Tactical Insertion

A Tactical Insertion (commonly abbreviated to TI) is an item of equipment that is available in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Call of Duty: Black Ops multiplayer. Tactical Insertions appear in the form of flares, which are placed by the player, designating where the player will respawn. Tactical Insertion is unlocked at level 11. A cross-hair-like chevron (^) is shown when the TI is being placed, and points in the direction the player respawning will face. The Tactical Insertion can be destroyed by enemy players. Friendly TI's appear green, while enemy TI's appear red.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Tactical Insertion is an Equipment item in Modern Warfare 2. It takes a few seconds for the TI to activate after hitting the "equipment" key. It can be deactivated by enemy players by hitting the "use key" near the TI.

Call of Duty: Black Ops
The Tactical Insertion returns, but this time the player can cancel a TI between lives, which can be useful if an enemy is camping a TI to get a quick kill. Tactical Insertions are not usable in Free For All and Wager Match.

Tactics
It is generally more useful to use the Tactical Insertion in gametypes which requires defending an objective, providing respawns are enabled. It is useful to hide the TI in a corner or room away from enemies, who can destroy the flare, preventing the preferred respawn point. When a Tactical Insertion is destroyed, a message will appear in the corner showing who destroyed the flare, along with a sound similar to the one when being stuck with Semtex. Placing a TI near an integral flag in Domination is an effective, and widely-used way to make the best use of it. Placing a flare near an objective in Demolition or Sabotage (although there is a respawn delay in the latter) can be effective in preventing enemies from defusing/planting bombs. Although there is absolutely no respawn use in Search and Destroy, as there is a message when a TI has been destroyed, placing one near an objective, and visually defending the other, a player can be alerted when an enemy is at the other bomb site - this only applies if the enemy is inexperienced enough not to know of the alert. A C4 is often more useful than doing this, as it has lethal capabilities. In Capture the Flag, it can be useful to place one before taking the enemy flag, but can be hindered by the respawn delay. TI's can also be used to hold down preferred positions in the map which may be difficult to get to, such as the roof on Highrise. This can sometimes backfire if the TI is seen. One problem with placing a TI in a room or beside a wall is that it can glow through the wall, which makes it obvious to enemies, and makes it more likely that it will be destroyed. The best place to put the TI is somewhere hard to access by enemies, but easy for the user, and also close-by, such as the bathrooms in the house in Estate. A more unorthodox way of changing classes is to place a TI, commit suicide, and respawn instantly again with the new class, in the same position.

Repeatedly placing a TI in the same position can be detrimental to a player/team's performance in killing-based objective games, as players will realize the position of the TI, and either camp or place a Claymore in order to achieve more kills.

Some players prefer waiting until the enemy respawns where the Tactical Insertion was placed to get the kill.

A less common use is to drop a Tactical Insertion while defending a point in Headquarters. It will not help defending, but after the HQ is destroyed, a possible large cluster of enemies is likely to be nearby, and unsuspecting. It helps when battling for control of the HQ on large maps where the respawn points are dispersed.

Players have been known to wait by Tactical Insertion flares, hoping for a relatively easy spawn kill. 25 spawn kills from an enemy Tactical Insertion flare awards the "Tactical Deletion" (abbreviated TacDel) challenge and callsign title. Furthermore, SitRep makes Tactical Insertions show up red from any point in the map, even through walls. It is important to note that it takes about 3 seconds to light and drop the flare. During this time the user is defenseless against any attackers, but can cancel prepping the flare and switch back to their weapon. Tactical Insertion users can pick their flares back up to place them somewhere else if they so desire. Tactical Insertion flares can be destroyed by gunfire or manually by pressing X, F, or Square (Xbox, PC, PS3, respectively).

When respawning with a Tactical Insertion, one will be facing in the direction they were facing when they dropped the flare. Keep this in mind as not to drop on while facing a wall, only to respawn facing the wall with ones back to the enemy.

Killing an enemy within five seconds of tactically inserting five times completes the challenge Jack-In-The-Box I, unlocking the title by the same name. Jack-In-The-Box II requires 25 kills within five seconds of insertion and unlocks the Ta-Da! title. Jack-In-The-Box III requires 50 kills within five seconds of insertion and unlocks the Tactical Insertion symbol as an Emblem.

Tactical Insertions are very useful to snipers. A sniper can spawn at or near to their chosen sniper position. This is a risk however, as if an enemy player sees the sniper using the TI or placing it on the ground they will most likely wait for that person to respawn and kill them.

Another less common but useful approach to using a Tactical Insertion is to place it near a group of booster and try to kill the boosters. This way, if the player kills the boosters, the player can then pick up his Tactical Insertion and move on until the game ends, or the player finds more boosters. And if the player is killed by the boosters, the player can then respawn near the enemies and possibly take them by surprise.

One way to get easy Tactical Insertion kills without camping it is to place a claymore in front of an enemy TI if the player has one.

When a player is caught and killed after placing a tactical insertion, it is advised that they switch to a riot shield class as the enemy will most likely be waiting for the player to respawn to kill again.

When a player is sniping, using a tactical insertion as bait can be effective, as enemies will either try to destroy the insertion or wait for a player to spawn (for a easy kill).

Tactical insertions are also commonly used by boosters, generally paired with Cold-Blooded. For this reason, it is advised to equip SitRep whenever boosters are present, to find them easier.

Trivia

 * The flare that is fired at the end of the mission "Whiskey Hotel" is a complete reuse of the Tactical Insertion model and skin. Also, red Tactical Insertion flares can be found on the floor in the mission "Of Their Own Accord".
 * Occasionally, when spectating, the player cannot see the Tactical Insertion.
 * During the Alpha phases of Modern Warfare 2's multiplayer, the Tactical Insertion was going to be a green/red glow-stick, not a flare. Proof of this can be seen in Robert Bowling's (fourzerotwo) Twitter account during later Q&A sessions and the official strategy guide. It was changed to a flare because the developers thought the glow-stick "wasn't cool enough".
 * The Tactical Insertion doesn't have a third person animation for "preparing" the flare, or placing it. It uses the standard grenade animation.
 * If the player sees an unattended Tactical Insertion, it may be a good idea to wait for the person to spawn for an easy kill, but this can be harmful as it could be a trap or the player using the Tactical Insertion could spawn and kill the player before he can kill them.
 * Planting a Tactical Insertion can be useful as a warning system when used in Search and Destroy, as the player will be alerted when an enemy destroys it, alerting the player to their presence.


 * There was a glitch that could be achieved with a Tactical Insertion and One Man Army. To do the glitch, the player would have changed his class with OMA and while he was changing classes he would lay down a Tactical Insertion. When he finished doing both he could fire with the equipment of the class he choose. The equipment shot the way the primary weapon of the class does. However, the player couldn't run or jump during the glitch or it would take them out of the glitch.
 * A good tactic, especially in Search & Destroy is to have 2 classes with OMA, one with a Tactical Insertion and one with a Claymore, place the player's claymore, switch classes, then put the Tactical Insertion over the claymore. Enemies will not be able to see the claymore through the light of the flare, so they most likely go over to cancel the Tactical Insertion or simply walk past it, triggering the claymore and getting the player a kill.
 * In Multiplayer, if the player cancels the Tactical Insertion while he's putting it down, he can still hear it clicking.
 * Knifing the player's, or an enemy's Tactical Insertion destroys it.
 * It is most used by boosters as the player can keep respawning in the same place so he can quickly get kills.
 * If one were to look carefully, the words 'Golden Beard' can be seen, over top the words 'Emergency Flare', the latter of which are in a smaller font size.
 * The Tactical Insertion in Black Ops will add a new ability that allows a player to cancel their Tactical Insertion in their Killcams. This was added due to the tendency of other players camping Tactical Insertions, waiting for the player to respawn there just to get an easy kill off of that person.
 * The Tactical Insertion in Black Ops will not be available in Free-For-All game types, most likely to discourage Boosting.