Communications is far more important than firepower. Period. In '94 down at wayne's world at Clear and Present Danger we got paired with Variable (Gill) on a third team. He equipped us each with some state of the art Motorola uhf stuff, and the game has never been the same.

At the squad level communications can be used to coordinate movement, set and trigger ambushes, coordinate escorts, etc. - but the most important thing we have learned in the years of play is that with decent communications and relationship with the C&C we can spread out and run the battlefield. Squad members need to stick together, but squads need to to coordinate. We are actually more effective if we spread out.

NOTE: it is impossible to coordinate with chatter all over the radio freqs. When the chatter becomes bad the squad leaders turn their sets off so they can focus on the task at hand and at this point the organization chart below becomes ineffective.

So we need a policy and a plan.

SQUAD LEADERS : Squad leaders need 2 radios - one UHF radio, 4 watt - (Motorola SP50 typical - see grendel for freqs.) and one FRMS radio for squad level coms.

SQUAD MEMBERS : All squad members need an FRMS radio. (See Grendel for specs)

AFFILIATE TEAMS : For affiliate teams, instead of "give us one of your radios or giving them one of ours we instead place a RK ASSOCIATE with them to run with them". This has never worked very well, but we will keep trying.

EVERYONE : Everyone should carry one spare battery (set) on the field (securely).

BASE STATION : I will provide a UHF base station back at the staging area (or possibly at out base) to help squad members rally with their squad.

C&C LIAISON/XO: We will typically plant a liaison to the Command and Control (C&C) to help ROADKILL be an instrument of our general's policy.

BASE DEFENSE : "Our base is under attack - hurry back". As a rule we don't respond to base defense requests, but we are frequently asked probably because we are one of the few groups that can be reached. BRAD : if you are playing liaison or XO, have a base defense plan together and a back up and a back up to that. Don't call RK for base defense unless it is a true priority. You can call "Any Roadkill in the staging area, please respond. Please get some allies together and insert quickly."

CHATTER : "Keep the chatter to a minimum" - Do not say "I'm low on paint", "I'm out of air", or "where are your aspirin" over the radio.

CLICK CODE : To help this we have a click code. AFFIRMATIVE : CLICK CLICK -- NEGATIVE - CLICK (the rest of the codes are not suitable for Internet publication.)