Tactical Basics: Team make-up part I.

Introduction

I was going to write a manual with diagrams, pretty screen shot pictures and full blown descriptive notes. But I decided against it, 1. I don't have time 2. I'm a little on the lazy side and 3. Long formal manuals I find extremely pretentious and boring.

So although formal in its very nature, a standing procedure for SWAT 4 CO-OP play I'm attempting to breakdown basic drill and method into bite size chunks in a drip feed fashion which is good for my stress levels and good for SEO.

The procedures/training series of blogs can there for be found in our tag cloud as "SWAT 4 Tactics" and then by the subject matter in this case "introduction" and "Team make-up", simple to the point and hopefully a little easier to digest. So lets get started.

Team Make-up

ARU operational teams assume that the virtual Officers assembled to make-up the team are fairly intelligent, i.e. switched on. This assumption should be apparent in our selection process and allows us to conduct missions which are fluid and logical.

As such a teams basic make-up is designed to allow such fluid actions and places the onus on the Officer "at the point" to instantly recognise the priorities, communicate as such with authority and assume lead accordingly. ARU firmly believes in allowing Officers with actual eyes on to call the shots.

Basic tenants

All Officers have the right to defend themselves from personal attack or threat of attack, injury or death. They also have the duty of protecting in order of priority (repeating i.)

i. Protect themselves
ii. Fellow team members or legal Authoritative agencies (except traffic wardens)
iii. Innocent by standers/ hostages
iv. Suspects (suicide by cop, self harm, deranged persons)
v. Property

We can draw an initial conclusion from this basic tenant.

Basic tenant #1. All Operational Officers must carry at all times a Firearm which can provide a lethal conclusion to a problem.

We can have a long drawn out discussion on priorities, the simple context of the above list is simply that an injured or dead officer cannot rescue jack-shit. In protecting yourself and fellow team members you are increasing the chances of everyone involved in surviving the situation.

This being the case that all Officers must carry a firearm at all times allows us to deal with the greater issues of team responsibilities with the assumption that If stated a position requires a "non-lethal" specialist we know that he/she will be capable of defending themselves at all times, to-wit they will have a firearm of some description.

Coming next: Part II. Actual team composition and responsibilities