Weapons

A Beginner's Guide to Weapons
-by WikingTOR & Pixie

Sidearms

When your Panzer is reloading, your sniper position is revealed and you have to encounter close combat, or your SMG is out of ammo, what do you do? You whip out your trusty sidearm and humiliate your opponent with a weapon that is smaller than his!

• Knife: All players in Enemy Territory are equipped with one standard issue WW2 army knife. The Knife is mostly a last alternative for players running out of ammunition, but also the assassins' potential best friend. If you can successfully sneak up on an enemy player, you will find that a quick stab in the back can instantly kill an opponent without alerting his teamates of your presence.
• Pistol: The Allies have the Colt1911 as their spare gun and the Axis have the Luger. Pistols are typically only needed when you've got no other choice, but should not be underestimated because when they are used right they are extremely deadly to your foe. Pistols have slower rate of fire than the SMG's but this can be helped by pressing the fire button rapidly instead of holding it in. The $10,000 tip when you are armed with only a pistol to defend yourself is to keep cool and aim for the opponent's head before firing you weapon. With a little practice you will see those helmets popping off in no time, which greatly increases the weapon's usefulness and does wonders for your survival rate. The Covert Ops class can also fit the pistols with a silencer. Also, with a high enough Light Weapons skill you'll find that you get to wield two pistols akimbo style. It's double the rate of fire, double the deadliness and umpteen times the fun.

Submachine Guns (SMGs)

The most commonly used weapons in Enemy Territory are the SMGs. It's the only choice for Field Ops and Medics, and obviously you'll also see many Engineers using these. Maybe even the occasional Soldier. Each SMG has its own characteristics but in general there are a few tips you always should keep in mind when using one of these babies. As often as possible you should crouch or prone when firing. This greatly increases your accuracy and thus saves ammo by taking down your opponent faster than it otherwise would. Also, you should aim for the head. Headshots are wicked, and if you can land one or two of those your opponent will be calling for a medic before he knew what hit him.

Another useful thing to remember is to fire in bursts, make it a habit to fire like 5 shots, stop, and fire another 5 round. Also if you can avoid it, don't go anywhere without a full clip of ammo, after a fire fight reload so that your clip is full. If you have to reload in the middle of a hand to hand fight it might very well be the end of you. So the main thing to remember is: fire in burst, duck, reload and repeat.

• Sten: The Sten is a silenced SMG available to the Covert Ops class, offering great accuracy and stealth. The weapon can overheat so you should be careful unless you want it to temporarily jam, but if you follow the tip of firing in burst this is a problem you will not notice! The Sten's great accuracy gives it an edge over most other weapons on medium to long distance range. Take your time and fire short rapid bursts to your enemy's head. Remember to crouch to increase the accuracy even further.
• FG42: The FG42 is a weapon available to the Covert Ops. It's a sort of mix between a rifle and an SMG. It's a powerful gun with a slightly smaller clip size and a slightly slower fire rate compared to SMG's. This is however more than outweighed by the fact that it comes equipped with a scope for taking care of those enemies that pester you from afar. As always the clue is to crouch before you fire, and this is actually more crucial because you will use this weapon at long distances, and stray bullets are bound to happen unless you crouch or prone.
• MP40 & Thompson: The Axis Standard Issue SMG available to Field Ops, Medics, Engineers and Soldiers is the MP40 and its Allied counterpart is the Thompson. These two weapons behave nearly identical when used. The MP40 is slightly more accurate than the Thompson but the Thompson compensates by delivering slightly more damage per bullet. Again; crouching, bursting and headshots are the key to success.

Rifles

• K43 & M1 Garand: Rifles pretty much behave the same regardless of whether you pick up the Axis K43 or the Allied M1 Garand. Rifles are available to each side's Covert Ops and Engineer class. The Covert Ops use these rifles as a sniper rifle with a powerful scope and a silencer. As a sniper weapon both rifles deliver a high damage output per round and gives the Covert Ops the ability to take out enemy players from far away. When you snipe you should try to stay behind as much cover as possible to minimize chance of detection by enemy snipers or others with long range weaponry. Going prone might be a good idea in order to get the best possible aim and smallest possible silhouette. Beware of the rather heavy recoil as it tends to mess up your aim after each shot. Due to the long distance, moving personnel will not be at the same spot when the bullet hits. Therefore, try to predict where they will be at the time of impact... usually just a little to the side of their head.

  If equipped by an Engineer the rifles are no longer sniper rifles just ordinary rifles but with a rather interesting alternate fire. The Engineer can attach a grenade, "a rifle grenade", on the muzzle of the gun and lob it over a great distance for some hefty impact damage. This requires some practice though but with a good aim this is a nasty instant kill feature that should be looked out for. Tip: the rifle grenades need to travel some distance to blow up on impact, so it's not the best choice in close combat since they can be easily dodged before they detonate. Think of this as a mortar-light!

Heavy Weapons

The Soldier is the only class allowed to utilize heavy weaponry. There are several to pick from and though they are diverse, they have one thing in common; a massive damage output. Hurray! On the downside there's the fact that they slow you down and some even immobilize you if you want to use them to their full potential. Tip: running with a heavy weapon is faster if you switch to your sidearm.

• MG42: The Mg42 has a tremendous rate of fire, very inaccurate when fired from a standing position but deadly accurate from prone position. This weapon is also fitted with a set of bipods. Just press alternate fire and the gun is deployed. This sacrifices mobility and almost locks you down in one spot with a limited field of vision. The good news is that the effective range is increased considerably and anything that comes within your cone of fire will be mincemeat faster than Forrest Gump can run! Very handy for stopping enemy troops from moving huddled together, or to stop someone trying to advance through narrow areas i.e. a gate or corridor. But beware: the MG42 is very susceptible to overheating. You'll soon find that small bursts are more deadly than long showers of bullets. (Hmm, haven't you read about burst-fire before?!) You'll also notice that there are MG42 nests scattered around on different locations on most maps. These can be used by all classes by just pressing the Activate button.
• Mortar: Big and clunky the Mortar is totally useless in close quarters combat. This is meant as a powerful support weapon for use in large open areas. To fire it you need to deploy it on the ground using alternate fire and aim trough a reticle that takes some getting used to. The mortars are lobbed in a curve towards its target so this reticle uses degrees instead of the normal "place the cursor over the target" approach. What's really nifty is that your impacts show up on the battle map so you can adjust your fire by looking at that. What's even niftier is that a Field Ops can assign targets for you to aim for. This makes it possible for the Mortar to be very dangerous for the enemy without its user getting in harms way. Tip: play through all the maps and find spots where you imagine mortar rounds could be effective, ie. near objectives that need to be built or areas where enemies tend to hang out in groups. Then equip the mortar and find different areas to fire at those targets from whilst memorizing the data in the reticle. For example: on the map Fuel Dump know where to fire from and how to hit near where the Allies are trying to construct the bridge. Or as Allies on the same map; memorize how to aim to send a few mortar volleys up on the hill where the Axis build their MG42 tower. Great fun when you get it right!

   

• Panzerfaust: Real portable cannons that are very useful in the hands of a skilled player. A panzer cannot be fired from prone position, crouching doesn't make it more accurate, and you definitely don't aim for the head using the panzer. A good panzer is a smart and stealthy player. Stay behind obstacles and peek for the foe mindlessly walking towards you. The panzer has a short delay so it's a good tip to fire it and then like a jack-in-the-box jump from your hiding position and take out the enemy. If you jump out of your foxhole and then fire, a skilled opponent will take you out before you managed to fire the panzer.

  A panzer is really wasted if you use it against single players. If you see a single player coming towards you, stay in that position if you are not detected. Wait for a larger group of soldiers! A good tip is to hide near chokepoints because a large group of opponents are more likely to crowd there than on any other parts of the map. The panzers do have a large impact dead-zone, so always aim at the ground, wall, roof where the impact will have the largest effect. This means that if you see two players that run a bit apart, then aim for the ground in the middle between them to take both out! Another useful thing is that panzer instant-gibs the foe so if you see an engineer ready to blow up the objective make an effort to gib him to limbo-heaven.

  Panzer is also useful at both long range and short range. A hot-tip when you suddenly find yourself in the midst of a larger group of opponents: aim for your feet! To sum it up: Large area of affect, devastating if fired into a group of enemies.

• Flamethrower: The flamethrower is an extremely effective short range weapon and it can be used with great success as both an offensive and defensive weapon. The flamethrower is not a weapon you will normally use outdoors unless it's near a chokepoint or the area is crowded! A good use of the flamethrower is to sit near chokepoints and burst flames so the enemies have to pass your fire in order to advance. Remember that bullets can go through the flames so position yourself so that you fire your flames on an angle; or if indoors in a way that the flame bounce off a wall and you yourself are not in a direct line of the flame. A flamethrower is most useful as a defensive weapon because it's very difficult to take out a flamer that has located himself smartly. As an offensive weapon it's useful to storm into a crowded room with your flamer on full and take out as many enemies as possible, or even better use it at chokepoints to prevent them from reaching the objective they are defending. The main thing to remember about the flamer is that it is devastating indoors or near chokepoints, like wall breaches, doorways and corridors.

Explosives

• Grenade: Grenades can be very useful in many situations. A room full of enemies ahead? Time to bring out your dear friend Mr Green! The grenade is a very simple piece of weaponry, just pull out the safety-pin, throw it away and it goes boom! The trick though is to make it go boom where you want it to and when you want it to. To achieve this, priming is essential. To prime a grenade you equip it, press and hold the fire button. You will now hear a series of clicking sounds. This is the grenade timer. On the fifth click the grenade explodes so you should get rid of it before that (unless you want to go kamikaze-style into limbo-heaven). If you throw the grenade after 3.5-4 clicks, it will then blow about 5-10 meters away from you and gives the enemy very little or no time at all to run away. The downside is of course that whilst priming you are unarmed so if the enemy decides to come after you, then you might be in trouble. Also worth noticing is the fact that you can throw the grenade longer if you sprint with it. Just work up some speed, release when you reach top speed, and you will see that it flies a bit longer. Another useful trick is to use the same prediction tactics as the sniper does, throw it where the enemy will be when your grenade explodes.
• Satchel Charge: Satchel charge is used by the Covert Ops and can be used to blow command posts fast and effectively. Another useful function of a satchel charge is to use them as a "booby trap" and detonate when someone is near. Tip: Steal a fallen enemy's clothes and sneak into their midst and drop one in a crowd. Hilarious!
• Land Mines: Used by Engineers to mine and protect the objective. Landmines are invisible to enemies except Covert Ops, which can use binocular to spot them and mark them on the battle map. A land mine can be placed only outdoors and only on certain terrains with a maximum of ten mines per team. A landmine has to be armed and when deployed you will see a flag indicating that there is a mine HERE! If you step on a mine you will hear a click - Step off: boom! An engineer can disarm a mine so stay put if possible and wait for rescue. Tip: place mines where the enemy is bound to walk (chokepoints), but avoid areas where there are normally heavily gun-fighting because a mine is as deadly for your team as for the foe it's intended for.

Support Fire

• Air Strikes and Artillery Strikes: The Field Ops has the special ability to call in support fire using either a smoke grenade to assign a target for an Air Strike, or using his binoculars to assign a target for an Artillery Strike. The Air Strike has the largest area of affect and will kill everything unlucky enough to get caught under it. The Artillery Strike has a smaller area of affect but lasts longer. Several rounds of artillery fire are sent towards the area marked by the Field Ops, and these will also kill anything it hits. Tip: if someone calls in support fire against you, a smoke signal will appear near the target a few seconds before it hits. When you see the smoke it's generally a good idea to run away! If you are the one calling for support fire try to use it near spots where you know the enemy usually shows up, or near areas they need to go, objectives for example. Though this might not always kill the enemy it could very well slow him down or mess up his tactics.