Popper

Pedro, By war's end we had used approximately 1/3 of the electrical power generated in the USA to produce 5 atomic bombs (read the history of the TVA). Our atomic arsenal after Nagasaki consisted of two enormous bombs we couldn't deliver further than a few hundred miles with B29's. This is why Tinian and the island hopping campaign was so important to the delivery of the two A-bombs. This was not a luxury we had in regards to the war in Europe. Furthermore, it is not at all clear that the A-bomb would have ended a war in Europe - especially considering the significantly more horrific firebombing campaigns failed to shatter the Nazi resolve. There is no doubt that the Air War did adversely affect Nazi Germany's ability to make war, but hurting someone and taking and holding ground are entirely different concepts. The fact remains that we got spanked whenever we encountered first line troops (and often when we encountered 14 year old Hitler Jungen) on the ground. If we had faced the sort of hellspawn the Commies did in places like Kursk, Leningrad, or Stalingrad, the Eiffel Tower would still be flying the Swastika. Please don't take this to mean that I'm a Commielover. Stalin was a pretty rough guy with some serious issues. I'm just saying that when it comes to rolling tanks over Nazi butt the Reds were a Pro Bowl team and we were lucky that we played their practise squad.

Massi, It's also interesting to note that the differences in the TOE's on the West and the East were dramatically different. This reflected Hitler's disproportionate fear in the Russians as well as a sober assessment of military capabilities. We got to face the Volksgrenadeers and the Hitler Jungen. The Ruskies got to face the Goering Division and the very cream of the SS and they gave them the smackdown in places like Kursk and Stalingrad. Thank gods the Commies bailed us out. Otherwise we'd have never gotten off the beach at Normandy.

The Ruskies were able to get away with that trick for a couple reasons. One was that they had a ton of men and few consequences for a squad or two evaporating in the name of Mother Russia, but the better reason was that they actually had the best tanks of the war. The T34 was survivable, fast, reliable, and had a gun that could do man's work (unlike the anemic pee shooter the Western girliemen were using). By war's end, the Americans and Brits were primerily relying on a weakass 76mm gun that the Russians had largely discarded as underpowered for German armor in favor of the far more potent 85. Even the barely adequate American tank destroyers with their 90mm guns were unable to do the work of Russian 122 equipped Panzermashers. The Sherman did, however, serve one very important purpose. It gave Germans someone to surrender to after they were done running away from REAL armor.

Turn your bases on. If that isn't enough, change the magnification of your units to large enough that you can easily see them.

I don't know what all the fuss is about. Tigers? Bah! All you have to do is rush them with your mechanically superior T34's. The 85mm gun should be more than adequate to punch through that armor and your numerical superiority should make the Teutons quake in fear. Oops. I forgot. You've got whimpy American forces. I guess you can always pray that the Air Force bails you out.

Though I have used FT's several times successfully as ambushers, I have only ever succeeded in using them offensively once. I used offboard 82mm's to smoke the heck out of a concrete pillbox (88) on top of a hill. It had already eaten up half a squad of infantry and my prized Sherman 105, so I wasn't in the mood to screw around with him. After the smoke had successfully stopped him from firing, I fast moved an M3 HT with two FT teams up to near knife range and dismounted. The 88 opened up on on FT team before he got a shot off, but the other one put three blasts of flaming goo in through the slot and my 88 problem was solved.

Part of the reason for the slowness of British armor has to do with a fundamental difference in tactical philosophy. Military planners are usually guilty of believing that the next war will be fought like the last one. The Brits were no exception to this. WW1 tanks were used mainly as infantry support (or "moving trenches"). The idea was that they would provide infantry protection from defensive machinegun fire and allow them to close with the enemy. To this end, they needed to have adequate armor, machineguns, anti-infantry artillery, and speed only enough to keep up with advancing infantry. Ironically, the biggest proponent of massed armor in the prewar years was a Brit by the name of B.H. Liddell-Hart. His "expanding torrent" theory forms the basis for Heinz Guderian's "blitzkrieg" theories. Unfortunately for the Brits, prevailing military planners generally regarded him as a lone whacko in the woods.

I don't know if any of you caught any of the History Channel shows on the Normandy Breakout, but they had a couple interviews with M4 tankers that were pretty telling. One of them said that he was told at training camp that the Sherman was as good or better than any of the German tanks and was shocked to find out that he was sold a bill of goods. Other interviews included folks that were (no foolin') thrown into tanker service with only 4 hours of field training because all the crews had been killed off. One story told of over 60 Shermans being destroyed inside an hour of encountering the enemy in the hedgerows. Ouch! Something tells me the folks at Battlefront actually got this one harrowingly right.

My .02 on this is that there are two basic ways I tend to recon: 1) scouting 2) force recon When scouting, one should not get too attached to the scouting units. Make sure to use your cover, but don't be surprised when your scouts evaporate. The intel that you are collecting is the real issue. This might be a little gamey, but I find that half squads and utility cars (eg M20 or Humber) are the most economical for this kind of work. Sharpshooters are 18 points each and tend to evaporate too quickly amid enemy fire. Force recon relies mainly on massed fast movers. M3A1's are ideal for this due to their two machineguns. 4 of these within 150 meters of a PS team can make them disintegrate before they have a chance to fire off a second round. The key here is to maintain a distance of between 60 and 200 meters of areas you suspect contain enemy units. This ensures that 1) PF's and grenades can't hit you, 2) your MG's are at optimal killing range, 3) you stand a great chance of spotting even hidden troops, and 4) you have room to react if the enemy decides to human wave you. You will rarely have to manually target, but pick the obvious threats first (eg: guns, antitank teams, etc.). Obviously, tanks in ambush positions can ruin your whole day, but hopefully, your own AT assets shouldn't be too far behind. Hope this helps.

Liberal use of reverse slope tactics. Find ambush positions that allow you to retreat behind defalaide. As the Tiger approaches, set your orders to Hunt followed in the same turn with a retreat order. Hopefully, the tanker will creep up long enough to get one shot and retreat. Ideally, this does not give the Tiger enough time to traverse his turrent enough to target you accurately. Do this with several targets (I mean Shermans, oops!) and (in an ideal world) Tiger will take several shots while returning fire with only machineguns. I have pulled this off a couple times and it works wonders. In general, it takes about 6-7 shots from a 76 to penetrate a Tiger with anything resembling a frontal angle. 75's are far less promising. Use your superior numbers and don't be afraid of running like a beaver. Popper

Definitely don't squander your HT's. Massed HT's can do a REAL number on any soft target. Since they move very fast, have nearly unlimited ammo, and can fire on the move, they provide one of the most productive assets you have on the battlefield. I have eliminated 'shrecks, squads, mortars, and command units by the droves by concentrating HT's on them. Using their superior speed can also cut off paths of retreat. The American ones are FAR superior to the German ones. A 50 and a 30 on the A1 makes it a horrific killing machine when used in mass. 3+ A1's can ruin any soft target's day. I have even taken out an 88 with 4 well deployed HT's.

Well, the hill that I was on was very gradual. It certainly wasn't enough to justify any problems with gun depression. Even more annoyingly, my Tiger would "spot" an enemy tank for one or two seconds (just long enough for it to start moving its turret in the direction) and then, for no apparent reason, deselect it as a target. Every time it did so, it would return its gun back to center rather than waiting for the target to reappear. I was trying to make max use of my armor by angling it 15% front/side and couldn't seem to get my gun to center on them and stay centered. Maybe I just need to give Unt. Geller a gift certificate to Lasik or something.

I agree that there must be some kind of sighting bug. My situation was a little different, but equally frustrating. My Tiger was on a slight hilltop with clear los into a valley. As the Brits approached I could actually see them well enough to identify them as Sherman II's, Cromwells, and Churchills. The most frustrating part was that, despite my manually aiming, the los turned red just as I got w/in 1mm of the target. Apparently, there was an opaque air molecule between the enemy and my Tiger. Unfortunately for me, that air molecule must have only been opaque in one direction, because I still had 4 yellow lines pointed right at me from each of the targets. My Tiger didn't target for two whole turns and one of the Cromwell managed to hit both the turret mantle AND the gun. Deeply frustrating.

I would also like to emphasize that a Tiger also has that nifty "self defense mortar" thingee. I actually took out a bren gun carrier at knife range with one of them. I had to replay the turn 6 or 7 times to figure out what did it. It was pretty confusing because my main gun wasn't pointed at it when the BG carrier went up in a spectacular explosion.

If there is one thing that newbies forget most often, it is the importance of cover fire. You will probably not cause a lot of casualties with long range MG fire on an enemy position, but it will keep their heads down long enough for you to get your infantry up into position. There was a discussion earlier about how a single MG easily gets overrun by a platoon of infantry on move orders. The same discussion also noted that two MG's with overlapping fields of fire rapes the same platoon. This has to do with the fact that they cover one another when one or the other is suppressed. HT and tanks, when used judiciously, can really put the clamps on defensive fire from a position you are trying to assault. Even if your fire doesn't actually cause the enemy to break and run, they won't be doing a lot of accurate firing either.

Do you mind if I smoke?

I have had the same problem when playing the Heinies. I had a KT hiding in ambush and had Cromwell after Cromwell sneak into LOS and pop shell after shell at me. The KT, simply refused to respond with anything but MG fire. When I tried to manually target, it gave me a red line that indicated sight blockage, but nothing (spare maybe a heavy air molecule) stood in the way. There was no difference in elevation, no smoke, no trees, and no other visual obstacles. As proof of that, the Cromwells fired a total of 12 shots before my KT even bothered to respond. This has got to be a bug.

Always insist on full fog of war. Then, you will be able to cheese your opponent into using up his artillery on groups of scouting half squads. Just split up one or two squads and run them through woods toward the enemy. Once the shelling starts, hunker them down and wait for three turns or so. As long as they are sufficiently far apart, the barrage will not likely do much damage. I once did this to my buddy Dave and he managed to cause all of 4 casualties with nearly 4 turns of 81mm mortar barrage. He was so convinced that he had wiped out my advancing infantry that he offered to stop the game and start over. Within 3 turns, I had 3 intact platoons camped on all the major objectives. Sorry Dave.

This is a particularly Russian tactic. They were rather famous for wheeling Katyushas up and demolishing anything and everything before rolling over it with T34's and pssh pssh brigades. Can't wait for CM2.

The answer to this is to leapfrog your advances. As long as you can keep the enemy engaged, it will allow you to get more forces employed. Do not human wave unless the objective is takeable within 100 yards. Even then, the tactic should be employed sparingly. I find that HT's are indispensible when trying to advance quickly. They offer an inexpensive, yet highly effective mobile suppression force. They won't do a lot of killing on their own, but they keep the enemy firebase pinned down long enough to advance your infantry without getting the big smackdown. Keep them far back enough that they won't get molested by 'schrecks and keep an eye out for other antitank assets. Don't, however, be so conservative with them that they aren't employed. A Yankee HT has a 50 and a 30. Not using that to put a major hurting on a bunch of snivelling heinies is a sin punishable by an industrial sized can o' wuppass. 3 or 4 of them can most effectively suppress an entire platoon of infantry indefinitely. All you have to do then is park your firebase within knife range of your enemy and let the pineapples do the rest. Hope this helps.

A particular favorite soft target I have for my SPA's is the flanking machinegunner. Most defenders will attempt to anchor the flank of a firebase with one or more machinegunners. This gives them a great overlapping field of fire and prevents the attacker from easily flanking a defended position. It is usually pretty costly to assault these positions dead on. The better solution is to neutralize it with one or two turns of area fire pounding. A solid 40 seconds of 105 usually sends an MG42 crew screaming for Muter. This leaves your own assaulting troops an unmolested path to your enemy's flank. All you have to do is expose the MG's with a scout car or probing infantry, follow the tracers back to the likely source, and pulverize the area with half a minute of HE.

Oops. I guess I didn't see the winky face. Even still, it is pretty shi'ite advice to suggest using an SPA as a TD. Like I said, it's a great way to lose a very valuable asset.

I'd have to disagree with the efficacy of Priests as tank destroyers. The accuracy of the 105 isn't good enough to hit vehicles consistantly (or as consistantly as AT guns) and even moderately armoured vehicles can usually shrug off HE rounds. They put a real hurt on open top vehicles, but risking mano-a-mano with a Hetzer or Stug (let alone a Pz4 or bigger) is usually a great way of losing a very valuable onboard artillery asset. I'd recommend using them primarily against soft, area, and fixed targets.

Although I generally think that FM Montgomery was a numbskull and a nincompoop, he did have the most elegant solution to dealing with bocage. He just backed up and firebombed it with B24's at low altitude for 4 days. Unfortunately, you don't exactly have that option. I'd recommend a combination of OH58's and MLRS launchers using cluster bomblet munitions. This should soften things enough for you to go in with a combination of AH64's and Blackhawks filled with Rangers. Oops. I forgot. You don't have that option either. It's a pretty poor substitute, but the usual prescription for dealing with bocage was FT tanks and infantry advancing very slowly. Needless to say, the 11B's definitely earned their reputation as "eleven bulletcatchers". Sorry about your luck.

No prob. Another tip on moving your sp's. Get really good at "rocking". Basically, by alternating "hunt" and "reverse" orders in a zigzag, you can move laterally without having to worry about changing facing. This is especially useful when you have a predator out there. This works particularly well with a combination of defalaide and vertical cover (trees or buildings). The best policy is still to keep them out of sight until your own AT assets can deal with predators like Stugs or Panzers.