The Signaler or sig, is one of your most important utility units, along with the Officer and Engineer.
Having Signalers provides many benefits, such as the ability to cancel out enemy airstrikes, as well as to call in paratroopers, artillery, and even Naval Artillery.
However, Signalers are seldom used in most strategies because of their bulky gear, tendency to die quickly, and need to have at least 10 kills to be able to make semi-fast calls. One of the signalers' main problems is that they are extremely slow.
A wave or two can pass while he tries to reach his destination. He is slow because of the large pack attached to his back, also when making calls, he becomes a high priority target for Germans.
Unless you're worried about your cam-nets being blown away you shouldn't worry about having a Signaler.
If you do choose to have a Signaler, make sure he has an antenna to speed up communications with the base to a reasonable speed.
The signalers' ability to kill is often overlooked, as most people buy them just for their support-calling ability.
A strategy not widely used, but still effective is to continuously call sitreps to increase signaling XP and thus make calls faster with the added bonus of more combat skill and the possibility of getting the Chain of Command ribbon, however, as of the latest version patch 2.3, you cannot spam sitreps as they now have a cooldown which may last a few minutes. After this the signaler may often be the highest level unit. However, signalers have a hard time leveling up from XP gained from calls, and usually they require kills or crates to bring them to the next rank. Combat Leadership works for that last missing exp point.
The choice of weapons may be to simply give him a Rifle Grenade in order to compliment high fire rate with a Springfield due to ranking up or perhaps a BAR to start harassing the enemy.
First off, they start with 3 XP, almost as much as an Officer, although they still rank up at 10 exp. They do move 40% slower than Soldiers, but can still kick butt when loaded with a BAR, just as any soldier can. Also, if given the M1 Garand (and if there's not much competition for kills, usually early in the game) they tend to rack up exp fairly quickly within the next 10 waves and radio options are executed within 3-5 seconds, and as they gain exp, they make calls faster. When they reach 100 exp, they will make incredibly fast calls.
On an opposite note, their calls may take a long time to go into effect, and, if they become pinned, the call is cancelled. Also, if you Concentrate Fire while they are calling, the call is cancelled and they shoot. The same thing will happen if you tell him to Hold Fire. This isn't a big problem though, as your TP is only taken away when the call is completed.
Trivia []
- If you attain the Meritorious Unit Commendation, the signaler will still be equipped with a Springfield.
- Will obtain 1 EXP from making successful calls and thus level up quickly if radio procedures are regularly used (the aforementioned sit-rep spam, for example) and may lead to a surprisingly good unit late game.
- The Signaler is the slowest unit in the game.
- When he dies he leaves his radio box on the ground.
Aiming
Pinned Down
Dead Signaler
Calling for support
