How To Win Friends and Command Effectively in Hell Let Loose

I have around 2,000 hours in Hell Let Loose since it was in early access back in 2020, and around 1/3rd of that time in leadership roles. In that time I have learned that leadership in Hell Let Loose amounts to becoming good at politely pestering your team when needed, prioritizing the meta, and "doing the dirty work", which are things most squad leaders are frequently unwilling to do - for an example of this check out 9:21. To me it starts with establishing GARRISONS AND DEFENSE, which you see me immediately working on in the first five minutes. HLL depends on spawn points and the more you have, and the better placed they are, the most likely your team will be in a position to win. Backup garrisons are critical as they will allow your team to immediately fall back and retake an objective if needed. Usually I try to place several garrisons around the objective circle with defensive squads placing outposts in the center. Or conversely you can place one garrison in the center circle and two set behind in a pyramid as I do here. Next you need to have a couple of squads dedicated to defense. Again at 9:21 we have no defense at all and I am aware of an enemy airhead being possible. In any given public game you'll be lucky if 50% of squad leaders are listening. Usually you can find at least one willing to hang back and either build nodes or help with garrison placement. This is why polite pestering is a useful skill. Nobody is going to listen to someone whining about nodes or getting toxic about a lack of defense. All you can do is point out how these are needed if the team has a chance then hope someone will be a team player. Luckily for me in this game people stepped up without too much pestering. After you have garrisons and defense and nodes(in that order, in my opinion), then you can worry about everything else. Try to anticipate the enemy commanders moves, such as attacks or airheads. This is where it becomes good to be aware of timing, as you see me doing at 13:55 ("GOOD TIME TO ATTACK, BOYS) There are moments where the enemy team will have so many players attacking, a sudden counterattack makes sense. Use all caps and tell your team this moment matters. Tell your team when a recon flight is overhead so they know to open their maps in time. Sometimes it may make sense for you to ask the entire team to make a push, especially if you control less than 50% of the map and you are going to lose anyway. Other times you'll need to call everyone back to support your defensive squads. Be flexible and try to think several minutes ahead. Grand Strategy in Hell Let Loose amounts to figuring out where the enemy will likely attack your team from, where they are lacking defense, and how best to exploit opportunities such as discovering enemy garrisons. Tell your team if you expect the enemy team to attack from a particular direction. Use your tools, particularly bombing runs and airheads, to maximize the actions being taken on offense or defense, such as I did at 13:16. When in doubt, dig in and tell your guys to fall back. It is much easier to hold an objective you already have than to retake one you just lost. This video illustrates these principles and shows how you can implement them to wipe an enemy team out quickly finally, don't be afraid to pat yourself on the back.