The reason you get clicked by arty, with an illustration

The_Chieftain:   1. Well, it is certainly true that there is no way of knowing for sure that an artillery piece is about to click "fire", but that doesn't mean that you can't reduce the overall chances by a read of the situation. Anyone who follows my streams will have observed how I will usually have made mention of a pending incoming artillery round just before it lands. On rare occasions, I'm actually self-disciplined enough to know I've been in one place for too long and move, just to see a round miss. More often than not, though, I try to get that one more shot in and die, promptly followed by "well, I saw that coming." It is my guess from observation that I am far from in a minority in this. Certainly one cannot eliminate getting hit, but as in all things, sometimes you can do everything right and still lose. 2. I have no opinion on battle assistant, but agree with you on XVM. 3.fair enough. 4. Yes, but the arty is taking a gamble in trying it in the first place. If he takes the shot and gets lucky, good for him. If he takes the shot and misses, as he is likely to do in that situation, he has just deprived his team of a likely damaging shot on a different target. It's all about how team members affect the team capabilities, not about how any individual player affects any other individual specifically. 5. I strongly disagree with that statement. If I'm targetting an assaulting tank, it's likely in desperation due to there not being much else to stop it. I have a very definite preference for aiming at stationary/predictable targets since I would much rather take the higher chance of a hit. That said, I do take a personal pleasure at hitting campers, particularly those who think they're playing "arty safe." They should be contributing to the fight, darnit! 6. Please reference my survival guide when I describe such a position. They are known as DIP Positions and should not be selected for your stand. If your team has utterly collapsed, blaming artillery is likely just grabbing at whatever blame you can lay for the fact that the enemy team was substantially better than your team. 7. It's not directly on point, but I find that sometimes just firing two quick rounds from a auto loader and moving tends to help my survival better than emptying the clip. 8. It's a force multiplier which adds an additional element of teamwork to the game.