Proper Flanking Maneuver

I was struggling on whether or not to post this strategy for two reasons. First, the advantages to flanking should be obvious. Second, I wasn’t sure exactly what in my military training was made available to the public. So, I went online and did some Googling, and found out what the general public had access to, and am keeping my explanations within that boundary so as to not accidentally reveal any information not available already.

This post will be more applicable to cover based shooters, like Gears of War where you can shoot from behind cover, but will also apply to other shooters like Call of Duty where someone can duck behind cover quickly.

First of all, everyone flanks in FPS whether they know it or not. The enemy is behind cover? Oh, move to the side and shoot him there. This is flanking at its simplest. At the core of every FPS player, he knows this. If you can’t shoot him from where you are, move and shoot him there. This post will talk more about flanking as a team maneuver rather than a single player maneuver. We will treat a team as 6 players.

Proper Movement: When moving as a team (6 players) it is important to stick together. It is especially important in games where you can revive a fallen teammate. Gears of War has done this well. In games where you can’t revive (Call of Duty) it is also important so that you can overwhelm any opposing forces with superior firepower.

   The drawback to this is twofold. A lucky player might be able to spray his way into killing the entire moving team if they are together. This can be negated by proper cover, however.

   The second drawback is that if you are too close to your teammates, a single grenade can kill several of you. This is where communication comes in handy, as well as good situational awareness. When a grenade is tossed into the group, the first person to notice it needs to inform the others. Everyone then gets behind cover, or dives/rolls away as the game allows.

   To properly move in order to conduct flanking, a 6 player team will be divided into 2 3-man teams. One 3 man team will move forward of the other.

This will allow the second team to flank the enemy, instead of getting caught up in the enemy’s fire.

Actions on Contact: The team that takes fire (whether it be the front team or the back team) will “get on line” parallel to the incoming fire, and behind cover. For a simple illustration, we will say that the front team takes fire from the front. The enemy is behind cover. (See illustration, left.)

The team taking fire will immediately move to cover positions, and continue to fire at the enemy. In a best case scenario, the enemy dies there. If not, then the flanking maneuver begins.

The rear team will move off to whatever side has more cover (in this case, the right side), and (keeping behind cover) will then shoot at the enemy’s unprotected flank. (See Illustrations)

   

1. Team Taking Fire gets behind cover

2. Rear team head up behind cover to begin flanking

3. Rear team sets up behind cover to fire at enemy's unprotected flank.

1. Front team on line behind cover
2. Rear team flanking the enemy, remaining behind cover
3. Rear team firing at enemy’s unprotected flank

As you can see, the process is simple, but not used to great effect very well in FPS. If you were to try and use this exactly, it would probably fail in video games. But, use this as a guide to keep in mind during firefights, and you’ll find that even though doing this “by the book” won’t work very well, using these principles will.

   - Woody