Team Weapons - Tips For Effective Use And Survivability

Hello,

What is some advice you can give for MG, mortar, and AT gun placement? What has your experience been in making effective use of these?

I think I struggle the most with AT guns, but really looks for general tips that may even help others that stumble across this post.

Hello,

What is some advice you can give for MG, mortar, and AT gun placement? What has your experience been in making effective use of these?

I think I struggle the most with AT guns, but really looks for general tips that may even help others that stumble across this post.

MG: Reposition it each time its location has been revealed, especially if it's unsupported and open to getting flanked. A good player doesn't walk into the same MG position twice.

Mortar: Keep it as close to the frontline as you can get away with and its value goes up allot cause of reduced scatter. Besides that, use smoke barrages constantly, it's tactically very useful against team weapons (much more so than normal rounds). HE barrage should be reserved against unmoveable targets or units in the fog of war, otherwise it's better to keep it on autofire in my experience. You want consistent damage with a mortar to win fights, not try to go for wipes.

AT guns:

• Don't attack move further than your own frontline or before you know it your AT guns will be walking into enemy territory once no vehicles are in sight anymore.
  
• You want 2 AT guns once medium tanks start arriving, if you can afford it. You go from needing 4 volleys to kill a medium to needing 2 volleys.
  
• If a single AT gun gets flanked by a vehicle, you want to be reversing while rotating instead of just rotating, it's faster and less predictable.
  
• If 2 grouped AT guns get flanked by a vehicle, you want to move your AT guns apart from each other so the enemy vehicle gets shot by one of your AT guns while trying to kill the other.
  
• I find multiple AT guns work best if they're all facing the same direction instead of each covering a different direction. However, they should be seperated slightly if you suspect rocket artillery or powerful off-maps like fragmentation run or cluster bombs.
  
• Ideally you want to keep your AT guns close to your vehicles, especially if the vehicles provide sight like a T70 or 222. AT guns shouldn't be acting on their own, but act as force multipliers for your vehicles. The best way to improve AT gun coordination is to play 1v1/2v2 Soviets and going T70 with double ZiS gun. The T70 is vulnerable without the ZiS guns and the ZiS guns are vulnerable without the T70, but together they're almost unstoppable, even against something like a P4.
  
• Use the abilities on your AT guns frequently, they're all very good. Especially TWP for the Pak40, Barrage for the ZiS-3 and Take Aim and Sabot rounds for the M-1, but the others also.
  

MG: Reposition it each time its location has been revealed, especially if it's unsupported and open to getting flanked. A good player doesn't walk into the same MG position twice.

Mortar: Keep it as close to the frontline as you can get away with and its value goes up allot cause of reduced scatter. Besides that, use smoke barrages constantly, it's tactically very useful against team weapons (much more so than normal rounds). HE barrage should be reserved against unmoveable targets or units in the fog of war, otherwise it's better to keep it on autofire in my experience. You want consistent damage with a mortar to win fights, not try to go for wipes.

AT guns:

• Don't attack move further than your own frontline or before you know it your AT guns will be walking into enemy territory once no vehicles are in sight anymore.
  
• You want 2 AT guns once medium tanks start arriving, if you can afford it. You go from needing 4 volleys to kill a medium to needing 2 volleys.
  
• If a single AT gun gets flanked by a vehicle, you want to be reversing while rotating instead of just rotating, it's faster and less predictable.
  
• If 2 grouped AT guns get flanked by a vehicle, you want to move your AT guns apart from each other so the enemy vehicle gets shot by one of your AT guns while trying to kill the other.
  
• I find multiple AT guns work best if they're all facing the same direction instead of each covering a different direction. However, they should be seperated slightly if you suspect rocket artillery or powerful off-maps like fragmentation run or cluster bombs.
  
• Ideally you want to keep your AT guns close to your vehicles, especially if the vehicles provide sight like a T70 or 222. AT guns shouldn't be acting on their own, but act as force multipliers for your vehicles. The best way to improve AT gun coordination is to play 1v1/2v2 Soviets and going T70 with double ZiS gun. The T70 is vulnerable without the ZiS guns and the ZiS guns are vulnerable without the T70, but together they're almost unstoppable, even against something like a P4.
  
• Use the abilities on your AT guns frequently, they're all very good. Especially TWP for the Pak40, Barrage for the ZiS-3 and Take Aim and Sabot rounds for the M-1, but the others also.
  

So I know units that have camo have the hold fire ability for recon, ambushes, and other crafty plays. I know that vehicles have hold fire essentially to retreat and disappear ASAP in FoW from AT guns, TDs, and planes. Why exactly do AT guns have the hold fire ability? What is its purpose and effective use, if any?

You may want to use hold fire if you have a camo at gun to allow a vehicle to get closer, which could mean you get 2 shots off rather than 1. Situational ability for sure though.

Support weapons are meant to support, as the name suggests.
Use infantry to gain sight for them as well as protection.

MG's work well to apply additional pressure or slow down incoming attacks.
Scout ahead with a squad, if they come running for you, bait them into the machine gun.
They either retreat when suppressed or you can close in again with the infantry to inflict additional damage.

Mines placed next to AT guns work wonders against lighter vehicles such as 222 or T-70s that try to circle them and take them out on their own.

Don't set mortars in cover, as the models will clump up and therefore take more damage by indirect counterfire.
Use the barrage ability only when needed, to kill static emplacements, deny green cover during a firefight, (forcing them to either abandon the cover or take additional damage by the mortar) or to barrage chokepoints to inflict damage to incoming enemy reserves.

When used against houses, use attack ground instead.
A house is a big enough target that the reduced accuracy doesn't matter and the additional damage forces the enemy to abandon the house quickly anyway.
That way, you save the cooldown for a smoke barrage, for example.

In general, support weapons are easy to punish when static, so move them once revealed.