Towing

The towing icon in-game

Towing is an in-game ability available to ground and naval forces that allow vehicles to interact with one another by coupling of towing cables on each other.

Towing controls

The ability to tow is default key bound to the "0" on the keyboard in the controls under "Miscellaneous: towing rope".

Once bound, this key will enable the ability to tow on the vehicle in-game.

Towing another vehicle

Towing another vehicle requires the vehicle about to be towed (henceforth vehicle #1) to have enabled towing on their vehicle. The indication that vehicle #1 is ready to be towed is if a white towing hook is seen above the vehicle.

To begin towing, both vehicles must be within a certain distance. The vehicle about to tow (henceforth vehicle #2) must approach vehicle #1 and then upon hovering the in-game cursor on it, can see a formation of a tow rope being placed between the two vehicles. The location the towing cable will connect to is dependent on where the cursor is on vehicle #1, allowing the player of vehicle #2 to pick the placement of the tow rope. Once vehicle #2 presses the tow button, the towing cable is connected at that spot and the two vehicles are now linked. Vehicle #2 can now use its own power to pull vehicle #1 out of whatever predicament it was once in.

Towing tips

Towing is more than just one vehicle pulling another, there's an art of physics involved as well!

• Rope attaches at the aiming spot, rather than in a pre-defined location on a vehicle. Use it to your advantage:
  • Attaching the tow rope on the centre of gravity will cause the pull to simply drag the vehicle along the surface
  • Attaching it to the edges will cause it to turn
  • Attaching it to the top will cause it to flip
    • If a tank is flipped on its side, drive around to the 'bottom' side of the tank. Connect your hook to the tracks in the air and drive away from the tank. However, if the tank's bottom is on an obstacle, use your hull to push/tow the tank past the obstacle. If a tank is completely overturned and still movable, aim the towing rope on the opposite end and then pull to provide enough force to flip the tank right back over.

• A light vehicle with low horsepower is not going to be able to pull very heavy vehicles. For example, the 6.4 ton Panzerjäger I with a 100 horsepower engine can not efficiently tow a 21 ton Panzer IV E, similarly a boat will struggle to pull a destroyer.

• In tracked vehicles, a track direction must be considered when towing. It is easier to drag a tank in its forwards or backwards direction, but harder to drag towards the left or right direction. Similarly in naval vessels it's easier to pull towards bow or stern, than it is to pull the ship to the sides.

• Towing can be used to pull slower vessels with faster if the mass of the pulling vehicle isn't too low. It does not have much utility, but it is possible to exceed the maximum speed of a given vehicle when being pulled. It can also be helpful when climbing a hill in a vehicles with poor traction (e.g. wheeled) and/or poor power-to-weight ratio.

• When a friendly vehicle is hit, and turns on the tow indicator - it's a hint that you should pull it behind a hard cover. Likely the vehicle has a damaged driver, transmission or engine, which makes retreat impossible, leaving player exposed to the enemy fire. Saving players this way can often change the tide of the entire encounter.

Towing immobility

The following in-game situations are times when a vehicle cannot be towed:

• Broken tracks
• Crew replenishment
• Turret phasing through the map (flipped ground vehicle)