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Detailed Guide to the BW Orientation Process

Orientation

The purpose of this document is to provide a detailed listing of our baseline skills and how they’re taught to provide a more specific foundation for teaching it practically.
It’s not a script, just the details.
Orientations should still be run with our slice of accessible realism in mind: fun, informative, and chill.

{% hint style="info" %}

  • Expect duration 55-70 minutes.
  • Mission is BW Orientation V2.93 on Malden 2035, as of Dec 29 2021 {% endhint %}

Before Slotting

  1. Confirm that the Recruit has signed up to the forums and recommend joining the Discord channel as well.
  2. Ensure the Recruit’s tech is all working, help them boot up using the .BAT file so they’re familiar with how it works. They won’t want anything running in administrator unless they run into issues. Both ArmA and Teamspeak must be running at the same permission level. I.E. if ArmA is run as admin, Teamspeak must be running as admin and vice versa.

To connect to the server the first time, they will have to manually enter the IP and password, this will initialize the red Join Server button on the main menu, which will then work on subsequent launches.

The Rules and the Recruit Phase

We have a few simple, no nonsense rules and recommendations to keep things fun and civil:

  1. Don't Be A Dick. The Golden Rule. Here's the ways to not be a dick:
    1. Don’t Metagame: Keep spoilers to yourself and try not to make comments that may break someone’s immersion. Pointing out the AI being AI hurts the fun of the experience.
    2. No Racism, sexism, etc.: No “isms” of any sort will be tolerated.
    3. Follow the Leader: We may not have ranks here, but if you’re under someone’s leadership in a mission, they’re the one you’ve chosen to follow. Help them out with leadership critique if they drop the ball; they want everyone to have a great time too, even when the only options might be tough.
    4. Stay Positive: Arma’s stressful; sometimes people are so immersed they’re shouting and screaming and plans are going awry and stuff is blowing up everywhere; that’s part of the crazy stories Arma can have. As soon as you die, pop a beer and laugh at all the insanity unfolding with everyone in spectate. If you have a rough night, and sometimes you will, take a night to unwind before you end up posting something negative. Losing is fun, just as much as winning.
    5. Be Constructive: If you’re offering critique to another player, keep it positive and focused on solutions. Keep it focused on the situations and not the people. We’re all friends here at the end of the day: build them up, don’t tear them down.
    6. Don’t Antagonize: Don’t talk about politics, religion, and other hot button topics on the public channels. Feel free to do so in private; we all just want to have fun playing games. Keep any memes spread out and edge-free; we know they’re funny, but we like variety: don’t overdo it.
    7. Don’t Shoot At Mission End: We’re happy you survived the digital warzone, but don’t fire off a bunch of desk pops like you’re Will Ferrell. It confuses the admins and stretches mission times out since we try to end it when the action’s settled down.
    8. Dual Clanning: The only requirement is when you become a member, you are expected to show up to session with the correct tags.
  2. Good Sportsmanship: It’s important to be a good sport in this game; it helps avoid a lot of drama:
    1. No Taking Enemy Uniforms or Radios. Unless explicitly stated by mission briefing, never take enemy uniforms or radios.
    2. Ask leadership permission before taking enemy weapons or equipment, that way word can be spread to other teams. The only times you should be taking enemy equipment is to either supplement your team’s gear with additional assets (I.E. finding an extra AT tube), or to replace your equipment if you run out of ammo. PID issues and friendly fire are much more likely with enemy equipment, so save it as a last-resort.
    3. No Exploits: Don’t clip into objects or terrain to make yourself harder to hit. Don’t alter your gamma settings to see better in night missions. Altering your mods to give you an advantage and other such cheaty things are obviously not allowed.
    4. Vic Crews Are Special: If a crewman dies, other non-vic slots can’t be used to fill in. Regular joes could reasonably handle a wheel and stick shift technical just fine but IFVs, tanks; anything that would feasibly require specialized training would be beyond them.
    5. Don’t Drop Starting Equipment: Sometimes things are scripted on that can be broken if removed. Don’t take off your uniform or backpack and whatever else you spawn in with; it makes PID much more difficult which leads to friendly fire.
    6. Spectator Negativity: Members are expected to keep criticism of mission design or leadership decisions to their respective space in the forums or AAR. Spectator chat is reserved for the enjoyment and discussion of the chaos currently happening in-mission and staff will remove those considered to be negatively impacting this environment. This includes comments about; mission making, leadership, player behavior, or any other issues that cannot be effectively addressed in that moment. This does not mean you should ignore issues, but should instead be sure they- end up being recognized in the correct space after the mission has ended.
  3. Discipline:
    1. We work on a 3-strike system for rule breaking. We’ll message and discuss and give unofficial warnings unless it’s particularly bad, in which case you’ll receive an official warning.
    2. Official warnings go away after 6 months.
    3. A second formal warning means sitting out a session, the third warning and you strike out with us.
  4. Explain the Recruit Phase:
    1. The Recruit Phase lasts 4-6 sessions or one month, whichever comes first.
    2. After that goal is reached, a final vote for full membership is held.
    3. Failing that vote isn’t the end-all-be-all, and you can usually re-apply; we usually give the person something we’d like them to work on first, and then ask them to come back in a couple months.
    4. If you’re going to be absent, try to post it on the forums so we can take that into account. While it’s not required, it does help us keep things organized and cater our sessions to an expected turnout. Being gone for too long a time may cause your session count to be reset, since the final vote depends on us seeing you often enough to have an impression of you.
    5. Explain Drinking Buddies. For a recruit’s first session, they’ll pair up with a senior member who will try to keep them alive and help with any issues in-game. After the first session, the recruit can take any regular fireteam slots. This is intended so that new members can try our playstyle out without any advanced responsibilities, and to let as much of our membership get to know the recruit as possible. Should a recruit want a DB for further sessions, they should either ask their first DB or post in the Discord.

Slotting

  • Slotting starts 15 minutes before session start time; the games begin exactly at 7:00PM CT.

  • Sessions consist of Two TVTs (~45mins) with a longer CoOp (~1.5hrs) between them.

  • Slotting begins with leadership, followed by drinking buddies, shiny slots, and then everything else. Explain each slot, a reference is included below:

    1. Leadership Slots: All command elements, Squad Leaders, and Fire Team Leaders, these are for full members only. Advanced Leadership (Squad Lead and above) requires an additional qualification. COY and PLT in CoOps is determined from a list with another qualification separate from SL.

      1. Procedure: COY/PLT slot first, as per the leadership queue. After they review the numbers, SLs and FTLs slot as the overall lead calls for them ("I'll take an Alpha Squad" - ASL, A Medic, and A1/A2 FTLs all slot).

    2. Drinking Buddies (both the recruit and the senior member) slot immediately after command elements.

    3. Shiny Slots: Specialist slots taken on a mission by mission basis; anything more advanced than MAT or MMG. These positions are also full members only. Only one slot has a hard qualifier: Pilot slots, which can end a whole lot of people’s nights early on with a careless action.

      1. All Shiny slots are slotted via a countdown - the overall lead, or staff on deck will call the slot in question, have everyone interested scroll to the slot, then do a countdown (3,2,1, slot!) and any interested Member slots on that call.

    4. Regular Slots: At an admin’s call of “3,2,1, Slot Up!” or something similar, the floodgates open and we slot all the fireteams and remaining slots. Every member of the Fireteam has a buddy with them, and usually their kits compliment each other. Overview the fireteam roles and their specific kits and focuses:

      1. Fire Team Leader: Responsible for directing the actions of their team and often equipped with a 40mm grenade launcher and/or binos, a Fire Team Leader can rain some serious hurt if they range in.
      2. AR Team: The AR/AAR team is all about suppressing the enemy through volume of fire. The AR is all about dishing out the pain with an LMG, while the AAR uses their optics (typically binos) to guide the AR onto their target, carries additional ammo, and defends the AR during suppression roles.
      3. RAT Team: Usually a RAT and a Rifleman, the RAT is responsible for locating, identifying, and destroying armored threats to the fire team. Typically they’ll only have one shot to do it though.
      4. Riflemen: Paired to the FTL and the RAT and having no specialized equipment, the Riflemen are often the guys on point and assist in spotting and guiding the RAT onto their targets. When fireteam members die, Riflemen should attempt to recover their equipment where possible and take over that role.
      5. I’ve given the source file to kilo but I made this image of a standard platoon, not sure if it has a place here or in the handbook, but could be useful in both:

  • Russian MSV Framework: The differences in the framework:

    1. Functionally, it is similar to a regular squad but with one fireteam replaced with a vehicle. The only other major change is that the whole squad is in one group rather than 3.
    2. Marksmen: Every second Squad has a Marksman with a more effective long range weapon and optic. Essentially baby snipers attached to a Squad.
    3. Vic Driver/Gunner: These guys are slotted along with leadership in MSV framework missions; they’ll crew the Squad’s IFV, usually a BTR.
    4. Grenadier Team: RAT teams with more than one shot! A true miracle of Communism.

  • JIP Slots: Join-In-Progress slots are for crashes and late joins if no other slots are available. Rifleman should be taken first if joining late, and crashes should slot in the same slot they had. Once in-game they can use the admin messenger to contact us and get into the game. For the TvTs if contact is established, it’s too late to JIP and they’ll have to respawn. In CoOps, we can always get you in. This is to keep TvTs balanced.

  • Slotting Expectations: Only admins, side leaders, and mission makers should be speaking during slotting so we can get into the game as quickly as possible. Admin will call for slotting at 15 minutes prior. Move any side conversations into the in-game Arma chat

Map Screen

  1. Know the Briefing. Even as a basic rifleman battlefield promotions can and will happen; it doesn’t take long and helps you just focus on enjoying the fun.
  2. Don’t read the Briefing out loud. Both teams in a TVT are on the map screen and can hear each other. Reading your briefing aloud ruins the mission for everyone. For CoOp’s, it’s just plain annoying. Don’t do it.
  3. Explaining the Tabs:
    1. Orbat: A listing of everyone’s slots. While accurate at mission start only, it’s useful when you’re trying to find someone specific.Signals: Our radio nets are automated by our framework, but in the rare instances they have to be changed, these are our default nets. Clicking the “reinitialize radios” button at the bottom can usually solve issues with ACRE. Resetting Teamspeak tends to take care of it otherwise.
    2. Situation: Containing the most information out of the tabs, it has the immersive background story for the mission as well as enemy forces intel.
    3. Mission: Lists out the victory/loss conditions for a mission; the short and sweet.
    4. Administration: A listing of house rules for the mission that can’t be enforced by game mechanics: I.E. remaining inside a marked boundary; the good sportsmanship rules that keep things balanced.
    5. Special Briefings: Rarely, certain slots can have unique briefings and objectives to accomplish.

Basic Land Navigation

  1. Basic Land Nav Skills:
    1. Identifying coordinates on the map
    2. Knowing contours and lines on map indicate elevation changes, and that the closer the lines are the steeper the difference is in elevation
    3. Looking around for landmarks can help you determine your location when GPS is unavailable.

Safestart, Briefings, Mod Bindings, Admin Messenger/JIP Protocol

  1. Explain the SafeStart system and its shortcomings. SafeStart is part of POTATO, and is a server mod meant to keep players safe until the mission actually begins. It will, as a general and imperfect rule, prevent bullets from existing as soon as they leave the barrel; this is not comprehensive due to differences in mod code or projectile type. Explosive weapons, tank overpressure, backblast, large caliber vehicle weaponry, any and all physics, falling, or being struck by moving vehicles (and more things besides) will still damage or kill you. As a rule, do not employ any weapon, whether handheld or vehicle mounted, during SafeStart. POTATO will do what it can to protect you, but not all projectiles are created equal. SafeStart is meant as a deterrent to accidents at the start of a mission; it will not protect you from the human factor - don’t goof around with live weapons at this time.
  2. After you’ve read your briefing if you haven’t already, don’t bother the leaders in the leadership briefing, goofing around is fine, just do it out of earshot so they can make a plan uninterrupted. Leadership may ask you to leave if you are not vital to the planning process and you are expected to do so
  3. Do a quick radio check with the recruit(s). Ensure they know how to both send and receive/understand radio calls. Teach them how to move ACRE between ears, adjust volume, and adjust channels. Also give a brief explanation of radio duplex.
  4. Go over mod bindings and recommend the recruit simplify more complex default binds, particularly the ACRE stuff. At the very minimum, ensure they’ve rebound their Vanilla grenade key to a 2 button press.
    1. Unbind H as Last Help
    2. Ensure Display Cursor for Self-Interaction and Medical Menu are enabled in ACE options.
    3. Rebinding the grenade key can be any of: removing the vanilla grenade throw bind, binding it to a double tap, or binding it to another key. We do this so that there is no accidental yeeting. The following settings will unbind the vanilla throw key and rebind ACE throwing to G. This is personal preference and is not required to be followed, it’s just one way of doing it.
      1. Esc > Configure > Controls > Show: “Weapons”
        1. Throw: Default "G"
          1. Unbind
        2. Cycle Throw Items: Make sure it’s set to (Default) “Left Ctrl+G”
          1. Unbind
      2. Esc > Configure > Controls > Configure Addons > Drop Down > Addon: “ACE Weapons”
        1. Prepare/Change Throwable: Default “Shift+G”
          1. Bind to “G”
      3. Throwable Drop Mode (Toggle): Make sure it’s set to (Default) “Ctrl+G”
  5. Explain the utilities of ACE’s Interaction UI. The recruit should be aware of:
    1. Optic selection
    2. How to join onto another team
    3. How to change their team colors
    4. How to use the equipment section to attach things to themselves and set basic explosives
    5. How to ACE Interact with a vehicle to mount
      1. How to mount through scroll wheel, especially with vehicles with strange hitboxes for mounting.
      2. How to quick dismount.
      3. How to ACE Quick Mount (Optional?)
  6. Disable Radio Chatter in RHS options.
  7. Found in the top left of the menu after hitting escape, you can message the admins to fix Arma issues such as improper gear, broken map markers, accidental injury, and ask for teleports in the event of crashing/JIPing. Be sure to click the “Message Admins” button; hitting enter won’t send it. Be patient if we can’t get to you right away; we might be in the action. Teleport/JIP requests should list the following:
    1. Side: Especially for TvTs, but sometimes relevant in CoOps with multiple forces, tell us if you’re Blufor or Opfor so we don’t send you to the wrong side.
    2. Team: Especially if you’ve crashed, it’s important you tell us what team you’re trying to go to.
    3. Reason: Are you JIPing or getting back in from a crash? Let us know the reason you need a teleport so we can note it; it may be something we can fix later on, or can help us prioritize the message over others.

Tactics

  1. The Buddy System, Security and Sectors: The tactics below all take advantage of the Buddy System, that at all times you are paired up with at least one other person whose gear will often compliment your own.
    1. Trust your buddy, communicate with your buddy, support your buddy; you should always be the first one to know if something happens to them. These tactics can all be done on massive scales with whole platoons bounding off each other, down to just you and your buddy covering each other. Security and sectors are an easy enough thing to consider in tandem with these tactics.
  2. Always be scanning; don’t get tunnel vision in a single direction. Cover rear security if you’re in the back. Search left if everyone else is looking right. Don’t get ambushed because the whole team was so focused on engaging the enemy in front of them that you forgot to look around you. If everyone covers their sectors, ambushes and flanks become far less likely to succeed.
  3. Formations:
    1. Wedge: If nothing specific is called for, members default to the wedge. It has the most variation in length and width of our four formations, which means a wider field of coverage and more difficulty for enemies trying to range in on any one person.
    2. Echelon: The same as a wedge, but with everyone on one side of the wedge in a formation that looks like a slash. Echelon left is like / and right is like \. It offers better security on one side and is used if the opposite flank is secured by another unit or terrain.
    3. Line: Used mostly for Base of Fire situations, a team crests a vantage point altogether and immediately establishes suppression. Because you’re skylining, they’ll quickly spot you; controlling the firefight from the get-go with a solid volume of fire is crucial.
    4. Column: Useful during poor visibility movement, or in situations where stealth may be needed or limited cover is available.
    5. Staggered Column: A good formation for cities, CQB, and patrol-style missions. Buddy teams are spaced out on opposite sides of a road looking across the road over the other teams into upper stories they couldn’t see. This widens the field of coverage in urban terrains while preventing people from getting too bunched together.
  4. Smoke Colors: While we have a few defaults, some can be mission-specific. Communicate if you’re using them for different purposes:
    1. Concealment: White
    2. Friendlies: Green
    3. Enemies: Red
  5. Convoys: Driving vehicles in a convoy requires attention to spacing and speed; Arma vehicles love to desync so always have enough distance between vehicles to react to any sudden stops. The FTL is responsible for determining a driver and navigator, and we recommend the FTL not drive so they can focus on communications. h When it comes to contact, we do one of two things:
    1. Thunder Run: Don’t stop, floor it right past those contacts and maintain the convoy.
    2. Herringbone: Pull off the road on your side and engage the enemy.
  6. PID: Identifying enemies can be tricky; most of the time you won’t have optics to confirm friend vs foe at range, but there are a few tricks that can help:
    1. Helmet and weapon profiles are often the best immediate visual cues of friend vs foe. Look around during safestart and key in on the color variations and camo patterns of your uniform, as well as the profile of AT launchers and vehicles being used.
    2. Every weapon has its own sound signature; learn to recognize the common ones like AKs vs M4s, as this can be a powerful cue as to who’s gunning for you.
    3. Vehicle PID is covered as an extra bonus topic, but is not required.
    4. When in doubt, ask before you shoot
  7. Bounding Overwatch: In simplest terms, it’s military leapfrog for advancing and retreating. There are two types of bounding:
    1. Successive Bound: A moving element bounds, an overwatch element covers their movement. Once the moving element sets up overwatch, the roles switch. The initial overwatch element then bounds to be on line with the other element.
    2. Alternating Bound: A moving element bounds, an overwatch element covers their movement. Once the moving element sets up overwatch, the roles switch. The initial overwatch element then leapfrogs past the other element to a further position.
      1. Peeling: Alternating Bound applied laterally. BW mostly uses it to reposition a fire line, it’s also useful as a withdrawal tactic
  8. Fire Discipline: Understanding Rules of Engagement and Fire Discipline is an extremely valuable part of the Arma experience:
    1. Weapons Hot/Cold: Unless told otherwise, assume Weapons Cold, or that you’re only clear to fire if fired upon. Weapons Hot gives you leeway to decide, but opening up before the rest of your team has a chance to position and ready their shots can cripple an otherwise solid ambush, or even lead to its failure. Six well aimed guns will always beat one person’s panicked burst.
  9. Suppression: How you win this game for you and your team. You’ll typically go through several magazines just to injure someone, let alone score a kill. Get rid of the idea of personal killscores; the team gets the glory here, and much of the strategy of this game lies in keeping someone’s head down long enough for someone to get a better angle on them. Suppression for a basic rifle is 2-4 well aimed shots every 5 seconds. Multiplied by six people on a standard fireteam, that’s a whole lot of ammo that won’t eat through your personal supply. ARs should use 2-3 second bursts by default, extending them as the firefight demands. Again, the emphasis is on using enough ammo - not too much, not too little, find the balance. The three types of fire;
    1. Suppression: As touched on above. Typically you won’t have the luxury of directly knowing where shots are coming from, and will have to rely on subtle indicators like muzzle flashes, near misses, and dust puffs to narrow it down. Coordinate with your team to spread fire all over the general area the contact is shooting from, that way ammo goes over a wider area and accomplishes better suppression. If your AR is tracing a certain section, shoot at another area; cover more ground.
    2. Cover Fire: The same doctrine as Suppression, but this is used to indicate friendly movements near the area being suppressed. Teammates may be preparing a flank, so check those shots even more than usual and be prepared to shift or lift fire as they move in.
    3. Rapid Fire: A clean mag dump for rifleman, and extended bursts for ARs. Overwhelm the enemy with superior fire volume, then return to suppression unless additional mag dumps are called for.

ACE Specifics

ACE Advanced Medical

  1. Emphasizing Utility of the Tourniquet
    1. Completely stops all blood flow
  2. Prioritizing wounds by severity
    1. More redder is more deader
  3. Not crowding casualties
  4. Morphine Overdosing
    1. No more than 2 morphine in 30 minutes
  5. When summoning a medic, provide
    1. Location of patient
    2. Urgency
    3. Safety of the surrounding area

ACE Fragmentation Differences

  1. ACE Frag vs Vanilla is Vicious
  2. Backblast/overpressure from AT and vehicles is present.
  3. Emphasize spacing to mitigate the effects of these systems

ACE Weapons

  1. Explain how to use entrenching tools. Self-interaction is also how to manipulate other items such as optics, explosives, range cards, etc.
  2. Explain how to re-pack magazines.
  3. Remind them that there are a ton of various systems we use but not regularly, so if they encounter it and don’t know how to use it, they should ask. Someone nearby is almost always guaranteed to know or at least know who to ask.

Radios

  1. Communication, whether local or on radio, is crucial to survival in-game.
  2. Keep communications Accurate, Brief, and Clear (ABC).
    1. Squad nets (short range radios) can have around 14 people on it at any given point
      1. Radios may be half duplex or semiduplex, or full duplex
      2. If half duplex and you are talking, you cannot hear. If someone else is talking, they cannot hear you. Everyone hears both people talking at the same time and understands neither.
        1. Leave space between transmissions
        2. If you have a long message, break it up by saying “break” after every sentence or two
      3. If full duplex, you can talk and receive at the same time, but leave space between transmissions and do not talk over others unless an absolute emergency.
  3. Send messages in a Receiver, Sender, Message (RSM) format
    1. It’s the easiest means of keeping transmissions clear. I.E.: “ASL, A1, We’re red on ammo, over.”
    2. When calling an SL, it may be good practice to follow the “ASL, A1, message, over” format, so they can respond when they have a clear moment
      1. In an emergency, “priority message” or “emergency” can be substituted
  4. We make use of the NATO phonetic alphabet.
  5. Contact reports
    1. Distance, Direction, and Description (The 3 D’s)
    2. Use the compass for direction
    3. Map for distance (where possible)
      1. Close, Near, Far are also fine
    4. Marking contact on the map is appreciated and useful
      1. Timestamps are also helpful
  6. Have the recruit do a basic contact report stressing ABC and RSM, example transmissions are included below:
    1. Bad Transmission: “Um… There’s an enemy fireteam north of me.” We won’t know who is talking, where they are in relation to you, or how many enemies there are to determine how we prioritize them. The “Um” at the beginning also hogs the net with empty air; nothing about this transmission is ABC.
    2. Acceptable Transmission: “A1 has contact, one enemy fireteam 300m North-Northwest of our position.” Taking a moment to organize the thought keeps it Brief, there’s no dead air from cuing the radio early. We know what fireteam has the contact, a rough idea of the size and type, a reasonably eyeballed distancing and acceptable bearing. This will work, but there’s still valuable seconds lost in the response.
    3. Best Transmission: “A1 Red has contact, one enemy fireteam, six men, 350m out bearing North-Northwest 310.” With this, we know what buddy team has the contact, exactly what kind of contact and how many, a precise ranging and bearing. Response to a report like this will be lightning quick.

Conclusion

Chime in on the recruit’s thread on how they did, your impression of them, and indicate that they’ve gone through orientation so there’s no confusion that they’re ready or not.

Getting a DB

As the orientator, you would be a perfect fit for the Recruit’s Drinking Buddy since you are a familiar voice. In the event that you feel that you would not be a good DB, or if you are unable to be a DB, it is your responsibility to find one for them prior to their first session.

Extras

Everything in this section is optional, helpful knowledge and should only be offered after the orientation is complete and the newbie shows interest.

  1. Killhouse: Offer some CQB pointers on breaching and clearing, fragging, covering sectors, calling buildings clear, and marking on map.The intent of this section is to showcase our spectator mode to the recruit. The killhouse is extremely deadly to accommodate this.
  2. Vic PID: Showcase more specific types of the common vehicles we go against, or spawn them in with Zeus. Just cover the basics for Russian vehicles, since they tend to be what we fight:
    1. 4 Wheels? It’s a BRDM. A light combat vehicle with a solid machine gun, but it can be handled by a fireteam. Heavy caliber ammunition that MMGs tend to have can even penetrate the armor.
    2. 8 Wheels? It’s a BTR. An IFV with a big old machine gun and sometimes an autocannon round or ten. These are bad news when they get the drop on a fireteam, but a single hit from a RAT can blow it to pieces. The armor’s too thick to do much more than get AT on it, though 40mm can blow out the wheels.
    3. Treads? It’s either a BMP or a Tank, both bad news. BMPs carry all sorts of explosive autocannon goodness and missiles that can mess up a fireteam’s day along with the buildings they’re taking cover in. A tank will do it even faster. Prioritize killing both when spotted and get MAT teams on it ASAP. Be wary that unless you hit them where the armor’s thin, tanks can soak 2-3 AT rounds before going up in flames.
    4. If you panic and forget the names, just describe what you see, do not guess. “It’s got 6 wheels and a big gun on it!” is better than saying “I think it’s a BRDM?”. In general, listing the type of wheels, amount of armor, and size of gun is good enough in a pinch.

Land Nav Expanded: Teaching the types of terrain and the Fist:

  1. Using the Fist (https://i.imgur.com/3nWaQjI.gif) to help out with memorizing terrains:
    1. The five major terrain features can be memorized quickly using “Hidden Valley Ranch Salad Dressing:”
      1. Hill: A raised terrain feature with descending slopes on all sides.
      2. Valley: The opposite of a ridge, a lateral area with a flat “floor” that runs between Hills and Ridges. Valleys are common places for roads and other features that require level ground.
      3. Ridge: A lateral terrain composed of a series of hills joined together, with the areas in-between hills higher than the other surrounding terrain.
      4. Saddle: The lowered area between two hills which connects the two. A Saddle generally exists as part of a Ridge, but can be used to indicate other much more shallow areas between two points of interest.
      5. Depression: Similar to a valley, it has the distinction of being isolated and not running for a long distance, when surrounded by higher elevation terrain it’s also referred to as a Bowl.
  2. The three minor terrain features are as follows:
    1. Draw: A narrow recess that can run the length of a Hill, it is depressed beneath the general slope of the terrain feature it derives from. Usually very narrow, often running to the “floor” of a Valley.
    2. Spur: The opposite of a Draw, consisting of a raised area that runs away from the peak of a Hill or Ridge line. They are generally much broader, and characterized as being quite steep, making them useful for defilade.
    3. Cliff: If you’re not sure you’re on a Cliff, take a step. If you’re now imprinted into a Valley, you were on a Cliff.
  3. Cut Terrain that has been removed by people in order to create a flat piece of ground. Typically for a road or railroad. Also applies to drainage ditches and other man-made features.
  4. Fill: Landfill. Same idea as a cut but adding land instead of removing. Also typically seen for roads or railroads.