Flying on Muttrah city (Transport and CAS)

[Tim270]

This a guide to flying Transport Hueys specifically on Muttrah city, however, most of the points discussed should be applied to all maps.

I will also write a guide for CAS on Muttrah very soon.


Introduction.

1.) Your role. As a transport pilot you are the life blood of the team. There are both boats and APC's for the US to move onto land with, however APC's are quite slow and boats are very vulnerable, have few landing zones and are easy to spot from distance.
1a) Transporting troops on to land is therefore your main job above anything else. Staying alive as long as possible and trying to preserve your chopper at all costs is essential to your teams survival. Having choppers alive the whole round ensures fast deployment and fast resupply for the US team. It also means that if worst comes to worst and your team loses docks, you can quickly rush troops back onto the flag that matters.
1b) Your secondary role is too drop supplies. This again is key to the survival of your teams as the US only gets one logistical truck on Muttrah (Delayed spawn). This means again that keeping your chopper alive is paramount to your team's chance of winning. If all choppers go down, so does the US teams capacity to build fire-bases and keep a presence on land.

2.) Ok, so I know what I am meant to be doing, but how can I be good at it?
2a) Accepting missions. - Remember that the chopper is yours. Unless ordered specifically by the commander to do something, use your own judgement on where you are going to drop troops or where you are willing to take them. You must ask yourself the question, is it worth losing a chopper (Costing your team tickets, and its most important asset) for dropping of 1 or 2 guys behind enemy lines. If a squad asks to go someone, but you know its either going to be hot or has AA near, offer them a better location to drop them that is as close as possible while staying safe.
Generally I ignore most snipers requests to go anywhere. It on the whole is not worth losing a chopper for the sake of dropping 1 guy on a hill (The most obvious give-away of where is anyway) Who unless, is spotting for CAS, is unlikely to be doing anything worthwhile for the team.

3) So I have my mission, how do I carry it out properly?
3a) Know your LZs(Landing zones). The more you fly the more you learn the map, the good and the bad spots to land. Generally anything with a lot of cover is good. Troops should nearly always be dropped behind the perceived front line.
3b) Dropping crates for infantry. When you drop a squad and they have not specifically asked for a crate, drop them one anyway. This means that even if not needed at that time, troops can fall back to it or even build a fire-base. This means you wont have to come back and drop more later.
3c) Flares. When you are dropping troops you need to cover yourself from AA. When over land at any point I recommend dropping flares as an extra safety measure. Sometimes a sneaky squad can get in the docks and build AA in there. Its better to be safe than sorry. When making an approach for a landing, flare on decent. This way you wont get a AA carry on locking on to you are and risking wiping out you are the squad on landing. Flare on exiting the LZ to again secure your own safety.
3d) Watch the battle. I cannot stress this enough. While you are on the carrier you should be watching the map and team chat. Keep a mental record of enemy assets that are around and positions of enemy troops. This is essential in providing a good transport service as you wont end up landing your guys right in the middle of enemy troops and getting them all wiped out. More importantly, watch for AA reports and make adjustments to your flight plan based on said positions of AA that has been reported.

4) What should I watch-out for?
4a) BTRs/BRDM/APCS. While AA might seem the most obvious enemy of the Huey, I would say that APCS are a much bigger problem if they are crewed by competent teams. Flying fast and low is the most obvious way to aviod getting shot down by them, putting a lot of objects between you and the vehicle. However flying low along streets can make you a easy kill for any APC. This is why I must again stress my earlier point of watching out for enemy APC reports to avoid them at all costs. If you do get shot at by one, you are going to want to dive down as low as possible and try to put as many objects between you and the APC as possible, as fast as possible. Weaving and dodging works - But when flying super low it can be very risky unless you are used to doing it regularly.
4b) AA. Flares. Flares. Flares. This is your best protection as well as flying low, again putting objects between you to break the AA lock. Even if you pass behind a building for half a second, it still takes the AA longer to lock you, which makes the difference between life and death. Back to flares. You have 30, use them. Flares once or twice on the way in depending on enemy presence. Flare again when dropping anything. Always make sure you have 6-12 left when making your way back to the carrier. Its very common to get hit by AA when returning to the carrier and being out of flares. There is the dome around the carrier (which will stop AA missiles) but its only something like 200m around the carrier, so you need to be covering yourself with flares most of the way back.

5) Carrier management.
5a) The carrier can be a busy place. To keep the carrier running efficiently you need to make it easy for Huey s to leave and return without having to taxi around the deck to find space. Park in similar positions on where the Huey s spawn. Make sure there is room for friendly choppers to manoeuvre around the carrier. Stick to the Transport end of the carrier. This is the north-east end, where the APCS and boats spawn under deck. CAS should use the other end. As the Cobra and Attack Huey constantly need to be able to take-off quickly, you need to be out of their way and not flying in front of them all the time. This minimizes the worst case scenario of mid-air collisions on the carrier.

6) Expectations of you, as a pilot.
6a) The most basic way of being a good pilot is asking where squads want to go. A simple 'w2' or 'where to?' will suffice in provoking a response from a SL. Mumble again is much more advised. (But not all servers use it so always ask in chat).
6b) 'Seeding' Crates. Carrier life can get quite boring when your team is doing well and flying is not needed much. To fight boredom and actually be useful to your team you can drop crates on back flags that your team always has captured in-case of getting pushed right back. This makes it easy for any retreating troops to get up a quick FOB or get a kit. It is also worth putting crates in positions that might be useful in the future for FOBs. but again only do so if it is not risking the safety of the chopper.
6c) Do not fly if you do not need to. This is one thing that annoys me more than any. If you do not have troops to move or crates to drop, flying for the sake of flying is detrimental to your team. Not only does it create unneeded traffic around the carrier, forcing other choppers to try and avoid you, but it risks a very unnecessary ticket loss for your team.

Green Shows best general approach directions for dropping men or crates. This maximises cover and avoids most open areas.
Red - Areas you should try to avoid as much as possible. The Sea gives no cover and makes your Huey easy prey. Of course sometimes you will be required to fly into the red to complete missions, but I strongly advise taking the Green routes instead of flying directly too it.
Yellow - These are preferred Landing Zones. They offer a good balance between cover and ease of approach and landing.




Hope there were not too many grammatical mistakes here and there

[MasterGypsy]

I still will fly through your red zone. It's hard to land at some locations the way you have it planned out. But still very good.

[fenriz9000]

This a guide to flying Transport Hueys specifically on Muttrah city, however, most of the points discussed should be applied to all maps.

[skipped]

It's not guide, IMHO, it's some useless obvious information and no more.
Everything was already discussed in Basic Chopper Tips.

btw, your routes so obvious, that every MEC know and usually such pilots as you lost choppers on that routes. use punish zones, fly different paths. Also, I everytime laught when MEC take Docks. USA have no FB there, ticket bleeding begins and the only good tactic I know is rushing to the docs as fast as possible. Instead, pilots by your manual will drop squads in vehicle repair zone (as you marked as safe) and squad
will slosly go to the docs under front fire. remember - there is NO safe landing zones for all rounds. even in one round your 'safe zone' can quickly turn to 'hot'.
At general, the routes are useful for new pilots. But most useful is practice.



6b) and 6c) are discordant each other, even 6b is useless.

[cyberzomby]

Best tip in here is watch the battle coupled with its your chopper. Pilots should know almost as much about the battle as a CO to determine where they can drop infantry.

[jimbosmith]

This is the best guide ever, thank you

From what your saying fenriz you havnt played alot of muttrah, if this guide helps one of the idots who flys into the middle of combat, or the ones who hover over the battlefield trying to drop a crate then its done its job.
Plus its better to drop squads in a safe area on docks than to lose all choppers and lose anyway. At least they have a chance when dropped in a safe location, rather than being owned in the open.

The routes outlined are usually the safest and if flying low enough dont give aa enough time to react, where as flying over the ocean however anything can hit you.

[usmcguy]

the docks are probably the hottest LZ right? great tut thanks!

[Sir.Grossi]

Useful tips, it's always nice to see someone using a common sense approach and willing to
share with others. There is lots of advice given in the forums already. However, NOBODY
can be bothered to search it ALL, so constant reminders are sometimes helpful.

Don't mind the trolls! What they don't see is the fact people actually take time and effort
to share knowledge with new players rather than constantly whining about the bad experience
with new players.

to Add, we have found that the best place to line up on the carrier is along the
yellow line near the superstructure, this generally keeps you clear of the spawning helos
and accidently squishing players. Also we believe that your crates reload faster (could just be
imagination)

Thanks

[Tim270]

I still will fly through your red zone. It's hard to land at some locations the way you have it planned out. But still very good.

I agree, flying through the red zone is unavoidable a lot of the time, I meant it more as a area to try and avoid as much as possible, not just to never go into it.

It's not guide, IMHO, it's some useless obvious information and no more.
Everything was already discussed in Basic Chopper Tips.

btw, your routes so obvious, that every MEC know and usually such pilots as you lost choppers on that routes. use punish zones, fly different paths. Also, I everytime laught when MEC take Docks. USA have no FB there, ticket bleeding begins and the only good tactic I know is rushing to the docs as fast as possible. Instead, pilots by your manual will drop squads in vehicle repair zone (as you marked as safe) and squad
will slosly go to the docs under front fire. remember - there is NO safe landing zones for all rounds. even in one round your 'safe zone' can quickly turn to 'hot'.
At general, the routes are useful for new pilots. But most useful is practice.



6b) and 6c) are discordant each other, even 6b is useless.

Such pilots as me? I usually manage to stay alive the whole round

The vehicle repair zone is the safest place in docks to drop. My reasoning for such is A) There is very likely to be a BTR in docks if the MEC team has capped, which will easily destroy your chopper. B) Its what, a 150m walk? if even that. It also allows your team to establish a safe fire base by the vehicle repair so they can support their attack. C) The worst thing that can happen to your team when you lose docks is lose all the choppers and have no means of getting back on the flag. Which flying safe at this point is a must.

As I touched on, watching the battle is key. This way you should know which LZ's are likely to be hot, and which ones will not be. The routes I places on the map may even become unusable due to enemy presence. Which is why watching the battle is more important than anything.

I see why it would look like 6b and 6c kind of contradict each other, however, I would say seeding crates is a valid mission. Flying over the battle for the sake of flying, is not.


Thanks for the replies. I know quite a few of these points have been covered in other threads, just trying to keep drilling it in to new pilots.

[MaxBooZe]

Because they won't expect you to fly through the red area it will suprise them if you do It worked for me

[Shovel]

this guide was extremly helpful, thanks