HOW TO: Be a teamplaying rifleman without getting your hands dirty.

IF there is something that annoys especially new players in the game, is playing as a rifleman and being bad at it while watching other people with better weaponry doing the dirty job and racking up a LOT of points.
Even though this class is meant to "obey" the orders of the commanders, many people and most first-timers just wander around and try, watching other people, to find some spots to crawl to and shoot from, just to get miserably gunned a few seconds later.
This small guide is intended to show a few tricks (some obvious, some not) which are mostly underused and that a rifleman could focus on, since his role does not have the same "responsibility" of other ones.

On 64 servers, Teamwork is mostly restricted to SL and TL talking between each other. Since you are the primary element of this game, try to break this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ situation, you should be the first one to care!

Suppression mechanics

1: Suppression, Suppression, Suppression!.
An interesting (but for some reason unused except for LMGs and sometimes assault soldiers) feature this game has is the ability to screw the enemy aim by shooting at his position multiple times. On the battlefield, most of the time you'll find people stuck behind a hill or some light cover trying to sneak around the obstacle and try to get a sure shot on their enemies. If you are following them from distance, you are very likely to see their corpse very soon. Main problem is that when sneaking unless there is an enemy in sight nearly nobody dares to shoot or waste ammo, but that's where the difference has to be made.
If your squad is pinned and you do not wish to be the sacrificial victim advancing, giving your fellows the proof of enemy presence with your death, it is heavily recommended to unload from safe cover your ammo clip in all wallholes, possible covers, and trenches you see. Be aware though, never fire the 5 round clip all together. If the zone seems quiet, fire 2-3 rounds, but in case things get hot, fire a single round and use a duck-shoot tactic while maybe moving a bit on the right/left. Remember that while reloading it is recommended to change position.
Also look try to look around cover and not over it. To help yourself use Q and E to lean right/left. This can be done in any stance(prone,standing,crouched).

Even watching your allies die causes suppression, did you know? You also get fully suppressed if the person dying is an hero, otherwise staying near him will increase your suppression resistance.


Additional note: Don't be afraid of picking up a dead friendly's mg to give some cover fire. Although it hinders movement, you can still drop it when you want by pressing Backspace (works with any gun and also allows you to swap weapon faster than standard change).

Resupply Friendly Machinegunners

2 Feed the gunners.
When in the need to feed multiple gunners, ALWAYS resupply first the one who is most busy, and if there arent any, prioritize high-ranked ones or those who suppress from the back, not rambo ones.
IMPORTANT: Once a gunner is refilled, people normally think you can't do it again until you respawn. THEY ARE WRONG! This is where you can get an incredible amount of teampoints by killing absolutely no one. If your map has ammo refill points you can move to them, resupply yourself, and then go back to your allied gunner who might have already used a clip or two. After refilling him again, you can go back to resupply point and repeat this action multiple times, going up the leaderboard and indirectly helping your team.

Machinegunner pic, with a rifleman in the vicinity. Keep in mind that you indirectly draw enemy attention by staying near him. Stay behind him!

Additional note: Some people find this thing rather useless since mg life expectancy is low like everyone else. There are, however, a good amount of maps where machinegunners keep providing suppression for a long time and riflemen tend to remain pinned for even more. This is why it could come handy (Maps: Bridges of Druzhina, Winterwald, Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, Commissar's House on rooftops and so on).

Key for resupply: Left CTRL

Zone capturing!

3 Staying behind others in Zone Cap
Too many people enter an objective during a takeover and start picking off anyone they have on sight, just to get shamefully ♥♥♥♥♥ by hidden snipers from far positions and/or people waiting in corners. When you enter an enemy psp during takeover, you should just cross the line which counts you as inside that and find a good covering spot, then wait until the whole capture-meter is filled. This way you will normally earn up to 20-25 points in best conditions.

Remember, when a zone is captured with some sort of lucky rushing, you'd better wait 2-3 seconds before moving from your position. Some people just wait for the meter to fill and as soon as its done start sprinting forward, just to get mown down by enemy mgs.

The person in the photo will certainly die since he is not taking cover.

Spotting

4 ♥♥♥♥ING Use Enemy spotted function!
This is a very underused feature in-game but if applied effectively it greatly helps anyone in your vicinity (about 5-10 m) and all people who check their map. Premise it gives NO extra points and all depends on your will to cooperate with others it is still very useful.
1- Hold down Z button, a red circle will appear in front of your sight, release it to mark the enemy position; your soldier will eventually shout Enemy Spotted!
2- The place marked will automatically remain visible for 3-4 seconds in the upper side of the screen, 4-7 seconds in tactical view, and about 10 seconds but not more in Map (press M to check it).
3- Marked enemies have an exclamative red dot, note this spotting does not TAG the enemy like in BF3, it just tells the static position in which you claimed to have seen somebody.
4- Marking enemy TANKS instead will mark them on the map (press M) and they will remain tagged here for a slightly longer period of time. Use it to help your friendly AT riflemen (whose job is probably the most painful in the whole game).
5- Marking enemy people SOMETIMES INDICATES THEIR ROLE. If you spotted a regular or nobody a normal Enemy will appear under the red exclamation dot in normal view and tactical view, however if they are squad leaders, Officer will appear, if they are snipers, Marksman will appear, and so on.

Spotting system before the goty update, now icons are visible on top of the screen normally

Squad leader support and SMOKE Grenades

Especially as an attacker, there is nothing more annoying than a noobish squad leader that just goes rambo without effectively helping his team to advance.
A good thing is to press V, request support and spam need smoke until he does, but since in most cases he may not be listening you have to do the following things.
When he dies (don't teamkill him, since TK doesnt let you pick up dead man's weapons) it is important to pick up the SMOKE grenade he was carrying and throw it in the direction of your objective to assault. This way you will cover your team and provide them a good path to victory. Keep in mind that some enemies tend to blind fire in smoke trying to hit you!

Extras

Extra:THIS INVOLVES GETTING YOUR HANDS DIRTY! :o . Although a common thing for veterans, newbies don't know that actually killing people when staying near your squad leader or commander gives you extra points (+1 for Protected SL, +2 for TL). Follow them!

(Tested and working now): Apparently you can play the hero of the situation sometimes...by dying. When enemies throw a grenade in a large hole where you and your teammates are located, you can DIVE onto the grenade on the floor, and celebrate as you watch your limbs miserably explode in a gory shower. It won't let you earn anything, but the blast radius will hit nearly totally just you, saving all your allies (who probably did not even notice that either, :D). Also it's very, very dirty.

[Chillmas]

Somehow i don't believe the last lines but I consider that would be my perfect job :D

[Dirk Kuyt]

You taught me something about suppresion, thanks.

[AN1M4L]

Great guide! I've played MP for 1 hr (im a big noob lol) but now i can't play cos there r no servers available and i see that there are only 2-4 players online. Refreshing doesn't work, how do i fix?

[General George C. Marshall]

I love this game :). Very realistic! Thumbs up tripwire.

[Roncon]

Riflemen need to use their grenades more too. They never even try to use them D:<

[RATT]

Buena guia, me ayudo en varias cosas, hace un par de dias que tengo el juego y no sabia como marcar un posicion donde habia visto un enemigo ni que podia juntar las granadas de humo. Se agradece.

[The Asian Driver]

Thanks and its tested. Go on an empty server, let one guy be on the axis and one on allies. Then, meet up and decide which one wants to die. The one that dies goes to prone and the other under throws a grenade on him.

[Ooga booga]

I did :)

[Ooga booga]

:D

[Roshack]

Great guide, thanks for taking the time and effort. This should help me a ton. :)