Forward Base

Introduction

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Note: the terms "Forward Base" and "Fire Base" are used interchangeably.

A Forward Base (FB) is two paired spawn points (1 Allied, 1 Axis) between two Towns.

Only one of the FB's will be open at a given time, their primary goal is to reduce the time to battle for an attacker.

If you want a Forward Base to belong to your side, you must destroy the enemy Forward Base using mostly satchel charges but also grenades (Other) or Bombs (Vehicle) from the Air.

The vast majority of Forward Bases consist of two spawn points, one for Infantry and one for Vehicles. However, some forward bases have an additional element to destroy, the Supply Tents (aka 'Other' when checking for damage).

Below you can see how FB's appear on the overview map.

Images

Infantry Spawn Images
Undamaged	Damaged
Vehicle Spawn Images
Undamaged	Damaged
'Other' Images
Undamaged	Damaged

Basics

While some Towns can be close together often the distance between CPs is large enough to require the establishment of a Forward Base in order to conduct a successful attack. FBs are effectively Staging Points (spawn points) in the field, represented by two military revetments (a vehicle fortification and an infantry encampment) that provide vehicle and troop spawning just a few kilometers outside of the Town they are attacking. FBs allow you to reduce travel time and move your supply line as close as possible to an enemy-held Town.

There are two conditions under which a Forward Base will be available:

Frontline Forward Bases

• The two towns must be linked by a supply line.
• Each Town must be owned by opposite sides (Allied or Axis). Alternatively a town can be owned by a friendly side, but not occupied (enemy own AB). In this case Forward Bases may appear between the two friendly towns.

FBs exist in pairs between Towns, only one FB may be active on a link at any given time. This supports the flow of combat in a single direction. Destroying the active FB on a link will automatically open the other FB of the pair. Of the pair, the FB that is closest to your Town is the enemy’s, and the one closest to your enemy’s Town is yours.

Counter FBs

On a link between two Friendly Towns, what happens if the enemy blows the FB? The answer is that an enemy FB opens on the other end of the link. Nobody can spawn from this FB, but if it does not exist and is not enemy held, it cannot be blown up. This can look very odd -- a French FB between two German Towns or German FB between a British and French Town. These are "Counter FBs".

How to destroy a Forward Base

Forward bases are destroyed by satchel charges, which are part of the Loadout for Combat Engineers (x4), Bolt-action Rifleman (x1) and some Paratroopers. Once all elements of the FB are destroyed, a chat message is displayed, the FB vanishes and the other FB on the connecting Link will open. To check the damage level of an FB, select it by clicking on it on the map (FB Name goes green). Use the Text Command ".own" to reveal the amount of damage the FB has received; this information will be displayed in the chat bar.

• The Infantry spawn requires 18 satchel charges to be destroyed.
• The Vehicle spawn requires 18 satchel charges to be destroyed and can also be destroyed by bombs from the Air.
  • The Vehicle spawn can legally be destroyed with only 9 charges by placing the satchel charges on the inner support poles of the tent.
• Supply Tents (Other), if present, require 1 satchel or grenade to destroy per grouping.

Additional considerations from players

1. When placed on the outside of the Vehicle and Infantry tents 1x HE Satchel does approximately 5.6% damage (4 charges will do 22% damage). In this manner, 18 charges to take down the Veh or Inf Tents.

• 'Outside' means physically on the tents, barrels, crates, wagon/radio things, that is, anywhere your charges will stick when you click.
  
• Also 'outside' can mean within 10 feet (3m) of the tents, on the ground (ie. you can actually place the charges in a bush near the tents and run away)

2 Charges do double damage when placed inside the center of Vehicle Tents, usually on the two middle/center poles but can also be placed on the ground in the center of the Vehicle Tent. This is simply because the charges do damage in a 360 degree arc.

• Double damage on the Vehicle Tents also occurs when you place charges on the top center seam of the tents, ie climb up on top, place charges on center seam.
  
• For those somewhat rare FBs that have the Inf and Veh Tents close to each other (within say 20 feet) you can place charges on the ground between the two tents and damage both at the same time, thus taking down Veh and Inf together.
  

3. Some Fbs have Other/Supply tents, these look like long tents over rows of crates, usually 2 or 3 rows.

• The "Other" tents can be taken down with 1 charge each on the outside, more assuredly with one charge on the ground in the middle of the other tents where the four inner supporting small poles are.
• These can also be damaged by grenades or Bombs from the Air.

4. Charges are timed and you can usually get 3 charges placed on the same spot and still get out of range before the blast goes off. No need really to place one charge at a time.

• Inside a veh tent, you can actually place two charges same time on one inner pole facing OUT (to wall of veh tents) and run across to the other pole and place two more charges and get out of the tent without any damage to yourself (or minor arc damage).

5. If you are inside/on top of a Vehicle Tent you will die when it goes down, as will any enemy units inside/on top (except some tier 2/3 tanks)

6. FBs rebuild over time. However if, say a Forward Base had the VEH down (100% dmg) at some point and then rebuilt to say 95%, that fb can still go down if you destroy the Inf (as if the fb 'remembers' that the veh was down).

• FB rebuild is on a timer, repair begins at 10 minutes after the last damage it received.

8. If you die when placing a charge/charges or just afterwards. DO NOT DESPAWN, let the despawn /deathsceen timer run down as those charges WILL go off and count as full damage. If you despawn right away, or too quickly, the damage from the charge will NOT count.

9. To see the % damage on a FB, open your map, click on the town the FB is FROM, then click on the FB itself, type .own - you'll see <name>FB: Veh 0% Inf 0%, where the % is the amount of damage. As you damage the tents with charges, the % goes up, when it reaches 100% it will say Veh DOWN or Inf DOWN.

• At around 80% the Tents can be seen visually in a damaged state - see the images above.
  
• Tents in a damaged state or "Down" do NOT prevent the enemy from spawning, only when the FB is totally destroyed (disappears) can they no longer spawn.