Tactical items are arguably the most important equipment in a SWAT squad member's arsenal. These items prevent mission disasters and can save a squad member's life as well as any lethal firearm. This section covers strategies for a squad member's tactical equipment options.
There are occasions when a civilian refuses to cooperate with your team's verbal orders. You're attempting to subdue the civilian but he won't raise his hands and assume the "restrain" position no matter how many times you shout. That's when it's time to break out the pepper spray! Aim for the civilian's head and fire the pepper spray. Don't go overboard; shout and spray enough so the civilian complies with your commands.
Alternatively you could drop a flashbang or gas grenade at the civilian's feet to receive a little cooperation but obviously that's not the optimum way to use a grenade! Use one of your equipment slots for pepper spray and keep the team loaded with grenades. If a civilian won't cooperate, take the lead and use the pepper spray as necessary.
The optiwand is an observation device used to look under closed doors or around corners. Walk up against a door, point the reticle at the bottom of the door to reveal the optiwand icon, and then press fire to automatically switch to the optiwand and use it to check underneath the door. You can also equip the optiwand before reaching the door and perform the same actions.
Approach a corner and equip the optiwand. Press fire to extend the optiwand to look around the corner. You may have to adjust your position at the corner for the best viewing angle but the optiwand should allow you to see down a hallway or around an obstruction within a cluttered room.
You can order team members to check under doors with the optiwand and they'll check for suspects and civilians inside. However, don't always take their word as gospel. As missions progress in difficulty, suspects become much more adept at finding the right spot within a room to hide and remain undetected by the optiwand. It's a good idea to manually equip an optiwand so you can be the one to check out a room. Look for signs that a suspect might be inside, such as a shadow on the ground or flickers of movement at the edge of cover or an obstruction.
In general, it's wise to equip your character with an optiwand on each mission. Also provide one optiwand per team so you can split the teams up, have them check under doors, and then open and clear rooms simultaneously. If you don't mind the extra work, you could be the one to control the optiwand at each moment and fill the team's inventory slots with extra grenades.
Use door wedges to essentially lockdown passages so suspects can't enter a particular room or flee a specific direction. Suspects in adjacent rooms will often hear what's going on in your current location. If you're causing a lot of noise, such as barking commands to a subdued suspect or hostage, hurling flashbangs, or firing weapons, then nearby suspects can enter the room and surprise you and your team.
You can help prevent these events by using door wedges to protect your rear flank. Also in rooms with multiple entrances and exits you can wedge particular routes shut while splitting your team to stack the other doors. Use in missions with multiple floors. Wedge off access to the stairwell from one floor while you clear the other floor without worry that suspects enter the stairwell and await your return.
The flashbang is a blinding and deafening grenade. Basically it causes extreme disorientation to targets with line of sight on the flashbang's explosion. Take advantage of the disorientation and subdue the target as quickly as possible. Since a suspect needs to actually see the explosion, the flashbangs are best used in uncluttered rooms or hallways. If a room contains a lot of debris or dividers or other cover, a flashbang could be rendered nearly useless.
But when you do encounter a cluttered room with lots of cover, instead of ordering a team member to toss in the flashbang, hurl in the flashbang on your own. If the suspect isn't a threat to shoot as soon as you open the door, you can line up your toss and throw the grenade closer to the suspect--ideally right at the target's feet. A team member's toss lacks aim and precision.
The fastest way to render a flashbang useless is to actually look at the explosion! Make sure you are turned away and out of the explosion's line of sight. The flashbang's explosion affects you far more than it affects a suspect. By the time you can see and hear what's going on, the suspect has likely recovered and not too happy about the current situation. After a successful bang, storm the room quickly, order suspects to subdue, and if they aren't dropping their firearms quickly enough, provide extra encouragement with beanbags, pepperballs, tasers, or slugs to the arm.
Utilize the CS (chlorobenzylidene malonitrile or tear gas) gas grenade in cluttered rooms. Suspects can hide behind cover from the effects of a flashbang but the CS gas spreads throughout the room. Toss a CS gas grenade into a room and wait a moment before charging inside. Listen carefully for the coughs--now the gas affects the suspect. Move in quickly and order the suspect to subdue. Use extra encouragement if needed through pepper spray, beanbags, or other means.
CS gas dissipates throughout the room.
The gas spreads fairly quickly (and, unfortunately, dissipates fairly quickly as well) but might not cover larger rooms. You can use a gas grenade, enter the room, and follow up with another gas grenade or stinger grenade for the other side of the area. Or if you know the suspect is on the far side of the room, manually toss the gas grenade inside so it dissipates toward the enemy or enemies.
Briefings that reveal mission suspects are wearing gas masks will render the CS gas grenades nearly useless. Gas obviously won't be effective against the gas masked targets; however, it's possible to encounter other suspects in the mission that aren't wearing masks. For those missions, equip more flashbangs and stingers but retain a couple gas grenades for certain situations.
The stinger grenade explodes in a fury of rubber balls; any suspect or civilian within the blast radius suffers dizziness and disorientation from the impact. The stinger can be effective because it can't be avoided by using a gas mask, like the CS gas grenade, and it can't be turned away from, like the flashbang.
Toss the stinger grenade next to or near a suspect. It's not usually useful to order a team member to open, sting, and clear a room unless you're sure that a suspect is close to the entry door. The sting grenade needs to be close to a suspect to be effective. It's best to toss the stinger after either spotting a suspect behind cover (such as seeing a shadow or moving arm) or as a means of rooting out a suspect from around debris or other obstruction. The rubber balls will have an effect on you as well; don't be near the stinger when it explodes!
No time for a lock pick…blast the locked door open with the breaching shotgun.
The C2 explosive and the breaching shotgun are two means of breaking through locked doors (another would be to actually pick the lock). The benefit of the breaching shotgun is its extremely quick; essentially just aim and fire! The C2 explosive is slower to use but can actually stun suspects on the other side of the door.
If you encounter a small closet or bathroom and use the optiwand and see a suspect inside, you could try and order the team to open, bang, and clear. However, after opening the door, the suspect will almost certainly fire on the team. Often team members will go down against this one suspect hiding in a bathroom.
Instead, use the C2 explosive to breach the door and stun the suspect inside. Enter the small room and order the suspect to subdue and add any encouragement if needed. It's smart to have at least one or two team members with C2 explosives to counter these smaller spaces.