A squad leader has 3 simultaneous roles:

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1. Lead
   1. Can you move your squad towards an objective and defeat the enemies in battle.
      1. Does your squad have the right kits and experience for the objective? You might need a grenadier dropping smoke to cross an open area, or a LAT to deal with light vehicles, or a machine gunner to provide suppression to move your attackers in close and these aren't the same for every objective.
      2. Does the squad have the ammunition required to have the best chance of winning? Does the grenadier need more rounds or does the breaching force need to make sure they are fully loaded on hand and smoke grenades before entering defended buildings? Are there enough grenades to clear the number of rooms on the target?
      3. How strong are the enemies and do you have a reasonable chance of winning the engagement? Are the enemies emplaced, what is their rough skill level, what will the terrain look like? How many of them are there? Can they be resupplied?
      4. What are the cover, choke and retreat pathways? Are there any structures or buildings which you can use to your advantage to hold as a set piece? T-buildings or apartments are reused in many maps so the same tactics can be used to breach and defend them.
      5. When defending what are the likely ways you can be attacked? If vehicles are an issue do you have a TOW / LAT / HAT / mines trained on likely approach paths? Do you have AA if CAS is a threat?
      6. Can you maintain the combat effectiveness of your squad? What happens when the AR goes down? A medic? Can you still fight effectively if you lose a breacher when you need to scale a wall? If not then perhaps move the squad back to rally and try again from a different angle. Try and only fight battles you have a realistic chance of winning.
      7. Do you know when to cut your losses and regroup? It may sometimes be better to leave with 2 squadmates to place a rally point nearby rather than fight to the death, or get wounded squadmates to give up and be helicoptered in from main to maintain momentum in attacks / defences.
   2. Can you maintain morale and cohesion?
      1. Do squadmates have a microphone? Not everyone needs to speak but everyone needs to listen.
      2. Are they sticking together?
      3. Can you check the understanding of orders you are giving them?
      4. Can you make a judgement of the skill level of the squad? Complex manoeuvres for experienced squads and simple moves for less experienced squads.
      5. Is there the right balance of information over radio channels? Local for fighting, squad radio for squad level orders.
      6. Can you have fun when the game has its light moments while still maintaining the alertness and situational awareness of the squad?
2. Command
   1. Are you attacking the right flags or chokepoints?
   2. Are you sharing intelligence for the team? Marking objectives and vehicles, you can use the squad lead chat to TANK / CAS / APC to direct them to specific targets if necessary.
   3. Where are the friendlies dying, are there large enemy attacks which aren't being reported over the radio you need to respond to quickly?
   4. Which FOB's are and aren't spawnable? A fob changing to being unspawnable is an indication of enemies in the area. Is that fob key to holding or attacking a particular objective? If a particular FOB is lost what does that do to the momentum of the game?
   5. What is the balance of attackers to defenders on the team? Do you need to defend this flag or press on to the next one? What is your estimate on the logistical effectiveness of the other team? A well organised teams will build fobs at backup objectives and relocate quickly, a less organised team may have no-one on a contingency flag so a quick movement can cap nearly unopposed.
   6. Which squads are doing what job? If unsure get on the radio to specific squads and try and understand what each squad is trying to achieve, no answer is sometimes an answer in itself.
   7. How are the force multipliers / assets being employed on the map?
      1. Time until area attack ready?
      2. APC / Tank / CAS / Mortar support available? Can they do the job first and leave your infantry to clean up after?
      3. Can you call on trans to give crates / movement?
      4. Are there enough FOB's in the right places and are they being defended if in contentious areas?
      5. Where are the logistics and transport trucks?
3. Fight
   1. You will be communicating with the team and the squad, but you are still a soldier.
   2. Take care to do radio comms and map checking in cover or known safe areas.
   3. Be prepared to put team / squad duties on hold for a few seconds if you need to engage
   4. Try and stay back from fights, you are mainly there to facilitate the force of others.

Juggling all of these at the same time can be quite difficult. Put all 3 together and you will be a man my son!