This page is about playing a video game. It is not medical, tactical, or safety advice for real life, and nothing here should be used as such.
In one line: the radio operator keeps the platoon talking to the headquarters above it, and is the platoon's expert on how to speak on a radio and how each report is laid out.
What you do
- Set up and keep communications with the headquarters above and with the squads.
- Run radio checks, and tell the platoon leader at once when anything about the platoon's communications changes.
- Know the report formats cold: calls for fire, close air support, and casualty evacuation.
- Keep the frequencies and call signs on you, where everyone in the platoon knows to find them.
- Help the platoon leader keep track of information as it comes in.
- Help write the communications part of the order: the primary, alternate, contingency, and emergency ways to reach each other.
- Help prepare rehearsals.
What good looks like
- When the platoon leader reaches for the radio, it works and it is on the right channel.
- If contact is lost, the platoon sergeant or platoon leader hears it from you first.
- Other people copy your radio habits.
Read Radio procedure. It is your trade.
What you carry
Kit
A rifle and the platoon's radio.
Who you work with
You answer to the platoon leader and move with them.
By the book
From ATP 3-21.8, paragraphs 1-20 and 1-23. The manual also has the operator managing batteries, field antennas, and the security of encryption devices, which the game does not ask of us.
Sources
This page is adapted for a game. Where it differs from the source, it says so. Read the current edition at the source for the real thing.
Version 1, updated .