How to use the TOW Missile against air vehicles

Introduction:

If you're a regular user to this subreddit, you've probably seen my TOW shots. There aren't many more gratifying things in this game than landing a difficult TOW shot. I've learned the TOW missile, and did it using Thermal Optics without the need for Zoom -- which makes me a bit of a uinicorn, but I'm more of a donkey with a plunger stuck on its face.

The TOW Missile is a pretty difficult weapon to master. At the surface level, when used against ground vehicles within a certain lane, a lot of the difficulties are erased by proximity of predictive movements and hit boxes.

However, the difficulty scales exponentially when dealing with air vehicles -- especially Jets.

Let's go over some of the characteristics of the TOW missile.

Awhile ago, Symthic had a chart that described the characteristics of each secondary weapon on the attack craft and infantry fighting vehicle. However, that has since been replaced by relative and absolute damage values, which in all honesty, is probably much more useful anyway -- no one really cares all that much for the characteristics of a secondary launcher when the damage values are generally more important.

But the TOW missile does have some characteristics that are important to know. In relative terms, it marries the best of the middle between prepatch SRAW with the postpatch SRAW. For example, while the TOW isn't as agile as the prepatch SRAW, it is far more agile than the postpatch SRAW. Similarly, the speed of the TOW is proportionate to prepatch SRAW -- in addition, the way the TOW operates when guided on top of a target marries the characteristic of prepatch SRAW. Similar to both wire-guided missiles, the TOW operates at top different speeds: Launch (slower) and Cruising (faster).

Damage values.

Vehicle	Free-Roaming	Lased
Tank	25%	45%
IFV	36.2%	45%
FAC	32.5%	45%
MAA	36.2%	45%
Scout	100%	90%
Attack Heli	100%	90%
Stealth Jet	140%	108%
Attack Jet	140%	108%

As you can see, the damage values are generally uniform across all vehicles -- with the exception of the Tank. Back in the Fall 2015 patch, DICE made it so that the Attack Craft TOWs would not do as heavy damage to tanks as they did previously. Whether this was an appropriate balance isn't really up to me to say -- I just dealt with it. But whenever I get a lased target on a tank, I take it -- so long my boat is safe and there's no immediate threat to me.

Addendum: u/marbleduck mentioned that I should refer to this link for people curious about the angle multipliers. It's very useful for those trying to understand the proportions of damage from a TOW missile on ground based vehicles. At it's best, the TOW missile will out damage a TV.

This is also an important detail: The damage of a free-roaming TOW is far more effective than a lased TOW against the Scout and Attack Helicopter. In many situations, I would see a lock and pull away from the lased target -- I do this because I can see that I have a better shot to completely obliterate the Scout / Attack Heli than a lased target. While delayed, these SOFLAMS would have been essentially useless to me:

IFV TOW

FAC TOW

Guiding the TOW:

Part of the issue is, people don't know how to guide a TOW missile. The real reason for that is that they don't understand that the variation in launch and cruising speed are innately learned -- not seen. You can see the difference, but you can't really sense it until you use it more often. Which is why you will see TOW users from Battlefield Bad Company 2 capable of transferring their wire-guided skills over to Battlefield 4 -- good examples are Ravic and Mus1CK, as well as SYM-Haber.

Step One -- Knowing your HUD angle and the opponent's approach

• Knowing your HUD is important because it can remind you that while you may be in a Fast Attack Craft, you don't have a true 180 degree of defense with the TOW missile. So you need to adapt it. As you can see, I reached the edge of my viewing angle and had to twist it. It was a very difficult shot, but it wasn't something I wasn't uncomfortable with. I knew I could hit it -- I would not have fired the shot otherwise.

• This is actually an important detail. If you are facing a good Jet pilot, you want to prefire the TOW well before he finishes his loop around to attempt another strafe. Why? Because a good Jet pilot will punish you by dumping a his 25s and then veer away -- it's death by a thousand cuts. So how do you adapt? You prefire the shot as he's looping with the intention of getting the TOW missile into his dirty fucking cockpit before he has a chance to react. A good example. I knew the Attack Jet was looping around for a strafe, but I misjudged the length of his approach -- I thought he was going for a larger loop, hence the brief delay.

• Assume every Jet pilot is a competitive pilot. Always always always assume this. Do not ever assume he or she is a noob. I did that once to someone who I had assumed was a noob, and ended up getting punished for it.

Step Tow Two: Judge your approach by firing away from the target first

I don't always do this, but I definitely do it against Scout Pilots. I do this for a few reasons.

• It placates the Scout Pilot if he's looking directly at me. Giving a pilot a false sense of safety is the best weapon you have against them.

• It gives you a three-dimensional approach to line up your missile.

• It looks fucking bad ass on video.

Step Three: Try to take advantage of them when they aren't paying attention.

• By taking out the oblivious targets, you're removing a very dangerous vehicle threat completely. There is a downside to this -- it makes you a target. There have been numerous instances where I have taken out the pilots, and then on their next respawn, they focus on me completely. No one else exists on the map -- just me. This kind of hurts me because now I have to deal with (assuming Paracel Storm), a boat or two, the MAA, MBT LAW spammers, a scout or two, and the two Jets. I have managed to do very well handling them all, but you can't always win.

An important bug you need to know:

When APS is active, your TOW missile will be redirected back to your boat -- it's a major game breaking bug, but I have learned to work around the problem by using APS to block a shot, then fire. It works really well in pubs, but I change that approach completely in a competitive setting by using it only when needed.

Summary:

Overall, a lot of these details are things you are going to have to put into practise. I actually do some practise at times in the Test Range. I use third person view to take out the commander UCAVs, as well as practising first person view. It allows me to determine whether my aim is on point or not -- or if I need to make some minor muscle memory adjustments.

I would probably attempt to practise on the IFV first. This will limit your ability to handle most Jets, but you will get numerous opportunities to kill Scout Pilots. Because the viewing angle is limited on the IFV's HUD, it will force you to limit the shots you take so that you can work on the shots that you CAN take and become more proficient at them. Moreover, the skill curve is far less intimidating than it would be on the attack craft or the attack heli.