Beta1

yeah defending in CMBO is tougher but on the bright side arty is far more responsive. I tend to try and stop the main enemy attack with infantry then destroy it using artillery. Buy TRPs and put them on likely attack routes ahead of defensive positions with covered withdrawal sites to second line defenses. Stop the enemy attack and hit him with a turn or two of decent caliber arty (100mm+, ideally 150mm+) and withdraw behind the barrage. Setup again and repeat. Direct fire HE from on map guns can break up formations well too, especially the 105/150mm type. Use on map mortar batteries firing indirect to disrupt platoons approaching your lines. Setup keyhole AT guns to positions you expect support to appear in, equally setup HE throwers to target buildings that are likley to be observation posts. Dug in flamethrowers can really cause suprises, espeically on reverse slopes/areas with limited LOS If you want to be really nasty add mines to likely positions that infantry will move to under fire.

just lob it down the barrel obviously! Or more possibly the engine vents?

If I was the ruskies I wouldnt have made massive infantry charges agasint massive assault guns firing HE filled dustbins.

wouldnt have gone with high exp troops. Probably would have taken regulars which would give me maybe 4 companies. 2 batteries of 3x3" mortars, probably a pair of 6pdr AT gun and 25pdr Howitzers (or maybe a 75mm pack howitzer if available. Plenty of MGs/Brens maybe 2-3 per company). If there are HT/81mm mortar carriers available I would swap the 2 batteries for a 3 of them as they have massive ammo loads and as long as you keep them in dead ground are pretty lethal. Would have not bothered with the off board, maybe kept the 4.5" or 4.2" FO only. Most people I play with tend to expect tank heavy attacks and so you see AT heavy defences, often lots of 75mm PAK and a couple of thick fronted AFVs. As a result when attacking I tend to try and go asymetric and go infantry heavy. I normally take a couple of 6pdrs anyway because if they get T rounds they can kill anything and are dirt cheap. I would normally take very few tanks, probably one or 2 TDs and a couple of very cheap HE chuckers. As the brits maybe a couple of fireflies and a cromwell with the 90mm gun. the fireflies are there to kill anything that must be killed and the cromwell is there to take on infantry strongpoints with its big gun. If theres 3 flags attack 1 in strength and the next nearest with everything else, dont try and spread out on all three (although its always worth testing the defense at an outlieing flags with a couple of scouts incase theres an undefended one)

both true but the advantage of the gun is that its pratically invisible until you choose to fire it and unlike a AC you can stick it in woods/tall pines etc. So as long as I get my ambush right and kill your tank I'm quite happy for you to drop your mortars on it - your tanks dead already and your not dropping those rounds on my infantry! Just out of interest whats the price like for one of those ACs? comparable to the 6pdr AT gun?

I'm not sure the south east of England felt the V2's warhead wasn't any good.

is that an african or an asian elephant?

the 88mm flak wont fire at air targets in CM. Its AA use was protecting strategic targets against slower, high flying bombers rather than the fast and low fighter/dive bombers seen in CM. 377mm flak is your best bet I think as it is useful agasint ground targets too. quad 20mm mounts are OK and sometimes you can get 20mm flak for very low rarity. I would go for 37mm given the choice.

Also in BO muzzle velocity is the main determinant of accuracy and and those 17pdr/76mm guns fire pretty high velocity rounds, certainly as fast as the 88mm on the tiger I. Also in BO even the longer range engagements tend to be only around 800-1000m so your not really in the long range bracket where the heavy armor rules. Best way to use all tanks is in ambush where you can be sure of getting the first shot. Dont rely on your thick armor to save you, be glad when it does but assume it wont and plan accordingly.

They were even harder to kill in CMBO from what I remember. Havnt checked but wasnt the front armor toned down from 60/60 to 60/curved?

wouldnt it be nice to have a real area target option - rather than the target point that the current one does. Rather than telling your on map howitzer/mortar/etc to fire at this particular point for the whole turn you could tell it to fire at that wood/road/whatever and rather than whacking all its rounds onto a very small point the gun would try and adjust its aim to send rounds into the whole area rather than a specific spot. Maybe it could be done in such a way that it fires at a partilcular tile rather than a specific point. Would be usefull when you know theres an enemy platoon in that wood but you cant actually see them, just target the whole wood and let you gun whack rounds into it...

what you mean you havnt found the 300m big bertha city flattening mega gun yet? Just dont fire it on the same map as your guys!

i would be tempted to not even bother attacking it if I didnt have to. If you know your opponent likes buying them turn up with a load of 81mm FOs and everytime it comes out stick smoke on it. if you have a few FOs you can keep this up for a long time. Often it pisses off the opposition so much they try and move it through the smoke into position where its easier to kill. Failing that if you are defending a TRP with a seriously high calibre FO (300m) will often kill/immobilse any tank within about 50m of the TRP. And its not much fun for any escorting infantry either,

LOL. Welcome to real life mate. No longer will your squaddies happily run through HMG fire without blinking! No more super infantry! You just have to learn how to use them right - I'm guessing you skipped CMBB? It was the same then.

Guns (or HMGs) in trenches are a bitch to take out. You best bet is to roll a matilda over it! (assuming its a small enough gun not to kill you!) large on map mortars are a good bet but you need a hit within the trench as a near miss wont do any good. If the gun is under the command of a good HQ you may have to kill all the crew as they may not break. Direct HE works OK but has the same problem as above - a almost direct hit needed + if your enemy has placed the trench jsut behind the ridge of a slope you may have a hell of a time hitting it at all. More usefully drop smoke onto it from a 81 or equivelant on board mortar and you wont have to take it out at all.

thats explains it! Otherwise I would be buying a lot of 25pdr FOs for anti tank duty

you can always use them to write rude words on the map with! Other than that they are quite useful as forward positions - if you are worried about first turn/planned arty strikes you can laways lay out the foxholes where you want your defensive line then deploy most of the troops a hundred meters back ready to move forward to the line when after the arty has hit. You can also use it to prepare 2 different lines depending on the apptoach the enemy takes. Obviously dont put them where the unoccupied ones will provide cover to enemy forces shooting at the occupied line

oooo just found another couple!!!! The same 25pdr FO seems to have armor penetration values that look wrong (reported this one through the error link) And theres a spelling mistake on the list of british equipment "assault gun"

Looks good but there seems to be something up in the british FO department. The 25pdr FO is listed as blast 11 and has armor penetration data whereas none of the other FOs have penetration or blast data (and I find it hard to belive the blast from a 25pdr is 11) great work though

thats a good point - didnt read the post well enough. Is it possible you had it targetted somewhere before, moved it (so it wasnt firing) and when it got to where it was going and set up again resumed its fire mission firing indirect?

And its the way it ever has been, all the way from CMBO...

most importantly it reduces the firing time from 10-15min for big calibres to 45-90seconds. Very nice for dropping shells the size of trucks on infantry

I must say, mostly insignificant. I targeted two closely deployed Tigers in scattered woods with about 300 82mmm mortar shells, 40 76mm artillery shells, 20 122mm howitzer shells, 40 76mm SU-76 shells, 40 85mm T-34/85 shells and 30 122mm IS-2 shells + a few 100mm SU-100 shells 90% of those fired by tanks landing within 10-20m from the targets. No damage whatsoever despite several observed 82mm top hits. This is the most radical example, don't think it was like that every time Mostly I tried to drive them into the open so they could be correctly identified as ordinary Tigers... than their life expectancy would drop to about 60 seconds </font>

And the M13/40s have HE for tkaing on infantry. Still I think I would still rather have the cruiser. I love those 2 tone sand/blue camo schemes...

I know this is going to sound like a daft question but are you sure the tracers are out going rather than incoming?