Split Squads

[bowen42]

Why cant the Syrians split their sqads?Just not part of their doctrine?and why wouldn't be?

[Gen. J-sun]

The Syrian special forces can split their squads. The regulars,however, cannot. This is most likely because units are dependant on their leadership so a split wouldn't have a head so to speak.

[Romulus]

This is the most annoying feature of CMSF from my point of view. I would have understood a penalization in terms of cohesion, responsiveness or whatever they would have deemed appropriate but I can't really stand this restriction as it spoils the game for those who enjoy playing as the Syrians.

Romulus

[Yair Iny]

Why is this so hard to understand? Syrians can't split squads just like an M1A1 can't fly. It's simply not done. The syrian army, especially the regular army is a very different beast to anything someone from the West thinks about. When I was in the IDF, my battalion used to rotate into the Golan Heights, and the recon elements used to monitor Syrian positions on the other side using long-range optics. One of the things I heard from them that illustrates this point, is that the officers used to regularly beat enlisted men, one only assumes it was as punishment for this or that refraction. Sure, it would be great if the squad leader could send one guy to look round the corner, I'm sure that is realistic. But splitting squads allows you to do so much more and I for one think it is realistically not allowed for regular Syrians.

[melm]

I think it is because of formation and leadership, so regular forces of Syria cannot be splitted.

[taccovert4]

With the way that that part of the world thinks, I'm surprised that squads outside the comm. range of their platoon commanders can fight with any effectiveness. Especially heavy weapons like ATGMs.

A lot of the issues have to do with the actual leadership. It is common among "Arab" (of which the syrians really aren't but the mindset is close enough) armies that they must appear to be more knowledgeable than their subordinates. As such, there are many verifiable cases where tank crewers wouldn't be given access to manuals on their particular model of tank (that they are being trained to fight from!) because the officers in charge did not want a mere NCO to learn something the officer did not already know. In essence, knowledge is the currency of respect, and officers will (or believe they will) lose respect and therefore the ability to command subordinates if those subordinates reach a level of technical competance equal with said superior officer. This leads to superior officers that do not teach NCOs tactical doctrine, and instead just teach the NCOs enough that the NCOs will always look to the officer for orders as to what to do and where to manuever.

Because of this cultural issue, allowing the veritable Corporals or Lance Corporals of the Syrian Army to take over and manuever split squads all over the map and out of contact with their Sergeant or Lt. is unreasonable. Special Forces (and IMHO Republican Guard) might be trained enough and trusted enough to be allowe to do this, but Regular Army and National Guard units wouldn't be allowed to. And, if they were, the Regular Army split squads would be capable of doing little more than cowering, shooting in a direction at whatever could look like an enemy, and running away. IRL, they couldn't put up effective resistance because they haven't been trained to fight. They've been trained to respect their 'betters' and follow orders only.

[Thomm]

This is the most annoying feature of CMSF from my point of view.

Without going into superlatives, I have to agree that I do not like it either.

Best regards,

Thomm

[Ron]

Culturally speaking in my experience, it is very much like taccovert4 says in different parts of the world, ie Middle Eastern countries and to a similar/lesser extent many Latin American countries. The whole national characteristic thing aside, modelling Red split-squad capabilities as a mirror of Blue would be far too much of a stretch.

[Sixxkiller]

From a Western Standpoint, the Syrian tactical ability to split doesnt make sense as its based off of Soviet Doctrine. While there would be certain situations where this could happen, it wouldnt be SOP.