How to get “Ain’t No Cavalry Comin” achievement

In a normal play through, regardless of difficulty and/or Iron Man-ability, you will reacquire the former equipment of dead soldiers, even if no one makes it back to the skyranger.

In perusing the game's .ini files however, folks have found many references to a "Second Wave" mode, which is made up of optional elements that sometimes radically alter the gameplay.

One of these optional elements, "Total Loss", does exactly what you were wondering about - prevents the posthumous recovery of your soldier's armaments.

Unfortunately, you'll have to beat the game on Impossible to make it available as an option.

An enemy counts as flanked when you attack from a direction their cover does not block. This can be spotty at times and it is also based on line of sight of your soldiers and the enemy. You can check how flanked something might be by rotating the camera to the direction the enemy is coming from and seeing how much of your soldier is out in the open.

For example an alien was counted as flanked for me once when he rested against a gas station counter on one side but had the little thin arm that blocks you from moving on the other side. The arm was so thin that it didn't count as cover and he was considered flanked.

Finally enemies such as chrysalids, muton berserkers or any other enemy that does not use cover cannot be flanked. Only enemies who actively rest against an object to use as cover can be flanked.