"The IFV is leading, yeah?"
{8 seconds of silence} "Umm... who just asked if IFV..." {12 more seconds of silence} "Who just said that IFV is leading?"
{clarifying} "Is the IFV leading?" {11 seconds of silence} "Shall I overtake the IFV?"
{sound of bullet hits and gunfire come from opposite sides of the truck, meaning they're flying past us}
"We're taking fire, by the way!" {Starts driving again, passes IFV}
"The IFV shouldn't be leading... Just a note for the situation itself, IFV is always going to be behind us, never in front of us."
"Yeah, we're taking fire, small arms fire." "Yay, Ural leads the way..."
{7 seconds of silence} "Yeah, go to the RV marker, all of you. Overtake the IFV if you have to." (ed. note: IFV is now 100m behind us already)
{Sees troops running on the road ahead - can't tell the uniform, my finger scrolls to Eject, I await order to bail or bullets to indicate they are enemy} "Are those friendlies ahead? Troops ahead."
{2 seconds pass} "..."
{AT4 crashes through the windshield, insta-gibbing all of Bravo}
Squad lead was focused so intently on logistics and marching order that four (4) factors that should have rang alarms failed to register and trigger any decision-making at all. Those factors were:
- 1) Bullets whizzing past the truck
2) Report of taking fire
3) Second report of taking fire
4) Report of unidentified troops where we weren't expecting any.
If a comrade in the squad leadership position cannot deal with the information flow and decision-making that comes with leadership, there are several steps that can be taken to mitigate the confusion:
- First, try Mike's CC addon or another TS3 solution that allows you to place whispers in one ear or the other. This greatly simplifies your task of focusing purely on what's important.
- Second, be clear and concise when you're speaking, and demand the same of your FTLs.
- Third (and this one is weird coming from me) stop thinking and start doing. A poor decision now is often better than no decision at all. You'll screw up, you'll make mistakes, but so long as you learn from those mistakes, then you're doing better than before you made that poor decision, even if you and your squad are out of this mission.