Alright, due to minor demand, I'm going to go ahead and elaborate on some things to give everyone a better understanding of... stuff. Let's start off with the fun stuff,
Basic Tactics:
Breach & Clear: If you've played SWAT 4, Rainbow Six Vegas, or just saw that COD: Black Ops commercial a few times then you've seen it in action. Typically three people are involved in this:
Guy 1 approaches the door, usually busting the locks/hinges in a forceful fashion with a breeching shotgun, small shaped charges, or just a sledgehammer to the door handle. After making sure the door can be opened he shifts his attention to keeping watch while Guy 2 then kicks open the door and moves over to one side in time for Guy 3 to throw a grenade through the open doorway. After the explosion goes off Guy 2 immediately enters with his weapon drawn and steps to the side while sweeping the room. Then goes in Guy 3 after he taps Guy 1 on the shoulder to let him know it's good to move in.
Bounding Overwatch: I prefer to call this one "Leap Frogging" myself. This is something that can be done when approaching or retreating from the enemy, and can be done with anywhere from 2 people to as many as you can manage without getting in eachothers ways. Basically:
Guy 1 is furthest from where he wants to go, so he covers Guy 2 while he makes his approach. When Guy 2 makes it to a nearby point, he stops and covers Guy 1. Lather, rinse, repeat. One thing to keep in mind is that when
starting this maneuver, it is almost always best that the FARTHEST person from the enemy sets up cover fire and lets his mates move, be it approaching in assault or retreating from the enemy.
Slicing The Pie: Despite the name, this has little to do with delicious pastery treats. This is a tactic for 'safely' moving out of cover in the middle of the fire fight. This is a rather simple two-man tactic:
Guy 1 stands at the edge of his cover, a blind corner within a building in this case, whilst behind cover he engages in blindfire and very brief pop-and-shoots in order to keep heads down. Meanwhile, Guy 2 saunters out from the same cover Guy 1 is hiding behind and has two simple options: First, he could use the previous coverfire to his advantage and wait for the bad guys to pop out, shoot them in the face, and then run back behind cover. Second option simply involves Guy 2 running to the next piece of cover, forcing the enemy to deal with two different points of oncoming fire.
"Light Rationing": Parenthesis because I'm sure that's not the proper term. This isn't a combat tactic so much as a standard operating procedure that saves lives when doing night-ops. In a nutshell, when calling "light rationing", you avoid shedding any light whatsoever. No flashlights, no fires, no glowsticks, gotta grease any shiny bits on you to keep moonlight from reflecting, you can't even have a lit cigarette otherwise people will spot the burning cherry!
You might think a mere lit cigarette would be harmless, but there have been times where bored snipers have been able to figure out the location of a hapless soldiers head when they were just having a casual smoke in pitch black darkness.
No Wall Hugging!: Okay, quick clarification: This isn't saying to not hug corners when taking cover, you can hug those like a long lost love. Ya see, when a bullet strikes a solid flat surface like a stone or steel wall, it can sometimes richocet in such a way that it flies parallel to(in otherwords, alongside) that wall. Meaning if you are leaning against the wall as you advance or retreat, and a bullet hits the wall and goes parallel, you are going to get hit by that bullet. To avoid this, always keep at least elbow to arms-length away from walls when you can.
Admittedly this isn't at all reflected by the rules, but I figured it'd make for better roleplay as some of you are supposedly former special forces.
Mozambique Drill: aka Failure Drill in some circles. This is the technique of firing two shots to the chest(some choose to shoot once in each side of the chest, just in case the heart is on the wrong side) with a third shot to the head if the first two don't drop the target. This is sometimes used by snipers when they anticipate a difficult kill, but don't want to waste their first shot aiming for the head and likely missing. It can also easily be used by semi-auto and burst-fire weapons, provided you got plenty of practice.
And now some quick and easy
Military Jargon:
Press Check: This is the act of lightly pulling back on the slide/bolt/charging handle of a gun in order to see if there is a bullet in the chamber. This is typically done just before knowingly entering a firefight, but it's also what most soldiers and strictly taught gun owners do every time they pick up a weapon they did not load or unload themselves, after engaging the safety first of course.
Spoon: No, not the eating utensil. In military jargon, the 'spoon' is the safety lever on a hand grenade that keeps the fuse from burning after the pin is pulled until said lever is released. You let go of the "spoon" in order to "cook" the grenade, ya see?
Cooking(Grenades): I'm pretty damn sure almost everyone knows what this is by now. This is simply letting the fuse of a hand grenade burn for a bit before tossing it, giving the intended target less time to react before detonation.
SOP: This is an acronym for Standard Operating Procedure. Basically, SOP is what you always do unless circumstances dictate you shouldn't.
Next is some clarification on three common battlefield
Weapons:
Pistols: In the cloak & dagger world of vanilla Shadowrun, these are practically the primary weapon of every PC. In the battlefield with real soldiers? Not at all. In war, Pistols have short range and low stopping power compared to any other weapon availible. There have been a few real former soldiers here on DSF who practically scoff at troops carrying pistols, saying the weight would be better used for extra ammo. This is not exactly true.
See, where a pistol triumphs over all else is that it is small and easy to manuever; it's the perfect backup weapon. 98.5% of the time in the battlefield, your pistol will remain in it's holster until you've either run out of ammo for your primary weapon(this is a BAD thing that means you should retreat), or your primary weapon has jammed but you need to keep shooting at the enemy; there's actually an SOP for the latter.
In case of weapon jam:
1. Let jammed weapon hang from it's sling.
2. Drop to a knee(after getting behind cover if possible)
3. Draw pistol and return fire until a buddy comes up and states he has you covered.
4. Procede to clear jam, holster pistol, and continue as normal.
The other common use for pistols is for when someone enters CQB ranges(approx. 7 to 25 meters, about the size of big rooms) or shorter, but their primary weapon is bad for those ranges, such as a sniper rifle or grenade launcher. In any of those situations, a puny little pistol can be a lifesaver worth the extra two kilos of weight.
Machine guns: Unlike other two-handed weapons, this isn't ment for quick kills. This thing is ment for suppressive fire; the thing in the core book that allows you to use up 20 bullets an IP in order to force groups of people into cover or risk taking hits. That's not to say they can't be used for quick kills(that's what recoil compensation is for!), but there's a reason why those who pack LMG's into battle are sometimes refered to as 'Squad Support', it's because they're ment to help their buddies get more time to line up accurate shots while Squad Support blazes away.
Sniper Rifles: Everybodies favorate weapon! These are purpose-built long range killing machines just like their users, right? Yes, but not quite always. While Snipers are trained to kill quickly and effeciently, they tend to only do that whenever they encounter a priority target or someone is directly threatening them or their fellow soldiers. When they encounter someone outside those circumstances, Snipers tend to instead just badly wound their targets in order to draw out more potential targets when they come out to rescue the victim. To put this in perspective, let's go with these scenario's:
Scenario 1: Your mage just got shot in the gut. He's not dead, but the wound is bleeding bad and he won't last long, you must get him some medical treatment as soon as possible or you'll lose a valuable teammate!
Scenario 2: Your team mage just got shot, now he's dead. Bugger.
Which scenario is more a hinderance to you and everyone else? Yeah. Wounded soldiers are more a burden to their teammates than dead ones. Oh, another fun fact you might not know about sniper rifles in general: They are almost all ridiculously heavy for their size. Take a look at the PSG-1, that thing weighs 8.10kg's with just a scope and no ammo. The G3 battle rifle it's based on weighs only about 5.2kg with a 20-round magazine of 7.62x51mm bullets. Admittedly the PSG-1 is a slightly extreme case, but it proves the point well.
This is by no means an exhaustive list of "Everything you need to know", but I think it's best I stop right now and do some more later.