Welcome to my guide.

As it currently stands, Beyond the Wire does not have a tutorial for it's gameplay mechanics.
Often times I will be communicating and directing my section and receive a lot of questions on how to do things in game. This is understandable, as a lot of the game's mechanics are not explicitly explained to the player.

Hopefully, this guide will prepare you for the trenches of WW1 by improving your K/D and game sense.

Thank you in advance for reading this guide.

This is the most important thing to understand about aiming in this game:

Moving fast hinders your stamina, which makes your gun sway more.

This limitation, combined with the large amount of sway in the game even when resting AND the fact that most guns are bolt-action, means you must play this game at a slower pace and be more methodical when attacking.

I recommend sprinting to catch up to the front lines, taking a quick rest and then jogging while in a combat zone. This will drastically improve your weapons handling.

IF you want to be more precise, hold shift while aiming down your sights. This will completely stop weapon sway and allow you a perfect shot on the enemy. Remember to rest after holding your breath as this too drains stamina.

The key to victory in this game is location, location, location. Try to occupy the entirety of the enemy's lines. Do not funnel into a chokepoint with the entirety of your team as it leaves you exposed to focused fire and explosives. Flank from unused angles. Go run through an area of the map where no one is fighting and loop around to shoot the enemy in the back.
The aim in the game is so sway heavy good positioning is more important that anything.
The fault most of the time is positioning, not bad aim.

First of all, DO NOT CREATE A SECTION IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO LEAD. Good teamwork, direction and battlefield awareness is key for victory in this game and you are damaging your team's chances of victory significantly by occupying a role that is pivotal to properly organising a squad.

With that being said, here are some beginner tips for being a SL.

As a Squad Leader communication and managing your section's respawns are key to your success as a squad leader (as well as your section as a whole). You do not have to do a lot; just inform your squad a strategy you would like to try and generally people will follow you.

Key things to remember:

• Use rally points! These provide a mobile spawn for your team and save them a trip, increasing pressure on the enemy. Build them using the T menu. These need one teammate next to you and no enemies.

OR

• Use yourself as a rally point! If there are enemies too close to an enemy position, but you are in a safe spot, you can use yourself as a mobile respawn and apply INSANE pressure on the enemy. This requires you to play insanely safely and passively which can be boring but it is extremely reliable for breaking through enemy lines.

• If you have a commander, use your binoculars to give him marks. The commander can use these marks to drop off-map artillery support.

• You can share rally points! Go to the deployment map (ENTER by default or when you are dead) and click on one of your team's rally point icons and select SHARE. This will let your team use that rally point.

The most important tip I can give is this; gain experience by playing the game. Over time, you will realise what the right calls are, how players think and how to organise squads into effective fighting units. Leadership is not easy, it is a ton of responsibility and pressure. But, if done well, and if your squad trusts each other and cooperate together you will be their guide to victory.

Good communication is the foundation of turning an adequate offence into an outstanding one. A coordinated section of mediocre players will always yield better results that one outstanding player. I cannot tell you how to organise yourself or what the best tactics are as it is all experience based. However, I can tell you the basics of communication.

Press V to use your local directional chat to talk to teammates around you.

Press B to talk to everyone in your section. People next to you cannot hear you in local chat.

Press Caps Lock as an Officer, Squad Leader or Commander to talk to other Officers, Squad Leaders and Commanders.

F1 opens a UI summary that shows that all the buttons in the game do.

The answer to this question depends on your class.

Most bolt-action rifle based classes need to be more tactical, taking the time with lining up their shots and fighting somewhere past the 20m range. This play-style relies more on applying continuous pressure to the enemy and working in sync with your team to make the match unbearable for the enemy. If you ever played a game and got a feeling of "there's nothing I can do!" it is likely because the enemy is methodically closing the noose around your team's neck by holding angles, slowly advancing and creating a front that your aggressive classes can flank around.

This brings me onto aggressive classes.

Aggressive classes like pistol users or shotgun users want to be up close and use sprint to disorient their enemies' aim. These play-styles typically are high risk, high reward and can be effective with the right man in the right place at the right time. I have had matches where I effectively allow my team to push through by meleeing our entrenched opponents after getting the perfect flank. I have also had plenty of matches where I died fruitlessly. With that being said, the value of the aggressive playstyle cannot be understated. Your team can fight on a front as long as they want, advancing slowly and so on but it may take too much time. By flanking and striking hard in the right place you can vastly expedite the process of winning.

So to answer the section title; neither is better. Both have their place and need each other for maximum efficiency.

Here are the basics of melee:

Firstly, do not be afraid to use it. Against inexperienced or surprised opponents melee can result in an effective and relatively silent kill. It is especially effective if you get behind your enemy, equip your melee weapon and start stabbing people in the back. This is more effective than using your bayonet (equip with C by default) as each swing with the bayonet forces your character to yell a battle cry. Melee weapons are silent and so do not alert your enemy unless they have impeccable teamwork and communication (which they usually do not. Beware melee ambushing a group of people with clan tags, however).

Secondly, if engaged in melee with someone, remember that if you parry their attack and immediately launch your own attack you will hit faster than they can block or swing.

That's it. The rest is up to you to gain the experience to know when to use melee appropriately.

Here are all the sections in the game summarised:
NOTE: All sections are able to equip gas masks with G to defend against chlorine gas. They will be unable to aim down sights but will be able to shoot and use melee.

Command
The role of command is to coordinate the team and to support them by calling in off-map fire support.

Consists of a Commander and a signaller. The signaller is responsible for deploying a radio for the commander. The commander can then use this radio to call in fire support such as chlorine gas, artillery bombardments and smoke screens to support their team. The commander uses marks that commanders can set by left clicking while aiming through their binoculars.

The signallers do not have to remain in the section after placing the radio, it will persist.

Infantry
The sword and shield of your team. Consists of a Squad Leader, Riflemen, Light Machine Gunners, Assaults, Medics and Grenadiers.

Squad Leader
Typically the one who organises and leads the section.

The squad leaders is able to place down a rally point by holding T and selecting the appropriate option. This requires a teammate in close proximity to the leader and a lack of enemies in the vicinity of roughly 20 meters (unconfirmed). If there is no rally point, teammates will be able to spawn in on his current location if he is not inside an objective.
The benefits of a rally point is that it saves the section a trip back to the front lines and improves coordination when attacking objectives.
They are also able to place orders using T. (hint: Using an attack command makes your squad leader use a loud whistle. Use this to demoralise your enemy and get your section's focus on an objective. Remember to bind it to a key so that you can use it liberally.)

Riflemen
The bulk of the army. Basic, but efficient.

The riflemen typically come equipped with a rifle that can be fixed with a bayonet (press C). They can execute bayonet charges by sprinting and holding MMB, giving them a burst of speed and instakilling an enemy on the receiving end of the bayonet.

The one shot nature of the bolt rifle means they are deadly but require a methodical playstyle.
Do not underestimate the power of the grenade for flushing out enemies out of cover. If an enemy refuses to suicide charge into your line of fire, throw a grenade at his position. He will either not notice and die or run, potentially giving you an opportunity to push up or eliminate him. I do not recommend randomly throwing grenades; 1 good grenade in the right spot at the right time will do more for your K/D and team than 50 random grenades chucked at the start of your life.

They are also able to place down ammo boxes to resupply their team and themselves. Rare to see a need for one most of the time but if you need ammo you can do it.

Light Machine Gunners
The kings of holding choke points. Press C to mount your bipod on a piece of cover and go to town.
They are also quite effective at clearing close quarter environments. Beware you may need more than one shot per enemy due to the smaller caliber of bullet you are using.
Very versatile in terms of playstyle. Aggresive or methodical is completely up to you.

Assaults
Close quarters demons with their pistols and masters of clearing people in cover and foxholes.
I recommend using the pistol around the close corners as it suffers heavily past 20 meters. Some variants come with a bundle of grenades that have a shorter range but have a wider blast radius. Both types of grenades function more or less the same, with the difference being that the bundle of grenades is especially effective at destroying Artillery pieces and HMG nests.

Medics
The support of the team. They revive 5 times faster than a regular soldier, come with four times as many field dressings and are able to heal.

In coordinated or semi-coordinated play, the medic wants to stay towards the back of his team and improve the endurance of his section.
Despite this, the medic still comes with a bolt-action rifle and so is still deadly in the right hands.

Grenadiers
Like a regular rifleman but with a noob tube. Most effective at harassing HMG nests and artillery. Still effective at attacking from a longer range and eliminating multiple exposed enemy combatants.
Good fun in close quarters too, if you do not mind blowing yourself up.

HMG Section
This section is responsible for the construction and utilisation of Heavy Machine Gun nests. These nests are covered in the front by sandbags, use a small slit for aiming and have unlimited (reloadable) ammo. Most effective at holding a choke point and suppressing enemy assaults, or, with skill and speed, supporting your team's advance onto an objective.

One of the most powerful strategies with the HMG nest is to set it up beyond 100m and have the officer look through his binoculars and spam the Attack command button to designate targets for the gunner. The gunner is typically unable to see that far from the scope of the HMG but the commander is able to see clearly through the binoculars. The large distance allows the nest to be in the safety of friendly territory while deploying a constant stream of bullet fire onto long range targets. Furthermore, being further back improves the HMG's effective suppression zone as the territory it can cover is wider. (For example, if you deploy right on top of a trench, your effective turn radius is the trench and the area to either side of it. If you deploy REALLY far you may cover multiple objectives or the entire battlefield.) This suppresses enemy advances and racks up kills very effectively if the duo have good communication. This can be used both for defence and offense

HMG officer.
The officer is able to build up to 1 HMG nest by holding T, selecting the correct option and then using the HMG Nest's Ghost to find a valid location. Unable to finish construction. Able to mark artillery marks for the commander as well as a normal squad leader. Able to use the Machine gun nest once built.

HMG Crewman
Able to finish construction of the HMG nest using his shovel and able to build a sandbag fortification.
Able to use the Machine Gun once built.

Artillery Section
NOTE: This section is not responsible for the offmap artillery barrages that come straight down from the sky. That is a tool that the commander can use.

This section is responsible for building and using your team's artillery cannons. Effective on offence or defence where there is good, long line of sight to rain hellfire indiscriminately upon your enemy.
Be careful when deploying close to the frontline of the fighting. Enemies will inevitably hear the thunder of your cannons and WILL try to murder you, even ignoring objectives to satiate their hate against you.

Artillery Officer
Able to build up to 2 artillery cannons using the T functionality. Unable to finish construction of the cannons without the help of the crew. Able to mark locations for fire support for the commander. Able to use artillery cannon once it is built.

Artillery Crewman
Has a shovel that can finish the construction of an artillery cannon. Able to use said cannon.

Recon

The section I play the least because it is always full.
This section has the snipers of the game. These are rifles mounted with a scope.

These are the best armed section. Limited to two people, the officer is equipped with a rifle, a pistol and a melee weapon, making him the most diverse class in the game. That, combined with his trench shield and bolt cutters, means he is highly useful to the team as well.

The second class is the sniper. You are able to be much more accurate with the scope and deliver some killer shots on the enemy, becoming the bane of artillery nests and HMG nests as well.

I recommend supporting an infantry section that is pushing up OR hunting for nests. With your precise firepower you cannot go wrong doing either.

Community Advice:
BRACKETS INDICATE ADDITIONS/CHANGES TO IMPROVE INFORMATION ACCURACY

By Foxlimes:

"I'd recommend that the sniper/officer communicate constantly; my officer marked targets [for me as the sniper], scouted out for new sharpshooting positions, boosted me onto places [by crouching and letting me vault him] and always had a shield for me.

... the officer can precise target people for the sniper with an [attack indicator] indicator [which makes a click click noise and displays a visual aid for the sharpshooter]; combined with good communication and good spottings I easily ended the game with twice as many kills as the other top player and a victory was ours."

I hope this has helped you better understand the game.

Please leave feedback and a review so I may edit and improve this guide further.

Good luck in your matches!