Battlefield 3 Helicopter Tutorial

Attack Helicopter

The attack helicopter is the most commonly used and misused. It is a hunter killer aircraft, and one that works best with the element of surprise. If an enemy soldier can’t see you, he can’t lock onto you

Against Infantry
Infantry can be annoying as they can have stinger launchers equipped. These are very frustrating, as it is difficult to ID where the person is locking onto you from. The best way to counter this is to ignore the threat and rely on your flares to counter the missiles. This works if you are in communication with your gunner, and you both have flares. However, if you are flying with a random, or if your friend does not have flares, the best thing to do is go low and try to either break line of sight (LOS) or fly out of range. Either way, the most effective method is to go low, as by going low you have the best chance of breaking LOS, and it is also the quickest way to build up speed, allowing you to escape from the stingers range quickly.

When attacking infantry, going into a circle ‘holding’ pattern is effective. This is when you fly in a circle with your nose pointed at the enemy at all times. This allows for both you and your gunner to get the best shots off at the enemy.

Alternatively you can work in conjunction with your allies on the ground. You fly low, preferably below tree level in areas you consider to be friendly. When you see either an enemy being spotted, or a flag being captured you keep low and fly into position, rising above the treeline at the last moment before opening up on the enemy. This is extremely effective, as it gives the enemy the minimum possible warning, which means that you are likely to catch them out of cover. A quick burst from the gunner and a couple of rockets should finish them off fairly rapidly!

The last main option is to fly high and constantly scan the battlefield. From this position you are able to see most enemies, especially if the gunner has zoom optics. Make the most of this position and spot up as many enemy soldiers and vehicles as possible. Once you have ID’ed a target you want to go after, rapidly drop your height whilst lining up for a straight run at the target. Open up with your weapons before climbing back to your original height as quickly as possible. The aim is if you have to be visible at all times, you try to create as small a target as possible by being as high as you can be. This makes it harder for the enemy to spot and lock onto you!

Against Tanks
Tanks are fairly simple to destroy, especially when you have TV missiles. Simply line up from the back, making sure your giving yourself a fairly long approach. Your aim is to come from high to low, keeping your reticle on the tank. In theory the combination of your rockets and the gunners shots should be able to take out the tank in one pass, but only if you give yourself a long enough run up. Make sure you stay at a medium height, otherwise it is easier for the tank to get lucky and take you down with one shot!

Against Choppers
Assuming you have anti-air missiles (and I want to hear a good reason if you don’t!) enemy choppers are easy to take down, so long as you have the height advantage. If your lower than the enemy chopper, you have to angle your chopper upwards in order to keep the enemy in your sights. This makes your helicopter go backwards and down, which inevitably leads to the ground and a fiery death!

Assuming that you have got your height advantage, the pilot should start locking on, whilst the gunner engages normally. The idea here is to distract the pilot with the missile threat, hopefully causing him to forget the threat the gunner is posing to him. This will make for an easy kill!


Scout Helicopters 

These helicopters are responsive and very powerful against infantry. They are small and speedy although they are weakly armoured which makes them weak against vehicles and they have only 1 set of flares.

Despite the disadvantages listed above, the scout chopper is still good to fly. The sheer responsiveness of it combined with the power of the miniguns makes for a great team!

Against Infantry
This depends very much on whether they’ve brought stingers or not. Because you only have one set of flares, the best thing to do after you’ve deployed the first set is to run away until they have respawned. However, whilst the enemy is locking on the first time, you must try to either break LOS or find and kill them. This depends on where you are and how confident you are in where the enemy is firing from. If you’re not sure, get out of there and live to fight again.

If the enemy did not bring stingers, fly at medium height above them, bringing the chopper almost to a hover when firing upon enemies on the ground. This hover, and the time it takes to kill an enemy should be less than a second, after which you need to move on, rising in height to get a better look at the battlefield.

Against Helicopters
This is the same for the attack choppers. Gain height and keep it.

Against Vehicles (especially mobile AA)
As mentioned earlier, the scout helicopter is very weak against vehicles. Its minigun does some damage, but you’re looking at several passes to destroy them. This is more than enough time for the mobile AA to ruin your day. In this case the best tactic is either to ask teammates already on the ground to take it out, or to fly in low and drop some off nearby. The third option is to repeatedly fly in low, and try to blindside it. However, this is risky as if the driver has even some brains they will soon catch onto this tactic. Essentially, ground units are more suited to killing vehicles. You are more suited to taking out infantry and dropping of teammates

Transport Helicopters

The transport choppers have to be the worst choppers in the game. The clue is in the name, you use these choppers to fly teammates into battle and little else. Although it has 2 miniguns on the side, unless you get a good gunner you are unlikely to take out many enemies, as they seem a lot weaker than in BC2. However, you are still able to harass and suppress the enemy with them. A useful tactic is to fly in a squad, getting as close to the objective as possible without being seen (flying at ground level is a great way to achieve this!) You then go to a holding circle just above the treeline from which your side gunner can suppress or kill any enemies in the area. This helps your friends on the ground immensely, as it means that the enemy is concentrating on you rather than them. Don’t expect to get many kills or win any battles if something decides to take you head on. Fly yourself out of any situation where you are unlikely to win, and remember that with the transport helicopter the best defense is not to be seen. Fly as low as you are comfortable with!

If you found this tutorial helpful and you want to know more in-depth tips, strategies and secrets that the top BF3 players use you should visit the site:
Battlefield 3 Dominator