How to Build an Effective Infantry Squad in Star Citizen
Org military leaders face unique challenges when structuring an armed force that offers the level of combat capability required by an organization’s defense policy. Key impacting factors include org member availability, accessibility, server instance occupancy limitations, training to competency, and finally command and control capability. And if those issues don’t add enough complexity, there’s also a limitation on passenger transportation capacities for ships and surface vehicles that should be considered.
In this article, we’ll explore how these constraints can be addressed at the lowest level while still empowering your org’s military leaders to field capable, adaptable, and customizable squads in a timely and efficient manner.
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Key takeaways
Org leaders should consider real-world military doctrines, historical trends, and game-specific challenges when developing their small unit doctrine.
To structure an armed force in Star Citizen, challenges like member availability, server capacity, training, and transportation must be addressed head-on.
The two-person fire team and six-person squad are supported by an analysis of the squad size and composition of the most successful militaries in history.
Rifleman, grenadier, and anti-armor specialist are the three core fire team roles.
A brief history of the squad
When automatic weapons were introduced during WWI, their incredible volume of fire limited the movement of enemy infantry. But their weight also drastically hampered the speed at which the infantry that employed them could move. The light machine gun solved this issue, and armed forces were quick to begin forming small units around the use of this much more portable weapon.
A new question arose regarding whether these units should be a base of fire element, a maneuver element, or both. But in the face of increasing complexity, growing costs, and debilitating manpower issues, modern armed forces became more concerned with the ability of infantry to maneuver while taking fire. This is how modern armed forces came to hold the common opinion that an infantry squad’s defining role is to “close with and destroy the enemy”, and to do so “across the full spectrum of operations by maneuver to seize an objective with the intent of holding ground”.
Generally, there are a few competing ideologies around which squads are formed. They’re largely split between Western and Eastern theories of war. Western theory tends to promote firepower, suppression, and adaptability. Eastern theory advocates for stealth, surprise, and the ability to unilaterally decide when to initiate conflict (and disengage when necessary).
In Western theory, the most well-known ideology subdivides the squad into two or more balanced fire teams. Each fire team is typically built around an automatic gunner who traditionally employs a light machine gun. Fire teams alternate between providing a base of fire element or a maneuver element for each other. This approach is likely more cumbersome than competing ideologies but more adaptable to fluid mission requirements and working around casualties. This ideology is exemplified by the United States Army.
A second Western ideology sees two or more fire teams based on strict roles. Typically these involve at least one team dedicated to providing a base of fire, and at least one team dedicated to maneuver. These squads often add a third fire team that employs a vehicle for transportation and additional fire support. Up until 2015, French squads were the model for such an approach.
The last most widely-accepted Western ideology sees the squad as the smallest possible unit. Armies formed in this way often build the whole squad around a particular use case (rifle, recon, machine gun, anti-armor). As a consequence, they usually struggle to operate independently. Such squads often seem to develop in militaries that have historical roots in Soviet doctrine and are likely a result of adapting to Western theories of war.
Eastern ideologies about squad structure developed very differently largely due to a technological disparity. Up until about the mid-1990s, Eastern militaries couldn’t match the technological capability of their Western competitors. But they were able to find other ways to counter Western militaries with excellent execution of tactics and bespoke organizational solutions down to the lowest tactical level. An inclination toward feigned retreats as well as a willingness to disengage from a battle that’s unlikely to be won has caused as many opponents to fail to exploit an advantage as it has lured into a crushing trap. Additionally, Eastern militaries don’t draw the same distinctions between types of warfare as Western militaries do. This has enabled them to conduct what the West would consider two different styles of combat—guerilla warfare and maneuver warfare—at the same time. As a consequence, two major ideologies developed from these circumstances.
The first Eastern ideology relies on shock and overwhelming numbers. It divides the squad into three fire teams supported by a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) team and a sniper, all put under the command of a squad leader. There’s usually no machine gunner to provide sustained fire. But with so many soldiers spread across so many elements, such squads depend on being well-practiced and autonomous. Such a level of experience and independence has culminated in radically innovative approaches to warfare like those that resulted in Chadian President Hissène Habré’s Toyota War victory. Formations of this nature have been used by Iran and other Arab countries.
The second Eastern ideology comes directly from China. It’s difficult to find much information related to the modern thinking underlying this particular ideology’s philosophy, but we know that they’re ultimately derived from Maoist and Taoist philosophies. What little contemporary Western knowledge of this ideology is known is that fire teams are unbalanced, and that there’s a larger presence of grenade launchers and anti-armor weapons than in Western and other Eastern squads. This would seem to imply that Chinese military squad structure ideology centers on indirect engagement, area saturation, and confidence in foot infantry as the primary unit used to engage enemy armor.
Additionally, with the exception of Russia, Eastern commanders in general are thought to tend to have a greater degree of patience, topographic adaptability, operational planning, flexibility, and common sense right down to the squad level.
Squads of the real world’s most successful militaries
Now that we’ve taken stock of the practical reasons combat-focused orgs may want to build around a small squad and their doctrinal philosophies, we should begin looking at real-world trends to see what can be learned. For that, we turn to the seven global military powers that’ve won the most wars.
France and the United Kingdom have won over 1,000 wars each. Yet, their squad organization has interesting differences.
Up until 2015, a French squad—translated into English as an “Army Combat Group”—employed six soldiers evenly split into two teams, and a group leader. One team acted as a dedicated base of fire element while the other acted as a dedicated maneuver element. They were equipped with six assault rifles, one light machine gun, two rocket launchers, and one grenade launcher. Later, the French squad added a vehicle team and a “precision shooter” (marksman). Additionally, the two fire team leaders were given grenade launchers.
Meanwhile, the United Kingdom Army Rifle Section—“section” is British for “squad”—is comprised of eight soldiers split evenly across two teams plus a section commander. They’re equipped with six assault rifles, one designated marksman rifle, one general-purpose machine gun, and two grenade launchers.
The United States of America has won nearly 900 wars and has two services that field vastly different rifle squads. The United States Army Rifle Squad is composed of eight soldiers split evenly into two teams, and a squad leader. They field seven assault rifles, two light machine guns, and two grenade launchers.
By contrast, 15 marines are structured into the United States Marine Rifle Squad; three groups of four marines, and an additional group of three marines including the squad leader. They bring 15 assault rifles and three grenade launchers to the fight.
Russia has won nearly 500 wars. Its motorized rifle squads divide six soldiers into two teams: a two-person maneuver team, and a four-person fire team that includes the squad commander. They’re equipped with five assault rifles, one general-purpose machine gun, one rocket launcher, and two grenade launchers.
Germany has won over 400 wars. A German Army panzergrenadier (motorized or mechanized infantry) group is composed of six soldiers in a single unit. They carry five assault rifles, one general-purpose machine gun, one rocket launcher, and one grenade launcher.
The German military’s Fallschirmjjager groups—airborne squads—have a drastically different composition. They contain 10 soldiers split into two four-person fire teams, and one two-person team that includes the group leader. They’re outfitted with seven assault rifles, one designated marksman rifle, two light machine guns, two rocket launchers, and two grenade launchers.
China has won over 200 wars. Its modern standard infantry rifle squad is believed to be composed of ten soldiers divided into three unbalanced fire teams of three soldiers, with the addition of a squad leader. The exact weapon composition of each fire team is uncertain, but it’s been observed that anti-armor and grenade launchers are more prevalent than in squads of other nations’ armies.
More is known about the Chinese Mechanized Rifle Squad. Like Germany’s panzergrenadier group, Chinese Mechanized Rifle Squads operate as a single unit of seven soldiers. Their main weapons are just five assault rifles. The squad’s grenadier is equipped only with a rocket launcher while an assistant grenadier carries a pistol as their only weapon.
Turkey has won just over 200 wars. Their Land Forces infantry squad is made up of eight soldiers in two four-person fire teams, plus one squad leader. They’re equipped with seven assault rifles, two general-purpose machine guns, four rocket launchers, and two grenade launchers.
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Challenges for org leaders in Star Citizen
A squad needs to be built on a solid foundation, and that foundation is the fire team. But how those fire teams should be built—especially in a video game like Star Citizen—is a matter of particular debate. That’s why it’s important to understand the major challenges that stand in the way of forming a squad.
Member availability and accessibility are a big problem
There are often limitations to an org member’s availability. Org members have obligations outside of the game’s ecosystem. These obligations may include their job, relationships with family and friends, other hobbies, and academic pursuits.
There are also technical issues that can affect an org member’s accessibility. A disrupted internet connection or buggy game patch can prevent an org member from playing the game.
Server instance occupancy is limited
Another good reason to keep a squad’s size as small as practical is that there are limitations on the number of players that can occupy a single server instance. At the time of writing, 180 players can share a single instance of Star Citizen’s “public universe”.
Only org members who share the same server instance can directly interact with and contribute to one another. But an org needs to take care not to take up too many slots in the same instance if they want to leave room for unaligned and adversarial players to join. Therefore, military leaders will need to balance their org’s combat force’s capability against its size.
Large groups are slower to train and harder to integrate
Training a large group is time-consuming and complex. The more people there are to train, the higher the chance of running into issues with multiple individuals in the group. These issues can include inattentiveness, a need to correct techniques or behavior, and the various other issues that stem from having too many people for a given task. As a result, the fewer people there are to train as a unit, the faster a unit can be trained. Additionally, it’s easier to acquire, reassign, and integrate individuals into new units when those units’ components are small.
Transportation limitations
Transportation is another challenge. The surface vehicle with the highest passenger capacity carries only eight passengers. The largest purpose-built transport ship available in the game carries 20 passengers, while the smallest carries just two.
Combat-capable multicrew surface vehicles
The Dragonfly, G12, G12a, Cyclone AA, and RN, carry a maximum of just two infantry. The Cyclone TR and MT, and the Nova Tank each carry three. The Ursa rover carries six—two vehicle crew, and up to four dismountable infantry. The Spartan carries eight passengers plus the driver.
Ships with jump seats
The C8 and C8X carry two passengers. The Redeemer carries four passengers but can leverage its two remote gunner stations as de facto passenger seats without degrading its combat effectiveness. The Cutlass Black and Vanguard Hoplite also carry up to six passengers, while the quantum-incapable MPUV-1P carries eight. The Hercules M2 and Starfarer series carry 12. The Prowler carries 16, while the Cutlass Steel carries 18 passengers. The Valkyrie can carry up to 20 passengers.
When discussing concept ships, the Legionnaire is purported to carry eight passengers; the Retaliator, 12 passengers with its as-yet-unreleased Drop Ship module; and the Liberator, 16.
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Context, capabilities, and capacities
Challenges in context
The amount of time an org member is available needs to be considered. The average player spends about seven to nine hours per week gaming, a daily average of about an hour and a half. With Star Citizen likely taking up only a portion of that time, it’s reasonable to assume that very few players will be able to dedicate more than three hours to the game in a single day.
In the case of technical issues, a disrupted internet connection can prevent your org members from playing for a few hours to a few days. But a buggy game patch is the kind of roadblock that can prevent them from playing the game for weeks and even months.
While server occupancy is currently a concern, server capacity has a slow but steady history of increasing with time. In 2017 a server capacity was capped at 40 players per instance. By the end of 2022, capacity was capped at 180 players per instance. While no hard limit has been given to the best of this publication’s knowledge, it’s expected that server capacity will continue to grow.
The smaller a squad is, the more options for transportation there are. The same is true for fire teams, which can be easily kept together in a single surface vehicle such as the Cyclone MT.
Squad size and capabilities
In the real world, the largest modern squad is composed of 15 infantry, while the smallest—and arguably one of the most common among successful nations—is just seven infantry. The largest practical fire team in use today is composed of four infantry, while the smallest contains just two infantry.
Keeping fire teams as small as possible in-game has a measurable impact on availability, trainability, and command and control. Additionally, the redundancy and diffusion of responsibility that’s provided by the size of real-world squads aren’t as critical to in-game success. This way the capabilities of larger real-world squads can be concentrated into a comparatively smaller number of Star Citizen players, which in turn maximizes the infantry combat potential of every server slot occupied by an org member.
No matter the size of the squad or fire team, though, riflemen are the backbone. They’re followed by grenadiers, and then machine gunners and anti-armor specialists as the next most common squad roles across all of the real-world armed forces mentioned.
It must be pointed out that real world trends point to the machine gun being phased out at the fire team level. This seems to be driven by the fact that light machine guns like the M249 fire the same caliber cartridge as a modern rifle or carbine, but have a lower cyclical rate while being much more cumbersome. Meanwhile, the automatic rifleman is being converted from a role to a basic tactic employable by any rifleman with a weapon capable of automatic fire at a cyclic rate exceeding 600 rounds per minute. This is reflected in the United States Marine Corps’ choice to abolish the light machine gun from its basic rifle squad altogether in favor of equipping all riflemen with an M27 Infantry Automatic Rifle.
On the other hand, the role of grenadier is in high demand at the fire team level. Nowhere is this more evident than in the recent changes to French squads, which chose to add two additional grenade launchers split between two fire teams rather than a second machine gun to either.
Therefore it’s not unreasonable to conclude that the game’s light machine gun weapons may not offer as much value to an in-game squad. This is despite the common perception that LMGs provide “more dakka”. FPS weapon data from a3.17 1seems to support this conclusion when accounting for factors like loaded mass, effective range, shot deviation, and—in the case of at least the F55 LMG—a “spin-up” time.
In-game, grenade launchers are every bit as practical as their real-world counterparts despite doing less damage and having a smaller area of effect. Not only can they be used to damage multiple targets, but they can be used to hit targets which are behind cover or from behind cover. This makes them the top choice as a secondary weapon.2
However, it can be argued that the French squad has added a machine gun to the squad in the form of a 12.7 mm or 7.62 mm remote weapon station attached to their transport vehicle—usually a VBMR, VBMR-L or VHM (BvS10 Viking). But it’s doubtful that the French squad would have added a second machine gun if the marksman and vehicle team had been replaced by a third infantry fire team instead. This seems to further support a preference for moving machine guns back up to the squad level rather than adding them at the fire team level.
Suitability of surface vehicles to different fire team sizes
The Dragonfly, G12, G12a, Cyclone AA, and Cyclone RN carry a maximum of just two crew. The Cyclone TR and MT, and the Nova Tank each carry three crew safely. As touched on earlier, the Ursa rover carries six—two vehicle crew and four dismountable infantry. The result is that each of these vehicles in particular is easily integrated into six-person squads. Vehicles like the Nova Tank, Cyclone TR, and Cyclone MT can even accommodate a three-person fire team divided between just two vehicles.
In the case of the Ursa Rover, its low profile, dual size one weapons, and passenger carrying capacity seem to make it particularly suited to the role of a light infantry fighting vehicle.3
Passenger capacity of drop ships and vehicles
Half of the vehicles and ships examined can carry at least one whole squad composed of six infantry, which can be divided into three two-person fire teams or two three-person fire teams.
Because we only want to deploy squads that are at full strength, we should only consider those ships that can carry at least one instance of the smallest practical squad. But there’s an interesting exception: the Redeemer.
Although the Redeemer only carries four passengers, it has five crew stations with seats. One crew station allows a third gunner to take control of one of the pilot’s turrets. Another crew station allows a fourth gunner to operate the rear remote turret. That makes these two stations largely redundant, which in turn means they’re non-essential when fighting the ship. As a result, individuals manning those stations can be allocated to a dismounting infantry squad, making the Redeemer a de facto drop ship for six infantry.
Additionally, we should count the Ursa here because it can perform fire and maneuver at a pace and agility that can keep up with, effectively engage, and provide immediate tactical assistance to foot infantry. The Ursa crew thus contributes as a complete fire team to a full squad of six infantry when paired with four dismounted infantry.
Vehicles and ships that can carry more than one squad of infantry but not quite two can still be leveraged without splitting up squads to avoid wasting passenger capacity. Consider the MPUV-1P for instance. Two of its eight seats can be reserved for a two-person fire team attached to the aerospace crew for the purpose of securing the MPUV-1P’s landing zone and supporting squad deployment. A similar approach can be made for the extra seats in a Spartan or Prowler. Likewise, the Valkyrie can dedicate two of its 20 passenger seats to two short-term crew allocated as door gunners. Meanwhile, at least four of the Liberator ferry’s 16 passenger seats should be reserved for additional Liberator dedicated to refueling, rearming, and repairing carried fighters.
Building the two-person fire team squad
To date, the vast majority of ships and vehicles with jump seats in Star Citizen carry a number of passengers that’s easily divisible by two, three, four, and six. Since six is also divisible by two and three, the smallest infantry unit should be two or three infantry. This in turn supports limiting the size of the fire team’s aggregate entity—the squad—to six infantry.
Although a squad with two fire teams of three infantry is possible, a practical hypothesis seems to favor three fire teams of two infantry. There are a few reasons why three fire teams synergize better as a squad of six infantry, and they mostly boil down to flexibility.
First, there’s the ability to adapt to casualties. With the former setup, a fire team can only absorb two casualties before the squad is reduced to one fire team capable of fire and maneuver. In the latter setup, a squad can absorb two casualties across any number of fire teams but still employ two fire teams at full strength. For example, if fire team Alpha absorbs two casualties, fire teams Bravo and Charlie remain at full strength. If Alpha and Bravo absorb one casualty each, then the surviving members can be paired into an ad-hoc fire team on the spot.4
Second, the logistics are also just easier—especially on short notice. To create this kind of fire team, only two people need to be rallied. And only two people need to be trained to work together effectively. If there’s a social or scheduling conflict between pairs, it’s easy to reassign individuals to other fire teams with a minimal negative effect on organization, unit cohesion, and effectiveness.
That leads to what we may consider the final reason to build a six-person squad with two-person fire teams: expandability. As your organization grows, it may become necessary to expand squad sizes out of strategic or administrative necessity. It stands to reason then that expanding and rearranging squads should be as foolproof and futureproof as possible. A squad of six trained to operate in fire teams of two gives you the greatest ability to alter squad compositions as needs change. It’s easy to add just one more fire team for a squad of eight infantry and have them operate as a pair of four-person fire teams, or merge two squads to form the classic 12-person infantry rifle squad.
RobotSpartan, “FPS Data (updated 3.17)”, Google Sheets, 7 May 2022, https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-z-0pVNIC-5Xn19NPmqvhvg2XNttVVeH4CGO8RW6ioM/
For more insight into what weapons make for a practical squad loadout, read “LMG vs. Railgun vs. GP-33 Grenade Launcher: Man-Portable Artillery at the Fire Team Level in Star Citizen”.
For a deeper dive into the performance of an Ursa rover as an Infantry Fighting Vehicle, read “A Guide to Using the Ursa Rover as an IFV in Star Citizen”.
In an ad-hoc situation, the junior squad member is added to the senior squad member’s fire team. If both are of the same rank, members are added to the fire team that comes first alphabetically—i.e. if Bravo’s team leader was deleted and Charlie’s rifleman was deleted, then Bravo’s rifleman is added to Charlie. But if Bravo’s team leader was deleted and Charlie’s team leader was deleted, then Bravo’s rifleman becomes Bravo’s team leader and Charlie’s rifleman is added to Bravo.
Last thing we need is someone who doesn't run an org to try and tell people that do run orgs how to manage their infantry. You have zero experience with this.