Americas Army is a computer game that was created as a recruiting tool. It is not meant to teach tactics and it is not officially a forum for real soldiers to discuss such tactics. The game is also supported by a community web site similar to this We site. The amazing thing about the site is that over 230,000 people have registered on it. As of today, the site shows the following statistics.
| Total Users: |
231,734 |
Avg. New Users (day): |
34 |
| Total Topics: |
248,749 |
Avg. Topics (day): |
171 |
| Total Posts: |
2,557,175 |
Avg. Posts (day): |
1,764 |
This is a HUGE community centered on one of the Army's most effective recruiting tools. Below is a sample of one of the postings in the Urban Assault topic. If 230,000 people want to talk about an Army game, how many people want to talk about their real experiences in the Army?
------------------------------------ AA Posting on Urban Assault ---------------------------------
I discovered a new strategy for Urban Assault today. This will quickly allow a single player or small group of players to rapidly seize both objective points. The way it works is this:
After spawning as a rifleman, run to the closest objective immediately (i.e. Assault West will go to the West Objective). Head up via the outdoor stairway access. Before you enter, lob a smoke grenade over the top of the outstanding structure onto the other side. This will make it appear to opposing players that you are doing an objecive rush to their home field objective via the rooftops. Enter the objective building, and capture the objective. The time it will take to do this will cause the other team to think that you have already crossed over the rooftop. Meanwhile, there should be a large amount of smoke still on site. Run through it, it will provide cover against enemy snipers. Emerge in one of the side alleys. Before you round the corner to their insertion point, toss a flashbang to stun anyone still lingering at spawn. Fast walk (don't run) to the currently untaken objective. Toss a flashbang inside just to be sure campers aren't lying in wait, walk in (killing any stunned campers you come across) and take the objective.
My total completeion time was less than three minutes the first time I tried it, and I single-handedly had won the round for my team.
After trying this a few times, your foes will usually adapt, running right through the smoke cloud to come and kill you. When this starts to happen, try following up the smoke with flashbangs (try to stay away from frags, they attract too much attention) and walk around the objective, killing your stunned prey.
This strategy has the advantage of being very difficult to counter, and when they do wise up, a counter-counter strategy (above) is quite nasty and easy to pull off. The strikes are quick as they are lethal -- by using a short completion time, you give your opponents almost no time to react. Currently the only effective counter is placing gaurds in the alley or spawn point (combatible by flashbangs), or a well-positioned sniper.
Try it, and let me know what you think.
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