A few dedicated defenders can turn the tide of a game and save the entire team from disaster. The key to defending many position are your ground defense weapons. The mounted MG (machine gun), and the TOW/HJ are powerful and can help you single handedly wipe out entire squads trying to take a flag. A real defense player is rare but this guide will hopefully help teach die-hard defenders and those new to defensive weapons something new. The TOW and HJ is essentially the same thing in game with different names. They are ground based anti tank weapons and cannot be moved by the player. You enter defensive weapons the same as a vehicle with the "E" button (on the default key layout). Once inside your view will look like this.. Guidance: You will notice in the center is where you take aim. The circle is where your tow will approximately go. You can guide the tow after it is launched. Simply point the circle in the center of your view where you want the TOW/HJ to go. The TOW/HJ cannot turn quickly so you need to have a general idea where you are going before you fire. It is a powerful weapon when shooting at distance objects. You can correct for vehicle movement while in flight allowing you to hit tanks and APCs on the run. Although buggies and other fast moving transports can be difficult to hit because they can easily out maneuver your TOW missile. . You can guide your TOW over objects such as the sandbags which most times surround a TOW emplacement allowing you to shot over the sand bags then guide it back down and hit a tank off to the side of your position. This can take some practice and knowledge of exactly how quickly you can drop a tow after firing it upward. Killing power: The TOW is the most powerful weapon besides the TV guided missile and as such it is excellent for taking out tanks and helicopters. The two videos below show one shot kills against tanks and attack choppers. Tanks are an instant kill if you hit the front tracks. Tank Hit Chopper Hit Blackhawks flying low to cap flags or give cover are excellent targets. Blackhawks and Hinds are the only things in battlefield a TOW cannot one shot kill. Although a blackhawk in many cases will not have time to get out of the TOWs range before the TOW loads its second round. Since the TOW can be guided it can nail a BH at some distance giving you a nice amount of kills. Even full of engineers a BH cannot withstand two TOW hits in quick succession. Even if they are at some distance at flags far away you can nail BH and they have no idea where it came from sometimes they even fly towards you not knowing where the missile came from. 1.2 Note: A TOW hit on a Blackhawk will at the least set it on fire, so unless the engi's are on top of their game it will go down in just one hit! I also suggest you check the hit guide for further information on what damage a TOW is capable of on battlefield vehicles. Click here to check it out I hear a lot of "I get killed before I even get a shot off". A good tank driver or player in general is going to know where a TOW emplacement is. The methods I use are: A. HIDE! Stay off of the TOW until you really need to be on it. Jump on it to make sure its loaded then hide near by. If you don't the TOW will show up as occupied on the minimap. Also if there are jets you on a defensive position will light up on the bombers screen and you will have death raining from above. B. Hit them at a distance, many TOW emplacements have a nice long view of the area around them. The TOW has extreme range and can take out a target before they even think of the TOW. C. Know where your target is coming from. Placing C-4 down on one path will many times make a target take the alternative route in this case you know exactly where your enemy is coming from and can line up your shot accordingly. Laying mines in plain view can also slow your enemy down giving you a shot while they try and blow up the mines or move around them. Their concentration will be placed elsewhere giving you a free shot and maybe even two. D. Most importantly stick with it! Many times if you jump off before your missile hits, it can go astray or in some cases disappear completely. Grind your teeth and stick with it if necessary until the bitter end. In many cases you may die but save the flag or kill the enemy before they get you where if you jump off you have to scramble for cover and against a tank you'll most likely get killed anyway. The TOW is a powerful weapon and given a little practice you can take out almost anything on the battlefield in one shot. Note: The TOW/HJ can be slow to turn. It turns at about the same rate as a tank turrent. So if you have trouble spinning a tank turrent you may have simular problems spinning the TOW/HJ The mounted machine gun is exactly what is says. A machine gun, which is mounted in one, place and cannot be moved. Most times they are located on a wall near a flag. The biggest draw back to the mounted machine gun is that it has a limit range of movement. Its accuracy isn't the best by any means but it makes up for that with its rapid fire. Its biggest use is against infantry. It does very little damage to vehicles but can take out vods and other transports with sustained fire. It like the support class weapons and other vehicle mounted machine guns can overheat with too long of a sustained burst of fire. So watch your temp gauge and try and shoot in shorter bursts. It can blanket an area keeping the enemy at bay allowing your troops to move forward and take the pinned down enemy out. Make sure if under heavy fire to duck behind whatever the machine gun is mounted on. You can do this by hitting the "CTRL" key on a default control layout. This is good for killing snipers which may have your number. Stay ducked down pop your head up then duck back down. If you hear the sniper bullet hit. Jump up shot a burst in the snipers direction and hit the deck again before he can reload and shot again. Play this game until one of you wins. (That is if you're not a sniper yourself in which case just snipe him back!). The best use for the Mounted machine gun is laying down cover fire or taking on a large ground of enemy troops at one time. Make sure to concentrate your fire since it can take several hits to kill a solider and then move to your next target. This should be sprayed and prayed with. Take your time and aim but don't let off! Just the sound of a machine gun can keep the other sides head down.