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All trademarks and copyrights contained in this document are owned
by their respective trademark and copyright holders.
Copyright 2004 Rory Wilkins
---------------------------------
If you wish to use this guide on a website, shoot me an email,
captrory@email.com and I'll make a decision on a website by website
basis. As a rule of thumb, if you agree to keep it updated, and give
me credit for writing it, I won't have a problem so just ask.

I'm not planning any updates to this guide, that doesn't mean there
won't be any, I'm just not planning on any as of this writing. If you
have any questions, comments, or disagreements email me
captrory@email.com MAKE SURE YOUR EMAIL IS CLEARLY
MARKED! If I think it is spam mail it gets deleted. If it has an
attachment it gets deleted. It should look something like:
YourName/Engineer Guide: A New Use For Landmines.
-----------
Update September 6th, 2004
I discovered another expack dirty trick and corrected a typo that I
could have sworn I had corrected at least three times when writing
this.
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Here is an index of the guide. To skip to a section press Control+F
and type in the code in (parentheses) Using copy and paste is even
better.
1) Introduction (!ntro)
2) Landmines (l@ndmines)
3) Expacks (exp@cks)
4) European Theatre Rifles (e-r!fles)
5) Pacific Theatre Rifles (p-r!fles)
6) The Engineer Wrench (wr3nch)
7) Engineer Map Strategies (str@tegy)
---Pacific Theatre (p-the@tre)
---European Theatre (e-the@tre)
---African Theatre (a-the@tre)
8) Conclusion (conclus!on)

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The Big Book of Engineer Dirty Tricks: Battlefield 1942 v1.01

!ntro
1) Introduction
If you are an engineer, and you are playing fair, you are not playing
the Engineer Kit correctly. Being an engineer is all about fighting
dirty. Now I don't claim to be the best engineer, but I have learned
how to exploit the strengths of the engineer kit to the irritation of my
opponents. I almost exclusively play as an engineer and as such have
little experience with the other kits. This guide is designed to improve
upon a players existing skill as an Engineer. It is not designed to be a
general guide and as such almost all information pertains exclusively
to the Engineer Kit.

l@ndmines
2) Landmines: Watch Your Step
There are several methods employed when placing landmines, I will
cover all of the ones I know of in this section.

A) Landmine Basics:
Landmines guarantee a one hit kill against vehicles. A Tiger at full
health will take several bazooka rounds to kill, but can be removed
with one landmine. Landmines are both active and passive weapons.
You carry four landmines at a time and can have nine placed at one
time. When you place your tenth the first will disappear.
-----------
Important: If you place nine landmines, and someone drives over
one, when you replace it the first landmine you placed will disappear.
This means that if you are maintaining a minefield in an active area
you will be replacing the entire field quite regularly.
----------

As an engineer, select your landmines as your active weapon (your
avatar will be holding a big green Frisbee looking contraption) and
use your active weapon (default left click) to throw one onto the
ground. Running, jumping, and moving backwards all change how far
your landmine will travel. With practice you can throw a landmine
quite a ways, though not near as far as a grenade. Keep this in mind
when fighting an active tank by yourself. If it's moving you may
still have time to destroy it with a landmine if you have practiced
milking your landmines for distance. In the situation described
above, a landmine is preferable to two expacks because you only
need one mine and there is no need to detonate it. When fighting
armor as infantry there is no guarantee you will be alive to detonate
your expacks.

You can spread mines very thin and still have an effective barrier
against vehicles. If you look at the width of a jeep, you can place
mines a bit further apart then that and still stop jeeps. If you're
interested in only stopping tanks and similar then use the width of a
tank as your base. Basically, use the smallest vehicle you want to
destroy to set the distance between mines.
If you want blanket protection over a larger area, you can spread
mines up to twice the width of the smallest vehicle and still provide
an effective screen so long as the mines are hidden. On El Alamein
the one flag in the middle of the desert has a sudden drop facing the
Allied Base. An Axis engineer can make use of this to hide his
landmines out of sight over the lip of the dune. Axis engineers have
the benefit of knowing that the Allied forces will be coming primarily
from the main base in a more or less direct line. With this
knowledge the Axis can effectively screen off the base from Allied
ground vehicles.

If a team mate has placed mines, you will get a graphic warning
(a warning icon will appear) to inform you you're near it/them.
Enemy mines give NO indicator. Beware of sneaky engineers hiding
their landmines in your friendly minefield.

---------------
Important: Landmines Do Not Work On Infantry
--------------

B) Helter Skelter:
The dropping of landmines more or less randomly is almost wholly
ineffective. You may get a lucky kill but odds are not. You are better
off carrying them for later use then dropping them any old place
"just in case" an enemy unit happens by.
Exception: If the enemy is coming at you, and you know you're going
to die, you can do worse then to drop landmines and hope they run
over one. Even then though try and survive long enough to form a
row of landmines that are more difficult to avoid. Like this: O--O--O--O

C) Blockade
Using landmines to block passage through an area is very effective
if you are cognizant of its limitations.
1) If you die so do your mines (After a time).
2) If the enemy has an engineer they can be removed.
3) They do not stop a tank etc. from firing into the area you've
blocked off.
4) If coverage is minimal (only one row of mines) they can sacrifice
a jeep to clear out the mines and bring in the tanks.

Knowing these to be true, mines can be used to stall or force the
enemy to assault with infantry with minimal support from armor.
Example: Guadalcanal: The Village Flag There are two entrances a
vehicle can drive through. When mined they can still shoot into the
base but they can't drive into it. This allows your team to swarm the
enemy tank or prepare a defense against infantry, or simply slow
down the capture of the base.
______________________
Important Note: Whenever possible try and set up the blockade so
the enemy is stopped where they can not shoot into the area you are
protecting. Example: The Southwest Flag in Berlin can be mined
several ways but only one offers almost complete protection from
tank fire. Actually there is a way to get full protection but your own
armor would be setting off your mines when leaving the base so you
must settle for almost complete or replacing mines every time a
tank respawns.
_____________________

When blocking access across bridges I like to use a diamond pattern
for my mines. On the other hand you can leave a side of the bridge
open so they hit a hidden mine further along the bridge. Either way
works. Here's an example of the diamond pattern:
O
O O
O
It's longer then it is wide but then so are bridges. It keeps vehicles
from rolling down the middle and the sides.

D) The Stick and Carrot
If you place several diversionary mines, say on a road, that are easy
to spot, this forces the enemy to stop or go in a direction of your
choosing. Example: Mining three quarters of a road and hiding one or
more mines behind a low hill where they can't be seen. Good places
to hide landmines include but are not limited to: Plants, barbed wire,
behind hills and in dips in the road, and near sandbags. Also, laying
your landmines directly on top of the enemy landmines will give them
the friendly landmine warning sign so they'll drive over both your
mine and their teammate's mine. And trust me, they will drive over
their engineer's mines. They always do. Am I angry at having to
constantly repair my minefields? No. Not me. Bah.

E) Bait and Boom
Sabotage vehicles by mining them. Placing landmines on the tops of
tanks and APCs, under the wheels of planes, and in landing craft
will slow the enemy, earn you kills, and get you cursed out. If friendly
fire is off your team can safely use the vehicles even though they will
still set off the mines. To mine jeeps you can place the mine on the
hood, in the seat, or under the wheels.

F) Mining on the Run
Throw landmines under the wheels or on the hood of tanks that are
moving for a cheap kill (and probably a suicide.) A tank or mobile
artillery firing it's main gun will detonate a mine if it's place on the
vehicle. APCs and jeeps are best killed in this fashion by going for
their wheels (treads). You can also destroy planes taking off by
throwing mines in front of them. Though you don't have much time
before they lift off the ground.

G) Targeted Randomness
This differs from "B" because here, although you're not certain the
enemy will hit them, you do know they'll be passing by that way.
Example: On Wake Island, there are small plants all over the place.
If you know the enemy will be coming down a certain road you can
mine the roadsides and rack up some kills. I know for one that I go
off road a lot on Wake Island and I'd never see a mine hidden in the
brush.

exp@cks
3) Expacks: How to Earn the Undying Hatred of the Enemy
Note, though mentioned, some of these not even I will do.

Expacks are almost assuredly the cheapest and most effective
weapon in Battlefield 1942. In the following paragraphs I will detail
how to use them effectively. Don't forget however if you are killed, or
an engineer removes them they won't detonate.

A) Expack Basics
Select your expacks as your active weapon (your avatar will be
holding a bundle of TNT) and activate your active weapon (left click
by default). This will throw the bundle onto the ground in front of you.
Jumping, running, and moving backwards will alter how far they
travel. To detonate, bring up the plunger by right clicking or using all
the expacks you had in your inventory. When the plunger is active
left click again to detonate your expacks. They last for several
minutes before self-detonating. To switch back from plunger to
expacks right click again. You carry four expacks at a time and can
have nine placed at any one time. When you place the tenth the
first expack you placed will disappear.

Expacks work on all vehicles except ships and can be used to destroy
defguns and flak cannons as well. It takes two expacks to remove
a defgun or flak cannon at 100% health. One expack will kill a jeep
and two will destroy tanks. It does matter where you set them.
Expacking the underside of a tank in the back does more damage
then the front hood.
Example: Panzer (Tank)
63% damage in the front.
74% damage in the back.
The damage is substantial in both cases but you do more damage
by attacking the back.

Example: Corsair (Fighter)
4 1/2 bubbles of damage under the tail
10 bubbles of damage under the propeller.

B) Setting Traps for Fun and Profit
All maps and modes have an objective of some sort.

In Conquest expacking a flag with a small radius is a cheap way to
get kills. Take full advantage of it. When the flag goes white detonate.

In Capture the Flag expacking your teams flag is a good way to halt
the other team's capture attempt. (Note! I will never expack my own
flag in CTF! It is cheap and far from foolproof. Some servers will
vote kick you for doing it. However expacking your enemies flag is
dastardly and evil muahahaha!)

Expacking a spawn spot (like in Operation Battleaxe) is a good way to
capture a location. Spawn camping with expacks is cheap and evil
and something else I'll never do. If you see me expack you at a spawn