Priest

Lets take a count shall we. Germans: Panther Tiger KugelBlitz (Balled Lightning) Maus V1 rockets V2 rockets Jet power Bismark U-Boats (initially) Vampire technology Panzerfaust PanzerShrek and the list goes on and on. The Germans were rampant techno freaks. The Panther is the perfect example, they missed one of the whole advantages of the T-34 when trying to emulate it, that of simplicity. Now I am sure you can make a list for the Americans also, but you will also find most of the "gadgets" did not make it into the front line or at least not until it was too late (ie the Pershing being spurned until after the Ardennes). I think the funniest statement i have read on this thread is the list of gadgets Jason put out with regards to the Normandy landing by the Americans. Why on earth would you include the P51 and bombing missions in that? Considering you were trying to state that the Americans used gadgets more than anyone or at least relyed on them to do the work. Some of the things you listed are true, but if you consider the basic arguement here (arguement in the scholastic sense) is basically the Americans (and Allies in general) used technology and numbers to battle the Germans who were using high level and more intricate tactics. So going back to Jason's example of the Americans using bombers and P51's in the landings and thus relying on technology, the reverse would be that the Germans would use tactics instead of the Luftwaffe if they had run SeaLion. That is totally and completely not true. I think Brian for this discussion's sake described "gadgets" pretty well. Every army would use naval bombardments and air bombardments in a water-borne assault. Duh! In the end I think the Germans "V" weapon policy and their end of war tanks and planes show that if any country relied on technology it was the Germans, who in vain (IMHO) tried to use it to even the manpower ratio. Luckily it was not enough, in the end the ultimate gadget fell into the hands of the Americans! I think you all know what that is!

Actually it is 585.00 dollars but who is counting. It costs to go fast and do it in style. Do not worry Matt at this rate BTS will be most likely outpace the car by say...when was that CMBB release date again?

DAMN! Okay lets look at monthly expenditures shall we. Rent - 500.00 Car - 600.00 Ins. - 200.00 Utils - 150.00 Misc - 100.00 Battlefront Addiction - just keeps growing and growing! Can I just give you guys access to my bank account and you guys have a direct withdrawal? Maybe just send you a couple of paychecks a month? Thanks Guys! More money going out and no way to explain it to the little lady.

It is also a reality issue with the Lynx, only 100 or so made IIRC.

Veteran M5a3 shocked and buttoned. versus CRACK PANZERSHREK at 40 meters. And the winner is... a draw sorta! The shrek got off two shots, both hit the side, both penetrated and no kill for the shrek, nor was the already damaged crew ready to abandon the vehicle. It backed up out of harms way. My opponent I am sure threw a hissy! Of course right at the start of the next turn our unlucky Panzershrek took a 75mm HE round for the bad guy team. Oh well I was pleased!

CM is out of reach right now but I do find it interesting that in July 44 a lot of you are suggesting PAK 75mm over 88's. Neither of those guns would even be considered by me in a game of these few points and this early time. I would look no farther than the 50mm ATG for the Germans. And I heavily agree with the Hetzer arguement. Use the guns to protect the Hetzer and two 76mm Sherms do not stand a chance in Hades.

I thought calling the PENG THREAD a "beast" was a compliment, as it has taken on a life of it's own. Man you cannot even give compliments to those trogs...uh...I of course mean grogs

YES! And how are you doing man? Long time no speak. Ken

I love TDs. The Achilles is my personal favorite, good mobility and the wonderful 17lber gun. The trick is that you cannot always sit hull down and fire away like you can with a Hetzer or Jagd series TD. You have to be mobile and more creative. Flanking, moving, and baiting your enemy to overextend his armour or scare him into not using it at all. I have to particular things I like to do with TDs or primarily AT tanks. One has already been mentioned, that of putting one AT focused tank or TD with a group of HE oriented tanks. The other thing I like to do is form hunting groups of TD or AT focused tanks and go to work on the enemy armour. Moving as a group I can maximize my firepower in any local region of the battlefield. Just some ideas.

(speechless)

Wow Kwazy shut him down!

A pre-emptive thanks to all the soldiers who did what I have a sinking feeling I could not. It is truly staggering what they did that day, all of them from all the different allied nations.

Hmmm what is the point again? For a forum that fully supports (or is ashamed of I never quite know the answer ) an ongoing thread (beast?) that challenges a man named PENG you sure seem negative guys. Fionn when I clear my schedule I would love a game but it is some time off and anyway I want your schedule to be clear for the...uhm...other proposed "venture" eh?

Silvio, First off how would the AT guns get away from my attack initially? They are not fast enough to manuever. Second without ATG's why am I worried about an infantry company in my rear? First off they have to move through the woods. Lets say on a purely game basis 1-3 turns. Hmmm now this is where it begins to get hard. Where is the next strong point, what is the lay of the land? Can you pop out of the woods behind and have LOS? If you do what is the best you can offer, AT teams as a threat? How many, maybe three? Would they even be in range? In any sizeable area of woods it would take far too long to bring ATG's around so they are not a concern. But lets say for arguements sake that 250m behind me and infantry company all of a sudden appears with LOS, no ATGs but some AT teams. There is 250m of open ground between me and them. Why again am I worried? What can they do? They might cause me to divert one tank to harrass them while I wait for some light artillery to scare them off. They aren't much of a concern because they are not a threat at that range to my tanks. Closer and maybe they become a bit more scary because of the fragile AT teams they might have but we are still talking low percentage stuff here. AT teams die fast and supress easy. Also as long as I keep pushing forward they cannot keep up, at least not the AT teams. Normal infantry (unless in very close range) mean little or nothing to a tank. They are simply targets. Also I tend to have follow up forces to deal with these little problems. Amazing what three or four HTs will do to an infantry company given time. A quick edit for clarification, I am aware but did not address the ATGs you now imply in front of me. As the infantry draw minimal resources from me I would deal with them in the manner of my first example, infantry fire with direct HE support. [ June 03, 2002, 10:28 PM: Message edited by: Priest ]

Ron, If I was defending then I fall back, the counter attack has worked and caused you to stop your attack and halt your momentum in the sector. On the attack if you pull farther back into the woods then you are not a threat to my advance. I choose either the path right or left, send my recce, and repeat the process on the next time I find a strong point. If you infantry is hiding in the woods why in the heck do I care about it anymore? A unit that cannot move or act on it's own initiative is as good as eliminated. The diffrence in my example and yours is that you assume that I am going to go after your infantry and allow them to be pulled away from my tanks. Kind of a reverse of what I am doing with my tanks, pulling yours towards me. The difference is that you assume I need to send my infantry in, and that I will send my infantry in. As the tank is the core of my force, their protection (thus infantry screen) is priority. If I some how find that your forces are strung out through the woods (glimpes from recce forces or whatever) then that is where artillery can be used to flush you out. The only time I can see otherwise is if the objective is in the woods, thus I may have to go "and get you". Other than that I would in essence just drive around you. A tank thread would be good. Maybe I will start one tonight. Lastly you are right I am showing basic examples but that is so you can learn. There is no magic wand that you can wave, I cannot tell you just to "flank" or "adjust" or anything else and WHAMMO you are good with tanks. It does not work that way. I can't just say always use a wedge formation and you will win, because it is not so. There is no "tactic" but a philosophy being stated here. There are some rules to armour combat, like shooting at the enemy flanks is good, and so on and so forth but the I think a lot of you are asking me to tell you point blank what I do, and the answer is it changes every game with every new map and opponent. I simply follow the previously stated model.

It depends how many guns and tanks we are talking about here. If you have a concentrated ATG front and the enenmy walks right up to it then you are going to rip them most likely. But if you concentrate your forces then there is a chance the tanks drive right around it out of LOS. If you spread them too much then the tanks can gain the advantage in numbers and position (ie one tank goes left and one goes right where does the gun rotate to?) Whether it be an ATG or tank it still falls under local gun superiority. Try this though, set up a little admittedly "boxed" scenario with a small set of woods with two ATG guns in it, lets say either 75mm PAK or 76mm US. Put a platoon of infantry in the woods also to shield the guns. (another test that can be done is swap the MORALE bonus on and off of the HQ units and see how much tougher your guns become!). No choose two platoons of infantry and 3-5 tanks (test with different numbers to see the different results and they play upon one another. For testing choose Panzer IV or Shermans. You the infantry platoons to screen the tanks. Us a ridgline to shield the oncoming force and have engagement happen at about 200m-250m. Once the guns show themselves you will see the infantry and tanks eliminate them very quickly. Most of the time before the second shot. So ATGs are a risk, but proper position and screening can make them a one or two shot risk. Adding overwatched hulldown tanks on the ridge will as two advance and so on and so forth increase the survivability of the tanks also.

Sir General You let your infantry deal with it and HE fire. You are going to lose tanks but infantry can spot guns, especially moving guns. Infantry, MGs, and artillery can take out guns very very easily as can direct HE fire from 2-5 tanks. If you are in a smaller point game you have less guns to worry about but you also have less tanks so it does not matter about the size of the game.

Jason, If a person is holding their armour and not "waltzing it" right to the front that works to my advantage. This means their infantry is in the open most likely. That means I can attrit their infantry. So lets take a look at an example shall we? You have a company of infantry in the woods you are supposed to be a.) advancing or b.) holding the area, it matters little. To each side of the woods is area in which tanks can pass. You decide to hold your armour back, waiting for me to commit mine. Super. My recce forces are scattered by your company but I know you location. I call in some quick artillery (low caliber stuff that I have a lot of like 81mm mortars). This should help to pin your force. I then advance my forces, a platoon of infantry and 5 tanks. Three of the tanks sit back and cover the two previously mentioned clearings to the right and left. The other two tanks head forward and engage the infantry with the infantry as a screen. Now here is the question, what do you do? Hmmm you could move up AT teams and ATG's but my infantry will probably focus on them not to mention 2-5 tanks depending on the LOS in the area. You could send artillery, but light stuff will have no effect and I will not be there by the time you could call in the heavy stuff. Heavy stuff takes time and in the 3-5 turns it might take to come in, I would have decimated your company and moved into those positions or beyond. Or on the defense I would have moved back and out of the area, my counter attack finished. Regardless what are you going to do? Hmmm maybe you are going to run away , that is fine although I tend to focus my artillery to the rear (simple adjustment) after my tanks engage so I will do so good damage to your fleeing troops and I will either blunt the attack or I will take the position. So hmmm what to do eh Jason. How about send you tanks in to relieve your infantry? Hey that is a great idea! But wait isn't that what I wanted you to do? Didn't I put you in a position where either you have to or you lose the position? Did I not just exert my "will" into the game and make you do the very thing I wanted? I think I did. Now does this work perfect every time in every situation? Hell no. But it is a good model of how I conduct battles, with armour as my core force, not infantry. I have many games where my infantry gets few if any kills. Most are AT teams or the occasional ATG crew member. So there it is spelled out. I am not sure I can make it any more basic. Lastly Jason I am losing more and more respect for you and your opinions. Not because of your attacks on me but those of my opponents in previous posts. They are my friends and I do not take to kindly to that. Fionn, yeah I know. Guess I could just give Jason a list of my opponents that I have run asunder and the can all call him an idjit for me. Saves having to read his long drawn out posts stating that he doesn't understand because he doesn't agree with it.

Ron - I do not always play HUGE games, scaled down the overall idea still works the same. Jason - If you do not know how to bait someone and exert some your "will" onto the battlefield to cause things to occur then you have problems far greater than tank use. Nightgaunt - thanks While luck is a factor it does not explain why some folks do far better consistently than others. There is a definitive skill to this, I will soon start a thread on Armour tactics. After I get some sleep under my belt. Four days of heavy CMBO has taken a lot out of me. Jason even you can join in and do you JasonC thing. It is mildly amusing from time to time. Thanks to Kalli and others who showed interest, I will go into more depth. Lastly, Jason and Ron, for your information I play a very high level group of CMBO players. A very high level! Some of the oldest members of this board (some even in this thread) are my opponents. Most if not all of them would hand you your heads in a game. Do not speak on something you know ZERO about.

Uggh sorta back awake. 5 hours later I am up and why, because I have a CM game scheduled. I am sick. My battles often go that way, I win the great majority of my battles. You question on the picket line is soley based on the terrain, there is no other honest way to state that. And there is no set percentage, it is what the enemy commander gives you. As long as I have the local superiority of guns then I consider it successful. Folks the key to armour duels is space and who controls that space. If you can move and have area while restricting the area of your opponent they you have won half of the battle. Making your opponents tanks useless is as good as killing them. Currently in a battle I have a guy with a bunch of AFVs stuck. Not bogged, but stuck. He moves them they die. I pinned them with my tanks and the moved up ATG assets. Now I can move my tanks away. The ATG assets maintain the local gun superiority and my opponent loses a platoon of armour. There is more that goes into it, I will get more in depth tonight.

Tarq First off I was writing (and playing CM) the last post while your was posted. I am sorry if I offended anyone. And the answer that your are going to get is, it depends on the situation. Okay that was a lame but true answer. Lets take for the granted that the enemy is not going to trot out his MBT's for you to kill. That is a given. Fine but you can force a confrontation, especially on the defense. You can bait your opponent out with which works with weaker opponents. Or against a better opponent you can make him take notice. Your opponent doesn't want to show his armour, SUPER, then start killing his infantry in droves. Again this is great as a defender because the attacker has to come at you. You can set the range most of the time also. Eventually he will have to react. That is when he runs into your overwatch tanks from the positions he sacrificed because he "hid" his armour. Hiding your armour gives the other commander certain prime positions and tons of latitude. An interesting note, if a waits to commit his armour then normally he faces my "HE" tanks and my "AT" tanks when he finally is forced to come out. Remember that my "HE" tanks usually can double as "AT" tanks (especially as the Germans) and you basically end up facing more fire that way. Leaving the tanks on overwatch after the initial armour duel then will protect from a second wave of armoured reserves. Now lets take this over to the attack. In a battle I had with my friend Stix (time to be an example Stixxy ) (DISCLAIMER: STIX AND I PLAY HUGE BATTLES!) I used this tactic for the attack. I built two forces, on was comprised of a company of Panzer IVH's and a company of grenadiers. There was some quick medium and light artillery included. They would attack up the left flank with the infantry screening the PIVs. When Stix's tanks showed themselves they recieved serious firepower, as stated in an earlier post, I had local superiority in guns so I won the duels. Knowing that I am a mobile warefare kinda guy and that means I can quickly come from anywhere hence I force my opponents to cover a lot of ground. When an AT gun ambushed a formation it either a.) hit with it's first shot costing me a tank, or b.) missed, was suppressed by infantry, and then taken out by a huge volume of HE fire. They normally lasted less than the turn they opened up. Of course if it was too dangerous I would reverse out and let my artillery take care of it. I walked right up that flank. I think i lost two of 15 tanks and maybe a squads worth of men throughout my company while I had traveled 1.5 km (we also play on big maps) of a 2 km map. I decimated his forces and caused him to commit his reserves. That was really not good for him because as soon as I saw him shifting I attacked the other flank with a platoon of Tigers, a platoon of Panthers and 2 companies of infantry (like I said we play big games). The problem was my "diversionary force" already was ending this battle. I cannot remember how big this battle was (7000 vs 8500???) but regardless with my 2000 in tanks and maybe 700 in assorted assets I defeated a 7000 point defensive force. The "Main Attack" group barely made it half way across the map. And Stix had a good plan, with good coverage. But he invested a lot in artillery, my advance was too rapid to fire artillery at. He also used a layered defense with a mobile armoured reserve, but I attacked on a very narrow front and sliced through a lot of strong points by the time his armour got to me. By then I had position and more guns to put on target. I had the initiative and I set the pace of the battle. Most of this due to my tanks. Oh and just so you see I was following my own doctrine. Two platoons of the PIVs were my AT tanks, one was my HE tanks. Of course since his tanks were not initially out to play I used them all to bait him, and then all to destroy his armour. My PIVs were out of HE by the end of the game, which I believe was 27 turns. It is 5 in the morning here and I am going to go to bed, sorry if this kind of meandered but I wanted to give some example before I went to sleep. Just an FYI, since I know Stix will come in here and thwap me about something for using this example, when we replayed the map with me as the defender I showed him the power of the TRP and rocket. That barrage got what 27 assorted vehicles. Needless to say that game only lasted about 15 turns Of course he beat the last game out so don't discount this Aussie!

Sorry to post again so soon but Ligur once I can I will. It was kinda forced on me but hey adapt and win.

NightGaunt thanks. Kalli, it is not the last AFV, it is my force of AFVs. Jason, you numbnut Of course no plan works perfectly and they never survive contact. You know you are really strange guy Jason. If someone asks a factual question you are great and wonderful. If someone states an opinion you are a very literal and annoying. And for your information I have not played the AI since about the second month of the games release. Kalli if you like we can discuss this, and Jason if you want to get in a pissing match but I would rather not, you are not that fun to argue with because you cannot seem to delve past the first layer of an idea. Case in point, lets take what you took from Fionn's comment and what I took from Fionn's comment? You thought differently so you shall we say "questioned it vigorously" while I looked at it closely and found it inciteful. Regardless I can give you a laundry list of opponents I have played and beaten using my "stupid AI" tactics. And I would be careful not to insult them as you have already indirectly done. Many of them are on this forum and would take you to the woodshed over it.

Basically you can make up for the lack of infantry with MG and HE firepower. Due to some restraints I cannot go in depth right now about that specific game. Note that to do this is much easier on the defense. I have successfully defended against large (very large) infantry formations with either little or NO infantry at all and done so very (and I mean very) successfully against multiple players. Although the game situation was shall we say more realistic than your normal QB. Was that cryptic enough for you?? When I can I will divulge all

Damn Fionn, get your own webpage already, I think you broke the "how many times is my name in the title of a thread" record. I mean you have to be challenging the likes of "PENG CHALLENGE" and "BTS FIX IT OR SOMEFINK" for subjects in a title. Being a celebrity and all aren't you worried about overexposure!