Overwatch Soldier

The Overwatch Soldier is an intelligent infantryman that work in squads and have a variety of attack methods. While Civil Protection has jurisdiction over the relatively minor affairs of policing the cities, Overwatch Soldiers can be found everywhere, and form the backbone of the Combine military occupation force on Earth. They are the most common Overwatch soldier variant.

Overwatch Soldiers usually travel in APCs or Dropships. Dropships are generally used for larger scale attacks.

Overwatch Soldiers are one of the games' most common foes. They are frequently encountered throughout most of Half-Life 2, Episode One, and, to a lesser extent, Episode Two.

Appearance & Capabilities
Overwatch soldiers wear advanced body armour, which protects their torso, groin, arms, and thighs. The armour is typically coloured grey and has a simple urban camouflage design. They wear advanced helmets with masks that cover the soldier's face. The mask contains blue goggles which glow. Overwatch soldiers wear an Overwatch insignia on one of the arm pads.

Overwatch soldiers are usually equipped with sub-machine guns, shotguns, or pulse rifles, in addition to grenades.

Overwatch soldiers typically work in squads of four to six, each squad having at least one soldier armed with a shotgun and another armed with the AR2 Pulse Rifle. Soldiers make use of squad tactics and will attempt to flank its enemies and cover each other.



Overwatch soldiers are initially encountered in the coastal wasteland outside the city, patrolling the highways for resistance activity and staffing Combine outposts. They can, however, be found anywhere the Combine requires direct military action, as soldiers can be quickly transported to a desired area via dropships. Overwatch soldiers are also tasked with guarding high-security areas, monitoring stalkers in the Citadel and serving as staff in the Nova Prospekt. In addition, they also serve as pilots and gunners of the Combine hunter-choppers.

Overwatch soldiers are confirmed to be humans that have undergone extensive modifications including, but not limited to, brain and chest surgery, removal of genitalia, and implantation of various mechanical devices in the throat and around the abdomen, and are likely to have their memories replaced. This procedure is carried out at Nova Prospekt and the Citadel. It is notable that in the B2 cell block of Nova Prospekt, after a few shuffles in a security monitor, a "naked" soldier can be seen lying on a table between two control panels. His eyes are open, indicating the soldier is not asleep, and is obviously being prepared for clothing. Some players like to think of Overwatch soldiers as human synths; Dr. Kleiner describes them in Episode One as "post-human" in reference to their enforced enhancements.

Despite the extensive surgery and modifications they receive, Overwatch soldiers still appear to have certain human characteristics - for instance, they still feel pain, and during the Nova Prospekt chapter, Doctor Breen is giving what appears to be a morale-boosting speech to them, and they sometimes can be heard shouting expletives in the heat of battle, indicating that they still have human emotions to a certain extent. They also communicate over radios, but unlike Civil Protection officers, are not spoken to by dispatchers, but instead address them, such as saying, "Overwatch, sector's not controlled.". Based on announcements made over the public address system of Nova Prospekt, punishments for failing to achieve objectives include "permanent off-world assignment".

In combat, soldiers fire their weapons with decent accuracy. The amount of damage soldiers can take before dying is determined by the difficulty level the game is being played on. If a hostile target is at point blank range, a soldier will hit the target with the butt of his weapon.

Tactics

 * Overwatch soldiers use a variety of squad tactics when engaging hostile targets. These tactics include flanking, covering each other, and effective use of grenades.


 * Always excercise caution when entering an area with structures that offer concealment such as buildings and walls.


 * Stay aware of your surroundings while engaging a squad of soldiers and keep an eye on your back, as there may be a soldier trying to flank around you. Also, try not to concentrate on a single soldier while being engaged. Be mindful of what the other soldiers are doing.


 * When a soldier is injured or has to reload his weapon, he will typically try to find cover and get behind a solid object.


 * When taking cover while in a firefight, be aware that the soldiers you are engaging will most likely throw a grenade at your position, so be ready to throw it back at them with either the gravity gun or using the use key. If a grenade is not thrown, then it is likely that one or two of the soldiers are making their way to your position to hunt you down.


 * Try to keep your distance from soldiers at all times. If you are right in front of a soldier or beside him, he will resort to a melee attack (hitting you with the butt of his weapon).


 * Grenades of any kind will generally make soldiers disregard everything and attempt to get out of the blast radius. This is a good way to get soldiers out into the open if they are hiding behind cover, or just to make them stop shooting at you for a few seconds so that you can cause some damage.


 * Shotgun soldiers, especially in close quarters combat, should be your first priority, as their shotguns are a much more significant threat than the weapons used by ordinary soldiers. Use your own shotgun, crossbow, or .357 magnum to take them out.

Variants
Being one of the most versatile units at the Combine's disposal, Overwatch Soldiers come in several varieties with different specialties:

Overwatch Sniper
Overwatch Snipers are specialized soldiers in the Combine Overwatch trained in the use of the Overwatch Sniper Rifle.

Nova Prospekt Prison Guard
Prison Guards are tasked with guarding and maintaining the Nova Prospekt facility. These guards are almost exactly the same as a normal Overwatch soldier, using the same weapons and having the same stats, the only difference being their armour which is blue with yellow goggles, the words "Nova Prospekt" stitched onto their back armor as well as their shoulder and their armor is a dark blue rather than the normal gray. However, they still have the standard badge similar to the Overwatch Soldiers.

Shotgun Soldier
Shotgun Soldiers are specialists in close quarters combat and exclusively wield the shotgun. In the PC versions of Half-Life 2 and Episode One, shotgun soldiers are visually identical to a normal Overwatch soldier, but in the console versions of The Orange Box and the PC version of Episode Two, shotgun soldiers can be distinguished by their brown/red uniforms and battle armour. Their helmets are slightly darker than the average Overwatch Soldier, and have blood red/orange goggles. They also bear the Overwatch Elite insignia on a red shoulder pad, suggesting that they may be a branch of the Overwatch Elite or possibly a higher ranked solider variant.

Trivia

 * Originally the uniforms were intended to have randomly generating alphanumeric unit numbers on them, as well as have a different camouflage design, yellow undergarments and dark orange goggles. However, due to gameplay and programming issues, the design was reworked.


 * Alternate, green-colored Combine Soldiers with glowing orange eyes were seen in preview screenshots of Half-Life 2: Episode One, at the time when the episode was still called Aftermath. It is unclear how this variation differed from the rest of the Combine Overwatch, as they were replaced by regular Combine soldiers in the game's final release. They were, however, seen in Episode Two. These same green-colored soldiers can also be seen in the main menu of Half-Life 2: Deathmatch. It is interesting to note that they have the Elite insignia on their leg pads.


 * During Half-life 2: Episode Two the soldiers armor and boots are flecked with mud, indicating they have been traveling by foot for long periods of time.


 * The patch worn on the arm of combine troops appears to be the United States Army 7th Infantry Division that has been recolored.


 * Shotgun soldiers bear the Overwatch Elite insignia on one of their shoulder pads. This implies that shotgun soldiers are a branch of the Overwatch Elite. However, they are encountered much more frequently than elites. They may also be officers.


 * Shotgun soldiers appear throughout Half-Life 2 and the episodes in the console versions of The Orange Box, but only in Episode Two on PC. In the console version of Half-Life 2, Nova Prospekt prison guards who wield shotguns look identical to ordinary prison guards with the exception of red goggles.