Beta1

Would probably go with UK airbourne to avoid being called gamey But if you know your facing 1000 points. Lose one challenger and replace with a 90mm armed cromwell (or churchill if affordable). Probably lose the other and take a firefly (if affordable), if not a wolverine or similar. Lose one wasp and one AC, buy something along the lines of a 4.2" mortar FO. stay with 3 platoons of airbourne. Again if there any money left a 75mm pack howitzer or a 6pdr AT gun I dont think you meed to 76mm tanks in a 1000 point battle. The maps are usually small which gives you a good chance of getting PIATs/zooks into action. The brit daimler AC is a good light armor killer. The 90mm tank gives you the firepower to blow any infantry that get dug in away whereas the 76mm doesnt have as good blast as the 75mm The 6pdr AT gun is a good buy at any time as it often gets T rounds for KOing heavies and its AP can deal with light armor. The 4.2" is a good arty unit (you could take the 4.5" if you prefer) I think your original selection is too tank killing orientated. In a 1000 point battle your unlikely to face a Tiger or a panther and if you do he's only got one armor unit and not as much infantry. I would go for 1 tank capable of killing a heavy then a second all purpose tank. You could even take 3 vanilla shermans/cromwells and use your numbers to overwhelm his armor.

Well thats your way to play. I have similar thoughts except point one. concentrations of infantry, especially in attack is just asking for artillery. You try clumping a large number of men together agasint a good player and you'll find you get hit by light artillery within a turn which will stop you getting out of the way of the 200 blast stuff (or worse VT) thats incoming shortly...

There you go then. I'll have to play some more and try and get my grants to do that

Looks to me that to model the two guns they actually have effectively abstracted the tank to one gun with two different sets of ammo, one 37 and one 75mm. The TacAI just chooses the best round to fire as before. I could be wrong as I'be only been playing the demo 2 days but the 2 guns always seem to track together and always engage the same target. I guess its just a limitation of the engine.

I find moving guns on the attack only useful with HE type guns - I've normally got TDs to do anti tank work. The smaller calibre HE guns can be really useful when moved. The Brit 75mm pack howitzer is light enough to be pushed a long way without transport. I've had guys push these halfway across the map and up a hill to suddenly provide fire support onto a stronghold from an unexpected angle in CMBO. Never really pushed guns much in BB. I suspect the early years of AK may see a fair few small calibre guns that are easily moved around though

On boards are great for rapid accurate fire. When advancing on a enemy position I will normally use larger off board fire for a minute or so then switch to on board 3" if possible before contact this way I can really wallop the stronghold (say with a 4.5" or 5.5" spotter) then by switching to the on board 3" with its enormous ammo load I can make sure the barrage comes down on the foxholes suppressing the defenders while I advance without fear of a off board round dropping short and hitting my own guys. Essentially its a way of allowing me to get closer to my own barrage. They are also useful at the begginning of a artillery attack. Near the end of a recent game ( about 6 turns to go) my opponent threw 2 platoons of troops onto a flag that I had lightly defended. I knew I couldnt hold it so withdrew ahead of his advance and targeted my remaining 4.2" and 4.5" off boards onto the area. But these take a couple of minutes to arrive so in the mean time my 4 on board 3" (+ some spare 2") could fire with no delay. They suppressed both platoons preventing them moving away from the flag or dispersing. The first artillery arrived 90secs later followed by the 4.5 120 secs in and 2 minutes after that the whole group was routed with about 10-15 survivors. Without the on boards he could have advanced past the flag and prevented my artillery having as much effect.

As stated prevoiusly - you dont see the real killing power of the tiger in BO you need to see it BB to see why its so fearsome. In BO because of the lack of rarity factors Tigers run into a lot of 76mm/17pdr/90mm tanks rather than the large numbers of 75mm tanks that made up the majority of the allied armor. Also becuase of the normandy terrain the engagement ranges are shorter making armor penetrations more easily acheived by the allies. In BB when the tiger appears it is facing tanks that have guns inferior or at best comparable to the 75mm allied guns but facing them on the steppes at ranges of 1km+. At that sort of range the T34s have little hope of a penetration while the 88mm tiger can KO them easily. The 88mm is also more accurate making the tiger a real monster to face. The same goes for the panther whoes weak side armor makes it less dangerous in the tight normandy terrain than the flatter steppes I guess if you only have BO you can approximate this by playing a large flat map with few trees and purchasing a equal points value of tigers/panthers and sherman 75s. Certainly in BB you can be pretty sure of a tiger beating 3-4 T34/75s at 1.5km

Have played up to 6. Now playing 3. MDA I CAN SEE YOU LURKING!!! SEND ME A TURN!!!!

tank ace is pretty much right. The panther is one tough cookie when its hull down and its long 75mm gun is just as good as the tigers 88 in most situations. The Tiger is vunerable in CMBO mostly due to the ranges involved so you rarely see how lethal it is as it often ends up matched against a couple of fireflies. In CMBB at longer engagment ranges the tiger is a real bastard to shift. Its armor is thick enough to bounce most incoming rounds, its gun has the punch to wipe out T34s well beyond the range they can retaliate and its bloody accurate.

On the other hand it just propogates the bashing of newbies and belief that high posts=correct in all matters...

That is a good idea.

Your thinking too small. Try using a russian 203mm FO to drop dustbins on them (with the aid of a TRP). At certain dates I have seen conscript FOs available for around 100 points. This actually makes them quite reasonably priced for AT work as you only need to kill about 1.5 tanks to reach pay off (assuming as a defender you need to get 1.5x the price of the unit). And thats without any infantry kills. If your expecting armor then one of these FOs + a large number of TRPs + some 57mm AT guns can be a real show stopper. Set the TRPs in an arc at nearest point you want the enemy to get and setup the guns with LOS to as many as possible from different angles. The FO can have LOS but as they are TRPs its not required. When the tanks turn up you have a volley of 4 huge shells you can drop at the end of the turn you order them and you can drop another 4 every other turn from there on. The TRPs also make your guns very accurate so anything that survives the blast can be cleaned up with the AT guns. Even if you dont get a KO you are likely to kill the TCs and immobilise/gun damage the tanks freom near misses. I have tried even large callibres but they dont seem to be any more effective than the ~200mm guns and are more expensive/have less rounds. And of course the arty really ruins the day of any infantry that is around the tanks. I normally throw in a couple of AT mines as well just on the off chance theres a nice choke point.

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO DO not turn this game into just another fantasy WW2 game. Please go and read some of the older post explaining why horses, motobikes, parachutes etc are a bad idea. and as for gaining experience in a battle - I think if you read the manual you'll find the programmers opinions about that.

In MEs I tend to look for his approaches to the objectives and try and dominate them with my support weapons, ideally placed so they can attack from within/close to my setup zone while being out of LOS of his setup. I try to avoid digging in heavily around the flags as thats a sure way to attract artillery. In an ideal world I want to be able to let him advance into a kill zone and cut off retreat and reinforcement eg by preventing infantry moving between cover using HMGs while I can destroy the isolated portion with HE. In BO wherever possible I aim to fight asymetrically, fighting armor with AT guns and infantry AT and infantry with HE chucking armor (helps me to avoind being out gunned/armored). In BB this doesnt work as well due to the lack of infantry AT and the daft rarity of the 57mm AT guns

yeah 300mm stuff is quite usefull as an AT measureon defence if you have some TRPSs as you can drop it in quick and a near miss can immobilise several tanks at once even if they are heavies. Light armor doesnt stand a chance and you really dont want to be in an open top!

hah yeah rockets are an exception - they frequently come in all over the place and either smash the hell out of your own troops or miss everything! Definately not one for a rolling barrage!

I'm with MDA In CMBO I have never had in-LOS barrages fall short. In CMBB they come in all over the shop all the time but in CMBO if you have LOS its always accurate in my experience. Infact MDA can vouch for this as I dropped a not insignificant amount of arty on him in our last game I have a feeling you do get bonuses from HQs with spotters - a +1 command (or is it combat) hq makes a reg spotter act like vet etc. as with other troops.

I think I have achieved "hidden kills" on several occasions but as horncastle points out you can never be 100% sure they didnt see you. One of the best AT guns for doing this is the brit 6pdr - its small, accurate and lethal. If you hit and kill a buttoned tank with the first shot theres a very good chance they would never see the gun. PIATs are also very good at this if theres no infantry around.

The only use for the 25pdr I have seen is to deny an area to enemy infantry - the large ammo load out means you can keep dropping rounds in for weeks if needed. But the rounds dont have the blast of the 4.2-4.5 or the ROF so its really more an spoiler than a killer. on the other hand you can buy the on map 25pdr howitzer thats a much more useful weapon if LOS allows you to shell infantry directly.

Thank you for that amazing insight tank ace. I agree with most of the coments so far. I think you have the right ideas but maybe the wrong tools. The 25pdr FO is pretty crap in BO. Doesnt have the blast or the ROF needed. Consider the 4.2" and 4.5" FOs instead. They are cheap and have good on target times. The 4.5" also packs quite a punch. In a recent game I took a 3", 2x4.2" and a 4.5" in a 2000 point battle. The three of the FOs acting to target one wood essentially destroyed a vet company of german infantry resulting in a surrender. I almost always take a vet 6pdr AT - for the price its worth the gamble as it can KO pretty much anything with its T rounds. I think the 17pdr is overkill in a ME although probably worth it on defense. Its also worth taking something that can tow it. I wouldnt bother with a scout car. Instead I normally have a daimler AC as its 40mm gun is useful against light armor (eg HTs, pumas, ACs etc) Rather than cromwells use churchills the way you describe. While slower they are very very hard to kill from the front and the 95mm version can KO cats with its C rounds. If your going to buy cromwells use them only against infantry or run them for the flanks. If your worried about tigers/panthers get yourself a firefly. Also even though the brit infantry is weak it tends to be around in large amounts. Dont be afraid to keep fighting is out until the germans run out of bullets - seriously if you can engage at 100-200m and keep a reserve of fresh troops you can often run the other guys ammo down and then attack with the reserve (after smashing him up with your FOs obviously!)

lol i lost the entire company (yes vets) assualting a town a few games ago. Got into the edges of the town but got caught out badly by some terrain I had misread and got caught in some rather nasty sideways fire (thought there was a ridge in between me and them, turned out to be just low enough to allow LOS) But I agree vet stormkompany are pretty lethal. Wish I didnt have to buy 6 75mm AT guns with them in BB

In CMBO the sturmkompany is a great basis to build a infantry assault around. Its expensive but because of the massive squad size it keeps fighting far longer than the smaller 8-10 man squads. Its 2LMGs per squad make it effective at range and while it doesnt have the firepower per man of a SMG platoon that number of men still put out a collosal weight of fire. Their big advantage is that you can lose 3 men from a sturmkompany squad and still have a 10 man 2LMG unit whilst in an 8 man SMG squad even losing 2 men makes the firepower drop a lot.

Dont forget AT mines. If theres a likley avenue of armor advance/forward position a couple of AT mines across the route can really pay off. You only need to KO a HT to pay for 2 AT minefields and if you get lucky and bag a cat your well up on the deal. Just remember to put the mines somewhere where an immobilsed tank will not be able to shell your troops. You want it stuck and out of LOS not stuck where it can dominate the map! Anti-personnel mines are pretty good for stopping an advance. A line of mines/wire is likley to cause a couple of platoons to jam up in cover behind them where you can drop arty on them (esp) if youve TRPed the cover) I find Anti-personnel mines are often more effective somewhere in the open where they are likley to be crossed while under harrassing fire or (even more evil) used to deny cover to panicing troops. If you can shake up an advancing platoon as it crosses open ground the troops tend to break for the nearest cover. Of course if its full of mines..... You can also use them to deny cover to an attacker in the conventional manner - ie if theres a patch of woods with LOS to your men that you dont want to be used as an approach route filling it full of AP mines can make the attackers life tricky.

Depends on the time period and the price as always...

I just find the eastern front too depressing. Dont know why exactly its just doesnt feel as nice as normandy. Think I must be suffering from some sort of seasonal affective disorder. Looking forward to the desert and the med to top up my tan.