Briefing as an FTL

Breaking Out the Crayons

When your SL finally gets to briefing, you’ll typically have around three minutes to take in their explanation of the plan and intent for its execution. Once the plan reaches you, you’ll see where your SL has broken out the high level PLT plan into specific, manageable actions for the squad elements (i.e. bounding plans, avenues of maneuver, overwatch positions, etc).

The average FTL will accept this, sit silent when asked for questions, and get in the truck when told; a good or great FTL will ask needed questions and break this plan down even further.

While at your squad briefing, here are a few questions to ask yourself as your leadership explains their goal:

Where will I put my colour teams? Where will they face? How is this placement going to support my SL’s intent for the task? How am I going to maneuver from one position to the next?

Is there a way I can break this section of the city into manageable blocks? Are there areas the enemy might assault through that my team needs to watch? Can I label the roads for quick reference?

Once we’re done clearing this objective, where are we going and how do I get there? Where is my Limit of Advance? Is there a good position for us to ask for resupply?

These are just a few of the questions you can ask yourself, and mark accordingly. It will be extremely rare for an SL to take any issues with marking up the map further.

As long as your marks are operating within the SL’s intent, and do not clutter or cover anyone else's marks, assume that your SL is fine with marking. This isn’t an excuse to paint the map. You don’t want to clutter up the page and make it hard to reference, so only mark what is necessary to get your intent across to your team. It’s good to be specific, especially in the case that one of your members has to take over for you, but you don’t have to mark out every position your team will move through.

If you think there’s a flaw in the overall plan or a specific marked position and want to adjust that, that’s when you ask first.