Guided Shell / MBT

[[JiF]Trogdor]

Just began exploring the joys of using the guided shell unlock with tanks. I've tried using them before, but never found much utility as it was essentially just another shot from your cannon and it took forever to get a lock. It also left you really vulnerable to infantry as you didn't have a coax or canister shot to take them out with.

Until recently, my load-out has been Thermal Vision + Canister Shell + Reactive Armor (had to switch to this from Proximity Scan post-patch now that tanks get beat up so easily).

Last night I tried swapping Canister Shell with Guided Shell. But the trick to it is you need a buddy to ride 3rd seat in the tank and paint targets for you. I'd tried this previously and thought that once you had a painted target, you could just swap to Guided Shell and fire away. Not so. You need to wait for your OWN lock after his lock and THEN fire.

Now, you may say - so what? It's effects on ground vehicles are well known, and you get a decent hit bonus firing on a vehicle that someone else has painted. The true beauty of this method is being able to fire a shell at air vehicles. You can take out a helicopter with one-shot every time. Try as they might, they can't shake a lock from that shell once it's been fired. I must have racked up close to 28000 points on Firestorm last night using this method. Zouga was there… he saw the score.

http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf3/ba ... 229807791/

I have a feeling that this will totally change up my tank gameplay on maps with air vehicles. It's all the fun of a javelin team with only needing one other squad mate (the guy in 3rd seat can quickly switch back to seat 2 if infantry start creeping up).

It's important to note that i started researching this method because my helo was taken out repeatedly earlier this week by a guy doing just the same thing. I've been flying low and fast to make max use of the below radar unlock and avoid jets. If other tank drivers start to pick up this guided shell technique, it may force me back up high into the sky again with those pesky jets.

[[JiF]zougathefist]

so thats whats been going on, I wondered how a tank shot us down the other night.
we were killing it on that map T

in other news I took out two choppers on firestorm a few days back with rpgs, oh how I laughed at my quadruple kill when I hit the huey, they were capping flags like crazy with two guys manning the mini-guns, one repairing and one flying - others were spawning and 'chuting out. I just lined them up and as they hovered into view I fired and BLAMMO

Later I fired a snap shot off at the Viper and thought I'd missed but next thing I got the vehicle disabled score then about 20 seconds later I got the kills. Must've just clipped it, but a kill is a kill.

[[JiF]Lt Gav]

Blimey, you console boys are slow to catch on.
We've been running the paint scam for months on the PC. Mostly Jimbo would take 3rd seat whilst Gib or I would be driver with the target shell on slot 2.
I remember 1 game on Oman where we sat at A on the beach in a bit of cover & Jimbo just kept lighting up all the helos that came off the carrier & I kept shooting them down.
My loadout is the Target shell + proximity scan + Anti lock puffy smoke stuff. The smoke is real good as it negates Javelins & locks from air vehicles so if you're stationery capping a flag then you get more protection. You can also use it to give cover to someone repairing your vehicle.
We have noticed since the last patch that it has become very difficult to shoot down helos as anyone with the anti locking add on can stop anything from targeting them & by the time you reacquire the lock it's regenerated & they can hit it again.

[[JiF]Trogdor]

Ah should have figured you PC guys were holding back the good stuff!

I've been switching up my tank kit much more the past few days. Never really had to before... I swear I ran with the same set up for 5+ months. Definitely makes things much more interesting and challenging this way, though I still don't agree with everything they changed up in the patch.

What else are you guys running in the vehicles that's fun to do as a team? Seeing as I was late to the Javelin-squad game and extremely late to guided shells.