Battle of Britian in BF1942 is lop sided.

[crashed13]

Seem like the Germans win all the time. All they have to do is hop in a bomber and bomb away. The Allies have to travel far to get a plane and all be Engineers to keep the buildings up.

You dont see the Allies win much and they are always out numbered because no one wants the job.

[fooj]

Yeah, it's nearly impossible to beat a German team with a plan.

[devalt]

"Battle of Britain, in World War II, series of air battles between Great Britain and Germany, fought over Britain from Aug. to Oct., 1940. As a prelude to a planned invasion of England, Germany attacked British coastal defenses, radar stations, and shipping. On Aug. 24 the attack was shifted inland to Royal Air Force installations and aircraft factories in an effort to gain control of the air over S England. Failing to destroy the RAF, the Germans began (Sept. 7) the night bombing, or blitz, of London. Heavy night bombings of English cities continued into October, when the attack was shifted back to coastal installations. The Germans gradually gave up hope of invading England, and the battle tapered off by the end of October. Though heavily outnumbered, the RAF put up a gallant defense; radar, used for the first time in battle, played an important role. The Germans lost some 2,300 aircraft; the RAF lost some 900. The Battle of Britain was the first major failure of the Germans in World War II, and it thwarted Hitler's plan to force Britain to accept peace or face invasion." - The History Channel.

Looks like they got the map right to me. The only thing wrong with Battle of Britian, as with all other maps involing air combat, is the planes are over-powered. This is a known issue and will hopefully be resolved in the next patch. When that happens, Battle of Britian will be a great map once again.

[Kamakazie]

I am one of said bomber pilots, so I'll just stay out of this argument

[[C]]

bf1942 requires you to use your think, plan on your feet and use some strategy. the bombers can not pin down a spawn point so that leaves you the opportunity to run anywhere. if twenty people run around together then of course that makes an easy target for a bomber. if each person spreads out almost singly then rally somewhere it makes it tough for a bomber to decide who to go after since his bomb load will only kill one or two soliders, not twenty grouped together. once you hit populated areas then its up to you to use concealment to your advantage. I find myself and a lot of the buds i play with have no problems against bombers.

[Mr Cherry]

I've seen the British win loads of times. It's not easy and if you have a dedicated and communitcative Axis team they can win in short time, but the same can be said for the British.

Here is an Allied strategy for you to ignore or praise:

-Sacrafice the first left tower, it's sad and heartbreaking but it's usually the thing destroyed in the first 10 seconds of the game. And you will need all hands manning AA.

-Always have someone inside the radar towers, seems simple enough but I've watched too many games where the bombers where pounding a tower because no one was inside to defend.

-Two AA are greater than one AA. The two middle towers cross over each other into a nice cross-fire effect that, with communication, can be very effective.

-Spitfire pilots, only one person needs to be harassing the enemy airfield. I've seen the entire Allied airforce going around the Axis airfields only to be shot down later, and find they have no spawn points left. You're job is to patrol the beach and defend the factory.

-Protect the factory. Because the first tower is gone, it's most likely the enemy will come from the left up the back. Watch for them!

-Repair, repair, repair! Honestly, if a guy is inside a tower calling for repairs and you are waiting for plane, get your A$$ to the tower. You won't be able to fly anything when are you sitting in game limbo waiting for the next map to load.

-Get to the AA guns. Few Axis pilots care enough to hunt down every soldier on the other AA nests. These are very important and are easily overlooked.

-Keep track of the AA guns. Nothing is worse than flying through the sky getting a good bead on the enemy plane in front of you and having the world explode and seeing your helath drop as you get pounded by your own sides AA which is now in Axis hands. The mini-map is a great tool, remember where the key AA nests are (they should be little grey/blue dots) if one is missing from your map the enemy has it, kill them! Axis love the AA that sit on the end of each runways, I know I do!

-Kill enemy infantry. Again pretty basic but with all the running around and frantic gameplay everyone is focused on the sky. Watch those paratroops, at least mark where they land. Chances are they are coming right for you and will arrive a couple minutes. Send a "Enemy Infantry spotted" when you see a guy bail.

-Machine Guns are also AA. Since the 1.3 patch the Machine Guns (hence forth refered to as MGs) versus plane damage has been increased. They are very effective AA emplacements. The bunkers to the right of the Radar Towers have a MG each that over look the sea. Get to these fast! Even if you can't get a hang on the flak guns you can probably use a MG. Plus the MG inside the bunkers are protected from bombs, which you will quickly appreciate. There is also two towers over the airfields that each have a MG, harder to get two and more time consuming, but they have great positioning for attacking bomber doing runs on the middle radar towers.

-Halftracks are also MG. Not enough people use the halftracks. They HEAL, they give AMMO, and they have a MG. Park it next to a repair pad, or in the middle of a field it will be an effective tool for taking down planes. It's also a nice vehicle to use for hunting down stranded axis soldiers because of the uses already mentioned.

Maybe now, I'll see some good tactics on BoB and get some healthy competition.

[Intimidator]

i notice is when the axis take the factory out first they win most of the time.

If they go at the factory last allies win 60 to 80% of the time

[crashed13]

WOW Mr Cherry thats some good points! I wish you were on my team,do you have any Axis strategies tips.

[Mr Cherry]

Originally posted by crashed13
WOW Mr Cherry thats some good points! I wish you were on my team,do you have any Axis strategies tips.

Yep, the main one is "EVERYONE BOMB THE SAME TARGET!"

I'll think up some more later. I've got some fun Evil Shenanigans-type stuff.

[Mr Cherry]

AXIS SHENANIGANS!

As with the British communication is key to victory. Be it chat messages (team chat only please, don't give away secrets), quick keys (F2, F1), or voice IP (Roger Wilco is my favorite, but other like Teamspeak).

-Fly the Friendly skies, never leave the hangar with only you in plane. Wait if you have to, but always take a gunner. They are useful when you have fighters on your tail and give you twice the chance of getting someone on the ground to mess with the infantry.

-Fly High, smoke a bowl and take your plane up towards the clouds. At least at the start, when all the AA is facing the sea. Fly low works but gives you less of an opportunity to bomb the towers.

-Can't see, can't hit. You know that large radar antenna that sticks up on the AA bunker? Well it obscures the view of AA gunner, so attacking from the rear can be very effective.

-Group Bomb runs, work great. They confuse the AA gunner because now he has to choose which plane he wants to shoot down. If you see one of your friends setting up for a bombing run try to go with him. It increases your chances of surviving, if you are lucky you can get some of the flak that was meant for your friend so that both of you live, with a little damage, and you can both do it again.

-Dive down, stay low, throttle away. Right after you've bombed a tower dive, fast, stay low if you are next to the sea or keep in the valleys for a few seconds. The when you are out of range go high again and repeat.

-Avoid Trees... damn those trees!

-The key to dodging flak is UP/DOWN. A basic tactic to avoid flak damage is to continuously move your plane up and down in a sort of sideways zigzag. It makes it a lot harder for the flak operator to get a lock because he has to predict where you are going to be ahead of time.

-Spitfires are made of cardboard. Spitfires are the most maneurable plane in the game. But they have weaknesses. One, they have the weakest armor of any plane, a few burst is enough to take it down. Two, spitfires are agile but lack power. They can't climb very well, maybe 3 seconds of vertical climb, the bomber can do a lot more. If you are getting pounded by a fighter on your tail. Climb as sharply as you can. Luckily the spitfire won't be able to keep up and usually veers to the left (for some reason bombers veer to the right more, just something I noticed and for you to be aware of). Three, and this really on pertains to this map, Spitfires are trying to take out bombers. A few pilots will try to go toe-to-toe with a german fighter but mostly they go for bombers. This is an advantage to you because you know what they are after and where they are most likely headed.

-Focus on one target. I mentioned this in a previous post but get everyone on your team to focus on one target at a time. If the towers were numbered left to right 1-4 and the factory is 5 I usually go in this order: 1, 5, 3, 2, 4. I find it works the best. But always do a reality check and go for the one with the best opportunity.

-Bail Out! Never be afraid to bail out. I give my friends crap about bailing out early because they don't trust in my piloting skill, but in truth NEVER trust in your pilot too much. Have that bail and parachute key easy to get to (mine is 'E' to exit/bail 'F' for parachute).

-German + Ground = Pain for Allies, first off no one care that you are on the ground. Really! Not one soldier care that there is an axis soldier about to wreck havok on their side of the ocean. It's your job to not diappoint and create as much chaos as you can. Explosions (i.e. expacks, gernades) work well to achieve this.

-Infantry can destroy towers. You already know this, though but did you know it takes 12 expacks to destroy a tower? How about 20 gernades? No, well then I guess you can learn something new. How about this, since 95% of the allied team is going to be an engineer, you should be medic or assault and gernade everyone standing next to the tower. Lope gernades inside, while standing perpendicular to the bunkers door or even somewhat behind it. that whay when the guy inside comes out to stop you from throwing gernades you can quickly switch to a rifle and BANG. Now you have all these Engineer packs laying around full of exp pack goodness, use them.

-Control the Airfields. if you are on the ground chances are you are looking for plane and heading towards the airfield, avoid main throughfairs, stick to the sides, but don't take a plane. Instead hold the field and prevent Allies from taking off. Halftracks work wonders for this and half the time the Allies won't even realize what happened, this allows for a lot of repeat attempts which at the very least adds some humor because N00bsmackTard01 has died 3 times and is about to get into the plane again.

-Enemy AA? No Axis AA! Take over enemy AA nests and lay havok down for the spitfires. No one suspects their own AA is taking them down. In all the games I've played I've had about 1 out of 10 pilots I've shot down try to get revenge. The rest don't care, and the ones that do don't stand much chance against my machine gun with their engineer rifle.

EVIL SHENANIGANS:
*WARNING THE FOLLOWING MIGHT GET YOU KICKED/BANNED*USE AT OWN RISK*HIGHLIGHT TO SEE*

-Here is something my buds and I like to do, just for kicks. I go medic, a friend goes Engineer. It doesn't matter how, but get on top of the Allies airplane hangars (parachute). Now the medic's job is to heal both and take out any snipers or infantry by the field. The engineer get's the fun job. Now, when on top of the hangar you will see a dirt path (tire marks) coming out of the center of the hangar where the planes take off. Simple like up with the line and drop a mine over the edge. Watch out, you might get hit by infantry standing below, but that's why you have a medic. The medic can also drop a gernade down to stop anyone from removing the mine (quick right click with gernade). Any taking off will run over the mine and instantly die. Engineer gets the kill and everyone gets a laugh (except for the allied boys). Repeat until you are out of mines, then para off the hangar (jump first to gain height). Reload using the Halftrack if it's near by and get into a plane and take off. Now you can either continue dropping mines from the hangar or move on to other stuff.

-The factory can be destroyed with abotu 2.5 mintues of sustained fire from one of the nearby AA guns. Take it over and hold down the fire. Eventually it will smoke and then BOOM! There are also two AA nests that can hit radar towers (usually about 2 mintues of fire to take out).


Now that I'm giving up all my secrets I better start seeing some good gameplay!

[crashed13]

I will never look or play the Battle of Britain Map the same again,thanks Mr Cherry
.

[Hey Yoda]

The radar defenses are hopelessly impossible to defend. I can single handedly take out any radar defense gun that I go after. All you have to do is fly low, near the water, then come up to drop up a bomb, and immediately drop down against the ocean again. The radar can't hit you - maybe a couple indirect shots, but not enough for any significant damage to the plane. This is using a fighter plane of course, not a bomber. Bombers are better for taking out the factory. Fighters are better for taking out the radar towers.

If I were organizing an ally team on this map, I would say forget the radar towers and just protect the factory, because if the factory goes down, the game is essentially over.

Still, to make this map more balanced I would suggest the following improvements:

1) Put the radar towers closer to the water so that planes can't avoid fire so easily.

2) Give the factory some more AA guns - on top of the factory would be very nice!

3) Put a spawn point at the air ports. However, this might have the adverse affect of all the allies taking off in planes and not defending the control points - like what happens in Coral Sea.

[Hey Yoda]

Originally posted by Mr Cherry


Yep, the main one is "EVERYONE BOMB THE SAME TARGET!"

I'll think up some more later. I've got some fun Evil Shenanigans-type stuff.

Yep, this is crucial and simple. I think if the Axis stick to this plan, the allies have no chance.

[ryandinan]

A good tip for shooting moving targets:

I still see a lot of people who don't seem to realize that you need to lead your target when it is moving in this game. Although this is very obvious with artillery shells (since you can see their trajectory), this is also true with all other firearms in the game, including AA.

I don't know how many times I've seen a guy trying to shoot down a plane while keeping the crossheair right on the target. Unless the target is still or going directly away, that just isnt going to work.

To "lead", is to allow a distance ahead of the moving target, which is used to compensate for the time it takes the projectile to travel from your position to the target. It's also used to compensate for wind and gravity, but those things aren't modeled in BF1942. The amount you need to lead depends on the distance and speed of the target. The faster and/or farther away your target, the more you'll need to lead - the slower and/or closer your target, the less you need to lead. It just takes a bit of practice to get a feel for it.

People who master leading, can hit any moving target, and from long distances.

-Ryan

[Mr Cherry]

Originally posted by Hey Yoda


Yep, this is crucial and simple. I think if the Axis stick to this plan, the allies have no chance.

Well the reverse is that the Allies just focus on that target. That's why the last tower always takes the longest, people are constantly repairing it and defending. If you have a dedicated team the Allies can hold off. Of course, that all depends on which team I'm on, because usually they win (Gee, I wonder why ).