Snap Shot: How to fail at Frontline

This morning I got reminded that I'm not GUARANTEED to get Major (or even Captain) in Frontline. It turns out if I play badly I'm still perfectly capable of only getting Lieutenant.

I spawned into B on Defense in my T-44-100. B defense is already kind of a bad proposition, B is the easiest one to cap. But I figured I'd do my best, then when I get killed I'd move to one of the other spawns. So I did just enough to get to Sergeant before getting killed, o.k. and while I was respawning into the Type 59 I saw that both A and B were far enough along on the cap counters that it was plausible that I'd spawn in just in time to retreat, if I went to either of those. 

So I chose C. It's the easiest to defend and I've done extremely well defending it in the past. I arrived in C and it was positively peaceful. In fact, by the time I drove up to the cap our defenders had pushed the handful of attackers back behind their spawn line! That may sound cool...but in reality it's disaster. The reason it's disaster is that I spend the next 5 minutes just driving back and forth, trying to find somebody to shoot. You rank up by defending cap but if the attackers don't get anywhere near the cap....

Usually what happens is that A and B get capped (and they did) and attackers from B peel back to help C, while others respawn into C and a fight, in earnest, begins for C cap. I kept waiting for that to happen because THAT'S when I'd finally get to rank up.

And it just didn't happen.

Finally with maybe 1:00 on the clock some attackers tried to challenge the C cap. I ranked to Lieutenant, briefly considered letting them have the cap, but ultimately the battle ended (we won) and that was that.

Frankly it's becoming the meta on Frontline. Attackers know that C is hard to cap so they often don't even try. Once they get killed the first time in C, they just bail and go to A or B. Heck, when *I* spawn on Attack C, I immediately go to the SW corner to give flanking support to B...because I know that it's going to be very hard to fast cap C and figure I can get some early damage, and help our team cap B, by going there.

What Should I Have Done Better?

I wish I'd given up on C more quickly. I could have either driven to the middle lane and tried to flank the attackers on E. Or I could have abandoned and respawned into E or D. I think driving to E was probably the more sensible idea; and I thought about it a few times. But i kept thinking that any moment now a red force would arrive to battle for C and I'd rank up fast.

I think in the future if my gun is idle for more than a minute or so I'll just bail and go looking for a fight somewhere else. Otherwise I risk wasting half the battle being idle and wishing there was something to do.

On the plus side I made decent credits only because I only had one tank to repair, and I didn't fire very much ammo.

GLHF!