Forward Base

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

Introduction

A forward base (sometimes called a "firebase," abbreviated as "FB") is two paired spawn points between two Coke Points.

Only one of the FB's will be open at a given time, and it is used to reduce the time to battle for an attacker.

If you want a forward base to belong to your side, you must destroy enemy forward base using satchel charges from Sappers or Paratroopers. The vast majority of forward bases consist of two spawn points, one for infantry and one for vehicles. However, newer forward bases have an additional element to destroy, the Supply Tents.

On the right, you can see how FB's appear on the overview map.

Images

Infantry Spawn Images

Vehicle Spawn Images

File:FB Veh Spawn Front.png

Tents Images

Basics

While some CPs are close together often the distance between CPs is large enough to require the establishment of a Forward Base of operations 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 CP they are attacking. Instead of using a distant AB as your staging area, FBs allow you to reduce travel time and move your supply line as close as possible to an enemy-held CP.

On a link which FBs exist, 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 of the war (Allied or Axis). Alternatively a town can be owned by a friendly side, but not occupied. In this case Forward bases may appear between to two friendly towns.

Defensive/No-man's Land Firebases

• Both towns must be owned by the same side
• The two towns must be linked by a supply line.
• They must be sufficiently far apart for the travel time to be excessive.
• One of the towns must be Frontline and have no Brigades or Divisions deployed in it.
• The other town must have at least one Army Brigade in it.

Although FBs exist in pairs between CPs, 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 on the opposite side of the link, and with the ownership switched. Of the pair, the FB that is closest to your CP is the enemy’s, and the one closest to your enemy’s CP 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 kit for Sappers and Paratroopers. Once both of the spawns at a given FB is destroyed, a chat message about the FB's destruction is displayed, the FB vanishes and the other FB on the connection will open. To check the damage level of an FB, select it by clicking on it on the map. 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 8 satchel charges to be destroyed.
• The Vehicle spawn requires 8 satchel charges to be destroyed.
  • The Vehicle spawn can legally be destroyed with only 4 charges by placing the satchel charges on the inner support poles of the tent.
• Supply Tents, if present, require 1 satchel to destroy per grouping. (The image above of the Supply Tents shows 3 groups of 4 tents, requiring 3 additional charges.)

=Additional considerations from players=

desaix1

1. Sapper satchel charges do 12.5% damage when placed on the outside of vehicle and infantry tents. hence normally, 8 charges to take down veh or inf from the outside. 1A. 'outside' means physically on the tents, barrels, crates, wagon/radio things, that is, anywhere your charges will stick when you click 1B. 'outside' also means 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 (25%each) 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 veh spawn. this is simply because the charges do damage in a 360 degree arc, hence hitting the both sides (and roof actually) of the veh tents when placed in the middle ground/poles 2A. double damage on veh also occurs when you place charges on the top center seam of the veh tents (ie; climb up on top, place 2 charges on center seam, run down, repeat, veh down) 2B. for those somewhat rare FBs that have the inf and veh close to each other (with 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 with a total of 8 charges 2C. there used to be a way to get inside the inf tents, in fact you still can where inf tents are buried in a berm or in some parts underground and place charges on the inside center poles of the center inf tents. however placing charges inside inf tents (and actually firing any weapon from within) has been disabled recently, similar to firing within enemy capped depots)

3. Some fbs have Other/Supply tents, that look like long tents over rows of crates, sometimes 2 usually 3 at these rare fbs. 3A. the other/supply 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; 3B. when/if these other tents are close together (all 2 or 3 in a row, like at some fbs) you can also take 2 at a time down by placing 1 charge on the ground in the middle of the 2 rows of other tents (again at the intersection of the small supporting tent poles) 3C. other/supply tents can also be damaged by grenades and mortar HE (not sure about atg/armor HE) - damage range I've seen is from 1%-3% per grenade/mortar round depending on where it lands/hits

4. Placing charges occurs when you 'equip the charge' as your weapon and click and hold, arms go out with charge and (usually) stick to the tent/pole/ground/whatever. however, sometimes this takes more than one click and/or you have to shift position and/or move a bit closer (or in the case of the ground, point 'down' more) 4A. charges are timed and you can usually get at least TWO charges placed on the exact same spot (or side by side) and still get out of range of the blast and then return (or move to different spot) and place your other two charges. no need really to place one charge at a time, run away, and return. if you are very fast, you can get three charges on a spot and get away 4B. 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/ontop of a veh tent or inf you will die when it goes down, as will any enemy units inside/on top (except some tier 2/3 tanks)

6. Charges placed on tanks inside the veh spawn also damage the veh spawn, hence you can theoretically sap 4 tanks inside the veh spawn and get 4 kills and the veh tents down on the same run

7. FBS rebuild over time (not sure on %/min details); however if, say a fb had the VEH down (100%) dmg at some point and rebuilt to say, 95%, that fb will still go down if you just get 8 charges on the inf (as if the fb 'remembers' that the veh was down). same if INF was down and veh undamaged or partially damaged 7A. so you never really know, in approaching a partially/previously damaged fb how many charges needed on each tent 7B. don't really know the 'threshold' for previous full damage vs rebuilt % as to when the fb stops 'remembering' one of the tents was down 7C. sometimes, the reverse is true, and when you think a fb should be down it sticks at 99% for one or both tents and you need another (or two) charges and there is no way of knowing which tents actually need the charger at 99% each, or if both need it 7D. fb rebuilding is on some type of timer, as the rebuild will stop (or freeze) for xx minutes when/if a 'new' charge is placed on either tent - if not then taken down, the rebuild process will restart at some point.

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 8A. (besides you usually get the pleasure of watching the ei who killed you run over to stand over you body and get blown up when your charges go off on your death screen)

9. To see the % damage on a fb; open your map, target/click on the town the FB is FROM; then click on the fb itself, type .own and you'll see, typically; <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

9A. tents being DOWN can (sort of) be seen visually - typically the veh tents only back half are up; inf tents all the outer tents collapsed and only the center tent standing. but you only really know by checking the % with .own

9B. tents being DOWN do NOT prevent the enemy from spawning whatever from those DOWN tents, until/unless both tents are down, ie. the fb is blown and gone off the map

Source: http://forums.battlegroundeurope.com/showthread.php?t=375437