Infantry Skills One on One Training: The 3-5 Second Rush - ArmA 3

Despite of all claims to the contrary and no matter how tactical your squad mates or you think you are, chances are that you will find yourself in the field of fire of an non-suppressed enemy weapon with a mortar barrage trying to catch up with you.

Entering the training area.

From time to time, it is good to go back to the basic infantry drills. Today I made a custom single player training scenario in ArmA 3 to re-train myself on the so-called 3-5 seconds rush.

The master mode "Zeus" came really in handy to precisely place an enemy soldier at the crest of a small rise in the terrain. I'm entering the area from the background.

The scenario is very simple. A single enemy (computer-controlled) with a great field of fire on the area where I will be rushing through. I can only fire at the enemy when I arrive to the wall in front of him (see screenshot above).

This is me moving under enemy fire from my left (a few meters beyond the wall). In real life, this movement technique is the fastest way to move. One rushes from cover to cover and drops prone as soon as it arrives into the new cover (a rock in the screenshot above). It is highly desirable that each cover position is reachable via a 3 to 5 seconds rush, so the enemy has little time to track you.

Hitting the ground after another rush. The terrain now shows a slight rise, but the enemy rifleman kept firing. I am not enjoying the niceties of a defile tonight.

The animations for infantry hitting the ground are just like in real life. I always drop so the virtual belly of my character will be under cover. After reaching a complete prone position I rotate to face the threat.

The 3-5 second rush version I used is a dumbed down variant of the real one, where you drop prone, crawl for a while and then rise up for another rush. In this way, the enemy will keep his weapon trained in the last placed he saw you (where your dropped). This was standard drill in the German Army back to WWII times. In this screenshot, I arrived at the wall and started engaging the enemy with grenades. No luck with those. 

After arriving to the wall, I am free to engage the enemy in close assault. This time, I used my left flank. The enemy was still trying to track me elsewhere at his front and it was an easy pick for me.

Last shot in front of the neutralized enemy.

I was very surprised that at this murderous range, the 3-5 second rush worked so well. Being shot with such ferocity was not pleasant, but systematically surviving under direct fire was worth it. Game wise, it is a bit cumbersome to have a finger on the ready at the "Z" key. But the muscle memory is starting to kick in.

Cheers,