How-to guides

How do I load a shell — and can I unload one?

1. Choose your round on the shell selector. Match it to the target — the loadout guide covers when to use HE, AP, illumination and the rest of the 21 shells.
2. Ram the shell, load your powder charges, then arm the firing gun. The gun reads Locked for Loading while the sequence runs.
3. You cannot unload it. There is no eject control, no breech to reopen and no way to swap a rammed round for another one — the gun holds what you gave it until the round leaves the barrel or the fire mission ends, at which point the Nest clears the gun and resets your powder charges for you.
4. So if you rammed the wrong shell, your only way out is to send it downrange and load again.

Tip — Firing off a wrong round is not free: shots fired, average accuracy and kills-per-shot are all scored, so a dumped shell can cost you a medal even when it hurts nothing on the ground. Decide your round before you start ranging — star shells in particular are loaded deliberately, not on reflex.

How do I restart the engine / restore power?

1. Find the Master Power Switch in the cab and set it to ON. If the console is dark or the gun won't respond, this is almost always why.
2. If the engine has stalled, run the start-up sequence: power on, then engage the generator so the laying motors and lights have power.
3. Give it a moment to spin up — the panel lights and dials come alive when the system is live.

Tip — Several missions — the Counter-Battery operation included — won't progress until power is restored, so make it your first action when you spawn in.

How do I use the map measure / blast tool?

1. Open Map View with the interact key while looking at the map console.
2. Hold the left mouse button and drag across the map. A line measures ground distance; this is also how you eyeball a shell's blast coverage before committing a round.
3. Release to clear it. Use it to check the range between your spotters and a target, or to confirm a bracket before you fire.

Tip — For an exact bearing-and-charge answer rather than an eyeball, feed the same observations into the firing planner.

How do I know what a counter on the map means?

1. Read the frame before the drawing. A red diamond is hostile, a blue rectangle is friendly, a green square is neutral. Both sides use the same picture inside, so the outline is what decides whether firing costs you.
2. Check for a black post on top. Thirteen counters carry one, and all of them are fixed installations — those will still be there when the shell lands. A bracket over the frame instead means a fort.
3. Look the drawing itself up in the map icon keys, which lists all 70 with their pictures.

Tip — Green crosses labelled A to D are reference points, not targets — they are there to give you a known position to measure a bearing from.

How do I read a forward observer / spotter report?

1. A report gives you bearing and/or distance from the spotter, not from your gun. Note which observer each line references.
2. Two bearings from two spotters cross at the target. A bearing plus a distance, or two distances, fix it the same way — intersect the lines or range rings.
3. Convert that fix into a bearing and range from the Nest, then pick the powder charge for that range.

Tip — This whole conversion is what the planner automates — drop the spotters, enter the report, read your solution. New to it? Start with your first firing solution.

How do I reposition / move the Iron Nest?

1. Yes — but movement is a requisition card, not a free action. The Move Direction card costs 10 requisition and is the controlled option: you set both the bearing and the distance, and the teleprinter reads them back to you before the Nest moves.
2. EMERGENCY MOVE! costs 65 requisition and takes the choice away from you — it deploys smoke and hops the Nest a short random distance to a spot inside allied territory that it will not name, reporting only “to UNKNOWN LOCATION” and then that you are “somewhere within” a region.
3. That randomness buys something the cheap card does not: EMERGENCY MOVE! pauses the counter-battery timer. Move Direction carries no timer effect at all — so the expensive card is what you play when you are being ranged, and the cheap one is for improving your firing position while the clock is not yet against you.
4. Play the card from your requisition hand, then resume laying the gun from the new position — your firing solutions change once you've moved. Try to move off the battlefield entirely and the game refuses, calling you a coward and returning the Nest.

How do I call in and aim the Scout Plane?

1. Play the Scout Plane requisition card when you have it in hand.
2. You choose the flyover location — pick the grid where you suspect hidden guns or want to confirm a target, not a random patch of map.
3. The flyover reveals what's there, so you can range targets your forward observers can't fix.

Tip — This is the key to the second phase of the Counter-Battery mission — players who call it “pure luck” are usually guessing instead of flying the plane over the hidden batteries.

How do I equip the gas mask and read the gauges?

1. Press the gas-mask key (G by default) to pull the mask on or off.
2. Wear it when the cab fills with smoke or fumes after sustained firing or a near miss; visibility through the lenses is reduced, so take it off once the air clears.