I am always worried that I am hindering my teammates rather than helping them when I deploy smoke on an approach.
There are times when deploying smoke is obvious. Like when teammates need to cover open ground under heavy fire. But what other times is it a good idea to use it?
Is it a good idea to throw smoke into a room you want to storm into? It will prevent enemies from camping the doorway, but is the mutual blindness worth it? It might let x ray visioned AI just take people out.
I’d love to hear advice and ideas. I am particularly interested because the Churchill III has 30 grenades of smoke and it would be great to know how to best support infantry around me.
I use it two ways, if a tank is camping and mg sniping, drop smoke in front of where our troops are being killed, in front of tank sights…
Throw in building would work, but let’s be honest, you may as well use phosphorus grenades and kill whoever is inside.
I sometimes use arty smoke too, when enemies are encamped and we are struggling to push point…
I saw a guide a while ago and it’s helped me a few times. If you’re attacking a point, smoke the point so you can cover your advance in. When you’re defending, it’s more situational. A good line of smoke on the greyzone can expose them as they run through it and into your gun fire, while blocking you from getting bot shot from the infantry behind them. Other than that I use it for covering my advance across busy streets.
Personally I use smoke grenades in 2 cases:
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I can see / expect the enemy to shoot across place I want to get through.
It’s reserved mostly for short distances like crosing a road since smokes don’t have big coverage.
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I’m using flamethrower to storm a building.
Typically I throw smoke at the enemy when I’m in cover just before the assault itself. Then equip the flamer and spray and pray since you don’t see much in smoke, but I don’t have to.
I don’t use phosphorus since I’ll be inside it and I’d get damaged.
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I also used to throw smoke at tanks. But since I unlocked AT rocket launcher there is no need for this because I can keep the distance.
Also small advice. Never throw smoke at you/friendlies. Always throw them at the enemy. Otherweise you blind yourself instead of them.
Suprisingly many ppl don’t get this right.
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I’m going to get quite heavy with the tactics here so listen up.
All battles, or engagements with a battle can be grouped into 3 phases.
- Designation
- Movement
- Engagement
You are either, designating a location to advance to, advancing to said position, or engaging with an enemy. You can break it up further, but let’s not get into the minutia for now.
Smoke can be used in all 3 of these scenarios:
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In designation, and with effective communication, smoke can be used to signify a particular phase in combat. I.e. begin mortar fire, call in arty, advance tanks, etc. It’s a huge visual cue that can be used to great effect.
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Within movement, it acts as a means of concealment. Concealment being, the ability to take away your opponents visuals. This allows you to maneuver under fire to a flanking or fallback position.
- However, this needs to be a retaliatory action. If you use smoke you’re telling everybody you’re there. So only do so under duress, as doing so with no enemy contact negates your ability to out maneuver them, which results in the high chance of loss of an engagement.
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Within engagement, to reiterate on the previous statement. It depends on the terrain.
- In an urban setting, characterized by it’s high chance of CQC, it can be used to blind an opponent as you run across open ground, like a street or a corridor. It can also, serve to confuse enemies, when used to obscure chokepoints and death funnels.
- In open terrain, when under fire, you need to either fallback or move to a better position. So smoke can either cover your retreat, or obscure your movement to a different location.
So, to summarize, the best use cases are:
- Retreating - smoke can make it harder to fire upon you.
- Attacking - smoke can obscure enemies sight and allow you to move in.
- Crossing open ground - if you’re under fire, and need to move, smoke makes it harder for enemies to spot and shoot you.
- When wounded - if your squad is wounded, throw smoke so they can heal, and then retreat.
- Reposition - if you’ve been spotted, but there’s distance, using smoke can conceal your movements therefore getting them off your tail.
- Concealment in flanking maneuvers - If you are flanking, but have been spotted, rather than engage outright, you can conceal yourself and attempt to reestablish your advantageous position.
“I’LL PROTECT YOUR TANK, FRIEND!!!”
Throws smoke at you.
Meanwhile, enemy vehicle: “oh? What’s this smoke cloud for all the way back? Better keep my attention on it since I haven’t found the enemy tank yet… perhaps even shoot through it just in case to see if xray pops up”
Ugh… happened to me too often to count…
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Use the artillery smoke drop preferably close to the enemy, limiting the visibility of the front line as much as possible.
Smoke grenades can be a distraction, use them to break contact. And it’s best to throw grenades right before the point and run towards the point from the other side.
Shoot smoke grenades at the enemy point with mortar grenades. In defense, shoot at enemy positions. The enemy coming out of the smoke is clearly visible.
Smoke is a great tool and very underused
- used to cover an advance, when your team and bots arent making headway, this can usually get them in close safely.
- block a tanks vision, or heavy mg or entrenched position
- Troll reason, if a friendly tank is camping and wasting the tank slot I sometimes block his vision so he has to move.
- on caps smoke grenades can be very disorientating, evens the playing field
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I think the smoke lasted too short