Heroes & Generals Tanks and Infantry Cooperation Guide

Heroes & Generals Tanks and Infantry Cooperation Guide by swordoflight

Let me state right off the bat that I’m a noob when it comes to tanks in this game, and this isnt a guide on how to run your tank. Its about how to play infantry around tanks, because even at this early stage, I’ve noticed some basic errors being made.

Movement:

1. First and foremost, stay clear – Because I have so far run over a dozen or so of my compatriots. Didn’t mean to squash you, but I turned on steel bridge to let that APC pass, and you were next to me. The key to understanding why is simple – a lot of the time I’m looking through a tiny little rectangle that takes up only about 20% of my monitor. Even if you’re dead in front of me – alright, poor choice of words – but I can only see, max, that little rectangle, and a lot of time I’m looking through the optics at something a half a kilometer away, not the soon-to-be-road kill in front of me. Think of it this way – the advice you hear about when you’re driving on the highway and you need to pass an 18-wheeler applies here: if you can’t see the driver, he can’t see you. That means, unless I’m visible to you – i.e. not buttoned down inside the turret – assume I cannot see you.

2. Stay Clear Part II – Do not run in front of my tank, or use me for cover. Driver makes unexpected moves. First, the front – the new vehicle mechanics now mean that it takes me a few meters to grind to a halt, a few meters which you may be within, and I don’t want to kill you, and you don’t want to die. Just don’t. Side and rear – I may suddenly start moving – backwards, sideways – to respond to something you cannot see. don’t use me as cover – because I may just flatten you.

3. I’m not a bus – if we’re rolling out of Chateau for cap, I may stop for a while and let you climb aboard for a ride, just don’t count on it. I’m not a jeep, or an APC – and my destination may be somewhere completely useless to infantry – I may be rolling to the enemy tank spawn, or to a position that allows me to snipe. And I may need to be there yesterday, so don’t get ticked off if I leave you behind.

Combat:

1. SPOT, DAMN IT! – all caps? You bet. Because I’ve been in several battles where I’ve actually said “I cannot see in this fog, shout it out if you see that StuG.” Crickets. Armor is one of the best friends a grunt has – we can lob high explosives all over the damn place – we can kill entire squads loaded into APCs, we can take out snipers, we can take out MGs hiding behind walls. And we can stop the enemy tanks from doing that to you – but visibility in a tank is abysmal. If you see an enemy tank, say so, and not “tank near river”. “Tank near ford” is better, but “Tank near ford, near the tank trap” is best. Grid coordinates, cap locations – Tiger at A2 cap. Because the key to victory in an armored duel is who sees who first.

2. Mark it on your map – an adjunct to the above – if you spot a tank, and you know I’m nearby, and you’re not under fire, you tell me in team chat “check your map, tank”, and then you press B and you look at the enemy tank with your binoculars. This then shows every friendly with a tank or bazooka just where the panzer is lurking. This is huge, this is the difference between taking an HE to the face and your armor killing that panzer.

3. We’re naked – I mean, you know, not literally, but tanks in this game are remarkably fragile. One of those stickies is enough to frag any Allied tank, and it only takes a few panzerfausts to finish us. Mines? Oh, mines. So please, keep your distance, but also keep an eye out for enemy infantry moving towards your tanks – we can’t see any better than we can see you. If you put a bullet through the forehead of that guy with the sticky, I’d be grateful – and by grateful, I mean, continuing to lob HE into their spawn. Shoot anti-vehicle mines if you see them, and….

4. Warn us when you lay your AV mines, please – because we can go boom too. Friendly fire is decidedly on – and this goes for any mine. You mine Police with anti-personnel mines? Press the t key, and say ‘I’ve mined Police’ (say that in open comms if you haven’t mined Police and you want to make them paranoid).

5. The MG – ok, this is a tough one. There are problems and benefits to using the MG on a tank – the benefit is that you can spot enemy infantry easier than I can, and kill them. The basic principle of two pairs of eyes better than one applies. However – when you fire, your bullets give the enemy a clear idea of where I am. Especially at night – so you’re sitting on the MG atop my Hellcat, firing into town? Well, you’re telling the Tiger I’m hunting exactly where I am – I’d in these woods for a reason – its dark. Your muzzle flash and tracers are giving away my position, and we’re both gonna die for it. The rule I follow is this: I’ll go tank MG (hull mounted so I’m not exposed to enemy fire) if its daytime, or if there aren’t panzers on the field, but I’ll leave and fine another way to kill Germans if the tank driver says so.

6. No, I’m not going into town – urban warfare is a filthy thing. There are RPGs all over the damn place, there are blind corners, there are squishy little Germans with stickies blowing me up all to hell. So unless an urban environment is swarming with my infantry – I’m not moving. I’m sitting back, and sniping with my HE. don’t tell me to get off of Steel Bridge because I don’t see any of you in front of me, and I know theres an RPG cache right behind that wood fence. No. You go first.

7. No, you go first – because I can’t cap (well, I can, but I’d really rather not leave my Hellcat unattended, nothing worse than ‘enemy has one of our tanks’). What I can do is provide the anchor for your advance. I can sit on Steel Bridge and lob shell after shell at cap defenders spawning – but I’m worthless without the infantry follow-up. If your tanks have advanced – advance yourself! Stop camping on the forest side of Steel Bridge and go hit the opposite shore. There have been many times I’ve died on the bridge, looked at the map when I respawned, and saw a half-dozen infantry camping the spawn, and no infantry at the next cap.

8. Limited Resources – important to keep in mind, we have a limited number of rounds. A Hellcat only has 14 HE shells – this means that sometimes we just cannot HEspam where the enemy might be. We may be reluctant to fire, we may be sitting on that last precious HE round looking for a good cluster of German infantry. Just don’t expect us to rain death on your enemies forever.