Spotter and Tank Shelling 101

[Serqit]

Listen up maggots, time for some boot camp.

Due to the difficulty of a direct assault on the generator base of the strogg 3rd objective This method im going to share with you is useful. This guide is Valley specific but adaptable for anywhere.

What you need:

--second objective completed - the starting tank is better used to escort the MCP until you capture the base.

--a Fire Team - this allows easy communication privately between you and your fire team members using the u key.

--a Tank - This is your means of raining hell down on the strogg.

--a field ops with Hammer Missle launcher - see above.

--a tank driver (engineer preferred) - this guy is your shooter and repairman when pesky strogg come and try to stop the tank.

--a tank gunner (engineer preffered)(optional) - this is basically for strogg on foot same as above.

--an AA turret near the tank - This handles any incoming artillary on your tanks position.

--an AVT turret near the tank - This is essentially your anti-aircraft and icharus

--Highground - this is where the field ops goes with his spotting scope.

What you do:

1. secure the tank from the first base near the bridge find a nice place to park your tank so that it has a nice open view of the strogg 3rd objective base. The bridge itself is nice as is the far side of the bridge near the tunnel as both provide a quick escape into the tunnel should things get hairy.

2. set up your Hammer launcher, AA, and AVT. Radar helps and chances are you will be in some radar of some kind. I do recommend getting your own covert ops in the fire team and have him set up a radar and scan area for flankers and aggressors with obliterators. They are easy sniping targets. He wont get alot of action compared to the front lines but it will really strengthen a setup like this.

3. Field ops, take some high ground that allows you to see the entire 3rd objective from your spotting scope. Pick a spot that is not often scanned by snipers.

4. Scan the base for the following: Order of importance: Enemy AntiArtillary, Enemy Radar, enemy AVT, enemy APT, enemy vehicles in counter siege. you are by no means interested in firing on infantry when doing this.

5. field ops, inform the tank of the targets and their general locations and have him test fire on the target while the field ops watches where the shell hits.

6. field ops, Correct his shots on the desired target by indication which way to move the turret of the tank. using the compass markers on the tank device equaling 1 "tick" the same for shell arch. In alot of cases you will be using .5 and .25 tick for presicion shots as the further you shoot the more drastic the difference.

7. field ops, once taking out any AA launch your Hammer missle at the radar if it is in range, otherwise aim for AVT, APT, and anti-seige vehicles in that order of priority. If there is no AA feel free to fire your hammer missle as often as you like as you continue to direct the shelling of the tankman.

8. If you should have crushed thier morale so well that no deployables exist feel free to start shelling the spawn point as it is very easy to hit with a spotter.

9. Strogg are gonna be mad at you. expect alot of counter agression. but have no fear. pulling into the tunnel will make you relatively safe enough to defend yourself as long as you need. I do not recommend toughing it out in the open as you do not want to let them think they can actually win. Be warned that the strogg violator airstrike may come quickly. I highly recommend pointing the tank toward the tunnel so escape is as simple as pressing W.

10. flares, lots of them. primary driver must press 1 to launch flares. if missle is inbound launch several flares as fast as possible while pulling into the tunnel. Should you have a covert ops he should take care of this aggressor fairly quickly and without much trouble sometimes before he even gets to fire.

That's it. I hope it brings many GDF a successful mission. You can take out literally any strogg installation by doing this, from that pesky AA back by the the spawn to that radar way back by the water silos.

I might mention if you intend to use this strategy that you direct them to this post because this is not somthing that is just going to materialize out of thin air and work like a charm with a bunch of people who have know idea what the hell is going on.

give'em hell soldier.

dismissed!

[Serqit]

I'd like to add for those interested a more complete fireteam would be somthing like:

--Feild Ops - with Hammer Launcher
--Covert Ops - With sniper Rifle and Radar
--Engineer - Anti-Artillary Deployable and Tank driver.
--Solder - with GPMG In trojan manning anti-aircraft or with rocket launcher for the tormentor
--Medic - Tank minigun operator and supply drop

I won't go into detail on this set up however If you read the above I am sure you will see the possibilities of the fuildity and strength of this fire team.

[gamma]

nice tacs thx for posting

[Vomiting Robot]

I'm a little bit confused as to how the field ops is supposed to direct the tank gunner's turret movements.

I can see the compass readout along the top of the screen when I'm manning the tank turret, and the notches on it can be used to quantitatively move the turret right and left. But there's no corresponding measure on the field op's binoculars. Does the spotter just need to know roughly how much distance a tick in either direction means and estimate?

And what about vertical distance? There's no meter showing how far up or down the tank turret is inclined. Maybe I'm missing something here.

[Serqit]

Originally Posted by Vomiting Robot

I'm a little bit confused as to how the field ops is supposed to direct the tank gunner's turret movements.

I can see the compass readout along the top of the screen when I'm manning the tank turret, and the notches on it can be used to quantitatively move the turret right and left. But there's no corresponding measure on the field op's binoculars. Does the spotter just need to know roughly how much distance a tick in either direction means and estimate?

And what about vertical distance? There's no meter showing how far up or down the tank turret is inclined. Maybe I'm missing something here.

your first concern: Yes the field ops needs to be a little familiar with the spacing of the compass in the tank. Yes it is a rough estimate and the field ops needs ot get a feel for it. It is not hard though so don't worry.

your second concern: Yes unfortunately there is no vertical range markers so it will be an estimate made by the tank driver in relation to the same average spacing for the compass.

You basically have to work with what your given. Which is not alot, but it does work. It requires a lot of communication. i suppose eventually you would get so good at it that you would only need the spotter to tell you where it is. I'm not that good.

In real life you use triangulation to judge the distant to the target. no test fire is done. I really wish the field ops spotting scope could either direct the tank turrent in some way or see the point of impact without a test fire. But i guess that is a little too complicated.

[NIDCLXVI]

I find that driving the GDF 1st Base Titan up on the hill and over and behind the Strogg contaminator building is far more effective (during the 3rd objective ONLY campers), be an engineer so you can back up out of sight/range and repair. Target the cyclops quickly and then take it out everytime it respawns and aim for any other deployables too, once the AIT is gone call for a hammer strike/artillery/RUSH!!!

It is easy to take out all the APTs around the shield generator also, and just generally cause a lot of grief while your 2nd Titan storms the front over the bridge with your help.

You will get called a camper, but then it's not sticks and stones... sticks and stones....

NIDCLXVI

[PizzaMan]

I always place deployables (except turrets) behind the buildings. So taking them out with a tank from a distance wount be easy.

[=ST=Superjudge]

Nice job on this tactic. It's Field Artillery 101. A gunner and a forward observer. A tip for the field ops on this one. remember to orient your corrections in reference to the gun and not to your position. If your 90 degrees off to one side of the gun, your left/right is not his left/right but is instead his add/drop. Might also help if your spotter and gunner predefine some points to fire at. Your spotter could get into position and call fire on some point away from the battlefield to get a feel on how much a whole tickmark left/right, add/drop moves the round around. Also, I'm not sure how much elevation you can get out of the tank tube but putting the tank on an upward slope might give you the chance to use a high angle attack on targets behind obstacles. Can you hit targets if you put the tank under the first bridge and on an upward slope?

All that's left is to call your Fireteam a "Battery" and rename it to "Redlegs".

(Sorry for geeking out there, I spent years doing Fire Direction for Field Artillery. It's in my blood I guess.)

[Icarus]

Originally Posted by Serqit

I'd like to add for those interested a more complete fireteam would be somthing like:

--Feild Ops - with Hammer Launcher
--Covert Ops - With sniper Rifle and Radar
--Engineer - Anti-Artillary Deployable and Tank driver.
--Solder - with GPMG In trojan manning anti-aircraft or with rocket launcher for the tormentor
--Medic - Tank minigun operator and supply drop

I won't go into detail on this set up however If you read the above I am sure you will see the possibilities of the fuildity and strength of this fire team.

the strength of this fireteam is that it basically allow only 1 out of 5 people to complete an objectifve. It must be a very strong fireteam if you want to throw the game to the other team.