Big Ron

Guilty

I play as the British, partly because I am and partly because everyone thinks they're useless and I'm determined to prove them wrong!

I tend to take an 81mm mortar FO and something big and tasty. Save 20-30 rounds of the 81mm for use as smoke during the 'assault phase' of the battle. Use the big stuff with the 81mm as described earlier i.e. mortars to pin my opponent while waiting for the heavy stuff

GJK, Thanks for that tip. The autorun has been getting on my nerves too.

Dandelion, I'm currently playing as the Brits (because I am one) in an 500 point axis attack in which my opponent brought a Jagdpanther and I've got a vanilla Sherman and 2 x 6 pdrs. His big cat is dead, his infantry scattered and I'm going to win. Permission to bask in the glory?

I've been using field guns quite a lot. The important thing about htem is discipline. You can only leave them stationary and firing for about 90 seconds before you have to move them to avoid the arty barrage that almost always follows. Also don't put them at the front edge of the woods you're using as cover but keep them back as deep as you can while retaining line of sight. Hiding is then effective and you can wait for nice easy targets

Leeds, England by way of Winchester, Bournemouth, Nottingham, Bristol also in England, Johannesburg in S Africa and Kilkenny in Eire.

Very interesting and usefull AAR. Thoroughly enjoyed it and am putting the lessons learned to good use against an old rival now.

Try not to slander everyone who plays the Russians. I've just had my arse kicked because I picked a platoon of BT-7's and in all my CMBB games I've not even used a T-34 never mind a KV

If your tank commander feels safe then he'll pop open his hatch. Nothing you can do about it as far as I can tell. Lost a couple of them myself when I've buttoned because I've seen a spotting round land and he's opened the hatch just as the main bombardment arrived!

I'm with you on the last bit. One spotting round doesn't seem very realistic to me. The general inaccuracy, particularly with the Russians seems more realistic as arty command tended to be at a higher (battalion?) level but they should get more ammo as that better reflects their doctrine.

You can trip your own mines. Bitter experience there!

I've just installed the v1.01 patch and all is well except that when I turn bases on (my ruskies are so well hidden even I can't find them) the AT rifles don't get the familiar red square. I'm about to play an mechanised game in a forest and am worried I'll lose them. PIII 600 32Mb ATI card Win 98 DirectX 8.1 Any thoughts?

I thought the hammer was carried to knock out the escape hatch in the bottom of the tank. I've seen this on a documentary about the (British) Sherman, don't know about the Russians doing it though

Quote - But that is the problem! The T-34 is by no means "cheap", it's as expensive as the later versions of the Pz III with the 50mm/L60 gun. And it doesn't even get radios. I personally don't believe that CMBB is balanced. The Russians simply suck. I would rather play the Americans in CMBO in June '44 and fight Panthers and Tigers with Shermans and Wolverines than face a platoon of Pz IV Gs with twice their number in T-34s. The problem is, you won't get that many T-34s for what the German player is paying for his platoon. I don't think the game as a whole was designed to be fair, just accurate. The Russians were being beaten in the early stages by superior tactics that tended to bring more German tanks to bear against fewer Russian ones. If you want'fair' battles then you'll have to agree it with your opponents. I'm playing the Russians in a PBEM and have BT-7 tanks. Think how fair that is against Pz III with 50mm L60 guns. I haven't even hit one yet. Lucky it's dark so I can sneak in my tank hunters.

You pointed out that you don't have enough points for heavy artillery. I imagine that you'll have got 81mm mortars or their equivalent though so here's a plan: 1) Get your HMG's, on-map mortars and any AFV's you have left to form a fire base from cover to supress your opponent. 2) Use the 81mm mortar to lay a smoke screen that allows your infantry to approach without obscuring the fire base from their targets 3) Attack with infantry under the cover of the smoke. If you have no mortar FO then do the same but be prepared for heavy losses as no matter how suppressed the enemy are by your fire base they'll hit your infantry with something. Good luck!

Search for tophat reveals posts which seem to say that it's a valid technique even for just one tank... Hmmm. As far as the game has been to me, that seems like a pretty ineffective suicide. With a single tank you move up, fire and then reverse. The enemy traverses his turret to where the fire came from. Move your tank to another position with line of sight. Pop out and fire then reverse. Now his turret is traversing towards you again. Reverse move to a third position... rinse and repeat (unless of course you knocked him out).

In a recent PBEM game I hid my troops and they seemed to come through it better than when I move them. It's only the one time and I could have just been lucky.

Bump! Great post (can it be made a sticky)

Try the shoot and scoot tactic. Pop them out of a valley or from behind a building/ wood etc. Fire en masse at your target. Then immediately back away into cover. Your opponent shouldn't have time to target you and if you're using a platoon (say 4 or 5 light tanks) you should get a hit or two. Then head off and find another position to employ the same tactic.

"Please note that the 25-pdr ROF in the game is 3/turn" Sorry Germanboy, I hadn't counted. Just trying to stick up for the BTS boys in their absence. "1) Harassing - low ROF 2) standard - official ROF 3) Intense - official ROF + 50% 4) Super-intense - official ROF + 100%" Damn fine idea!

I would guess that BTS in there wisdom have gone with the official figures as an average ROF. It is possible that the gunners interviewed for these books (which I have not read) exagerrated their ROF. Also the quality of gunners is not modelled to my knowledge, only the quality of the spotter. Hence while initial fire may arrive faster and be directed better the ROF remains pretty constant.

2p's worth. I've always bought transport for my guns in QB's as they increase flexibility but I never insist on my opponent obeying any rules at all. On occasion they have selected the 75mm rules or whatever and that's fine but I enjoy playing the game not talking about whether Hetzers were deployed with StuH42's, who's got SMG's and who hasn't. I've had my butt kicked by people who've bought Tigers and demanded a wide open map and that's fine. They only got to do it once 'cos I didn't enjoy the game so I won't play them again. My point is (sorry you've had to wait so long for it)that you learn two things from these battles: 1) How to fight better 2) Who it is enjoyable to play and who to avoid! :mad:

8500 with G3/233 upgrade 256Mb RAM OS 8.6 and a 32Mb ATI Nexus card. Hopefully good enough to run CM2

The Challenger does have the more effective 76mm gun though. (There's one burning in the middle of my latest battle :mad: )