WARDOGS Artillery gives you two ways to rain shells on the enemy: the SPH-2 artillery tank and the buildable L81 mortar. Each one has a different use and price. You need to build the L81 Mortar at an FOB, while you can buy the SPH-2 at Career level 90 for $500k! Here’s what you need to know about both guns.
What You’ll Read:
The Two Artillery Systems in WARDOGS
The Artillery Systems are not interchangeable, and you get them completely differently. The SPH-2 is a vendor vehicle: you buy it, drive it, and it dies if someone catches it. The L81 mortar is a buildable emplacement: you put it up at a Forward Operating Base next to your Drill oil, and it can’t run when things go wrong.
| SPH-2 | L81 Mortar | |
|---|---|---|
| How you get it | Buy from vendor | Build at FOB |
| Unlock | Career 90, $500,000 | Large Hammer, no vendor gate |
| Cost | $8,000 per life | 91 Building Supplies |
| Range | ~2.6–2.7 km | ~700 m (disputed) |
| Reload | ~27 s | ~6.5 s |
| Crew | Up to 3 | 1, better with a spotter |
How to Unlock the SPH-2 Artillery Tank
The SPH-2 unlocks at Career level 90 for a one-time $500,000 fee. After that, it’s $8,000 every time you pull one from the vendor.
That $500,000 unlock is now the single most expensive Career purchase in the game. Weirdly, actually playing the SPH-2 doesn’t level your Career track; it counts toward Support instead. So you’re grinding Career progress somewhere else to buy a gun that feeds a different XP bar!
$8,000 a life is 80% of your starting cash. If you lose it twice in a bad match, you’re out more than you started with.
SPH-2 Loadout and Weak Points
Three seats, 65 km/h top speed, 105 L of fuel burning at 8 L/km. It fires 155 mm HE shells out of an L52 cannon, backed by a roof M249 for close calls.
Small-arms fire does nothing to this thing. Zero. But explosive drones do +500% damage to it, and that’s not a small edge; it’s the reason drone counter-squads can one-shot an SPH-2 that’s sitting still. AT mines (+145%) and 84 mm rockets (+140%) aren’t far behind either. If you’re getting one of these, assume anything that flies or explodes is the actual threat, not rifles.
How to Use the SPH-2 Artillery
Stabilize before you do anything else; an unstabilized gun moonwalks all over the place after every shot. Park on flat ground if you can get it. A slope tilts the barrel and lies to your elevation dial, and you won’t know it until your shell lands somewhere weird.
Get a spotter. Seriously, don’t skip this. Solo artillery is a coin flip because you can’t see your own impact past the ridge in front of you. Once you’ve got eyes on target, dial azimuth first, then elevation, fire one round, and watch where it actually lands, not whether it hit. Make corrections with that, then fire for effect.
Then move. Every shell you fire draws a line back to your position, and by the third one, somebody’s already driving toward it.
Why the SPH-2 Can’t Hit Close Targets
Two different problems work together here. Inside about 750 m, the SPH-2 can’t hit you at all; no elevation setting reaches that close. Between 750 m and roughly 1,181 m, the flat, fast shot isn’t available either. You’re stuck lobbing the high arc, which takes longer to land and gives a moving target time to just… leave.
Park inside your own dead zone and you’ve turned an artillery piece into an $8,000 lawn ornament. Stay between 1,181 m and the max range of about 2.6–2.7 km if you want both arcs on the table.
How to Build and Use the L81 Mortar
You’ll need a Large Hammer (Lv.3 hammer) and 91 Building Supplies to put one up. It’s on page 3 of the build wheel, left tile. Place it with a clear lane in front; walls and Hesco blocks your own shells if they’re too close to the muzzle.
Controls: WASD for coarse aim, mouse for fine adjustment, compass up top, range on the left, mils on the right. Each shot burns 30 Ammo Supplies pulled straight from your FOB’s pool, so keep it stocked.
Read our WARDOGS Mortar Guide to learn all about how to build and aim with Mortar.
How to Counter Enemy Artillery
The best counter isn’t subtle: build a small FOB away from the main fight, throw up a Large Hammer, and build a Stingray Nest for FPV drones. Fly out over the enemy base and look for a stationary tank near a road; nearly every SPH-2 crew parks near one. Lock on, and one drone kills the gun. The trade is lopsided: cheap drone supplies against an $8,000 vehicle. The math supports this too: explosive drones deal +500% damage to the SPH-2, so a one-shot kill isn’t an exaggeration.
No drones? A three-person RPG squad flanking from behind works; just expect a longer walk. Whether you can even hear an SPH-2 firing is genuinely contested; some players swear by audio cues, others say the map’s too noisy to pick it out. So don’t count on your ears alone.
So which Wardogs Artillery do you think is the best? Why? Write it down in the comments below.
FAQ
Is WARDOGS artillery still overpowered after Season 1?
Most “artillery is too strong” complaints happened before the level 90 gate went in. Fewer players will have the unlock now, but nobody’s confirmed how many SPH-2s actually show up per match in the live build yet.
Can one player run the SPH-2 solo?
Yes, mechanically. Park it, hop out of the driver’s seat, and man the gun. It’s just a bad idea without a spotter; you’re firing blind at a map and hoping.
Does the reload minigame actually speed things up?
Pressing R right after firing triggers a directional input sequence. Nail it and your reload drops well below the standard 27 seconds. No source has published the exact assisted time, so expect variance.
