Basic concepts, unit guide and tactics tips - in English (spoilers in last section)

This game is great (hence me buying it after checking it out, which hardly ever happens). I added some key info to help those new to it. This guide are similar to the Russian-language one already on here, but without the need to figure out Google Translate ).

Basic tips

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1. The most important thing you should understand to have an easier time: The loot system.

You get assigned some points for killing enemies and winning missions, but you also get penalized quite heavily for losing men. In the end, the amount of points that you get for successfully completing a mission in not much, enough for one BMP or something maybe.

HOWEVER, you can "sell" every military-style vehicle your troops capture [1], and that's where the bulk of your points will come from. It's an "honest" sales system, i.e. you can sell a captured BMP-1 without crew for 600 points, these 600 points stay with you forever, and you can use them to buy any sort of vehicles or men worth this sum. The only thing you "lose" if you sell is experience on infantry and crews.

Here are a few key things to know about capturing vehicles:
- Only tank crews (green triangle flag) can crew tanks and BMPs.
- Every unit that starts with 3 men or less (drivers, engineers, snipers, ATGM crews, etc.) can crew technicals, trucks, and BTRs.

Generally, you'll have an easy time capturing tanks since they are pretty sturdy and about half the time, don't get destroyed before the crew bails out [2]. Tanks (and other vehicles) get the "on fire" status effect for some time after taking a couple penetrating hits, during which time they can't be crewed. After it's over, you can simply clear the area around the disabled tank, have your tankers get in, and repair it to operational status. It will be missing some armor (and early in the game, you sometimes find vehicles with no fuel and/or ammo), but generally almost as good as new.

This is why it's always worth if to bring as many tank crews as you can fit while still retaining some infantry (provided you expect the mission to have many armored vehicles) - by the end of the mission, you can expect each of these crews to be tooling around in a tank/BMP, not only making the mission much easier but also netting you huge amount of points once you sell all the captured T55s/T62s.

If you bought all available crews, another trick is to "buy" cheap BMPs, unload crews (looking glass icon), then "sell" empty BMPs back.

Capturing technicals is also fairly easy although less reliable. They usually explode from heavy weapons, but pretty often get set on fire/crew killed by rifles. I suppose one way to capture them more reliably would be to use snipers. Past the first 2-3 missions, I didn't generally bother with capturing any without ATGM/MLRS (although in one particular mission where you start with infantry only, captured technicals provide much needed firepower and ammo).

Lighter armored vehicles such as BMPs and self-propelled howitzers occupy sort of a weird place where they're hard to hurt with anything small, but get exploded instantly by anything heavy. You still get quite a few capturable ones, but it's closer to 25%. If you absolutely want to disable and capture howitzers, bomb airstrikes nearby seem to work with a lot of trial and error.

Last but not least, you generally only keep the vehicles crewed by units YOU selected for the battle, not units given during mission (extra drivers that come in scripted trucks, airstrike controllers, etc.) Notable exception are units given to you in 3rd mission, as most of your army reinforcements stay with you after mission, notably the tank crews (so it's worth bothering getting them in tanks).

Note on prices of captured units added to UNIT section of guide.

2. Another, absolutely crucial thing to understand: The game can feel overwhelming and does create a sense of urgency. However, often you are not as pressed for time as it claims.
Events get activated by "triggers" (advancing to a certain point, usually), and if you haven't activated one, you've got all the time in the world. So, you only need to hurry if you have received a phonecall about something, AND it's generally prudent to avoid exploring new areas while going to that objective (to avoid triggering more crises before you deal with the current one). Considering the game is about brutal urban combat and you WILL run into mines/ATGM ambushes/arty fire if you go too fast, it pays to be methodical.

Also read the Achievements Guide that explains how to finish some objectives, but it contains some spoilers and in general isn't always optimal (i.e. their advice for getting "Didn't lose attack helicopter" achievement is "Do not use attack helicopter", lol).

3. Somewhat murky issue: SUPPLY.
Ammo for all infantry weapons can be found inside military-style vehicles, including captured technicals that can carry dismounts (that proves very useful in the Russian pilot mission). Simply load your infantry inside, then unload after a few seconds. Vehicle has to have someone "at the wheel" for this to work.

Supply trucks can provide ammo to every unit, including infantry and landed helicopters. For this, take a crewed supply truck and press "deploy" button (looks like crate). Truck shows a circle around it wherein the ammunition is replenished. This is crucial since many of your units will run out of ammo, notably ATGM squads and tanks, also infantry with auto grenade launchers burn through their ammo quite quickly, which cuts their firepower by a ton.

Fuel trucks work largely the same way, have a nice tutorial associated with them, you don't need them that often, and you can generally find a couple on map. One exception is that hovering helos burn through fuel, although not quickly. If you keep helos hovering for observation and fire support, you'll need a fuel truck eventually.

Hovering mouse over ammo type in unit panel will show you how much each unit of ammo costs. One surprising thing I've found is that ATGM ammo is rather cheap (400 units, i.e. 2 tank shells or 20 autocannon rounds), making them a cost-effective way of dealing with vehicles. MLRS rockets tend to be (realistically) supply-intensive, and I think helicopter unguided rockets are expensive too. Overall, it's still kinda hard to run out of supply even if you use artillery liberally (as long as you don't use it on supply trucks scattered on maps, heh).

[1] Haven't tried it with civilian vehicles, I presume you would get 0 or very little points for a tuck/tractor, although it would be a cool mechanic if you got say 200 points for a crane.

[2] One trick that I have used with airstrikes to disable and capture a tank is to drop a bomb right on top of it. Does enough damage to make the crew bail out generally, but doesn't explode it like airborne ATGMs tend to. Also AI doesn't repair tanks (at least not in combat), so any tank with cannon crit can be pecked to death.

Units

Most units are self-explanatory, and have pretty clear descriptions. Of course, you'll want to upgrade from police to military units when those become available.

Drivers are pretty useless since you can replace them with any small unit and it will still drive a truck/technical/BTR just fine (and can perform its mission in a pinch, and get kills/exp to level up). Tank crews seem an obvious choice, but really just about anything will do.
Vehicle driver also aren't part of "infantry cap" (i.e. if a mission says you can bring 2 trucks, 1 BMP, and 7 infantry, what it really means is you can bring 1 tank crew, 2 of whatever unit you choose to crew the trucks, and then 7 more).

Snipers seem to do a lot of killing, and can also be used to scout if you set them to "defensive" posture and force them to lay down (bottom-right command in menu), since enemy can't spot them easily when they do that.

Assault squads are great at dealing with infantry and buildings, since they can nuke houses with RPO, shred infantry in the open with grenades, and are beasts at clearing buildings in hand-to-hand (which is the often the easiest method). They will need resupply with RPO and grenade ammo eventually, though.

ATGM squads are excellent at dealing with vehicles, but only carry 4 rounds. Either park a supply truck behind their buildings, or forbid them from firing so they don't waste all their ammo on enemy trucks and unable to deal with an actual problem.

Engineers are good for clearing mines, which some missions will have a lot of. I haven't found placing your own mines to be that useful, since it's too much hassle for things that can more easily be killed by other means, and the enemy seems to find&avoid then pretty easily. One exception is blocking off suicide bomber approaches with AT mines.
TNT charges are far more reliable though, and work against both infantry, light vehicles, and even BMPs if close enough (haven't used one on a tank).

Then there is general infantry which seems to kind of do okay at every task. Generally though, I prefer specialists.

Mortars are pretty decent if you set up a ton of them in cover next to a bunch of enemies, but realistically do crap damage against buildings and are too slow to move to be particularly useful [1].

And of course, the tank crews, which are love and life.
In general, tanks are your most useful units (once you get past the base T55, which dies to a single ATGM), simply because they can take fire and not die horribly. Well, as long as the fire comes from the front.
You'll still need infantry to provide observation, and it's nice to have BMPs/BTRs lending extra firepower from behind (the best thing to kill an ATGM vehicle at long range is another ATGM vehicle, since a tank will take a while to land a hit with cannon EDIT: as correctly pointed out in comments, the best thing is an ATGM team, since it won't eat an ATGM in return - but if the enemy doesn't see your vehicle, or you can hide behind building, ATGM vehicle will do).
Overall, high-level tanks (upgraded T72s and T90s) are your frontliners.

Of the BMPs, I'd say always go for the BMP2 variant with ATGM, since it seems to have semi-decent front armor, and its autocannon is much better than BMP1 derp gun, and it has ATGM of course.

Upgraded BTRs are surprisingly durable against RPGs, and have a good autocannon. They're pretty good at dealing with light vehicles and infantry.

In general, when it comes to vehicles, there's little to say except "go for the most expensive ones you can buy". Same thing kinda applies to artillery, although I will say that heavy MLRS seem to be the way to go - sure, they eat supplies quickly, but you can generally bring/find enough supply trucks for this not to matter.

As for helicopters, I haven't mastered them, but they are quite useful in some situations. Yes, they get killed by ground fire pretty easily if you have them flying around, but if you hover in one spot, they have good view range and their weapons outrange ground units. So one can either do a quick attack run against key position and go repair, or hover defensively and pelt the enemy with rockets/ATGM from afar, or use them as a quick reaction force to intercept suicide bombers etc.

Russian infantry units are crazy deathmachines, the Marines are more or less an assault/sniper/engineers rolled into one squad, and GRU recon are all that plus they can drive tanks and set up TNT. The only thing these guys lack is anti-heavy-vehicle capabilities. Oh and they still get instakilled by an RPG or tank shell to the face.

Forward air controllers are neat for calling in airstrikes, however doing so automatically makes the FAC public enemy number one. You will be immediately targeted by any arty, and I've actually seen tanks bumrush out of defensive positions to get the air controller. So, be sure you've got a building to run to and troops/tanks to cover you after calling it in.

One last thing when it comes to unit composition: by and large, you do not need to bring your infantry inside vehicles. Yes, they'll move a bit faster, but they are quite fast already, and this way they won't all die to a stray ATGM or tank shell. The only unit that kinda needs a vehicle to get places is the mortarmen, and as I've said they're not that good. Also you can use BMPs to carry infantry across AP mines, but that is also quite situational.
In general, rather than waste a vehicle slot on a truck for all your infantry, just bring another MLRS/ATGM technical, and have the infantry walk in.

NOTE ON PRICES OF CAPTURED VEHICLES:

Unarmed technicals are only worth 10 points IIRC, not worth keeping those, but they can be used for infantry ammo.
Supply trucks are worth 50 points, fuel trucks 100 points. Regular transport Urals are worth 200 IIRC.
MG technicals are worth 125+, AGL technicals are worth 350+, armored versions are worth more.
ATGM technicals are worth 450 IIRC and good to use since they carry 6 ATGM and are pretty fast. MLRS technicals are worth like 1800, absolutely worth it to capture those.

Beyond that, you won't get many capturable BTRs (at least not in early missions where it matters), and tank/BMP crews are always better off capturing the best tank they can get, or maybe BMP2 with ATGM.

[1] Unit XP is a pretty good indicator of how much killing they're doing. Some units can make a lot of noise (base infantry, mortars, KPV trucks), but in the end of the day, snipers and AGL trucks have way more kills. You can also click the indicator for a kill breakdown.

Tactics

The game is obviously quite tactical, but thankfully most of it is self-explanatory.

1. Movement:
Movement controls take a bit of getting used to. Basically, if you right-click behind a vehicle ONCE, it will go in reverse (this is very useful to go back behind a building to dodge ATGM, for example). If you right-click anywhere TWICE, the unit will turn its front that way and drive (this is very useful to point your front armor toward a threat). You can also right-click and drag to set heading.

2. Dodging fire:
Speed is surprisingly efficient, as long as you don't run into mines. Generally, if you drive an armored vehicle at top speed and some distance from RPGs, they will pretty much never land a solid hit (don't slow down tho). Tanks will have trouble turning their turrets in time etc. ATGMs are much more dangerous, since they can steer after you, but rapidly reversing when ATGM gets close (~8 tank lengths) often leads to a miss or harmless "glance". Or just try to make it to cover before they reach you. Note that your vehicle won't be able to fire efficiently either, so this is more of a method of getting to a key position than actually doing damage.

"Dodging fire via speed" also applies to infantry and mortars, although it doesn't work well with a large crowd, since they inevitably start going in a conga line and then the arty just targets the front units and falls on the rear ones.

3. Stairs:
Speaking of dodging fire, units going into/out of buildings generally spend some time on stairs inside before going on roof/balconies. If you are taking howitzer/MLRS/tank fire, order your men to go inside/outside (depending where they are), that way they will be deep inside building on stairs when fire hits, and receive very little damage.

4. Cannon vs ATGM duels:
Most direct-fire weapons appear to have a "zeroing in" mechanic where they take a few shots to land on target. Less experienced unit and older weapons will take more shots to do so. Machineguns and autocannons seem to "zero in" faster than tank cannons due to faster reload.

However, ATGM units are much more accurate (which is fairly realistic I suppose, if we assume everyone uses newer ATGM systems).

Basically, this means that if you drive out in your BMP2 and duel an enemy T55, he will fire first, but will almost certainly miss, whereas your ATGM will end him.
This works against everything except the front of heavier tanks like T72AV, because they take a ton of ATGM hits to disable. Line up flank shots or use your own tank up front to take return fire.

The opposite is also true - don't duel ATGM vehicles or ATGM crews in buildings with T55s/T62s at long range, unless you can get in close enough to land a first-shot hit. Or reverse behind cover when they fire.

5. First aid:
Yellow HP can be bandaged over time as long as the unit is not taking further damage. Cycle wounded units in/out of line of fire to avoid taking permanent losses.

Mission tips (contains spoilers, work in progress)

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This will be filled out as I have time, also based on suggestions of other players. Note that many of the things suggested here are not in any way necessary to win the missions, probably too risky on ironman, and often aren't even optimal... but usually fun.

Mission 1:

1. Don't use RPGs on armed technicals, stop firing on them as soon as crew bails out (totally try to nuke the unarmed ones before they disembark tho).

MG and AGL technicals are good help during the mission (as long as you keep them slightly to the back, so they don't take fire) and good to sell later on.

2. As time permits, use your RPG teams, snipers, and later drivers to pick up concrete mixer trucks on map and barricade the two entrances to village. It really slows down enemy suicide bombers, sometimes they get stuck. Also infantry sometimes get slowed down and comes in a conga line one by one. Concrete mixers are much harder to destroy, but regular trucks/cars work too.

3. Use the 2 fuel trucks as improvised IEDs. I parked one next to building across from police station that terrorists like to bunch up in, then ordered my troops to force-fire the truck when building was full (attack button in menu). I used the other to refuel the BMP, then left it next to where the BMP was with TNT under truck. When enemy BMPs came in with a crowd of infantry, I detonated it.

In general, go to town with TNT on engineers.
I find the mines are somewhat unreliable and take too long to place, but TNT has neither problem. I placed TNT under building near mosque that terrorists like to bunch up in, and under hole in my concrete mixer truck barricade (blew up a BMP with that one, shame we can't capture more than one), and all over the roads to blow up suicide bombers as they come in. Generally, put your MG technicals on one side of map to shoot all suicide bombers, and just put a bunch of TNT across the roads on the other side to explode them as they come in.

In the end of mission, captured armed technicals are worth more than supply or fuel trucks (see section about game concepts).

[tominaboabe]

Also capture the supply truck on the same mission soon so it doesn't get destroyed and keep it close to the ATGM so it can have almost infinite ammo and it can have most of the map covered, which will help you a lot with dealing with suicide bombers

[tominaboabe]

Reminder: ALWAYS capture the ATGM truck at 2nd mission. Ik it's kinda obvious but I know people who didn't see it, didn't capture it and had a hard time in the 3rd mission SK just don't forget about it

[Teutonicus]

Steal civilian fuel tankers. Your fuel trucks should NEVER need the cross country capabilities of an Ural tanker, but having a few hundred ton of fuel on hand is always totally worth it.

[Teutonicus]

Smoke grenades are OP. Got a tough building to crack? Worth a try throwing out a smoke screen and just bayonet charging it old school style. BMPs can lay screens out, or infantry can attempt to infiltrate forwards, lay out a screen, and charge. Throw smoke screens out in front of your smoke screens, so your troops can get to the enemy defences without taking effective fire.

[Teutonicus]

What? Mortars are great. You put them in trucks so their extremely slow speed is not an issue, and they re-stock their bombs every time you need to move them. They will just have a fat old time throwing bombs at things all day. Especially great when you objectives that are not speed sensitive.

[HWTF Land Speed Record Vehicle]

on mission 2, If you can, call backup when you are overwelmd on the part when you holding the hoem

[Hanna]

Smoke grenades saved me on Mission 3 I believe, I had 5 men left (directly after the part where ya gotta do the logistics central thing) and using smoke tactics I managed to defeat multiple technicals with a single police AT, police sniper, and three police infantry men. (I mean just men, not squads) And then I managed to trigger the reinforcements and finished the mission.

[WDH3]

arolland93, you wouldnt get water shot at you if you didnt stand on burning trucks!

[seashell]

can you make a walkthrough for battlefields dlc

[Sketchy Avocado]

google search confirmed they were. Lol, those things r burnt into my brain. Stood on em and got shot at with water cannons