Well the things is with the trailer, you have this brutally tough training regime, and once they're under fire there's NO TACTICS WHATSOEVER! It's like breeding them to be cannon fodder, I mean FFS, once they exit the pods they RUN at the enemy with no regard to their own lives!
I mean... It's only customary to give your Special Forces the best training available... It broke the immersion a lot for me.
Taking cover is the first step to getting pinned down. When you're facing an enemy with massive indirect fire capability and a ton of air support (and none of your own) you better get to the goddamn objective.
Besides, if the Covenant have ships (that aren't busy excavating some damn dig site) then they'll probably start bombarding the landing zone, so you better get out of there fast.
Reminded me a bit of the SPARTAN-III assaults on Covenant shipyards and facilities.
Well if the objective is more than 2 kilometres away (as it looked in the trailer, then again, it wasn't exactly exhaustive) you may as well off your troops before they get in the pods. Fair enough, the pods give them the element of surprise for about... 30 seconds, long enough to insert and make a move, but after that every damn gun is going to be pointed at you. With the force size they had in addition to the cover, I see no reason why a
fluid bounding overwatch couldn't have been employed. Done fluidly, it would've looked like they were running at the enemy like a row of idiots, without actually being a row of idiots. Fair enough, clear the DZ, but for their sake, I think establishing a rough perimeter 200 metres in front would've been beneficial, and most modern tactics above company level rely on that kind of stuff from what I could gather.
I'm not saying hunker-down and advance slowly up the battlefield, but rather, there's no harm in modifying current tactics for these kind of operations.
They're acting like paras or glider-borne infantry. Everyone can see where you land, so it's very important to clear datum, or you get pinned down there and destroyed since you don't have the kind of heavy equipment support your opponent will.
This is light infantry at its most pure. You have to get into the enemy's posistions where combat can turn on individual skill rather than terrain or firepower. Remember that the drop pods the ODST use are not entirely reliable. Complex insertion plans are probably not possible.
And, as I said, the only way to take a posistion is to go out and take it. In this case they have to exploit the shock effect of their arrival as much as possible, press forward as far as possible before an organized enemy reaction can take place. The ODST are an elite, but they are not Special Forces in the same sense that we think of.
Well a pre-emptive artillery strike on a position nearby to draw forces away from the ODST's objective is something that could probably be achieved in the Halo-verse, so there's step one to your complex insertion plan. Step two being to drop the platoons or if the size is such, companies in different positions from which they're able to support each other (First and Second Platoons from Bravo Company drop on the right flank, while the bulk lands centre-on. Bravo Company's flanking platoons are able to clear the way for the rest of the force. I'd assume that's about as complex as it'd get.)
And, as I said, the only way to take a posistion is to go out and take it. In this case they have to exploit the shock effect of their arrival as much as possible, press forward as far as possible before an organized enemy reaction can take place.
Yeah, fair enough.
