When grouped together in a vehicle, all players in the vehicle receive points for their actions and for the actions of their fellow crew members for example, if a player is driving a tank and the tank commander destroys an enemy tank, both the player and the commander will receive the appropriate number of points for that kill. Most tanks, for example, can accommodate up to three crew members (a driver, a commander and a machine-gunner) to make them fully effective in close city fighting, however it is easy to crew a tank solo and simply switch to different positions as needed. The player can operate the combat vehicles as one of the crew members. Vehicle support is also a prominent feature of the game. Rifles usually kill players in one shot if they connect with the torso or head. Receiving wounds will temporarily slow the player down, especially if they receive a wound to the legs or feet receiving a wound to the hands causes the player to drop their currently held weapon on the ground.

Additionally, the player's health status is not represented by 'health points' as many other games use, but by a diagram of the player's body with reddened sections that show where he or she has been wounded there is no way to recover from wounds, although after a brief period of time, the player will function at 100% again. The player must also keep track of their ammo usage mentally unlike many other FPS games, most of which use an ammunition counter. The former requires compensating for the breathing of the character and natural sway from holding the gun, while the latter is much quicker but accurate only at very short range. There is no 'crosshair' for a player to aim with in the middle of their screen instead, the player must either aim down the three-dimensional iron sights, or aim from the hip using the game's free-aim system.

Red Orchestra is notable for its emphasis on realism in comparison to other World War II-based FPS games. The player's movements are realistically modeled, giving them the ability to lie and move prone, sprint (while standing or crouching) and to deploy machine guns on objects. Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45 features an advanced ballistics system for both small arms and tank rounds - incorporating bullet drop, flight time, and tanks with more realistic armor properties than most games (featuring: penetration and deflection, in relation to range and projectile trajectory angle). Red Orchestra concentrates mostly on the multiplayer aspect of the game, although there is a singleplayer 'Practice' mode available.

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