Beta1

Whenever possible I keep a company HQ close(ish) behind its platoons- far enough back not to splatted by the same artillery/ambush. Close enough to step in to rescue a HQ-less platoon or to "catch" retreating paniced squads and get them moving forward again.

They cause a lot of supression on squads and they are pretty effective against smaller groups (heavy weapon teams etc). If you can group one with a "spare" HQ of some sort with a stealth bonus they are very hard to spot. I've seen infantry sqauds paniced when one of them suddenly drops dead unexpectedly and they can tell where from.

If you looking to break a dug in defender using off map spotters your going to need something a little bigger than 81mm tubes. If the points allow it take 105-150mm FOs instead, You wont get as many shells but you shouldnt need as many... On the other hand if your looking to supress a specific shooter that you can see using an on map 81mm will drop more rounds more quickly on that target than blasting the entire area as after the first few shots almost all the rounds should come down very close to the target. With 2-3 81mm tubes backed up with some MGs to add to the suppression you should be able to force most of a defending platoon out of their positions without moving you infantry in at all.

Hey stop telling everyone all the tricks! Have to think of a new bait and kill trick now.

Fausts are used quite often especially in the 44-45 periods. To get a decent chance of a kill you need to be inside half the range of the faust (making faust 30s pretty useless). In one recent game I took out a jumbo with a squads with faust-100s (although the range was probably only 30m or so). They are very usefull weapons in the later stages of the war as a squad with 2-3 faust-100s is a pretty good, hard to spot/kill AT asset of you can get them to a chokepoint

I'm feeling slightly overwelhmed by the testosterone coming off that post.

Hmm where to start. Losing an entire platoon in fog when they tried to move through an empty (and woefully under reconned) village that turned out to be swarming with russian SMG troopers. Completely miss timing a 2 StuG manuever and letting a firefly pick them off one at a time without firing a shot. And last but of probably worst. FORGETTING WHEN/WHERE MY PREPLANNED BARRAGE WAS ARIVING AND SHELLING AN ENTIRE COMPANY OF MY OWN TO PIECES!!!!!

Yep 1 on 1 you would expect your elites to wipe the floor with the vets BUT Brit rifle companies are very cheap. By the sound of it he did most of the attacking which meant he could concentrate his comapnies and fight you at good odds. Once he had his tanks whacking HE into your position your elites might as well have been green. Infact in some ways its worse - greens run away, most of them escape and you can rally then and bring them back. Elites tend to stubbornly cling on and get killed. Being elite does not protect you against shells.

Wouldnt mind on map indirect fire (from guns) but it would probably unbalance the game too much. AT obstacles can already be aproximated by roadblocks but I guess they would look nice. Train stations would be cool but only as another building type.

Ideally you dont want to be shooting while moving. I think the best way to shoot and scoot is to give a move command that reaches the shooting position towards the end of the turn. Say 10 secs or so, then next turn give the reverse order. This way the tank should get a couple of rounds off while stationary when it has the best chance of hitting. Getting to into position at the right time is just a matter of practise I'm afraid.

Cant emphasis angles enough. Make sure you engage from a different direction than he's facing that way he cant fire back immediately. The best way to do this is using the pop-up technique above but sometimes even just using an AC to draw the enemy tanks attention works.

hear hear. never ceases to amaze me what human opponents get up to. I agree with the earlier poster though - an equivelenet force would do much better in BB than BO. In BO try losing a couple of tanks and replacing them with 76mm AT guns and adding another platoon (or 2 if you can afford it)

OK what happens if your opponent goes asymetric on you and buys the maximum number of infantry and no armor. Your in dec 44 so most german infantry squads will be carrying 2 panzerfaust 100s, throw in a smattering of shrecks and a couple of off map 81mm observers and you could be in trouble. The amount of smoke you could drop would be enough to make life very hard for your tanks, you bazzookas and TDs are pretty useless without targets and the your infantry would have a very hard time against a couple of companies of automatic heavy axis infantry

Best use of light armor I know is too "bait" big cats with. If you can attract a Tigers TacAIs attention by popping a daimler out of cover 90 degrees or more away from the line your firefly is going strike from then by the time the tigers turret has rotated to target the daimler the AC is back in cover and the firefly has time to pop up and get a shot off before the tiger can rotate back and engage. Essentially exposing the AC gets you a free shot. If you time it right the firefly can often crest a hill get a shot off and get back behind the hill before the tiger can rotate back.

As stated the AI is a better defender than attacker but then thats cos attacking is generally harder. Try playing a few scenerios as an attacker - if you dont lose a few shermans to AT guns you didnt know were there I would be suprised! You have to remember that if your playing with fog of war on then that affects the AI too - he drove the tanks onto the AT gun because it didnt know the AT gun was there. Try playing humans, its a whole new game.

the buildings are abstracted in some way so occasionally you get LOS through the edge of one. It happens occasionally. But its seems never when my tiger has its LOS to some helpless light armor blocked...

Very true. In one recent PBEM I had a platoon of brit paras holding the line against a company of germans infantry late in the game. The attackers were coming through a patch of wood so I concentrated all my remaining on board mortar fire (4 3" and 4 2") on the front edges of the wood while calling down a 3" off board strike as far inside the wood as possible with LOS. The pn board guys suppressed anyone at the front of the wood long enough for the off board stuff to come in and stopped the germans breaking through. As the enemy were concentrated in the wood and it was turn 27/30 I dropped all my remaining arty onto the woods, 2 turns of 4.2 and 4.5" fire and they surrended on turn 30. Infact he managed to rout 2/3rds of my defending platoon with a 150+mm barrage but the suppression from my mortars prevented him exploiting the gap. (3/4rs of the attacking company never made it out of the wood again) Another case of mortars saved the day

Then I would suggest your not using them properly. The reason they dont sound as big as a tank shell is that they arent as big as a tank shell. While I dont want to comment on them not looking/sounding the part they have a big effect on many games I have played, both in BO and BB. Mortars are the best weapon for use against towed guns by far, as when used indirectly with a spotter they can fire without any threat of retaliation. They provide excellent supressive fire against infantry. A battery of 2-4 81mm or equivlent mortars can easily break infantry in woods or scattered trees and even the little brit 2" mortar is effective at forcing the enemy to keep their heads down and unlike towed guns mortars can be moved easily and redeployed with ease.

The tiles are different all ready I thought (at least in the graphics pack I'm using) If they are not in yours try a different mod or just edit it yourself. I'm sure a modder will be along shortly to tell you which bmp numbers

Definately infantry assault. As I always seem to be saying, go asymmetric and attack his big expensive tanks with large numbers of cheap infantry and stick a few grenades up the exhaust. Cant remember if they are available but you can kill churchill 8s with panzershrecks so a KV should be doable.

Cough... SMOKE......Splutter.....

Sounds like he's a prat. Dont play him. Or if he does and is always that predictable, load up on anti-tank measures. Plenty of 17pders with a few fireflies, a couple of vet+ 6pders with the T rounds and enough PIATs to sink a battleship and it should suitably ruin his day. Failing that go asymetric and counter using massed infantry. Not so effective agasint tigers as they have lots of shells but some of those big TDs dont have many HE shells in their loadout and only a single MG. So attack the bugger with an equivelent points cost of infantry (ideally with demo charges) and see what he does then

The out gunning the gun tactic works nicely with the big german 150s. But it relies on having LOS from your setup (or near it) to his. As for the human wave option. Better not try that one in BB - a couple of HMGs will supress huge numbers of charging men. And if the gun your charging has cannister rounds.....

Which model of each?

The truck v tanks thing couldnt simply be down to kill percentages. Does a StuG have much chance of killing a T34/85 at 500m (I have no idea off the top of my head) On the other hand it will have a very good chance of KOing a truck at any range. So maybe it went for the easiest kill. Now whether its smart for the AI to reveal its stug to kill a truck when theres lots of T34/85s around is another matter entirely