Greetings comrades, to my very first steam guide, I hope you will find it useful.

After plenty of hours in RO2 both Rising Storm and Stalingrad I noticed quite a few useful strategies and moves that other players are completely oblivious about or don't use them correctly.
so here are some tips that will help the Newbies get on their feet quicker and help advanced players to sharpen their skills further.

The key in being successful in RO2, just like in real life is positioning.
get to the right position and you can take down a whole battalion, and correctly moving will help you get to that position with your limbs still intact.

1) First i would highly recommend to change the control settings : CTRL to toggle prone and ALT to take cover/bandage. CTRL is a much closer key to your WASD and you will make use of prone far more often than taking cover, and being able to quickly drop will save your needless life more than enough times.

2) Always move from cover to cover. ALWAYS. I can't stretch it out enough, NEVER stay on open areas, if you are in open areas it's because you are right now running to a piece of cover, staying exposed without concealment will result quickly in a bullet to your precious overpriced organs.
Never roam in open ground in search for cover, you first must peak out to see your available safe positions and then run straight to the nearest.
can't find a good safe place? fall back and try advancing through a different area or throw smoke, otherwise you will be gunned down by a dozen enemies waiting anxiously to pop out into the open valley of death.

3)While running, change stances and move and erratically. it's very easy to lead a shot to a running player, but if you will often change stances from standing to crouching while running the enemy will have a harder time aiming for your vital parts, furthermore, try zig-zagging from time to time, it might slow you down but it also might help you dodge that burning piece of lead that was about to blow your balls off.

4)Always crouch unless you really need speed or shoot over a tall obstacle. When crouching you are A. a smaller target B. have less sway when aiming C. tighter hipfire spread.
so unless you are dashing to cover as fast as your small scrawny legs can take you, crouch at all times. your fire will be far more effective.

5)Never run in front of a shooting ally!!! If you would see someone in real life shoot his gun, would you walk past him? Of course not, unless you really want to turn into a bloody mess. it might seem obvious but this happens too many times in the game. Don't be an idiot, walk around firing LMG's and SMG's, not in front of them.

6) To quickly replenish your stamina, go prone. As mentioned before it is very important to spend as little time in open ground as possible. As such running without stamina is very ill-advised. Not only you will run much slower, but you will suffer from greater idle sway and recoil while your poor soldier is huffing and puffing from exhaustion.
To make sure this won't happen, lay in prone for a few seconds and your stamina bar will refill very fast as your character is lying on the ground resting.
Be aware that moving, even while not running will cause your stamina to regenerate slowly. so make sure you are motionless to maximize the regeneration

7) For Japanese only: banzai when running to a position. When a tojo charges he chants a powerful magical ward that makes bullets deal 50% less damage. So when getting to a position but, afraid of getting shot on the way, just hold the melee button while charging.
Sure, you will look like a moron screaming for no reason, but it will save your life and will make the enemy rage about why the hell a rifle round from 20 meters to the chest didn't kill you.

in this section I will shoot some advice about shooting some guns

FIRST AND FORMOST:
turn manual bolting on in the options menu! that's right. you will have to click after each shot, with the bolt/pump action gun to cycle the next rounds.
sounds stupid and annoying? WRONG. not only it makes the game more immersive but it also make the action FASTER. that means faster firing rate and less time you are vulrnanvle after each shot.
it might be ackward at first but you will get used to it quickly and will wonder how you ever lived without it.

1) Handling the bolt while aiming down sights heavily obscures your vision and makes you slow and vulnerable.
You need to grow a new habit of un-sighting after each shot and then immediately aim down again when the gun is ready to fire.
This will allow you to see the enemy you shot clearly and his surroundings, and this will also allow you to quickly move a few steps to avoid the enemy's retaliation.
Combining these two aspects will make you mobile and deadly being able to quickly land deadly shots while on the move and be constantly aware of what's in front of you, I have won many gunfights with this technique and soon you will too.

so remember: F.U.R.Y!
Fire, Unsight, Resight, Yam!
[BD/[/screenshot]
]First and foremost rule of making the best of your bolt-action rifle: Always Un-sight when operating the bolt!

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this might seem confusing at first, but as you will get used to this you will find out you can make accurate shots a lot quicker and avoid death more efficiently.


2) Always rest your weapons whenever possible. You can rest your gun on obstacles such as tables, fences and windows. it is VERY important to do so because it completely removes idle sway and greatly reduces recoil.
You will know that your weapon rests on something when a white LMG icon appears in the bottom right corner of your screen.
another important thing to know is that your gun doesn't have to be on top of the object to rest on it, you can also rest then gun sideways, such as against walls and tank traps
this is yet another reason why you should always be behind cover - cover also increases your accuracy

here's an example of how i rested my rifle against the side of the tree, notice the white lmg icon indicating the gun is rested

3)suppress your enemy!
If too many bullets fly near someone, he will become supressed: the screen will turn black and white, sound is muffled and worst of all sway is greatly increased as the poor soldier panics and fruitlessly tries to preserve his miserable life.
Use this to your advantage: if you know vaugely where the enemy is hiding, shoot around 10 rounds around his position, this will suppress him and will allow you to advance forward with greater safety, so don't be afraid of wasting ammunition, you noticed an enemy but is out of your gun's reach? then supress him and thus neutralize him for a few seconds so that you and/or your comrades can finish him off up close and personal.
furthermore, every time a bullet flies by a player, he will flinch, slightly and his aim will be dropped off-target, the more bullets that fly by him at the same time the greater he will flinch.
keep that in mind when you are engaged in a firefight, when he pops his head, start shooting without fixing your aim at first, and only adjust later, the enemy will have a very hard time returning fire as his aim will be completely thrown away, allowing you to quickly bust his brains.
this is best preformed with a LMG and its one of their primary advantages to offset the fact that you are nearly immobile while using it.
don't bother suppressing people with bolt-action rifles though, their rate of fire is too slow to be effective at that


4)Don't neglect hipfire. It is often considered that firing from the hip is useless due to the poor accuracy, but it can actually be a life-saver.
Hipfire is most effective for up to 10 meters – a very common distance in close quarters. Firing from the hip will allow you to remain mobile and keep the enemy in clear sight.
Just remember that the bullets go when your gun points, and not the center of the screen as you might think, when hipfiring with an automatic weapon shoot in short bursts to see where your bullets fly and quickly correct your aim accordingly. Shoot in full automatic fire only when in 2-3 meters range or in desperate need to suppress your target instead of killing it
An important thing to note is that semi-auto rifles have very good hipfire performance, it's accurate and powerful, so rushing indoors with a Tokarev or Garand can be a legitimate tactic.

5) For pistols - reload before use even if wasn't fired before. because a bullet is already loaded into the pistol's barrel you can change clip and win an additional round. So instead of just 7 pistols for the Colt1911you will have 8 bullets instead, a bullet that WILL save your life. -can't be done with revolvers.
it can be also done with any magazine fed gun like smg's but it's not recommended as a single extra bullet in a 30 round clip is very unnoticeable and it's not worth the wasted magazine

In this section I will cover tips about cover.

1) USE THE COVER SYSTEM. This First and foremost feature that is very often neglected, it pains me when I see players completely forgetting about this core feature.
'But why use this clunky system if I can just take cover by myself?' some may ask.
Well, my dear illiterate friend, with the cover system you can stay protected behind obstacles either too low to crouch behind or a little too high to shoot from.
There are many walls, fences and obstacles that from a first glance won't cover you if you stand/crouch behind them. BUT if you will run up to them and press the cover key (which is supposed to be ALT if you paid attention) then your character will crouch in the right so that he will be completely behind said obstacle.
-this fence was too low to crouch behind.
This will further benefit you when aiming from the cover because a quick press of the right mouse button will put your sorry head on cover again completely safe from enemy fire.
The same can work when trying to shoot from cover which is too high. some obstacles, especially wrecked tanks, seem too tall to shoot from behind them, but if you will latch on to them with the cover key your character stand straight and will be able to shoot from behind that obstacle.
Be aware though, that when emerging from cover while using this system, your mentally handicapped soldier will expose his/her/it's entire head which is quite visible and very easy to shoot off for anyone noticing it, so unless you are latched to a tall wall as mentioned above, it's highly recommended not to linger exposed within the cover system for too long.
This system can also be used to quickly shoot over aruond corners. since using the cover system is much quicker that leaning. latching to a wall, and then taking a peek around the corner, and quickly putting a cap into anyone you see can be quite useful.
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Final feature that the cover system grants is BLIND FIRE. while in cover, press the fire button and your soldier will lift the gun out of cover and shoot out of it, only exposing his hands but it's terribly inaccurate.
Though you will not get kills beyond 5 meters when using this tactic, what it will definitely do is SUPPRESS the enemy, making them easy to kill once you come out of cover.
Want to advance on an enemy first floor window or doorway but afraid to get shot?
the just take cover next to it, open bilndfire. and then quickly rush in and kill the sumbitch while he is supressed and can't react well.

2) Terrain utilization. Quickly changing stances (standing crouching and prone) to maximize the effect of the cover.
This is different than the cover system because it allows you to utilize cover that the system doesn't recognize primarily elevated positions. The battlefields are always full of these hills and ditches.
While not having solid obstacles to hide behind, you can use your height to your advantage. There are many high areas that when standing up, give you a great vantage point, but when crouching you are completely blocked by the high ground.
This is the ideal place to abuse your terrain and quickly switching from crouching to standing in order to take shots and get to cover with a blink of an eye.
This works with every elevated position including roofs, the only exception are watch towers (like the ones in hanto)

3)Never expose more than necessary. Mentioned in almost every other RO2 guide so ill be brief about this. Using the cover system or not, you must make sure that you are concealed as much as possible. Best example being windows – never stand in the middle of them. Always shoot from corners and angles so that you won't be shot from unexpected directions and try to back down a bit so you won't expose your gun.
When emerging from cover to seek out more enemies don't do it quickly. slowly and gradually move away, making sure you are aware of your surroundings and the area you are aiming at.
it hurts quite a bit when you quickly expose your head only to get shot from a window you didn't pay attention to.
here's an example how its done WRONG: the silly nazi in the picture is completly exposed. not only to anyone firing from the church, but also to the enemies behind it and in the village. He died pretty soon after this screenshot was taken

4)Use smoke when defending! - a very common bad habit in this game is for defending teams to completely neglect smoke, considering it only a tool for assualt.
Dead wrong.
Use smoke to advance to a better position in front of the point. you could set up a defense in an unexpected area for the enemy, and they will force to focus their attention on your squad before they can advance to the objective.
Also smoke is very good to counter enemy sniper and long range fire. This will force them to get closer to you where they will be shot down a lot more easily.
And finally, if you see that the enemy is closing in a building you are inside, throw smoke in front of the entrance. the enemy will not be able to fire into the building and forced to enter in order to kill you, allowing you to set up a delicious ambush to several enemy soldiers.

USE ENEMY SMOKE TO YOUR ADVANTAGE. the enemy will feel secure when running through the smoke considering it a defensive bubble.
But you can prove them wrong! throw grenades into the smoke, and hide in it, to shoot the bastards in the back. you can cause quite a panic when the enemy can't see where they are being shot from inside the smoke

Grenades are very often overlooked as a mere spam weapon, but there are quite a few tricks that can make this spam a lot more effective and be a weapon to proudly bear rather then just throw them out of boredom

1) Use your hands to aim your grenade throw! Many players, especially newbies don't know how to throw the grenade accurately and it ends up being the infamous 'deadnade' killing friendlies.
No more! You can aim your grenade quite accurately looking at your brilliant soldier's stretched arm; it's indicating the grenade's throw trajectory, in most cases. To land it into a window, make sure that your palm is aligned to the window's left.
Remember, however, that the grenade is thrown in an upward arch, so make sure there is room above you or the grenade will bounce off the ceiling.
Use anti-tank grenades if you need of a quick boom, they explode on impact but remember, they have a small blast radius.
DON’T FORGET TO COOK THE GRENADE if you want to make sure the enemy won't have time to run away, cook the grenade before throwing it – press the melee button when the grenade is primed and you will hear a click you will have 3 seconds to throw the grenade before it blows your arm off.
be aware though, that the German Steilhandgranate is automatically cooked as soon as you prime it, so don't hold it too long unless you want to blow your nazi ass up.

2) blind-throw grenades from cover! This is a very useful trick that sadly, I have seen very few players use it. When you are latched to cover with the cover system, you can throw grenades with the blind-fire functions without exposing yourself at all.
When in cover, prime the grenade, then aim over the cover, and wait till you see your hand curl towards the desired direction. Upon release your soldier will quickly lob a grenade through the cover without seeing what's behind/around it.
This is VERY useful in close quarters and will save you a lot of deaths when trying to throw grenades down a corridor.

3) Throw grenades in underhand manner when needed. This is another forgotten technique: when you press the melee button while holding a grenade you will throw it underhand instead of over your shoulder.
This Might look like a puny short ranged throw, because it is. Sometimes you need short throws when the enemy is right behind a wall that's in front of you, if you will throw a regular over-the-shoulder nade, you will miss the enemy completely, but when throwing underhand, the grenade will land right behind the wall, dooming anyone who dared taking cover there.

4) Throw grenades in front of the enemy to distract them.
Even if you know your grenade throw won't kill or even reach the enemy it is still wise to throw the grenade in their vicinity to startle them and gain the high ground.
When you are locked in a firefight with someone, you can throw the grenade out of cover and pop up as soon as it exploded. The enemy won't be able to see well because of the dust and suppression, allowing you to quickly pick him off.

5) for Japanese only: Use boobytraps! when crouching and looking at the ground while holding a grenade, RIGHT CLICK and your sneaky bastard will burry it in the ground.
any poor american GI that will step on in will fly sky high.
It is a very powerful tool in the Japanese arsenal and will turn the tide of battle when used right.

Remember - it can only be planted on soil, not floors of any kind or rocks. bear that in mind so you won't waste your time trying to plant the bomb in the wrong place.
Also, while some players may associate them with the atrocious Bouncing Betties from Call of duty:World at War, they are NOT - they only explode when an enemy steps on them directly, an enemy can stand one inch away from it and not detonate it.
so make sure to plant it in areas you are sure americans will walk through: room entrances, popular pieces of color and in bushes.
One more thing that must be addressed- unlike the mentioned above bouncing betty, the boobytrap doesn't disappear when you die, BUT, every player can have only TWO boobytraps active at any given time. If you will plant a third one, the first trap you planted will just magically disappear. So keep an eye out for your trap counter in the bottom right corner of the screen when you plant your explosive potatoes

*M12 Trench gun* – this gun is a beast. Despite the fact it’s a shotgun, it has an outstanding effective range of 100 meters. As long as you aim accurately at the enemy, at least one pellet will hit him, and that one pellet can easily hit his head or heart. and usually more than one pellet make contact.
it also has the devastating SLAMFIRE feature: when you have manual bolting on, basically, in real life, this gun could shoot as fast as the soldier could pump it, as there was no saftey mechanism in the ammunition tube.
you can shoot with this gun as fast as you press the trigger, turning the trenchgun into a semi-automatic shotgun.
it's pretty innacurate as the recoil is powerful, but it's invaluble when you have to lay down loads of fire in a short amount of time for either supression or close range spraying.

*M1 Carbine* – Despite the fact that this gun is labeled and looks like a rifle, IT SHOOTS PISTOL BULLETS. So its damage dramatically decreases in ranges over 50 meters. You will need multiple hits to the chest to kill an enemy in long range unless you hit his vital parts (head etc.)
This rifle is best used in close range unless you are hunting for heads.

*M1 Garand - use the ping trick! if you know there are enemies close and your magazine is not full. press the reload button, and then quickly cancel it by sprinting/going prone. you will produce a sound of your en-block clip ejecting from the gun, this will make the enemy think you are now unable to shoot and will pop out of cover, allowing you to gun the fools down. can be done much easier by pressing 6, when your Garand is level 50.
Don't forget about this trick when playing as the Japanese, if you hear the Garand's clip ejection sound, don't be hasty and expose yourself. as the enemy could be attempting to lure you out of cover.

*Flamethrower* - this tool is VERY effective to blind-fire with. You do need to expose yourself; as long as you know the general direction of your enemy your huge unrealistically overpowered tongue of fire will kill everyone 20 meters away from the cover you are blind-firing from.

*PPSH41* - While this gun looks like it has insane recoil that is impossible to control, resting this gun dramatically increases it's efficiency, more than any other gun: The recoil becomes very easy to control and your fire becomes much more accurate.
also: GET THE DRUM MAG A.S.A.P somehow this attachment also greatly reduces recoil, making it one of the most powerful guns as it can land a storm of bullets with a blink of an eye.

*AVT40 + SVT40* - both rifles are good in close range despite being rifles. their semi-automatic recoil. is reletivly low, allowing for decent close quarters preformance. however it is still better to use full auto with the AVT in very clsoe range.
be aware of their low magazine size when used in close range as you will be forced to change mags quite frequently so don't fight in a place with multiple enemies.
final note about the AVT - unless in very close ranges, ALWAYS switch to sem-automatic mode. by pressing 6. the recoil is insane and will make anything beyond 10 meters impossible to hit.

*Knee mortar* - it's very effective in close range! most users prefer to spam with it over long distances but i can be a very good tool for room cleaning, a single shot in a room will kill anyone in it.
and the best part - you don't have to be afraid to kill yourself. when you commit suicide by killing an enemy not only you do not lose points or tickets, but you actually GET POINTS if you do a suicide kill, as the Japanese god emperor preserves your soul and reincarnates you in a new body!

*DP28 - this gun can actually hipfire suprisnigly well, contrary to popular belief.
the recoil is easy to control and if fired slowly it is extremly accurate if you manage to assume where the bullet might hit.
very effective in room clearing and low profile noise

And remember, you can only shoot/reload it when crouching or in prone stance and you must stand still.

1) You can give your weapons to your friends. Press backspace and you will drop the weapon you are currently holding, for anyone to pick up, great if you want to help an ally that ran out of ammunition or give someone a better enemy you found on a corpse.

2) You can pick up explosives from ammo dumps in Rising Storm maps. So that you don't need to rely on those 3 lousy engineers to destroy objectives, everyone can do it once they picked up a satchel charge from an ammo dump.

3) Always resupply friendly machinegunners when you see one. It gives you easy 5 points and makes sure that your precious MG'er won't run out of ammo, so why not?

4) Forgive your teammates for accidently killing you by typing NP in the chat.
They didn't do this on purpose, unless they done a really idiotic mistake like throwing a grenade in friendly territory forgive them, don't be a meanie.

5) hunt flamethrowers with extreme prejudice! flamethrowers are the most powerful weapons in the game and can easily kill whole teams if left unchecked, but only when they get in range. when you see one, you must concentrate all your efforts to kill him, even if you will die in the process. if he runs out of your line of fire, chase him down, if you die before managing to nail them, make sure you notify your whole team about where he is.
making sure the flamers won't reach your point is crucial for your success when playing Japanese

6) when you play a squad leader in the Stalingrad maps, going to an ammo dump will give you an additional smoke grenade, allowing you to throw 2 in quick succession. this is very useful to get a large area protected so don't forget to walk up to an ammo deposit after you spawn.

7) NEVER USE BAYONETS. some might disagree but right now the melee mechanic in this game is god-awful. bayonets are very likely to outright miss even in 0 meter range because they do damage only to a tiny point in the center of the screen. even if you do manage to score a hit you have a very high chance to hit the enemie's hands/shoulder dealing near to no damage.

If you want to kill enemies in very close range HIPFIRE is a much better way. it's much more likely to hit, a hit is much more likely to kill and it doesn't stun you if you miss.
Melee kills are just for humiliation and for messing around, nothing more.


I hope you will find this guide useful. Please tell if there is anything I should add/change.

Good luck soldiers!