Overview
I’ll demonstrate how to become an advanced Artillery Gunner in Hell Let Loose. You don’t need to be a Rocket Scientist to learn how to boost you’re kill/death ratios into the 100s for 1. On an average game, you’ll be somewhere between 40/1 to 60/1 kill/death ratio. There are no advance calculations you need to make. You’ll change targets within seconds. The commander will love you!
Introduction
So you’re interested in using the artillery, and want to help out your team! Great, that is the first thing. Next you need to learn how to use that artillery, and become accurate with it. The last thing a team needs is friendly artillery landing on top of their heads! Don’t be that guy!
If artillery is used properly, it can turn the tide of battle in your favor. You’re job is to suppress the enemy so they can’t build up a defense. They’ll be too busy hiding from your shells to be bothered with your team rushing the objective. I guarantee, by the end of this, you’ll be getting 50-100 kills per-round. So sit back and listen!
Please note that this guide assumes you’re already familiar with the artillery guns. You have fired them, and know how to rotate and range the gun.
You’re not a tank buster!
You’re NOT a tank buster! Artillery almost never damages a tank for a couple of reasons!. First, they’ve most likely moved by the time your shell hits. Second, even if you do hit them, you’ll do no damage. So don’t waste your time!. The best you can do, is place smoke down to cover your AT boys.
Prepare for battle
While your team is running into battle. The first thing a good Artillery squad should do. Is pre-aim the guns at the first objectives. 2 of the 3 guns should be targeting the objective being attacked. One of those 2 guns should have an HE loaded, and the other should have smoke. The 3rd gun should be targeted to your defense objective. This should be unloaded.
By doing this, you’ll be able to change to smoke or HE when ever you need. So again Speed! If the defenders need some help, You can quickly adjust your defense gun to support them. All the pre-aiming you’re doing at the beginning will save lives later.
The best and fastest way to work out these targets, is to use Hell Let Loose’s Advanced Artillery Calculator[www.hell-let-loose-calculator.com]. But more of that later…
When your troops are getting close to the attack objective, try to imagine the other team is about the same distance from the objective. So target a little on the opposite (enemy side) of the objective ring. As you can see here.
Try and time the firing of your HE to land just where you imagine the enemy will be. Fire rounds of 3 always. If troops are around tell them how many you’ve fired. So they can time an advance. Normally, I’m the first guy on my team to chalk up kills because I’ll do this!
NOTE: A man can run 150 meters in the time it takes a shell to land. So use this measure to time your shots. The big objective circles on the map are 100 meters diameter, and the smaller ones are 50 meters.
Use all the Tools
If you’re a squad lead, then mark your own targets. This is the second fastest way to target. But it is the most accurate way. The fastest way I’ve found is to use the Hell let loose Advanced Artillery Calculator[www.hell-let-loose-calculator.com] on my phone. If I use this calculator, I can just tell the gunner what degree they should turn to. I don’t need to yell stop, or move right, left etc. They know where they need to turn, and all I need to focus on is the elevation. By doing this, the speed of changing targets is 100%-200% faster!
To use this calculator, you need to load it on your phone (or PC) by navigating to the site.
- Select the map you’re playing
- Select the gun your using
- Click where you would like to fire.
- Take note of the elevation, and degrees
All this will initially take about 5 seconds. After you’re setup, changing target is as easy as clicking on a location. If you can use Google maps, then you can use this… Tell your loader his degree to move to, and while he moves, adjust your elevation to suit. Once the loader has aimed, Double check your degrees match the gunner’s number, and fire at will!
Wait about 20 seconds, and you’ll hear a bell ring every kill!
Don’t wait for permission
Often an artillery crew will wait for the commander to give them permission to fire at something. This is a bad practice.
1) You’ll not be very effective, plus it’ll be very boring for you.
2) You don’t need fire support markers to fire artillery! All you need is the distances and degrees.
3) The commander is too busy to think about you, and quite often commanders completely forget about artillery support. They like to keep the ammo for themselves, and rack up their own kills with strafing runs. (On saying this, Please watch the ammo)
4) If you’re watching the map, you quite often have more situational awareness than the squads on the ground. So can predict enemy movements. The amount of times a squad has observed enemy just to have my shells land on them in seconds is uncanny.
Watch the map!
Always be watching the map. There are a couple of reasons why you’ll do this.
- You don’t want to fire in the advance of your troops.
- You want to see where your troops are facing to indicate possible targets for you
- You can lay smoke down if you see a rush is stalling.
Remember, you’re there to support your team. This is not all about the kills!
What I do if I see a lot of my guys facing one direction. I’ll search for trenches or bottlenecks in that location. I’ll place 3 shots around the area. Either walking them through a trench or along a hedge line. The amount of times I’ll take out 3-6 guys and an outpost doing this is crazy.
Watch your Ammo!
The ammo is very important to you, and the commander! If you’re just shooting off the ammo randomly, and none of your team is there to take advantage of your work. There is no point doing it. So pick you targets carefully. Make sure you have the feet on the ground to support your efforts.
Conclusion
Artillery is slow by nature, and hard to aim, so speed & accuracy is the key for being successful! By pre-aiming your guns, and loading the ammo in advance you decrease your response times by minutes. Keeping the heads down of your enemies, and supporting the advance of you team is your goal! If a team has a good Artillery crew on board, it’ll be 65% more likely to win the entire battle.