The Sapper is a class available to the Militia and Rebel forces in Squad, it is a class that Specializes in destabilization of the enemy team, and is best used as a thorn in the backs of the enemies. Acting as a pseudo-recon unit that does not do proper recon, the Sapper is usually always acting in a more lone-wolf / behind enemy lines unit. There are multiple drawbacks and bonuses to playing like this, of which will be covered. The Sapper is NOT an ambush unit, do not play the Sapper like an ambush unit, unless you are not doing Sapper things and are with an ambush team. Do not open fire on enemies you see unless they see you and pose immediate threat. Again, the goal and aim of the Sapper is to destabilize enemy operation within a specific area or map wide, depending on the mode or extent of the action, now onto actual ♥♥♥♥.

The Sapper has an all-around amazing loadout that can pitch into most situations, so lets delve into the bread and butter of the Sappers kit.
SKS: The SKS is in my opinion, one of the best and most well-rounded of the weapons in the game. It sports a 10 round clip of 7.62x38mm, and it carries alot of clips. Its semi-automatic nature makes it, dare I say, the most ammo-efficient of all guns in Squad. With an effective range of up to 300-400 meters, and able to be fired fast enough for CQC situations all being topped off with a high damage per shot as opposed to most weapons in Squad. Its main, and in my opinion, only real drawback, is the fact it is an iron sight weapon, making ranged combat a bit more difficult, but in most situations you should'nt be fighting extreme ranges. Now if you get the Mosin however, I recommend you pray to whatever you believe in that you never get spotted, with low damage, and one of the longest times in-between shots, this weapon is atrocious, and your knife has greater lethal potential its sad.


Demolition Charges: The Sapper will come outfitted with Demo charges, these are light-damaging and on a timer, however you do have multiple of them. Due to their timed nature they are none-effective against infantry in combat situations, but can be set down outside HAB's with a gleam of hope that you'll catch some poor bastard as you blow their radio to the next dimension, but it isnt worth the effort if you are this close to a HAB, and its better to just go for their radio with your IED. In total, these are best used for light-sabotage, things such as emplacements, ammo crates, mortars, and light-armored vehicles (specifically wheels or treads of lighter vic's as these will not do enough to heavy vic's to make them combat-ineffective.


Anti-tank Mines: Straight forward really, a mine that deals heavy damage to most vic's and will not trigger on infantry, however, it is a double edged sword as they trigger on friendly vic's as well. Most of the time, an enemy vehicle wont drive over where it is, but on the chance it does the crew is gone and the vehicle rendered combat ineffective, unless its a tank, or heavy mechanized infantry. Always tell your SL when you place one down so he can alert the other SL's and you wont have a TK accident, which is unfortunately, a high chance. NEVER prioritize placing a mine over keeping stealth when hunting enemy assets. A good area to place a mine is always right after a peak in a hill, coming from their main. It minimizes the chance anyone will notice it.



IED: The highlight to the Sapper, and the tool with the single most enjoyment out of every use in all of Squad, the bread and butter of the Sapper and what makes them an effective enemy asset hunter. This is a heavy explosive that will take care of almost all enemy structures and vehicles in one detonation, it is a remote-detonation, making it particularly lethal as you can set it off from anywhere, at anytime, and as a bonus, it is guaranteed to destroy enemy radios if they are caught in the blast AND it can go through walls, so use that to an advantage until its either fixed or changed. Can be used against anything, do not use it against infantry or enemy rally's its too valuable to waste on smaller targets like these.

As stated before, there are good things, and bad things to playing as a Sapper, and lets start with the good, shall we?
Advantages: if you have a decent Squad leader, most orders are going to void you, such as orders to regroup, or push, or concentrate fire. most squad leads I play with will generally even add in "except the Sapper" This does not mean you should'nt listen to them all the time, but usually your own objectives hold a higher value to you than the orders of your SL, which is all the more reason to get good with the Sapper as the squad is not only down a man, if you are a bad Sapper you are throwing tickets away and not getting ♥♥♥♥ down, not to mention each time you fail, a re-attempt of the same objective is made harder to complete.
Your weapons makes you a successful skirmisher but you do not want to use this as your first line of defense, that would be your element of surprise, but it never hurts to have a trusty gun by your side, not to mention you carry enough explosives with you to level most HAB's.
Disadvantages: You are not a one man army, you are a thorn to the enemy, creating enough issue that your team gets the advantage. You are alone in most situations, those you face are not, if you are compromised, holding your ground is not a good option, do not blow your cover for a kill, you dont come out ontop in that situation.

As far as I am concerned, this is the most important piece of this guide, the how to make your movements and judge the paths you'll take to your target locations. The best way to gauge a good path is the distance you are from your set destination. The path you take to a target location should be at LEAST double the distance of the point from which you started! If you spawn in at a HAB, and you have a rough idea of an enemy HAB and your SL wants it gone, your path should at least double, if not triple the distance you are from the enemy point. DO NOT GET LAZY AND TRY TO SHORTCUT. If you do this, your chances of being spotted sky rocket, this poses a risk to your entire operation of doing Sapper ♥♥♥♥. If you spawned at the frontline HAB, and a supposed enemy HAB is 500 meters out, you should travel at least 1000 to reach it, and you have to do it slowly. Running isnt the best of travel methods, if you are close or deeper in friendly territory running, isnt the end of the world, but once you are 200-400 meters out, you should'nt go past walking pace, and once you are within 300-100 of the enemy HAB expected location, you should be on your stomach for that final stretch until about 20 meters from the HAB. This decreases your chances of being spotted, and if the enemy HAB is not under attack, most wont notice if you arent of the same team on first glance, use that and keep in mind your main goal is still that radio if you get that chance. This sort of movment style decreases your chances of being spotted and increases your chances of spotting enemy activity, if push comes to shove you can still act as a scout and recon is better than nothing. If you find enemy positions, have your SL mark them on the map for the other Squads incase your operation goes south.

You are on your stomach, crawling from bush to bush in hostile territory, when out of the corner of your eye, you see 4 enemy soldiers, making their way to the front or for a flank, what do you do? First off dont shoot, if they have not spotted you, do not move, do not shoot, dont do ♥♥♥♥ to get you spotted, hold still, and wait for them to pass, open your map, and report it to your SL, along wit ha grid coordinate. Use the direction they had come from to better hone your path. Enemy soldiers you run into likely move from areas of operation, try to use them as markers to hone into those assets, its what you are after anyway.
Hold on whats that? An engine? Well you've got an enemy vehicle, and what do you do from here? Same thing. Dont move, and report it to your SL. If you hear it stop close by, try to fall back to a farther distance and wait for the infantry to disembark and move out, then go in and do what you do best at that point
Something to keep in mind, is how you and others travel when moving from a HAB to the front, or from vehicles to a location for a new HAB. When on foot, the soldiers will be scanning for targets, but some will have their maps up and not be focused on the details of their surroundings, like that Sapper in the bush 10 meters from him and he walks right past, the others never saw you as you didnt move either, and next thing they know, their fresh HAB is already gone and the tires to their logi are but figments of their imagination. When in a vehicle, most people will all have their maps up, planning or looking for new areas, few will actually be looking around, unless they are a gunner, or a driver at times, at which point you are mostly safe from enemy vehicles as their chances of spotting you in a zone not encountering hostiles is next to none, so you can still crawl if enemy vehicles are passing, but it isnt recommended.

First off, it depends on what kind of asset you found, as their are different recommended actions depending on the asset you are dealing with, so lets go down a list eh?
HAB's: Report it to your SL, then evaluate. If a HAB is up, so is a radio close by, try to sneak your ass around and listen for the white noise of it, if you hear that, try to hone in and find that radio, it could cripple hostile efforts in the area around, also around a HAB you will have set defenses and 9 times out of 10, hostiles, things get dicey here, if you are in a position where the front is far away from the HAB, you are much safer but still take it slow, if it is a frontline HAB you'll want to rely on stealth and blind spots until you find that perfect IED placement location. (4/7/2021) Some changes were made some time back and HAB's can be placed much further from a radio, so radio hunting is far more difficult.
Vehicles: Identify it, report it to your SL, then evaluate. Logi's are essential for all efforts in squad, and are better sabotaged then destroyed, demolition charges work best here to take out tires or damage internal components and such, but enemies usually wont stray far from their precious logi's so always be vigilant. Transport vehicles will be abandoned to push on objectives, so these are safer bets, but also hard to tell from a standard logi, usually not worth the likes of any of your equipment, a knife can do just here, but demo charges if on a time crunch. Mechanized infantry will pretty much never be abandoned, recommended to avoid them, or if you are feeling cheeky, crawl up, put an anti-tank mine infront of them or an IED and then crawl away, and that will get the job done. If it is a tank, it is not abandoned, do not move to it, and do not try to destroy or sabotage it, they can withstand a anti-tank mine blast (ironically) and if lucky, wont even be de-tracked and will still be combat effective, just report them, and then move away and around.
Mortars: Of course, report it to your SL and evaluate. if it is a lone mortar or mortars with their operators but not near a hab, kill the operators, take a mortar, and use it against enemy assets or where reported hostile activity is for about 2-5 barrages (you gauge it), once you have used it from there, use a demo charge or dig em up. Only use them if feeling brave, sometimes its not worth the added risk.
Emplacements and Rally Points: These are much lower on priority, if you are behind an enemy emplacement, kill the operator and if possible use it against the enemy team, if not possible, place a det charge and leave. For Rally Points, sit back and wait till a wave spawn on it, you then have one minute to get on it and put down a det charge, usually it isnt worth the det charge and I would ignore it, instead go look and see if the squad used a vehicle to get there and hit that instead, as vehicles are higher value targets to you.

There are usually different goals and stakes for each for mode you are playing, so I will go over briefly for each of the modes, or at least the major ones.
AAS: This one is going to have multiple Sapper objectives, same with RAAS, however this one is easier to gauge as a frontline is better identified on this mode. What you want to do is wait for both armies to go ahead and gain all the territory they can until they clash and the frontline is formed, once the front is down, take a look at what objective your team needs, there is a HAB close to it, or on it. This is a very high risk objective for you and chances of success are low to say the least. What you instead want to do is look to the next one up the chain, chances are there is a HAB on each of the points with the least likly being the point right after the armies' main. So what you want to do is destroy their HAB's before they have to fall back to them, go up the chain to these hostile points and search for HAB's. If your team succeeds then they have nothing to fall back to and have to re-establish the defense, giving your team the edge here. If they sprout offensive HAB's not close to one of their points, it will likly be partially swarming with enemies, so do not engage these unless feelign lucky or up to it. as they are another high risk target.
RAAS: Same sort of deal as AAS is, main difference is that there will be more offensive HAB's in locations suited to attack points, try to find one with less enemies and take it out.
Invasion: Usually, the Militia or Rebel forces are always going to be a defender in Invasion games, and I cant recall one where they are the attackers but I will cover both just in case. Defending against the attackers is quite difficult as a Sapper, but down your anti tank mine and then start the hunt, however, targeting HAB's further down the chain is pointless, and targeting a HAB being used to attack a point at that moment is pretty much suicide, so you have 2 good options. Go for HAB's being set up to attack an unavailable point, such as one set up for a future attack they cant make yet, to delay their plans, OR go for none HAB assets. Mortars would be top priority here, but if you find a radio that will always take immediate priority. Attacking would be the exact same as AAS, they just wont be able to push you back which makes you even better in this situation on a successful asset hunt.
Territory Control: This one is a bit more, situational at best as it is all random attack HAB's. Going for mortars and vehicle assets would be far more valuable to your team in this game mode, as its more reliable, but some HAB's are left unguarded, in a case you find one of these, find its radio, blow it up, and then move on. Also see abotu putting down an Anti-Tank mine in their territory, as a nice surprise.

Any last points I want to emphasize? Yeah actually, you'll have to be able to adapt to the situations you find yourself in to ever be good as a Sapper, Squad is an ever-changing battle field and you have to be able to change with it, anything else I already have in the guide.
Now this is my first guide, as I am not one to make guides usually, but I really felt like doing this in my half sleep deprived state, so go ahead and give any feedback if you wish, if I missed something or got something wrong, feel free to correct me in the comments, and if you thought this was ♥♥♥♥, to each their own thats your opinion, if you comment "this was ♥♥♥♥" without any explanation, then you can eat my pale white ass. Ive been Biological, have a good one, and good luck to any of your future asset hunts, I hope this was helpful.

EDIT: I will update this if anything extreme is dropped, as this isnt a guide on say a vehicle, but a play style, it will stay relevant through most patches and unless the loadout is directly edited by the dev's, the most the guide might change would be objectives and gamemodes as more is added to the game.