[SWAT 4] Tactical Candy: Clearing Corners

[SAS_Random]

Corners can be hazardous because you never know what you will encounter. It may seem that the opti-wand would come in handy here, but often you don't want to slow down your assault once it's rolling. It can be very time consuming to wand each corner, junction or doorway to preserve your stealth advance. While mirroring can be practical if the team has yet to be compromised by any tangos, it loses its touch of realism after first contact and certainly after first dynamic contact.

It might also seem to be of great use to lean your character and minimize the exposed portion of your body. Unfortunately, Sierra has coded a little surprise tied to leaning your character. Thanks, Sierra. You suck!

Before searching the corner, you must ensure your mental trigger is ready and instantly decide to shoot or not shoot. However, you do have the advantage of knowing when you will breach the corner. You can also increase this advantage by gaining depth away from the corner as you conduct an angular search (slice the pie). The increased radius from the corner exposes a smaller slice of the corner with each step, giving you the most possible visual advantage.

A good way to approach a corner is to have the pointman on the inside corner in a crouch. The coverman can begin lateral movement away from and around the arc of the corner. It's important to note that the pointman and the 3rd man should have the coverman's camera view up. With this intel, they can make decisions how to best support the coverman. It gives information about tangos, civilians, doorways, windows, available cover and concealment, etc.

If nothing is seen, then proceed in stealth. The cover man continues to the opposite side of the corner, the pointman pivots around and into the near side of the corner and the 3rd man slides laterally to take up a line of fire over top of the crouched pointman and settles in behind him in line. If the 3rd man is your rear security, then the cover man resumes 2nd position while rear security collapses in behind.

If you make contact, you can either proceed as above issuing compliance orders and keeping your mental trigger at the ready, or the coverman can retreat back a step giving the team the opportunity to attack the corner dynamically.

While the coverman holds aim on the corner (in case the tango decides to stretch his legs), the 3rd man or the pointman (if the 3rd man is not available due to covering the rear, or is out of tacaids) can prep and deploy a tacaid into the area around the corner. When the tacaid goes off, they can attack the corner in much the same way. The coverman gets across the corner to the other side, while the pointman pivots around the corner and the 3rd man slides laterally into a position between the point and coverman. This is sort of a modified echelon technique. Again, if you only have three, 3rd has your six.

I hope this helps make your corner searches more secure!