 left per side on a 50 player server. This would cover:
-Your Zugfuhrer (lieutenant) who would have the smoke grenades and arty ability like the regular squad leader does now.
-Marksman
-Tank Crew
-AT infantry

You could also structure one of the squads around engineers/sappers, meaning you give a few of the regular infantry in one squad some satchel charges. Or whatever other engineering weapons are present in HOS.

Using this general layout, you can then apply some historical squad composition, adding to the realism. For example, the Soviets might only have one machinegunner, but a higher concentration of SMGs. Even better, you can differentiate troopers by squad, each lead by thier own Gruppenfuhrer/Soviet SL which might help with some team-play online. If you want the map to have two active tanks, shave off a riflemen or two from the squad.

Initially, RO had 32 player servers, which was set up much more around the idea of squad-level combat. But with larger maps and 50-64 player servers, I really think the game should look at implementing more of a platoon-based concept, at least for larger maps.

In the Scheutzenreihe, the MG group consisted of 3 men: The gunner, the loader, and an ammunition carrier. The Gruppenfuehrer (squad leader) was at the front of the squad and the Truppenfuehrer (assistant squad leader) was at the rear of the squad.

I know you can't really dictate Schuetzenreihe/Scheutzenkette in Red Orchestra but I think it would be authentic to allow for these specific classes in ratio to how many players there are.