Battlefield 3: Attack Helicopter Tactics
A major patch has been released since I’ve started working on this guide, which means some of the tips below will have to be re-written. Check out the patch notes here, but be warned the list is a little long.
elicopters in Battlefield 3 have a bit of a steep learning curve. There’s no training mode (I’m not counting the second co-op mission) so the majority of players learn how to fly by trial and error in public servers. This article won’t be teaching you how to stop killing yourself when attempting to pilot a helicopter, instead I’ll be focussing on how to maximise their potential once you’re comfortable with the controls.
Transport helicopters also fall into the attack category, but I will be focussing on the Mi-28 Havoc and AH-1Z Viper in this piece. Transport helicopters have their own set of goals and unique advantages so they will be fleshed out in a future article.
Primary Targets
Attack/Transport Helicopters
Enemy helicopters are your top priority target, ignore everything else until their attack and transport choppers are destroyed. It’s not uncommon to spot both at the same time, so focus on the attack helicopter first and then take down the transport. Don’t take transport helicopters lightly, their miniguns can tear you apart quickly so take them down before they become a serious threat.
In my experience the one who gets shot down first is the one who gets ambushed. If an enemy helicopter hasn’t spotted you yet, gain altitude before getting its attention. The machine gun on attack helicopters can’t look upwards as much as it can look down, so your gunner will have a much easier time staying on target than the enemy as long as you’re at a higher altitude.
Heat seekers generally do little more than add pressure onto the enemy pilot, they will always avoid them with IR Flares so it’s your gunner who will do the real damage. If you’re flying solo and the enemy chopper has both a pilot and gunner, you’re most likely as good as dead. If the enemy only notices you once you’ve started trying to get a lock on them, and if you are at a higher altitude than they are, you should come out on top.
Armoured Ground Vehicles
Focus on the vehicles which your allied infantry will have the most trouble with. Main battle tanks and anti-infantry tanks pose the biggest threat to your ground units. Not only are they invulnerable to most of the weapons at your allied infantry’s disposal, but even an indirect hit from the canon of a main battle tank can kill a friendly unit with ease.
Steer clear from the tank’s main canon when attacking. They too have trouble aiming upwards so take advantage of this, but try and keep moving. If you get hit by the canon, the force of impact will knock you sideways so hard it will become nearly impossible to recover from it if you’re flying low to the ground. I’ve been shot down by main battle tanks more often than I’d like to admit.
Objectives
If the pilot’s skilled enough to hover above Conquest objectives without crashing into something, it’s a great way to help the team whilst racking up extra points. Use the third person perspective when capturing objectives to ensure the tail of your helicopter doesn’t hit anything. Never land on the ground or hover too steadily, else you’re just begging to get hit by an RPG, tank, or worst of all a sniper taking out the pilot. Helping capture objectives may be a great way to gain points but this should only be attempted if you’ve destroyed the enemy’s helicopters and tanks.
Enemy HQ
This last target doesn’t reward you with many points but offers a huge tactical advantage. Once you’ve taken out the active units on the battlefield, you can shift your attention to the enemy base where you can destroy the enemy’s jets, choppers and ground vehicles before the enemy has a chance to get inside them.
Destroying vehicles with no player inside doesn’t give you any points but stopping your enemy from using those vehicles whilst your team still has access to theirs can drastically change the tide of a battle. Focus on the jets as they’re easy to destroy and they’re very difficult to shoot down with a helicopter once they take off, just let friendly jets take care of them if they do manage to get away.
There is an AA gun at each base to discourage players from attacking the enemy HQ head-on, but these are usually unmanned. Even if someone is inside, or if you just want to play it safe, you can hover low to the ground and use the terrain or buildings around the AA gun to hide the helicopter.
With no helicopters and tanks, the enemy is forced to rely solely on engineers to destroy your vehicles. Engineers are deadly, but made of flesh and bone, it only takes a few well placed shots from friendly infantry, vehicles or even your own helicopter to take them out.
Pilot and Gunner Responsibilities
You should have a gunner with you as often as possible. It’s even more crucial that both of you can communicate with voice chat and agree on the abilities each of you will be equipping beforehand. If, for example, both of you have equipped the Stealth ability, then you are wasting an ability slot you could have been using to also have faster reload times or an air radar.
Pilot
If you’re piloting the attack helicopter, you need to make sure you can zip between lamp posts, buildings and trees whilst flying low to the ground. You should nearly always be flying low to the ground, the only exception being when you spot another helicopter and try to gain altitude. Staying low makes you less visible to ground troops in the map and you’re less likely to be picked on by jets who will not only also have a hard time spotting you, but in addition they may be reluctant to chase you through those obstacles.
I see so many players who take off in a helicopter and fly them high up in the sky. This is just inviting enemy jets to focus on you because they know you’re a slower target to catch compared to other jets. Start practicing flying low by staying just above the rooftops of buildings, then crank it up a notch by staying above the ground but below the rooftops and treetops.
An effective route to take on maps is hovering low to the ground on roads. As long as you follow roads there will be no obstacles directly in front of you, but there will be trees and structures on each side to keep you hidden. As a bonus, enemy ground vehicles often use these routes themselves so you’re bound to run into a tank or jeep.
Learning how to fly low without crashing is also critical in order to take advantage of the Below Radar ability you can unlock. I’ll explain more about it further into the article.
Learn how to strafe to the side whilst circling a target. This allows your gunner to fire continuously without forcing you to hover in one spot. It’s generally a bad idea to stay still so circle strafing lets you keep moving whilst facing the target. Be considerate of your gunner and try and keep the helicopter stable when flying so they can get some accurate shots.
Gunner
Whilst the pilot is busy keeping the helicopter moving through cover, it’s primarily the gunner’s responsibility to spot targets and direct the pilot towards them. Remember, the pilot is busy trying not to crash whilst flying so low, the last thing he wants to do is take his attention away from his task to try and spot ants on the ground to stomp.
Use the cockpit perspective to look around, especially up into the sky above as the machine gun view can’t do this and you need to be the first to know if there’s an enemy helicopter in the air. Once you’ve spotted a target, tell your pilot where it is and what it is, then mark it if possible.
If you’re using IR Flares, let the pilot use theirs first and only deploy yours when they have told you they’ve used their one up. Voice communication is crucial for this kind of thing, make sure you both know what’s going on at all times. Also, don’t be afraid to tell the pilot that you don’t have a clear shot, they can use their own judgement to figure out how much mobility they want to sacrifice to give you a better view of targets.
Before both you and the pilot can get trigger happy, you need to spot something to kill, and they need to get you to that target without blowing up. Gunners are the eyes and ears of an attack helicopter, so keep the pilot aware of what’s happening around you as they will only be concentrating on the obstacles directly in front of them.
Tools of Destruction
This final section will provide a summary of the weapons and equipment you can unlock for attack helicopters. I find that some are more useful than others, so I will explain what each of them do and which, in my opinion, are worth equipping.
A Moving Picture Example
About the Author
Mustafa Unal is a blogger and YouTube commentator living in London, UK. His distinguishing features are never shutting the fuck up and having a terrible sense of humour. Also, he runs this bitch.
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more videos by you guy’s ?
I am a rookie helicopter pilot who seems to only get kills when I accidentally crash on someone. Any additional tips on how to learn control of strafe more easily?
Thanks
If you’re having trouble with steering, do what I did, change the joystick configuration via the options menu. You have two options, changing the vertical axis to inverted or normal. I usually use inverted Y axis when using infantry but for some reason this is different with air vehicles, which i use the normal setting.
I used to suck at flying and couldn’t stay in the air for more than a few seconds at best but once I changed the controls for the air vehicles, everything makes so much more sense and I can control it more efficiently.
Also as per someone else’s comment above, I too was a little disappointed that the publisher of this article advocates base raping. This is not cool and is not very sportsmanlike. The amount of times I have joined a game in progress, spotted a vacant chopper only to have it blown up before I could even get it off the ground is unreal. It’s not fair and it’s no fun either.
Nice stuff bro, would love to see your take on the unlocks!
the russian havoc is slow and cumbersome in comparison, anyone else notice that? is there a trade-off? more armor for the havoc?
Don’t advocate base raping. It’s not strategic, it’s just poor sportsmanship and makes the game no fun for the either team. Otherwise decent guide!
Well I can only hope to get to this point some time in the future, staying alive longer than 3 seconds would be nice at the moment.
Soooo what are your tools of destruction?
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absolutelly wrong advices and tactic, mostly the stay low part… use tv, and stay away intead, avoid close heli dogfights
Firstly I’d like to apologise for taking so long to approve your comment, it was buried under a ton of spam I hadn’t yet moderated. Regarding your disagreement with my tactics, I feel my methods are superior and I’ve gone through the trouble of writing this guide to explain why they’re better. Your criticism is noted but it’s difficult to take seriously unless you explain the reasoning behind it.
as one of the top ranked players in the world with the hele i gotta agree with joe get skilled with the tv and you can destroy anything jets heles and tanks/apc’s from about 450 meters the cannon can easily cut down infantry from range if you use about 5 shot bursts on target
flying low and fast is good if a dogfight goes wrong and your sure your a better pilot you can escape between buildings with help of below radar and the speed boost ya get from diving but your gunner becomes next to useless as your nose is pointed straight a the floor and ground launched aa missiles that bug through your below radar hit you pretty much instantly giving no time to deploy ecm or tell your gunner to flare
Hi Noobaside,
I’ve been discussing this with friends and doing some research into it, and yes TV missile is definitely a viable strategy, though I will need to put some more thought into it before I can agree with whether or not it’s the best strategy.
I appreciate the input from JoeDirt and yourself, and at the moment I think I’ll be adding the TV missile setup as an alternative strategy at the very least. With Battlefield 3 getting major patches so soon between each other and the ever evolving meta game, I have quite a bit of work to do on this guide.
Hi Guys – wanted to add my 2 cents here.
I’ve been piloting choppers now for a while, can’t say I’m a master I suppose, but certainly no noob at it these days.
I’ve learned a few tactics that have served me well, mostly through trial and error.
First off, in response directly to the fly low all the time motto – I will definately disagree. Evasive manouvres are much easier with a bit of altitude, you can always dive to ground as required, and as already stated ground launched (SLGA) stingers will bug your below radar and hit you anyway, further to that – your flares are virtually ineffective. Flares will disrupt stingers for around 3seconds (I’ve never actually timed it but say 3 to 5 seconds). Flares dropped out at a few feet off ground level are less effective, often times bugging straight into the terrain and being completely ineffective, or far reducing your immunity timer.
Secondly – you put yourself at huge risk to tank, and RPG fire two things that will actually kill you with 1 shot.
Lastly – as mentioned already it makes your gunner far less effective and often virtually useless.
Now taking into consideration you’ve got more altitude you list of primaries alters. This comes down to situational awareness too. I’m assuming here you’ve joined a game, and jumped in your chopper at home base.
Primary – Jets. These get top of the list because they are the most mobile they will be on you first and the chopper can be ignore (for now) because hes not going to be in range of you just yet. TV missile is always a worry from range, but if you are engaged with a jet its not that easy to be taken out by a TV unless you are just stationary in the air. I recommend air radar if you plan on staying off ground level. As for evasive manouvres – learn to use right mouse and pan around and spot simultaneously. Jets can be anywhere – remember your radar is 2D but they can be also above or below you, as well as behind you. Your pan-vision is limited below you but left/right and above offer alot of additional vision from your cockpit. Spot regularly almost compulsively (your gunner should do the same).
Against jets I have a few tricks -
One important one is tail stall. Only attempt this with plenty of altitude. Situation – jet attacking from behind you – achieve tail stall by pulling back hard and dropping power off (no need to throttle back just take power off) next thing to worry about is recovery from your stall. You want to get the nose down as fast as you can – a side stall is hard to recover from, and rotating too far (inverted) to instigate your tail stall will also be fatal. Get your nose to about 60 degrees to start your stall. Then you want to get your nose down and get some velocity, while in stall you now need full throttle, and try and even back out horizontal. The more altitude you have the more time you have for recovery – pracitice will tell you how much altitude you need to pull off a tail stall.
Secondary – Choppers (and attack then transport as you stated in that sub-class) TV missiles can be great for a few reasons. Often times the opponent will see a live missile launch, especially if you have a lock pending, this causes some pilots to flare even tho its not a laser guided missile. This means now, wait 3-5 seconds and you have a guaranteed kill with missile lock. If I see flare BEFORE I fire, I wait a few seconds then give my opponent both stingers. Also, hold your lock a few seconds. Some players get antsy and will flare before you launch, don’t wait too long though you do not want him to shoot you down first you want to pressure him. A tactic I use is to launch one stinger only, draw the flare, and then follow up with the 2nd missile a few seconds after his flare clears (3-5 seconds). Again, pressure on your pilot and most will disengage you, leaving you free to finish them off and also leaving your stinger reload enough time to fire (as soon as it reloads) before his flares reset. If your opponent wises up and does the same to you (they often do) it comes down to timing and nerves of steel on your flare usage. As you suggested, altitude is best – also being aggressive and closing the distance can outmanouvre your opponent pilot depending on their skill level. Most importantly if another chopper is on your radar, its a threat so engage it (make it primary now!) And most importantly turn to face it – this serves a few purposes. You have a thin body line and are harder to hit from front on, you can also bring all weapons to bear including your gunner, and you have more armor on the front than back – running is a bad idea most good pilots will eat you up if you turn tail and run – if you do this for evasive reasons you really need to turn hard and get altitude again quickly – this can work to your advantage as the other pilot will dive to bring weapons to bear – now you have more altitude and the advantage again.
Tertiary – Mobile AA (Before MBT) You have to, absolutely, deal with mobile AA – often depending on positioning I make this primary target. This thing has the ability to shred you from pretty much anywhere on the map. The best tactic against this is TV from range, plus a couple of nice rocket placements and gunner follow up on it will take it quite quickly – one with an experienced driver in it will make your life hell, until you punish him for being in it. Next of course MBT or other vehicle – jeeps die nice and quick and are very easy kills – feel free to multi-task between jeep or MBT as targets of opportunity. Your best defence against a tank or jeep is altitude.
Finally – ground troops although you need to use your discretion and deal with SLGA threats quickly.
Eagerly watching this for updates. I find one of my most difficult parts is trying to find a good gunner (super difficult) and trying to keep my tail from hitting things. But I have to admit that I need to practice to get better at flying low.
One thing I don’t understand about the choppers…I NEVER win an air war. Call up whatever scenario. If we spot each other first, they get a lock before I do. From the other side of the map. It seems I have to be right on top of them before I’ll get the lock. I fire flares AND GET HIT ANYWAY. I fire missiles, they fire their flares and I miss, nearly always! I’ve tried the low fly approach – to which I might add I’m getting pretty good with, need to work on the yaw though. Regardless of the situation, I’m either getting hit from another vehicle, or ground troops regardless of firing flares. I’ve switched to stealth mode, no good, I’ve tried ECM jammer, still, always, getting, hit! I think God doesn’t want me playing this game. I’ve even been shot down with a friggin PISTOL.
Hi BearShark,
It’s a little tricky to tell you exactly what you may be doing wrong, or perhaps simply what your opponents are doing right, without actually seeing what’s going on with my own eyes. I can however give you some general tips to help minimise the risk of these scenarios occurring.
First of all, if the enemy team really want to take you down, they will. This rings true for any vehicle in the game, so if you get the feeling there’s more than one enemy locking on to you, it’s wise to lure the most mobile enemy away (helicopter) from the slower one (engineer) to increase your odds of survival. Engineer AA rockets have had their range reduced quite a bit, so this tip is more valid than ever right now [correction: a newer patch has increased the lock-on capabilities of Engineers with AA weaponry].
You need to work on achieving your objectives as a chopper pilot whilst remaining as low profile as possible. When an enemy helicopter keeps swooping in to rape faces, people start to get annoyed and spawn as engineers just to take you down. Sometimes it’s wise to fly away from the battlefield for 10-50 seconds so that the ground troops will give up focussing on you, but also for you to take a quick breather and scan the battlefield to spot new threats and assess the situation.
Great guide dude, makes a lot of sense, but you didn’t really provide much in the way of air to air battles, i agree with whoever can get the shots out first, usually wins. One thing is if you are ambushing them, and they don’t see you yet, you should ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS wait a second or two before you launch the heat seekers, chances are they have another person locking onto them, so if they can dump those flares before you shoot, then you are guaranteed the 350-400 points for a take down. I have recently earned the TV missile and unlike noobaside, i think they are worthless. They seem to provide no way to work them, and they are a pain in the ass to use. I would try sticking with the guided missile for the gunner seat instead, as they are easier to shoot, target, etc. with. The low flying part makes sense, normally, i try to fly between 20 and 150 meters, otherwise, I am going to crash or get kamikazeed my some idiotic jet driver who enjoys that kind of stuff. Try flying between trees, and buildings, how often do you get a lock then? YOu are constantly breaking the lock when you fly in between cover so it wont matter.
Try the low fly strafe run technique, it isn’t hard, but it is super effective. Just fly at 50 meters fromt eh ground with your gunner and you, and just fire all your bullets out. Then pull up, do a 180 degrees turn, and come back, by then all of your ammo is reloaded, and they are still shocked from the first attack, trust me, it does wonders against armored vehicles and infantry.
What a nice read! I dont know what is better, the article or the comments, Thank guys, I learnt a lot!
These guys who are playing is finnish
I was actually curious which language was being spoken, so thanks for letting me know.