Trench Rifleman

The Modern Trench Rifleman emerged from the brutal lesson of industrial-scale warfare — that open-field charges against repeating firearms were suicidal. Armed with a bolt-action repeating carbine, steel helmet, and entrenching tools, he fights from prepared positions: trenches, shell craters, ruined buildings. Mud, rats, artillery barrages, and poison gas defined his world in the Great War; hard-won experience and fieldcraft his greatest weapons. He advances by fire-and-movement, leaping between covered positions while comrades suppress the enemy. In cover and fortified terrain he is extraordinarily difficult to dislodge, and his sustained fire rate punishes any attacker crossing open ground. Exposed in open terrain without cover he loses much of his advantage; mobile cavalry and fast flanking units can outmaneuver him if his flanks are unprotected.