Let me start off by saying artillery in RO is not nearly as annoying as in vanilla BF2. The rest of my comments are from my personal experience and haven't been confirmed by others, per se, so if anyone has corrections to make, feel free.

1) You have to be "commander" to direct where artillery will fall. Commanders are usually equipped with an SMG, grenades and most importantly, a pair of binoculars.

2) You aim your binoculars where you want the artillery to land and press "fire". In the top left corner of your screen it will either say "artillery coordinates saved" or "not a valid artillery target".

3) A radio is required to call in the artillery to hit the saved coordinates. The manual says anyone on your team can call it in, but Tzefanya said in his experience the commander himself has to make his way back to a radio and call it in. I'm hoping the manual is right, since it's a pain for the commander to be traversing all over the field.

4) The artillery comes down in a series of barrages. The first comes down pretty quickly after being radio'd in, then there is a lull, then another barrage, then a lull. This goes on for quite some time. I think I've counted ten separate barrages from a single radio request to the same coordinates, so be careful when moving into an area that's just been hit!!

5) Armor is easily destroy by artillery. I've seen a group of three tanks destroyed by a single well placed barrage.

6) Artillery is not exactly the same on all maps. For the beta, there were three maps played:

A) Arad (armor map)
B) Konigsplatz (mixed infantry/armor map)
C) Stalingradkessel (infantry map)

In Stalingradkessel, neither side has artillery, though individual shells come down and kill indiscriminately. You'll be hiding somewhere and hear a scream and suddenly everything around you shakes and shudders.

In Konigsplatz, the Axis (Germans) are defending and the Allies (Soviets) are assaulting. Only the Allies have artillery, and is really necessary to breach a solid Axis defense on this map. A well coordinated artillery strike, combined with armor and infantry is about the only way to win this map. You have to control every CP as Allies to win, and I've never seen it done without a solid artillery/armor/infantry combination.

Arad is where I've seen artillery used most effectively. It seems everyone is trying to find the "perfect spot" to park their tank, and if they find a great spot, they plant themselves there. If the commander can spot them and have artillery called in, it's a great way to knock out some armor and move your own forces in. A little bragging, but it's the TG guys I've seen on the servers use artillery on this map most effectively. Most players just want to slug it out with tanks and don't realize how much damage an artillery strike can do to a cluster of tanks.

Good luck tomorrow, guys. That's all the info I have to pass on regarding artillery...