BF2:Advanced helo tactics

From BattleWiki

• Turn off the cockpit when you're a gunner in the Cobra or Havoc in order to see more of the battlefield, and use the machine gun more effectively.

• Hold Ctrl while in the cockpit to turn your head and look around without moving the helicopter- useful for when you need to see what's around you without deviating course.

Stand-off TV-Guided Missile Usage

The TV-guided missile, once launched, can be given "boosts" toward new locations. This can be utilized in the following way to do a ghetto-ish "lock-on after launch" (LOAL) function.

• Have the pilot hover the helo a good distance away from an enemy controlled point.
• Fire a Hellfire such that its path takes it approximately 5-30 meters above ground level, depending on the terrain you expect to be flying the missile over
• While the Hellfire's in flight, rapidly scan for ground targets through the TV-view. If you see any, aim the Hellfire via the crosshair and click. If you aimed right, the Hellfire will now divert towards the new aim point and kill whatever it is.

This technique will allow you to do stand-off accurate tv-guided missile fire without any appreciable risk from enemy ground forces.

Keep in mind that the tv-guided missiles have a limited life and cannot be fired in this manner all the way across the map. Testing has shown that a tv-guided missile launched from a helo sitting on the edge of the USMC carrier on the 32-player version of the demo map will be able to reach any target on the shoreline, and will auto-destruct before crossing the railroad line past the park in the middle of the map.

Keep in mind that the button used to guide the missiles is always the left mouse button, even if you've rebound fire to another button. It also appears impossible to apply inversion to your mouse while guiding missiles. (Check for correctness on this?)

Black Hawk Whoring

Note: with the most recent update, this tactic is mostly useless. Several people in a chopper just count as one person. Also, with the 1.3 patch, the minigun is practically worthless compared to it's previous state.

Used effectively, the Black Hawk can be the most powerful weapon in the game. Filled to the brim with soldiers it can hover over a control point and capture it in five to ten seconds. To use the Black Hawk to its full potential, do the following:

• The people in the Black Hawk should all be members of a single squad, with the pilot as squad leader. That way, any passengers picked off by ground fire can just spawn right back into the chopper again.
• The three rear compartments should be filled with engineers. They can automatically use their wrenches to repair the helicopter after it takes damage - even during flight. With three engineers constantly repairing, the Black Hawk will be difficult to bring down. (They'll rack up heaps of repair points too).
• The gunners should both be medics, to automatically heal the chopper's occupants when they take ground fire.
• The pilot should be Support class. This keeps the engineers in the back constantly supplied with fresh grenades and AT mines, which they can liberally (and constantly) drop from the back of the chopper. (A single support can sustain infinite soldiers while in a vehicle).

Now, you can simply fly all over the map and hover low over flag points to capture them. Make sure you circle the site beforehand, to allow the gunners to mow down any opposition, and afterwards, to allow the gunners to mop up any remnants that might recpature the flag. While hovering and capturing, the engineers should drop AT mines all over the place as another defence tactic. It will prevent enemy vehicles from rolling in and capturing the flag from the safety of their armour (like you just did).

Used efficiently, Black Hawks can completely turn the tide of the battle. I have been a Black Hawk gunner in a chopper squad and racked up over 100 points in a single round from gunning, capturing and healing. Our team won 180 - 0.

Points to bear in mind:

• Should the Black Hawk be shot down, the entire squad should respawn at the airfield. A new one will appear before long.
• Don't leave the Black Hawk. There's no reason to.
• If the chopper takes heavy damage, don't panic and don't jump ship. The three engineers in the back will be able to patch it up faster than an enemy chopper or AA gunner can bring it down.
• When capping flags, don't hover TOO low - enemy spec ops can plant C4 on your underside and any soldier can lob a grenade in through the sides, killing all your engineers and leaving you vulnerable to fire until they respawn.
• The only weapon that can take out the pilot (apart from somethign that will destroy the entire chopper as well) is the sniper's M95. If you are hovering low and the pilot takes damage, PULL OUT. The gunners will ahve a very slim chance of finding the sniper and you have about three seconds before he fires again.
• When the squad piles into the Black Hawk at the beginning of the round - as vehicles from every team are all scrambling to cap the neutral flags - DON'T head for the nearest uncapped flag. Tanks and jeeps can get that, so leave it to them. You should head for the central flag (i.e, the Central Island in Zatar Wetlands or the Oil Cisterns in Daqing Oilfields) before any enemy choppers get there. Capping the nearest flag is just a waste of time.