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Welcome. If you're reading this, you're ready to learn the ways of the Rats. We are a brotherhood of players who master the art of lone wolf, commando-style, partisan-like sabotage operations in large-scale tactical shooters. If you enjoy playing squad-based games largely on your own for whatever reason, and enjoy sneaking around causing trouble, then this guide is for you. I will show you how to operate solo in large-scale shooters while still positively contributing to your team and the game state. In fact, applying these tactics well will make your solitary vermin-adventures worth more than a handful of hapless squaddies.

That said, this guide is useful for any player even if you always play with friends. This guide will walk you through infantry doctrine and game tips that will make you an effective solo operator as part of a team or on operations of your own.

Solo players are underserved when it comes to guides in tactical shooters. While squad tactics dominate most guides, this handbook fills that crucial gap for those of us who prefer to chill on our own in games. Whether you're a dedicated Rat, a separated squad member, or simply looking to sharpen your solo skills, you'll find everything you need to make a decisive impact while operating alone in ARMA Reforger and similar large-scale FPS games.

The tactics within this guide draw from declassified infantry manuals, which I have adapted specifically for the reality of gaming. For example: real-world doctrine tells soldiers to use SLLS: Stop, Look, Listen, Smell when patrolling. Since ARMA Reforger lacks smellovision, I've streamlined this to SLL: Stop, Look, Listen. Throughout this guide, you'll find similar practical adjustments that bridge the gap between real-world doctrine and our virtual escapades.

You'll note that the infantry manuals you can find online are almost exclusively dedicated to squad operations. Even snipers work in teams. The fact is the military do not support the idea of lone-wolf John Wick style ops like we commit ourselves to because we have the benefit of re-spawning if we die and they do not. So I've stripped down squad tactics to their solo essentials, borrowed concepts from other military disciplines, and pressure-tested everything in actual gameplay over two decades of being a sweaty Rat.

September 2025: I'm really happy with how many people have enjoyed this guide, even if the first version was not as up to my standards as I would like. I am now working on re-drafting most of the guide and providing images for it, to really flesh it out into something I am proud of. Thank you for your support!

— toast

If you have any suggestions on topics or tips to add from your Rat operations, please comment them below or into the discussions. If your ideas are implemented into the guide, I will credit you in the new version of the guide.

"Rat": the name captures the spirit of how we operate and how we are perceived. We call ourselves Rats because we thrive in the enemy's rear areas, disrupting their operations, ambushing their forces and vanishing before they can retaliate. When they do eliminate us, we reappear just as quickly, ready to strike again.

The term comes from Escape from Tarkov, where it describes players who spawn into a map with minimal gear and scavenge everything they can find. It applies perfectly to our ARMA operations: we acquire equipment from fallen enemies, move stealthily through hostile territory, and spread chaos behind enemy lines through targeted strikes and sabotage.

In ARMA Reforger, "Ratting" is the art of operating deep behind enemy lines, fulfilling the role of a commando or saboteur. The Rat acts largely alone or in small cells, leveraging sabotage, ambushes, theft, and harassment to destabilise enemy forces. Their goal is not to seize territory by force of arms, but to erode enemy logistics, morale and operational coherence through persistent, unpredictable attacks.

Simply put: be as disruptive and destructive as you can without being detected and without dying. If the enemy is devoting resources to hunting you down, then they are not fighting on the frontline. Mission accomplished.

We are the single operator who forces the enemy to divert significant resources into dealing with us rather than winning the game. Rats do not fight fair, ever. They lurk in the shadows, strike without warning and disappear before the enemy can comprehend what has happened.

Rats have received their namesake in part because their play-style demands scavenging. They live off the battlefield, arming themselves with whatever they can recover from the dead, whether by their hand or someone else's.

Your enemies will curse you. They will call you cowards. At that moment when you hear their frustration spill out over platoon chat on a radio you stole from one of their own, you will know you're doing your job right.






Rats deploy themselves to the battlefield and engage in clandestine operations to disrupt the enemy, this includes:

• Controlling key supply points across the map to restrict enemy resupply capabilities and limit their strategic options.
  
• Locating and eliminating enemy radio backpacks to deny mobile spawn capabilities.
  
• Capturing objectives solo while deconstructing base assets to drain enemy supplies and force redeployment from frontline operations.
  
• Sabotaging high-value assets like helicopters and tanks at enemy bases through infiltration strikes.
  
• Disrupting enemy supplies by stealing, destroying or sabotaging vehicles, ambushing supply convoys, mining roads and depleting resources at enemy arsenals.
  
• Delaying or destroying enemy reinforcements through ambushes and route denial operations.
  
• Forcing enemy overcommitment of resources like manpower, vehicles, and time to counter a low-cost, high-mobility threat.
  
• Infiltrating enemy bases to deplete their arsenal supplies by purchasing equipment and relocating it away from their operational area.
  
• Electronic warfare operations including radio theft to monitor enemy communications and, where server rules permit, broadcasting on enemy frequencies to create confusion (always maintain respectful conduct).
  
• Conducting infiltration operations using captured enemy uniforms for deep reconnaissance and ambush (note: beware of XP penalties in Patch 1.3).
  
• Maintaining continuous operational pressure through persistent harassment and disruption tactics.

OBSERVE > ORIENT > DECIDE > ACT

Ratting requires a fundamental shift from your standard FPS mindset. You must abandon the "more kills equals good" mentality and embrace strategic thinking. Strategic shooters require you to be more mindful about what you are doing, where, and why. You cannot mindlessly float around the map and engage everything you see like in other shooters. While eliminating enemies remains valuable, effective Rats understand that every engagement carries opportunity costs and strategic implications.

To make consistently good tactical decisions under pressure, successful Rats employ the OODA Loop, a military decision-making framework developed by fighter pilot John Boyd. OODA stands for Observe, Orient, Decide, Act, and it cycles continuously to keep you ahead of enemy responses.


Consider this scenario: You've established an ambush position on a road leading to a key objective which your team are fighting to capture. The base is actively being captured so in order to stop it the enemy must reinforce it by getting bodies on the point. You are armed with two scavenged RPG rounds you took off a fallen foe. You are sat on the main road into the point in a perfect position to ambush, with long line of sight to see what is coming well before it is within your effective range. A lone soldier approaches in a jeep. Here's how the OODA Loop guides your decision:

OBSERVE: What's the tactical situation?

• I see a single soldier in a jeep
  
• I know this road leads to a contested objective
  
• I have limited ammunition (2 RPG rounds, assault rifle available)
  
• I have good cover and concealment and know my escape route
  
• I have the ability to radio my team
  
• I know this objective is a key node to get radio signal to a contested purple objective

ORIENT: I analyse the strategic context and my options

• I recognise this could be reconnaissance before a larger enemy push
  
• I understand that revealing my position now limits future opportunities
  
• I consider my engagement options: RPG (guaranteed kill but easily missed and wastes precious ammo), assault rifle (might miss and reveal my position), or intelligence relay (keeps me hidden)
  
• I assess that providing intelligence may be more valuable than a single kill
  
• I realise waiting could yield higher-value targets using this same route

DECIDE: I choose my course of action

• I decide to let the jeep pass and maintain my concealment
  
• I choose to radio my teammates with intelligence about the incoming threat
  
• I commit to holding this position and wait for a full jeep, truck or IFV
  
• I commit to relocate to X position if nothing comes through in the next X minutes

ACT: I execute my decision and restart the loop

• I key my radio: "Russian jeep with one soldier approaching Charlie from the South road, ETA 20 seconds"
  
• I maintain my concealment and continue surveillance
  
• I immediately begin observing again for changes in enemy patterns
  
• I monitor team radio for confirmation
  
• I run the loop again

Without the OODA Loop (Reactive Rat): See jeep, fire RPG, get one kill. Result: By the time a jeep with a fully geared squad rolls up, you have no RPG rounds left. Your one jeep kill radios his friends to tell them where you are, they simply avoid you going forward. You make no impact and the enemy routes around you to attack the objective.

With the OODA Loop (Strategic Rat): Observe lone jeep approaching objective. Orient that this could be better dealt with by telling my squad on point that he's coming, rather than engaging. Decide to radio teammates: "Russian jeep with one soldier approaching Charlie from the South road, ETA 20 seconds" Act by maintaining concealment and continuing surveillance. Your teammates prepare for the arrival while you remain undetected, and five minutes later you spot the real prize: a troop transport full of troops rolling toward you.

The OODA Loop reads like work but when you think about it, OODA is simply a way to make more mindful decisions. When you shift your thinking to think like this, it becomes second nature very quickly.

Patch 1.3 fundamentally altered disguise operations. Previously, Rats could wear enemy uniforms and engage targets without penalty and still grind XP.

The new system tracks what you are wearing and which team you're dressed as. Kill while wearing enemy colours and you receive an increased friendly fire penalty. You will be demoted through the ranks, ultimately reaching Renegade status. Renegades lose all arsenal access to any arsenal, friend, or foe. This is important because a Rat may rely on the enemy arsenal in bases they sneak into to resupply from, reducing them to pure scavengers. Some servers will also kick Renegade ranked players automatically.

Nametags have also been buffed in that they now appear when players are using binoculars, meaning it is much easier to spot someone in disguise than it used to be — this means the meta of hiding in plain sight is now basically dead.

Disguises remain viable — but require new discipline:

• Use for passive infiltration only.
  
• Avoid combat while disguised.
  
• If you are going to carry out ops in disguise, accept the XP loss.

See my 'Loadouts' section later in this guide to see just how close to Russian you can get before being de-buffed.

Military doctrine emphasises that no single operator, no matter how experienced, possesses all knowledge. The best tacticians study multiple sources, adapt techniques from peers, and continuously evolve their understanding.

After three attempts to write a comprehensive basics guide, I realised I was trying to reinvent the wheel when superior resources already exist. Rather than produce an inferior duplicate, the tactically sound approach is to direct you to the best available training material.

For foundational knowledge, head to this comprehensive guide by a fellow tactical enthusiast who has mastered the art of teaching Reforger basics:

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3402008832

Learn the fundamentals there, then return here when you're ready to embrace the advanced, morally questionable, and thoroughly annoying tactics that define the Rat lifestyle.

Supplies dictate everything in Reforger. Understanding the supply system is fundamental to both supporting your team and sabotaging the enemy. Again, I take my hat off to my peers who have already written a definitive guide to supplies and logistics in this game:

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3245230536&insideModal=0

That comprehensive resource covers all the technical details perfectly. What I'll focus on here is the Rat's perspective on supply warfare later in the guide (in Tactics).

As of 1.3, when you begin to capture a base, the enemy cannot spawn there and must spawn at the nearest other objective and travel to defend the base. As a solo operator, the fact you can capture the base usually means there is no one around, within the cap zone anyway of about 50m.

If you are capping the base, you can use your spade to dismantle things the enemy have built within 50m of their HQ tent. The HQ tent is the tent with the nation's flag on it. This means you can destroy radio relays, preventing the enemy from spawning even if you die and cutting off the network at that node. You can also destroy their defences, buildings and other things they have spent time and resources building.

Be careful, as players are now wise to this. The meta is now to put the relay outside the 50m of the headquarters tent, so you can't destroy it on your own and will need someone else to cap the point while you destroy the relay.

A further word of caution... If you destroy everything in an enemy base, then flip it to your team, remember that your team then has to rebuild everything you destroyed back themselves. Think about this before you start capping an objective, or your efforts to sabotage the enemy will sabotage your own as well.

“If the enemy can see you, and you are within range of his weapon system, he can engage and possibly kill you. So, you must be concealed from enemy observation and have cover from enemy fire. When the terrain does not provide natural cover and concealment, you must prepare your cover and use natural and man-made materials to camouflage yourself, your equipment, and your position.”
— The Warrior Ethos & Combat Skills

The use of concealment and cover is an essential infantryman technique that has kept soldiers alive for hundreds of years. Rats, as solo operators out in the field, literally live and die by their aptitude to identify and stick to proper cover and concealment.

Silhouetting occurs when a Rat's outline is visible against a contrasting background, making detection likely even at distance. Skylining is the most dangerous form of this, happening when you position yourself against the sky.


Look at the images above (open them in your browser for clarity). Even without using a scope or binoculars like the image on the right, you can clearly see the silhouetted figure against the sky background. This problem is so severe that the silhouette is obvious even in the tiny thumbnail versions. Add character movement to this visibility, and you stand out like a fly on a whiteboard.

Do not be fooled into thinking darkness provides cover from silhouetting. You stand out just as much against the night sky:


The obvious solution is to move down the hill, but this creates a different problem. Rather than silhouetting against the sky, you now silhouette against the terrain behind you:


As these images demonstrate, every Rat must be aware of silhouetting against whatever background they occupy. Skylining against the sky is the worst form of silhouetting, but contrasting against terrain is still problematic and should be avoided when possible.

A silhouetted Rat is a dead Rat.

NOTE: You may be wondering where are the shadows? Where is the grass? Why is toast running this on a potato? I am running the game on FULL settings here, this is just how ARMA renders things at distance. Remember this game is being played on XBOX and PS5 as well, and for them this looks EVEN WORSE!

The game will only render shadows a certain distance, so you can only rely on them within that range. To account for console players and people who change their settings, it is often best not to count on shadows at all. What looks concealed on your screen might be completely exposed to an enemy with different settings or viewing distance.

So how do we counter these silhouetting and sky lining issues?

CONCEALMENT.

Concealment will protect you from silhouetting in that it will disrupt the shape of the human body with hedges, trees. Let's have a look:


From afar, you are invisible and cannot be seen. Your enemy is going to have to use a scope and binoculars to find you, and even then you would be easy to miss unless your opponent is rigorously checking every piece of foliage. This gives you, the rat, ample reaction time to take some shots or skidaddle away after getting your kill.

In a bush, this concealment is better, the base of the tree reveals the peachy arms of the rat (which we could mitigate with long sleeve camo) but the tree still does a good enough job of breaking up the silhouette to make us harder to spot.

Concealment in Arma Reforger consists mainly of bushes, grass, and shadows but you should bear in mind shadows only render at a certain distance for most players unless up close.

Just remember though, if this little rat hiding at the base of the tree starts being shot at, then their concealment is useless. Concealment conceals... but it doesn't make you bullet proof...

Cover is walls, rocks, sandbags, anything that can stop a bullet and you can hide behind. It is cover in that it covers you from incoming bullets and concealment in that it also conceals you whether partially or fully if you hunker down behind whatever it is.

Going back to our example...


The rat is now hidden behind hard cover, a nice big rock. He is slightly showing the curve of his helmet onto the skyline but the outline blends perfectly with the rock. From afar, per our image on the right, he is completely invisible.

The benefit now is that if our rat starts taking fire, he simply has to roll behind the rock and he is safe from all incoming fire from down in the base.

This works because of how our brains process visual information. Military doctrine recognises that the human eye is specifically tuned to recognise the human form. We're pattern recognition machines that have evolved to spot upright bipedal shapes, shoulder widths, head proportions, and the distinctive outline of a person. Your brain can identify a human silhouette in milliseconds, even at distances where you can't make out individual features.

This cover works so well because it disrupts the pattern of the human body that our monkey brains are hardwired to instantly recognise. Instead of seeing a clear human outline, the enemy's visual processing gets confused by the irregular rock shape. The position reveals only a tiny sliver of the rat himself peeking from behind the rock, but also gives the rat full visibility of their target area.

Military camouflage doctrine calls this "breaking up the human signature." The key is not just hiding, but specifically disrupting those telltale shapes that scream "PERSON!" to anyone scanning the area. Your shoulders, head, and upright posture are dead giveaways. Good cover makes you look like part of the landscape rather than a target. This is from the zoomed in shot, the rat's arm shines like a beacon atop a mountain, our brains recognise the fleshy coloured limb from miles out, so if we wanted to perfect this example we could wear long sleeved tops and gloves.

Silhouetting = bad

Even at night = still bad

Silhouetting against terrain = not as bad but still quite bad

Using concealment to hide yourself = good

Using cover and concealment to hide yourself and protect yourself from shooties = the best

The images above tell the complete story of Rat survival. You start completely exposed and silhouetted, looking like a billboard advertisement for "SHOOT ME HERE." Move down from the skyline and you're still visible but less obvious. Add some concealment and you're getting harder to spot. Combine cover with concealment and you've achieved the Rat ideal: almost invisible to the enemy but protected from their fire.

The key lesson is layering your protection. Concealment hides you from observation. Cover protects you from fire. Proper positioning gives you both while maintaining your ability to observe and engage targets.

But there's always a trade-off. Sometimes a concealed but uncovered position offers too good a vantage point to pass up. Sometimes concealment is your only option and you have to accept the vulnerability. You're constantly balancing along a spectrum from EXPOSED to CONCEALED to COVERED, because if you get too concealed and covered, you can't see or shoot the enemy any more.

The art of being a successful Rat is knowing when to prioritise what. The best Rats find positions that maximise their tactical advantage while accepting only calculated risks.

Arma Reforger's multiplayer servers can be set up to either only allow first-person gameplay or to support both first- and third-person perspectives. Always check the view setting that is being used when you join a server. You can do this by pressing the mapped change perspective key or button. If the view switches from first to third person, you are on a third-person server; if you are unable to switch back to the third-person view, you are on a first person server. What you can do in concealment and cover will be affected largely by the view modes available to you.

Some players prefer to use first-person view exclusively. Others will take full advantage of third-person mode and play in a hybrid of 1pp and 3pp (1st / 3rd Person Perspective). The most significant advantage of third-person view is third-person peeking, that is the ability to see over or around cover without exposing your body. This provides a clear field of vision while denying the enemy the opportunity to engage. In terms of tactical leverage, this is considerable.

Rats do not fight fair. If the server allows third-person view, you are expected to use the third-person peek. Every player on the server has access to the same tools and, especially on consoles, the vast majority of players will be doing the same thing. Choosing not to use third-person peeking when it is available is a self-imposed handicap.

Posture Controls are a critical component of concealment and visual discipline. In Arma Reforger, you can adjust your character’s stance incrementally using the Control key and scroll wheel. Each base stance, standing, crouching and prone can be fine-tuned through several sublevels, like this:


The Golden Rule: Go as low as possible while keeping the camera advantage.

Simply — you should configure your character to be as low as possible while still maintaining the camera height benefits of the stance 'mode' you are currently in. The standing stance provides the highest third-person camera elevation, offering the broadest field of view. However, this also exposes the largest silhouette and target for the enemy. By adjusting your posture to the lowest possible setting within the standing stance, you retain the high camera perspective while significantly reducing your visible profile. This allows you to observe your surroundings from cover with reduced risk of exposure.

The crouched, and prone postures offer reduced height and improved concealment, but with corresponding decreases in mobility and camera elevation. In third-person view, the camera lowers as your posture changes from standing to crouched to prone, reducing your observational advantage.

When moving, remember that your character keeps its height setting when you stop — unless you switch between standing/crouching/prone, which resets it to default. That means if you are in a low crouch when you sprint crouch from cover to cover, when you stop, your character model will resume at the 'level' you were at before you moved.

Bush concealment is fundamental in ARMA and a trick as old as time. As a Rat you will depend on hiding within bushes on a very regular basis to go unseen. Often, hiding in a bush concealment in plain view of the enemy is safer than hiding behind cover in terms of not being detected. Both Russian and American uniforms blend well with Reforger's foliage, especially the US disruptive patterns.

Two factors determine success: positioning and camera control. This technique works on both server types but excels in third-person for the obvious reasons.

Basic Technique:

• Enter bush and crouch — provides the best balance of concealment and visibility.
  
• Lower your stance further with Ctrl + scroll wheel.
  
• Aim weapon downward to tuck your profile into foliage.
  
• Double-tap Left Ctrl for weapon low-ready (reduces barrel exposure).
  
• Hold Alt for free look (observe without moving).
  
• Double-tap Alt to lock free look for extended observation.

Third-Person Advantages: Crouching in 3PP keeps your camera elevated above foliage while your body stays hidden. In 1PP, you only see what your character sees, so you have to give up concealment for the sake of visibility.

First-Person Considerations:

• Position deep enough that foliage obscures your upper body and partially obscures your view, that way you know your chest / weapon are not sticking obviously out of the brush.
  
• Accept some visual obstruction — clear view means you're exposed, branches and leaves should be in your way.
  
• Be more mindful of your weapon barrel and where it is sticking out, adopting the low ready position can help.

Tactical Trade-offs: If lowering your weapon to improve concealment, just bear in mind it leads to a reactionary gap. In low-risk areas, prioritise concealment. In high-risk zones, keep weapon ready despite the larger profile.

Key Warnings:

• Prone positioning often exposes legs beyond the bush edge, particularly to flanking enemies, hence why crouching is almost universally better.
  
• Your weapon barrel can betray your position even when your body is well-concealed.
  
• Remember that bushes provide no protection from incoming fire — they hide you, they don't shield you.
  
• Your concealment needs will vary depending on your mission: total invisibility for reconnaissance may require accepting heavy visual obstruction, while ambush positions demand a balance between concealment and clear firing lines.

Hiding in bushes will allow you to hide in plain sight, typically, the enemy will not see you until they are literally standing on top of you. I have had players walk over me in foliage and still not know I am there (somehow).


Now onto a practical example which will show you exactly why the devs are looking to patch out bush wookie style behaviours in the near future, or at least frustrate their efforts.

The problem is that if you position yourself correct in a bush (as I detailed above) you are pretty much impossible to see EVEN WITH optics or binoculars. This is the case in vanilla, where the silencers are less endemic and sniper optics not as strong. As I show you this in vanilla now imagine the game is being played in a modded server and:

1. The enemy sniper has a perfect ghillie suit that displaces their silhouette seamlessly.

2. The sniper has a silenced rifle and is firing from 2x the distance of our sniper here.

You can then see why this strat is being nerfed, let's begin:


This is Niles.

Unfortunately for Niles and as you can see, a sniper has a pretty good shot on him in this window. Niles hasn't read this guide as he's left a lot of his silhouette exposed in the window, so even if the sniper misses his head he'll get him in the body. Poor Niles.

The issue for Niles is that the sniper is somewhere over here:


Did you spot the sniper?

What about now?


Now?


Okay, you may have seen it then. What about now?


I won't insult your intelligence but if you open up that image you can just about make out the colour of the skin of the sniper, and a part of the scope.

This bush wookie has FULL SIGHT of Nile's poor dome, and yet poor Niles would have to have 20X super vision to see him.

Now you see the problem, work it to your advantage while you can.

Beyond hiding in bushes and behind cover you can increase your concealment with actions, which usually means they are actions you SHOULDN'T do in order to assist in your concealment.

As we covered already, if the enemy you can conceal yourself behind a rock or bush to help you to not be detected and killed. Here are some other things you can do to avoid detection when the enemy may be looking your direction:

DO NOT MOVE! Everything aside from the swaying of the trees, bushes, waves in the ocean, occasionally birds which I will talk about in a second is STATIC. That means for the most part the entire map is perfectly still. You know what isn't still? Players and NPCs, you know what is a threat to your life? Players and NPCs. The human brain may gloss over a well concealed target but if it MOVES then you bet your enemies monkey brain is gonna be locked onto you.

If you need to look around you in a position of concealment use free-look (hold ALT on PC) which allows you to move your head while remaining completely stationary. You can zoom with your magical ARMA eyes using right click, and you can even free-look while looking down a scope. Free-look instead of any other form of movement because your player model will stay perfectly still while your head is the only thing moving about while you look around. Only move if you absolutely have to, and calculate the risk that your movement could give you away.

Rats can do a lot to help their stealth capability by being wary and mindful of their actions and how they might give them away. Every action you take has a signature that can betray your position to observant enemies. Understanding and controlling these signatures is the difference between successful infiltration and becoming target practice.

DO NOT USE FLASH-LIGHTS! OR VEHICLE LIGHTS! A flash-light at night is a good way to see, it is also a good way to be seen and since the models in ARMA Reforger puts the flash-light on the chest all you need do is shoot at the light and watch it fall down. Flash-lights can be seen hundreds of metres away even in conditions where your body's silhouette can't be, so you really need to ask yourself, if seeing right now worth dying?

MUZZLE FLASH AND TRACERS GIVE YOU AWAY!, especially at night or in low light conditions. When engaging targets from buildings, fire from deep within buildings rather than at window edges where your muzzle flash silhouettes against the frame. Your tracers are often the last 5 in the magazine, be mindful as you rat about stealing mags of this, reload before your last 5 to avoid revealing completely your position. Every now and then you will unknowingly pick up a mag JUST full of tracer rounds and will learn very quickly how much it sucks to give away your position with every shot.

If you are not playing this game (or any competitive FPS or game) without headphones then you are actively harming your ability to play well. The ability to hear your environment and the noises that other players make within it is crucial to your survival and success.

Each game has its own rules for how loud your movement will be. Quite often posture (crouching, crawling etc.) will affect how much sound you make, as will how fast you are moving. It stands to reason that someone sprinting while standing is going to make far more noise than someone doing their best slug impression crawling on the ground slowly.

The ARMA games allow you to adjust your posture and your movement speed. In the current state of the game your speed dictates how loud you are, the slower you are, the quieter you are. Your posture and stance does not affect how loud you are currently! Bear that in mind.

Vegetation and terrain features such as bushes, undergrowth, and branches aggravate movement noise, with snapping twigs or rustling foliage announcing your movement long before you are seen.
If you are operating near enemies, you need to mask your sounds, or you will be compromised and you will die. Time your movement with other in-game sounds to help mask the sound of you moving. Move when the enemy is moving, firing, talking on their radio, or the wind is blowing through the trees and foliage. Rain, distant explosions, and vehicle engines all provide natural cover for movement and actions. Learn to use these environmental sounds to your advantage.

Think logically about what your enemy is likely to be doing. Are you sneaking up on an abandoned base where the sound of another person approaching is going to cause concern? If you are approaching a busy area with a lot of footfall, it stands to reason the enemy you are sneaking up on is not going to be too startled by someone moving around, which gives you your window to strike. Likewise, if you're moving around while the enemy is also running about in groups of 2 or more then it stands to reason that your footsteps are not going to be noticed, or cause any concern.

Some sounds in the game stick out like a sore thumb! Opening gates for example is a unique sound that is high pitched and slices neatly through much of the other FX in the game. Likewise big metal doors make a high pitch screech which stands out like a sore thumb. If you are being very sneaky, you are probably better off going OVER these obstacles instead. The noise of you climbing is similar to footsteps, and easier to conceal.

Learn to recognize the distinct audio signatures of different actions. Experienced players can identify not just weapon types, but also reloading sounds, grenade pins being pulled, or equipment being swapped. Each has a distinct audio cue that betrays your position and intent. Russian grenades in particular have a familiar 'pop' sound when the pin is pulled that reveals any Russian player long before they are seen. Use this knowledge to your advantage by timing these actions when they'll be masked.

In buildings, footsteps on different surfaces create distinct sounds. Wood floors creak differently than concrete, and metal surfaces ring with each step.

Sound camouflage is very simple. If you think camouflage is the visual act of blending into your environment then sound camouflage is the same. Move when others are moving, and importantly use a weapon that isn't going to startle your enemy. If you are sneaking behind enemy lines and taking shots with an AK your enemy is less likely (but not guaranteed) to investigate. You can guarantee though if someone recognises the sound of a weapon system that belongs to the enemy behind their lines they will be looking out and ready for you.

Learn to identify sound direction and distance. Most players can't pinpoint audio sources accurately, but good Rats can use this to their advantage. When you hear an enemy but aren't sure exactly where they are, use your freelook (hold Alt) to move your head left and right. This will help you pinpoint the exact direction of the sound as your ears pick up the subtle changes in audio positioning.

Silencers are bread and butter for stealth and they are still prime loot when ratting or a go-to purchase when you get the rank. The thing with silencers is that they are not silent at all. In fact they have a distinct noise that is loud but not as loud as the alternative. The key to silencers is that they take the 'edge' off of the noise of a weapon being fired and in ARMA, make it harder to pinpoint where the enemy is firing from.

Communication Discipline is critical for the Rat. Remember that when you talk on your team or squad radio, your character will also talk in proximity chat as you would expect in real life. This creates double audio exposure. Smart Rats use text chat when available for silent coordination, ensuring their position isn't compromised by an ill-timed radio transmission.

Sound Escalation and Threat Awareness follows a predictable pattern that every Rat must understand. Fire once and the enemy knows you're in the area and generally which direction you fired from. Fire twice and they know exactly which direction you are and are actively looking for you. Fire a lot and start causing casualties, and you now have their full attention. You've rung the dinner bell and they will be gunning straight for you. This is why the Rat doctrine emphasises move, kill your targets, then withdraw. Every shot increases your threat signature exponentially.

Vehicle engines can be heard long before the vehicle is seen, but Reforger allows you to turn off your engine and coast to your destination. This dramatically reduces engine noise and can allow you to approach targets undetected. Bear in mind that the roll of your car trundling along on coast will make noise, but nowhere near as loud as with the engine on. Plan your routes to use downhill terrain where you can coast longer distances. Park vehicles well away from your actual objectives to mask your true destination and approach direction.

Talking in prox. chat is obviously going to give you away, but bear in mind that when you talk on your team / squad radio, your character will also talk in prox. chat as you would expect to happen in real life.

Totally silent faction / squad chat is achievable by using the text chat function on PC, to get messages to your team with your character model remaining completely silent. Just make sure you're not typing into global chat!

Despite following the principles of cover and concealment Rats are often still seen and exterminated in the wild. This is because Rats misunderstand concealment. Staying hidden relies on you applying the principles we have covered in this section in combination with understand how your enemy will see you.

Visual detection is the primary threat to solo operators. The enemy does not need to see your entire body or gear, they only need to spot one small thing that does not belong. A shape that breaks a natural pattern, a shadow where none should fall, a flick of movement in the stillness.

Some things to consider:

The human brain is an expert in pattern recognition. It knows what to expect on maps like Everon. Empty buildings. Abandoned vehicles. Deserted roads. When everything should be lifeless, any sign of movement or presence triggers immediate attention. This is why a helmet edge in a window draws your eye from hundreds of meters away. It violates the expected pattern. Choose positions that match the context of the environment you are in.

Movement discipline. Do not move without having a reason to move and a plan of where you are going and what you will do if you are suddenly compromised. Motion invites observation and creates noise, the human eye is naturally attracted to movement and gamers finely tuned to the sound of footsteps. Avoid moving your entire body is possible and utilise which moves only your character's head. If you have to move, continue using cover and concealment, crossing open ground must be avoided unless you have literally no other choice. If you must walk across open ground, time it well, move as quickly as you can and try to use 'dead ground', which is an area of terrain where natural dips folds or obstacles obscure enemy sight of you.

Movement is your greatest enemy. The human eye glosses over static shapes but locks onto motion instantly. You can remain invisible at 50 meters until you shift position, then get spotted at 300. Even turning your head creates detectable change against a still background. This creates the Rat's dilemma: movement is necessary for mission success but deadly for concealment. Time your movements, plan your escape vector, movement discipline is key to your success.

Shadows conceal, but they also betray. You can third-person peak from behind the corner of a house all you want. Just remember, if the sun is in the right position, your long shadow on the ground is giving you away and the enemy is looking to flank you. Be wary of the changing light conditions and how they affect your concealment.

A hide is a static position from which the Rat will observe from, engage from if necessary, and fall back to to survive. A hide is a deliberate spot selected by you in your area of operations, and the use of such pre-determined hides can be a key element to remaining undetected or surviving if compromised.

When selecting a hide, even a temporary one you only intend to use for a few moments or minutes — you must briefly consider the following factors.

Selection Standards — The ideal hide provides a clear field of fire, while wherever possible denying the enemy a clean shot back. A second floor window overlooking a crossroads allows engagement while the walls offer protection, for example. A hillside position looking down into an exposed piece of road is an ideal hide and position to set up an ambush.

Escape Planning — You need to know how you are going to escape your position if you are pushed by the enemy, remember, Rats are cowards and do not go down in blazes of glory if they can help it. Do not allow yourself to be cornered. When picking a hide you need to briefly think 'What am I going to do and where am I going to go, if this position is compromised?'

A good hide has two avenues of escape dependent on the direction you need to go, you should have identified these routes when entering the hide for the first time.

Movement is survival, but careless movement is suicide. Every journey across the battlefield demands careful consideration of terrain, timing, and threat level.

Watch any typical player, and you'll see them sprint straight from spawn to objective, only to catch a round in the head as they cross the final open field. Ten minutes of running ended in two seconds of poor decision-making. This is what happens when players move without thinking.

Smart movement follows a simple framework: plan your route as a series of waypoints, not a straight line. At each waypoint, execute the SLL protocol: Stop, Look, Listen. Take 10–30 seconds to scan your surroundings and listen for movement before continuing. This brief pause creates the reactionary gap that keeps you alive when contact happens.

Once you start putting this into practice, you will be able to count up the number of times that SLL has allowed you to notice the enemy, get ready for them and win any engagement. You will find that plenty of players do indeed run aimlessly and pretty much in a straight line to where they are going a lot of the time, it makes them easy to pick off. Simply stopping to listen and observe, even if ordinarily you have no cause for concern and continue onwards, will save your life countless times.

You also get the added benefit that in ARMA, that gap will allow your stamina to build back up, so if you do need to fire your sights are a lot steadier than someone who has just been sprinting.

Route selection matters more than speed. Choose paths through low ground, vegetation, and broken terrain. Hills and ridge-lines might offer great views, but they also silhouette you against the sky, making you visible to every sniper or player within a kilometre. That open field might save you two minutes of walking, but is two minutes worth re-spawning and starting over? Its a question you have to ask yourself. When you're conducting Rat operations that take you 10+ minutes just to infill to where you need to be, the answer is obviously no.

Your movement should match the tactical situation:

Movement without purpose gets you killed. Take the extra minute to move smart. The player who rushes blindly into contact rarely survives long enough to learn from their mistakes.

Once you've been firing from a position, assume the enemy knows your location and is waiting for your head to pop up again. This is when most players die — trying to re-engage from a compromised position.

Never stand up where you went down. Instead, crouch or roll several metres to either side before coming up. The enemy's crosshairs are on your last position. Make them adjust. That split-second of confusion might save your life and cost them theirs.

When you must cross open ground, use what soldiers call the “3-5 second rush”. Most players need 2–3 seconds to acquire a moving target, adjust their aim, and fire accurately. By limiting your exposure to 5 seconds maximum, you stay inside their reaction window.

Pick your next cover point before you move. When you break from cover, sprint full speed for 3–5 seconds, then hit the dirt. Don't stop because the timer says so — stop when you reach cover.

The key is unpredictability. Never establish a pattern. Sometimes rush for 3 seconds, sometimes 5. Sometimes roll right, sometimes left. Keep them guessing.

Remember: Rats survive by being where the enemy doesn't expect them. Every time you move, ask yourself: “Where would they expect me to go?” Then go somewhere else.

Arma Reforger features small urban environments where specialised combat principles apply. Success as a Rat in these zones demands unique skills. You'll need proficiency in urban movement, building entry techniques, room clearing, and selecting tactical positions.

For the Rat, CQC in urban areas is viable but risky. CQC tactics are covered in the sections below. The odds nearly always favour defenders unless you are outnumbered. Every “hide” you create must have escape routes that you've genuinely considered beforehand. Without proper planning, you'll get flustered when pushed. A squad storming your position quickly transforms your hideout into a coffin.

There are some tips to bear in mind when transiting through or engaging in operations in urban areas, which if you bear in mind, will likely save your life on multiple occasions.

Open areas such as streets, alleys, and parks should be avoided. They are natural kill zones for enemy shooters and snipers. Consider that every window facing your direction could have someone behind it, and you will see why open urban environments are so dangerous. Cross these spaces only when necessary, using smoke grenades if you know someone has a bead on you and / or the 3-5 second rush technique for protection.

The optimal path through urban environments is via rear gardens and property backsides. These routes offer plentiful cover and significantly reduce enemy visibility. Whenever possible, navigate behind buildings rather than between them. Stay off the streets.

Below is an example of a good and bad path, the bad path is much much quicker of course. The bad path also leads you down streets, down areas most likely to have enemies appear, and also puts you in front of countless windows behind which an enemy could be waiting.


The green path takes you around the back of the houses, sticking to easy cover as you can dip into the houses via the rear if required. You have more cover and concealment due to hedges, trees, fences and garden furniture. You stick to the trees and concealment along your journey, if you are detected you have some easier options of escape and while still in town have the easiest option to dip into a house if you need to. Yes, it takes a lot longer, but if you assess that the risk of enemy presence is anything other than 0 then you should take your time.

You may not always be able to use the rear or insides of buildings as routes of advance, and may be forced onto the outside of buildings in the street. If so, you should move parallel to the side of the building along the building line.

However, if you KNOW the enemy is positioned on one side of the street and you cannot take alternate routes through the rear of properties on the opposite side, then ideally you should not be making this maneuver at all. Street-level movement in contested urban areas is extremely high-risk for solo operators and should be avoided whenever possible.

If you have no choice but to proceed, you need to make a deliberate decision about which side of the road to use. Counter-intuitively, you want to be ON the same side as the enemy is likely positioned. This sounds backwards, but the alternative is giving your enemy a clear target as you skulk along the building line across the road from them. Instead, by moving directly under their windows, you stay in their blind spot and (hopefully) out of sight.

Stay in the shadows if you can, present as low a silhouette as possible, and move rapidly to your next position. Remember: this is a last resort tactic with high probability of compromise or death, much like the rest of urban combat and especially CQC.

Windows present an obvious hazard, and the most common mistakes are exposing the head and chest in a first floor window to the enemy. Where possible, staying close to the buildings edge and as low as possible reduces your silhouette. You can easily do this by crouching, and this way, even when crouch-sprinting, you are usually below the window line.

Corners are natural choke points and ambush zones. Entering them carelessly is fatal. The most common mistake a Rat can make is exposing their weapon barrel or full silhouette around a corner without first clearing it. If an enemy is waiting with their weapon trained, even a brief exposure results in death.

Do not approach a corner too closely. In most modern FPS, getting too tight to the wall will cause your character to raise their weapon into a non-ready position. Though it will snap back into place when you step out, the reaction delay can cost you your life. Always maintain a slight offset from the wall, so your weapon remains ready.

Wherever possible, you should 'pie' the corner. Pieing is a deliberate clearing method where you slice the angle gradually in controlled steps, like slicing a pie. Instead of swinging wide and out of the corner, exposing yourself, you move in a wide arc, exposing only a narrow segment of the new area at a time. This method gives you a shifting field of view while keeping your profile small. Done correctly, pieing the corner allows you to clear unknown threats without over-committing. Your weapons remain in the ready position and your movements are controlled.

However, if you already know the enemy's position because you've seen movement, heard a reload or spotted something that gives the enemy away, then you should not pie. You should pre-fire the corner.

In the next section of this guide, we will discuss how violence of action wins the majority of engagements in CQC encounters. Pre-firing a corner or angle is a prime example of this in action.

Pre-firing is simply beginning to fire your weapon as you strafe out of cover at the location the enemy is at. As you expose yourself, you are already opening fire on the enemy. It goes without saying that fully automatic lends itself to this technique.

This is a solid technique in competitive FPS, where pre-firing combined with the reaction delay between the enemy seeing you and pulling the trigger further combined with server / client latency can give you the upper hand. If done correctly, the enemy is dead as soon as you come into view. To them, they inexplicably die the moment you appear.

If you know an enemy is waiting for you, then pre-firing on entry is a good way of turning the odds against the waiting defender.

T-shaped corners are among the most hazardous terrain features inside and out of a building. You cannot see left or right until you expose yourself, and an enemy could be lying in wait on either side, already aimed in.

If you know there is an opportunity to simply avoid this and move to a point where you will not be at such a disadvantage, then you should do so.

Most players commit blindly to one side and die for it. The smarter Rat slices both arcs gradually, exposing just a sliver of each sector in turn, as shown below:



This method lets you clear both corners incrementally before fully committing. It won’t make you bulletproof, but it massively reduces the chances of walking into a static ambush.

Once you've reached the decision point and must step into the junction, do not hug the wall. Defenders will almost always hold the closest edge. Instead, cut a wide arc away from the wall, forcing the enemy to adjust their aim and giving you a reactionary gap. That split second can decide who wins the fight.

Conventional infantry doctrine advises against entering buildings through doors or windows whenever possible, preferring to create new entry points with demolitions, breaching charges, or tank rounds. Arma Reforger does not simulate this kind of structural destruction, and you are limited to climbing through appropriately sized windows or using the door.

That means, more often than not, you’ll be using doors and that’s a problem because that’s where defenders will be pointing their weapons.

If a window is available and accessible, you should always use it instead. Most players expect door entries. The element of surprise from entering via a window, even with the noise of the glass breaking, gives you a critical reaction gap. That gap is often enough to kill whoever is covering the obvious angle.

Your character model will fit through any window pane wide enough to fit you. Plenty of windows are two paned with a split down the middle, you will NOT fit through these, so do not try.

If circumstances allow, precede your entry with a grenade. The explosion will force defenders into cover or out of their sights, disorient them, or outright kill them. Either way, the Rat must enter immediately after detonation. Any delay forfeits the advantage and gets you shot walking into the kill zone.

Do not linger at the threshold. Move, clear, and kill. This is not the time to hesitate. It is when you are in the close confines of your enemy that you then enter close quarters combat…

CQC represents the most volatile, unforgiving and lethal form of engagement available to the Rat, or any soldier for that matter. CQC is not restricted to buildings. A surprise contact in dense vegetation becomes CQC, someone popping up from cover to shoot at you 5 metres away is CQC. Any engagement where reaction time shrinks to milliseconds qualifies as close quarters combat. The principles below apply whenever combat distance collapses, regardless of terrain.

In real-world doctrine, CQC is universally recognised as high-risk. In Arma Reforger, it becomes exponentially more dangerous due to client/server latency and occasionally de-sync.

It is for these reasons that the Rat lives by the adage of only engaging when they know they are at an overwhelming advantage. Consciously entering CQC should only be done deliberately if you know, beyond all doubt, that you are in a position of such strong advantage the enemy has almost no chance to survive.

You attack by surprise, you attack with overwhelming force. It is in these moments when the Rat is faced with entering CQC, either because they choose to unleash it on the enemy or because it is unleashed on them. The Rat must abandon hesitation and commit to the doctrine of overwhelming violence of action.

Violence of action is key to winning almost any engagement. While stealth, evasion, and deception are the default tools of survival and getting you to the fight, there comes a moment when the Rat must have the fight itself. When that moment arrives, it must be executed ideally on your terms but in any case with overwhelming force, speed, and decisiveness.

Violence of action is the sudden application of surprise, aggression, and dominance to seize the initiative and eliminate the enemy before they can react. It is not optional. It is not negotiable. Hesitation equals death in CQC engagements.

In Close Quarters Combat, victory usually belongs to whoever strikes first with decisive force. The terms "attacker" and "defender" become meaningless, only initiative matters. A defender caught by surprise dies just as quickly as an attacker walking into an ambush. Position means nothing if you don't see it coming.

CQC is typically won at the moment of first contact. The player who achieves tactical surprise, who gets "the drop," almost always wins. This advantage can shift in milliseconds. A camping player loses all defensive benefits the moment an enemy appears from an unexpected angle. An aggressive rusher becomes the victim when walking into a pre-aimed weapon. Yet, paradoxically, the defender holding an angle becomes the victim when the attacker moves faster than they can keep up with and causes them to miss their initial shot.


The OODA loop stands for Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. It is a framework to apply to how you think about combat engagements. Break down how you deal with an engagement in close quarters, play it in your mind in slow motion, and you will note that you and your enemy are spinning the OODA loop constantly. In CQC, both players race through this cycle in fractions of a second, but the one who completes it first gains the advantage. More critically, the player who disrupts their enemy's OODA loop while completing their own wins the fight.

Violence of action gives you the upper hand because it breaks your enemy's thinking process. When you strike with speed and aggression, you force the enemy to restart their OODA loop from the beginning. They observe your attack, must reorient to your unexpected aggression and speed, struggle to decide under pressure, and act too late. By the time they complete their cycle, you're already into your second or third loop, adjusting fire, moving to better position, or finishing the kill.

Have you ever been rushed when holding an angle in a building, missed all your shots as the attacker bore down on you and killed you while you struggled to even readjust your aim? That is violence of action in play. Your brain couldn't keep up with what was happening.

This is why hesitation kills in CQC. Every pause extends your OODA loop. Every moment of indecision gives the enemy time to complete theirs. The Rat who acts decisively, even if imperfectly, forces the enemy into a reactive state they cannot escape.

When CQC is initiated, whether by choice or circumstance, commit fully. Half-measures guarantee failure. Full automatic fire, aggressive movement, and overwhelming force create the chaos needed to survive. You must act faster than the enemy can process, creating sensory overload through multiple inputs, muzzle flash, incoming rounds and rapid movement that breaks their cognitive cycle.

Initiative is everything. The moment you cede initiative through hesitation, poor positioning, or predictable movement, you become the victim. Seize it. Keep it. Use it.

Solo player or not, perfect technique or not, Urban CQC is a toss up between who wins and dies. You can execute movements perfectly and still die, this is the nature of urban CQC.

As a result, for the solo operator especially, Urban CQC should not be voluntarily engaged in, unless you can be sure you are at an overwhelming advantage. Given that this is seldom the case, the best advice for your survival is to avoid Urban CQC entirely.

Yes, run away.

Take the random chance of urban CQC out of play by simply falling back, and keeping overwatch of the house you know an enemy is in instead, kill them when they come out to look around. Run out of your urban hide and take an escape route instead of staying to defend it.

Military doctrine almost universally approaches CQC as a team exercise. Standard infantry doctrine trains soldiers to clear rooms, enter buildings and use various types of grenades as part of a coordinated team. For the solo Rat, these tactics are simply suicidal.

What military doctrine understands is that CQC favours the defender. Even elite level military units consider room clearing to be among the most dangerous operations possible. When military units conduct dynamic entries, they rely on overwhelming force, multiple simultaneous entry points and perfect coordination to overcome the defender's advantage.

There's a reason you see them simply blow the entire building sky-high rather than enter it.

As a solo operator, you possess none of the advantages a team would have clearing a building, you cannot split angles of fire, provide covering fire for yourself, attack from multiple directions or create sufficient violence of action.

Never.

There are no scenarios where a solo Rat should voluntarily enter an occupied building, military doctrine supports this position. In warfare, isolated structures with known hostiles are typically contained, the enemy waited out inside, or the entire building is destroyed.

You should never enter a building you know contains hostiles.

If you suspect a building contains hostiles, assume it does.

If you are already in a building and detect an enemy, extract immediately.

Get out.

The instinct to defend your position is a trap, defending a fixed position without support, which will always be the case if you are Ratting, is a last resort.

You will almost always die.

When you choose to stay and defend, you go against the principles of Rat doctrine, namely:

• You become predictable.
  
• You limit your escape options.
  
• You allow the enemy to set the terms of engagement.
  
• You become vulnerable to grenades and squad entries.
  
• If they don't enter, they'll just wait for you to leave, then kill you.

This is why you get out as soon as you can. A dead Rat isn't annoying anyone. Live to be a nuisance elsewhere.

Alright then.

If you are going to engage in urban CQC despite the best of advice from Mr.Ratmeister himself, then fair enough. Despite its obvious disadvantages in terms of longevity of your character, it is fun and exhilarating to roll the dice in CQC.

There are of course, even putting best practices into place, going to be various scenarios when despite best efforts you are forced into urban CQC. Examples include:

• A sniper is decimating your team and holed up in a building you are approaching.
  
• You have entered what you believe to be an empty building only to hear an enemy, your committed now and must deal with the situation.
  
• You're trying to escape and for whatever reason (usually because you are injured and need to heal or you will die) you are cornered in a building and now are forced to defend it.
  
• There's an enemy radio backpack within a building you need to sort out.

It would be negligent of me as master Rat then not to show you the best practices on how to survive.

Even military doctrine recognises that urban combat sometimes becomes unavoidable. What applies to conventional forces also applies to you as a lone Rat. The difference is that military units train extensively for these scenarios and operate with team support - luxuries you don't have.

If you must engage in CQC, remember these principles:

• Intelligence gathering comes first - listen for movement and figure out to the best of your ability where in the building they are.
  
• Plan your entry and exit before committing.
  
• When possible, use grenades.
  
• Always pre-fire corners rather than just peeking if there is a chance the enemy is there.
  
• Move decisively - hesitation equals death.
  
• Accept that even perfect execution involves significant risk of extermination.

The techniques in the following sections aren't making CQC safe - they're just making it slightly less suicidal.

Hallways and doors suck. Every doorway is a potential choke point, a bottleneck where defenders enjoy the greatest advantage. This zone is known as the fatal funnel, a narrow area in and immediately beyond the doorway where all incoming movement is focused and where defenders will distinctively aim. You want to be out of the fatal funnel if you can avoid it, depending on the layout of the building and the door itself.

Pre-firing doors - Bullets penetrate doors and if you know or believe an enemy is or could be behind the door then you absolutely should be pre-firing the door by blasting through it at angles where you think a defender may be hiding. This gives you the element of surprise and there is every chance you kill the defender or force them to have to bandage themselves, giving you the drop.

The Rat must consider every doorway as a know hazard. After pre-firing the door they now have to open it - the picture below advises on the best practice of opening the door:



Much like real life Arma Reforger allows you to open the door side on as shown in the image, depending on the type of door and the hallway the Rat should immediately step back from the door to give space for them to go on to pie the angles in the room (slicing small sections of the room into view methodically). Ideally when pieing the angles into the room you should be as far away from the door as is possible while still maintaining visual contact within so as to reduce your silhouette to the defender. Do not crouch while doing this, defenders will likely be aiming for your centre mass and crouching lowers your face directly into the sight picture.

Once the door is opened, you slice the pie by clearing the interior of the room in small segments without entering. The ideal scenario is that the Rat is able to clear the room without entering the fatal funnel or being forced to breach into the room itself. The Rat moves incrementally along the outer arc of the doorway, slowly revealing more of the room slice by slice, as shown below:



Each lateral movement reveals a new “slice” of the interior, allowing you to scan corners and engage targets before they see you. This technique gives the you a fighting chance at spotting an enemy who may be holding an angle but hasn't yet seen your approach.

This method is safest when used from a distance not right up against the doorframe. Being too close limits your arc of vision and increases the likelihood of weapon clipping or poor corner geometry revealing your position. Maintain at least one body’s width back from the threshold to keep your weapon in a ready state and ensure maximum field of view.

If the room is shallow, with poor angles or limited cover, and you can confirm it’s clear through slicing do not enter. There is no tactical value in occupying a cleared space that offers no concealment, no advantage, and puts you at risk.

However, if your pie reveals nothing and corners remain unclear, because of doors that open inward for example, or you visually confirm a threat you have been unable to engage you must either:

• Pre-fire and breach using overwhelming violence of action.
  
• Withdraw and reassess your approach.

Never, ever 'creep' the final corner, never lean slowly into an uncleared space. Never do any of this slowly or at a pace where a waiting defender can easily adjust their aim to take you out.

You are either clearing or you are breaching. Hesitation will get you killed.

Slicing the pie is your first port of call to clear a room, use it to avoid having to engage in CQC if possible, but once the door is open, you are on the clock. Every second you spend standing in the funnel increases your already exceedingly high risk of death.

Most tactical literature assumes that more than one person is clearing rooms. With two or more Rats, angles can be split, sectors controlled and breaches covered. The Rat however more often than not will be on their own. This means every room entry is a gamble as you expose your body to a potential ambush with no backup to cover your flanks. Breaching a room solo is the most dangerous action you can take in CQC and it should only happen after slicing the pie has revealed a significant portion of the interior.

Room entry begins where slicing ends; when you've cleared every slice of the pie you can from the outside and you now need to breach to clear any remaining blind spots. This is usually the space behind the door, deep corners or anywhere line of sight was occluded dependent on the layout of the room.

The doorway itself, the fatal funnel as we mentioned above, is the killzone where you die. It is where the defenders are most likely aiming. The longer you are there the higher your chance of death, once you commit to a room breach, you must move immediately, quickly and decisively.



As the image shows, the Rat selects an entry vector that aggressively slices away from the most likely threat position. This usually means entering at an oblique angle sweeping wide away from the doorframe while aiming into the uncleared corner. Doors that open into the room you are clearing may have enemies hiding behind them. If you've sliced the rest of the room this is usually the final blind spot and it is where you must go first.

Once inside, pivot rapidly to cover the angles as you move. Do not stop inside the room unless it is clear, motion is a potent defence in these situations. Hesitation and delay gives a waiting defender time to correct their aim.

Once a room is clear, get out and do the next one.

A hallway is simply a very large fatal funnel. Never stand in the middle of it, as this exposes you to fire from multiple angles. Cling to the walls where the doors are located to minimize your silhouette and exposure.

When moving through hallways, be conscious of every doorway and opening that could conceal an enemy. Each door you pass represents a potential ambush point, and each meter of hallway traveled increases your risk of detection.

Military CQB training emphasizes proper hallway movement techniques for a reason - they're among the most dangerous environments in urban combat. If forced to move through a hallway:

• Clear each section of hallway before advancing.
  
• Keep your back to the wall you're following.
  
• Minimize time spent in intersections and T-junctions.

Stairs also suck, a lot. Stairs, much like the rest of CQC movement are incredibly dangerous places for the Rat to find themselves if a defender is possibly within the building and potentially defending the staircase. They are vertical funnels with zero cover, limited movement options and any movement up or down them is incredibly predictable.



In squad doctrine staircases are handled with mini bounding overwatch movements and splitting angles. For the solo Rat however none of that exists. You either creep up slowly as most players do and get blasted the second your helmet enters the frame, or you rush.

The correct approach is to pie the base of the stairs first, for any persons stood on the first landing if there is one and then rush. Violence of action on defended stairs is a necessity and is your only chance out of your already slim chances of survival, I reiterate that if at all possible you should avoid having to clear an occupied building.

You rush stairs because defenders are likely holding an angle that will have your head their sights when you approach, the defender is relying on your slowly creeping up so they can shoot the Rat in the face. Do the opposite instead and rush them.

By rushing them you disrupt their sight picture, break their OODA loop and will force them to adjust their aim as you barrel towards them. It is during this reactionary gap that you kill or be killed.

Once you have cleared a building, especially if you have had contact inside, you need to get out. The moment you fire shots in there, even if you kill the enemy, their buddies know where you are and are seeking vengeance. You need to loot quickly, exit immediately and ideally through a different exit to where you entered.

While fieldcraft, movement and the principles of CQC will help you fight and stay alive, the bread and butter of Ratting is the tactical decision-making you employ. The correct use of tactics as a solo operator is crucial if you hope to survive any engagement with any enemy, especially when outnumbered which the Rat is bound to be.

Since this guide has been online, several people have asked for specific loadouts. Your preferred loadout will be personal to your individual play-style, what you enjoy, and what your ratty mission objectives are.

You should adhere to the following principles when ratting:

- Steal everything you need, so don't carry an expensive loadout.

- Silencers are a must-have to scavenge or add to your loadout when you get the rank.

- Russian grenades pop when they are thrown and give away your position, American ones are nearly silent.

- High-risk solo operations mean you should not carry an expensive loadout or you hurt your team more than you help when you are dying.

- Have I mentioned you should not have an expensive loadout?

- Stay as lightweight as possible, carry only what you need, scavenge everything else.

- Stay below 40kg in loadout so you can sprint fast.

- Skip the backpack (the only exception is if I relieve a Russian of an RPG and their backpack) because they are too heavy and if I am filling a backpack with gear I am spending too many supplies.

However, I will show you my staples:


To get this easily, drag everything from your tops and trousers into your vest, then swap out to the plain green with the helmet.

Why? The drab green blends just as well with the environment, but you also look vaguely like a Russian soldier. The tell for most players when making a positive ID of the enemy is the helmet shape. If you disturb that with different colors and helmet shape, you buy yourself confusion time before you start taking fire. From afar, you may even be mistaken for a Russian. It certainly lengthens the ID-to-first-shot time for me, far more than the classic camo and helmet combination.

You can dress exactly this amount of Russian before you trigger the penalties implemented in 1.3. Yes, you can carry a Russian main weapon, body armor, helmet, harness and even boots and still be awarded XP. Once you take off the green trousers or top though, you will be marked as a spy and deducted XP for enemy kills, so this is the upper limit. As you can see, this is very confusing, and while the basic Russian beige is missing, it is enough to make players second-guess themselves in CQC where you have the upper hand. You will also encounter plenty of times when you are mistaken for an actual Russian, until they realize you don't have a name tag.

I tend to play largely USA but in a complete crisis of identity, I really do prefer Russian weapons (when low rank, the M16 Carbine is great at higher ranks). They also give you a sound camouflage advantage in that behind enemy lines, an AK47 does not trigger the senses as much as an M16.


Grenade launchers are nice but VERY EXPENSIVE on supplies. You can absolutely ruin your team's game by filling up your loadout, so I don't tend to equip them at all and will pick them up from those who no longer need them.

Generally speaking, as a rat you spawn with bare minimums and steal everything you can. I tend to rank up to a suppressor and add that, but keep everything else default (except for clothing).
I will generally hunt Russian infantry until I have rank to play the M16 carbine + suppressor as part of my loadout.

- USA 4X Optics are extremely good and well worth using in single-fire mode.

- USA Red dot is good but I am used to iron sights.

- The LAW which is the USA AT launcher is one and done, so you can't carry ammo like the RPG. I
don't tend to use it and will scavenge it (or an RPG) if I want one for my mission.

The vast majority of players will shoot the moment they see a target. Rats do not.

Trigger discipline is the conscious decision to delay an engagement until conditions overwhelmingly favour you. It's the difference between reaction and control, between a hasty death and tactical victory.

Your first opportunity to fire is rarely your best one. You might have only a partial sight picture. The target could be outside effective range. Your weapon sway might be too heavy after sprinting. Their movement might be erratic. And critically - you might not yet know if they're alone.

Firing your weapon sets in motion a chain of events from which there is no return. A single shot alerts the area. A second confirms your position. Within 60 seconds, enemies will either be returning fire or closing ground to flank you. Rats don't engage unless they're in a position of advantage.

Before pulling the trigger, ask yourself:

• Can I drop this target cleanly with my first volley?
  
• Is my exfiltration route already planned?
  
• Will this engagement serve a broader tactical purpose?
  
• Do I have overwhelming advantage in this situation?

If the answer to any of these is no, hold fire. It's better to let an enemy walk past than to start a fight you cannot finish. Remember: you're not here to collect kills - you're here to survive and disrupt. Dead Rats accomplish neither.

Most kills in Arma Reforger happen during direct engagements, 1 v 1. However, Rats do not seek fair fights. Ratting doctrine prioritises attacking from a position of overwhelming advantage. One of the most reliable ways to achieve that advantage is to exploit what is known as dead time.

Dead time is any moment when an enemy’s awareness is reduced when they are standing still, focused on a task, or otherwise distracted. Common examples include:

• Checking the map after spawning or getting into a vehicle, or any time spent checking the map.
  
• Looting or purchasing gear at the arsenal or from bodies.
  
• Reloading.
  
• Sitting idle in a vehicle waiting for passengers.
  
• Holding defensive positions inside buildings or behind cover (camping).
  
• Stopping to spawn a vehicle or build things in the base.
  
• Healing with morphine or bandages.

The most predictable of these behaviours is looting gear from bodies or purchasing from an arsenal.

Dead time provides the opportunity to fire at a completely stationary, preoccupied target. A single well-placed shot in this moment is more effective than three fired at a moving or alert target. The delay in the enemy’s reaction also extends your survivability affording you precious seconds to relocate or prepare follow-up shots before they identify your position. If the shot is placed correctly, the engagement ends before the enemy can react. If the shot fails, the responsibility lies with entirely with the Rat.

You will begin to recognise that dead time forms behavioural patterns. Players spawn, then move to the arsenal. They spawn vehicles, then sit to check the map. After battles, they return to loot gear.

Your job as a Rat is to observe these rhythms and exploit them. You must time your engagement so that you strike when the enemy is least capable of responding and disappear before they recover.

Body baiting is the deliberate use of casualties or wounded players to lure others into a compromised position. It is a psychological and tactical trap that is a strand of predictive ambush.

Rats may initiate this tactic in one of two ways: by injuring or killing a target while already holding overwatch on the position, or by moving into overwatch after noticing a casualty in an ideal position. In either case, the objective remains the same - force the enemy to expose themselves.

Players in FPS games that allow looting struggle to resist the impulse to retrieve loot or assist injured teammates. Most will move toward a fallen comrade or enemy body without first assessing the situation and as a result put themselves into a position of huge vulnerability. Once a player begins looting, they are immobile and all it takes is a well placed shot to prevent any sort of direct confrontation in the first place.

Body baiting punishes greed, loyalty and carelessness in equal measure. Use it when terrain and concealment favour your position and when there is a high likelihood of multiple contacts entering the kill zone.

An ambush is a surprise attack delivered from concealment or cover. For the Rat, it is not a platoon-level fire plan but a solo strike: sharp, brutal, and brief, over almost as soon as it begins.

Because Rats operate alone, every ambush demands some foresight and discipline. Before firing a single round, the Rat must select a kill zone, choose a concealed vantage point with clear sight of that zone and a pre-planned escape route, and mentally rehearse the sequence: engage, disengage, vanish.

The ambush has the following objectives:

Eliminate. The primary objective is a clean kill that removes enemy combat power and denies them the chance to react.

Strand. If elimination fails, the secondary goal is to disable or immobilise the enemy. Force them to dismount, walk, or burn a respawn ticket. Time lost to recovery or to have to stay and heal, delaying their onward mission, is a tactical victory.

Frustrate. If neither kill nor stranding is possible, the tertiary objective is to annoy. A single wounding shot or forced delay burdens the enemy with caution and slows their mission as they spend time searching for you.

Before committing to an ambush, the Rat must assess whether the action will influence the match as a whole. A perfect firing position is useless if the only targets are isolated players. Conversely, an ambush laid on a key reinforcement route or an exit of a key base can decisively alter momentum in the team's favour.

Always ask: Will this make a difference? If the answer is no, find another mission.

Planning an ambush requires two critical elements: a kill zone and a vantage point. The kill zone is the area through which the enemy must pass and where fire will be concentrated. An ideal kill zone is long enough to allow for multiple shots, follow-up fire, reloading, or weapon switching if necessary. Narrow kill zones demanding a single perfect shot are unacceptable.

Contingencies must be considered. A wounded driver may stop; a dead driver may crash the vehicle. The vantage point must allow continued engagement during such events without exposing the Rat to return fire.

If the kill zone or vantage point is suboptimal, the ambush must be abandoned. No Rat should gamble their life unless the odds are overwhelmingly in their favour. Proper ambush sites create conditions where enemy survival is unlikely and pursuit is impossible.

Trigger discipline is incredibly important when ambushing. If ammunition is limited, conserve it. If you have just one RPG then maybe the jeep with one player in isn't the best target, wait for the BTR, the supply truck, or the jeep full of troops to target.

Engage only when the primary target is inside the designated kill zone. Temptation to fire early must be resisted, the kill zone is where your advantaged and so firing outside that will prompt the enemy to flee and never entry your kill zone to begin with. Waiting until the enemy enters the kill zone maximises your tactical advantage and improves the likelihood of a clean kill.

Maintain fire until the enemy is neutralised, stranded, or suppressed. The litmus test for disengagement is simple: if the enemy begins returning effective fire towards your position, you must withdraw. The moment rounds strike near your cover, the ambush has served its purpose. Remaining in place only increases the chance of being overrun.

Unless the engagement has reduced to a clear one-on-one or a severely disadvantaged enemy position, break contact immediately. Move to secondary cover and begin evasion. Continued engagement is justified only if the enemy remains stranded, confused, and unaware of your new location.

A Rat who plans, strikes, and escapes with precision eliminates resources, drains time, and frustrates the enemy team's efforts to win the game.

A natural extension of the ambush, and a key tactic in the Rat’s arsenal, is the false retreat. Rats will find themselves using this technique in almost every operation they undertake.

The false retreat mirrors elements of conventional infantry contact-break drills, but the term is better suited to the solo operator. Where conventional forces withdraw under pressure, the Rat withdraws deliberately — baiting the enemy into yet another engagement where the Rat holds the advantage.

In a false retreat, the Rat falls back from their original vantage point after firing, then establishes a secondary position with clear oversight of the site just abandoned. Understanding the impulsive nature of players in FPS environments — where wounded or angered enemies will rush forward seeking revenge — the Rat turns enemy aggression into a trap. As the enemy pushes into the original kill zone, the Rat, now concealed in a new overwatch position, engages them once again from surprise.

The false retreat grants the Rat a second opportunity to eliminate targets who survived the initial strike. Pursuers are often disorganised, wounded, or overconfident — all advantages to the Rat lying in wait.

When conducting a false retreat, the fallback position must offer concealment, overwatch of your recent vantage point which now becomes your new kill zone, and impose fresh disadvantages upon the enemy. The same principles apply as in the original ambush. If the enemy gains sight of your fallback position and begins delivering sustained, accurate fire, you must immediately disengage. A Rat does not hold ground against superior firepower.

False retreats will often be dynamic and fluid. Often the second position will not be as strong as the first. If your new position is weak, maintain overwatch at distance. Be patient. Many enemies will eventually return to the scene of the original ambush to retrieve wounded comrades, to recover supplies, or simply to resume their mission. When they do, the Rat repeats the ambush process. Strike again. Kill again. It is also an option to do nothing and wait for them to leave, believing you have either given up or died, before setting up your original ambush on the next party coming through.

As stated in the foreword, most published infantry doctrine focuses on team-based tactics. When you're part of a fire team or squad, you have access to a wide array of techniques involving suppression, bounding overwatch, and coordinated manoeuvre. Solo operators do not have that luxury. And if real-world doctrine exists for lone soldiers acting as Rats, it isn’t publicly available.

So we adapt.

Shoot and scoot is a concept borrowed from artillery doctrine: fire, displace, do not wait to assess results. For artillery, this prevents counter-battery fire. For the Rat, it prevents death.

This is not an ambush. There is no intent to hold ground, confirm kills, or re-engage from the same position. You fire — ideally at an exposed target — then immediately relocate. Whether you kill, wound, or miss entirely is secondary. The goal is disruption.

This tactic is ideal in several scenarios. First, when you do not hold a strong positional advantage and cannot risk taking return fire. Firing from a poor position and staying there is suicide. Firing and moving forces the enemy to respond while you are already gone.

Second, it is especially effective when the intent is not elimination but confusion. Surprise fire from an unexpected direction forces squads to halt, reorganise, or retreat. Even one well-timed shot can derail their momentum and focus attention away from the objective.

Third, shoot and scoot is one of the most viable solo tactics against armoured vehicles. A lone Rat cannot face armour in a stand-up fight. Even with an RPG, engaging once from cover may reveal your position. Scooting to a new angle and firing again keeps the vehicle off-balance, unsure of where the next shot will come from. Never engage armour from the same position twice.

Use shoot and scoot to apply pressure while remaining survivable. Fire, displace, reset. The enemy will be watching your last known position while you’re already preparing the next shot. That delay is your advantage. Maintain initiative. Control the tempo. Stay mobile, and stay alive.

This guide took many hours of reading - drafting and then formatting into this guide, I hope it is useful to you.

This is just the beginning of this guide, I want to look to expand this and make it as comprehensive as possible.

The next updates are planned and mentioned in the foreword, I hope if you have any ideas, you can pop them into the comments below!