General Jack Ripper

Man, remember when YouTube had video responses?
That was cool.
 

Man, remember when YouTube had video responses?
That was cool.
 

If it was me, I would have spent those 20 minutes using Target Briefly with two of my King Tigers on random buildings. 20 buildings in town, 20 turns worth of 15 second target briefly commands, probably about 20-30 HE rounds used, would still leave plenty left for the assault. As I recall, a King Tiger carries something like 50+ rounds of ammo?
Lever a round or two of HE into a building, and see what comes out. Next turn, send more HE into another building. Recon by Fire as it were, but if you've already used up twenty minutes, you might as well start rolling in. You're not going to spot enemy infantry in buildings unless you either bait them into opening fire, or you flush them into the open.
How much time is on the clock?

I don't know if this story can be confirmed or not, but it seems pretty odd to me that the commander would scout ahead and engage enemy tanks single-handedly.
Since this is a story about the SS, who knows if they might have been crazy enough to do that, but is it really superb soldiering? - or is it in fact just a story of a lucky fool?
A real superb soldier would assume that enemy tanks would be screened with infantry, and trying to pull off "Rambo" antics works better in movies than in real life. And a competent commander would realise he had a job to do - commanding his troops - and sent out a scout detachment instead.

Another vote for imgur, just don't get lost looking at all the memes.

I second this. Imgur is quite good. 

https://imgur.com/

Excellent. Since this is an advice thread - a couple of things occur from the above:

Those AFVs look too close together, and far too close to the town. That's not necessarily a risk, but it's not making the most efficient use of the asset - they could control the same space, and cover each other (you definitely want a pair of them covering the same area), but control far more space with them, and keep them firmly out of bazooka range.

That kind of positional advantage (the goal of manoeuvre warfare, essentially) is pretty important - you can sometimes turn a fair fight into an unfair one, just by moving things around.

A company of infantry is only 9 squads, so it's not quite a huge number of units to split amongst 18+ buildings, plus the half dozen trenches. I have scouted the woods to either side. The AT guns were in the tree line you mentioned, they have been destroyed. He has some more in the trees behind the village but I am taking them under fire. They have hit one king tiger 20+ times but I'm still chipping away at them. 
I can't guarantee he has a company there - it could be more or less but there are no units of any significance anywhere else. I for a time was wondering if he was doing something weird like buying a crazy amount of arty to hammer me once I enter the village but that seems less likely to me than that he wants to demonstrate to me how infantry is going to be impossible for me to remove. 
 
Guys, I do want to add that I find any comments useful - they jog my memory, make the reconsider, or consider for the first time, things you bring up. So please don't take my responses as defensive - they are not. I'm trying to process what you're saying and reacting, but everything said here is worth reading.
I ran out of upvotes/likes for the day... I will catch the rest tomorrow. 

So I take it you're one of the people in the "foxholes should make infantry immune to cannon fire" camp.
Feel free to start a thread and hash out the issue, but cherry-picking my statements won't help you. Here's the missing context you decided to leave out:
Moot point.
 
It's still not borg spotting though. It's all down to the player. CMx1 had borg spotting, where if even one unit could see the enemy, then all units magically became aware of their position, and all units with LOS and LOF could engage said unit with zero delay. That's what borg-spotting is.
Players using gamey tactics that infuriate other players is not a bug, it's a feature, and has no bearing on the relative strength or weakness of tanks.

Maybe I should have just said that.

If it was me, I would have spent those 20 minutes using Target Briefly with two of my King Tigers on random buildings. 20 buildings in town, 20 turns worth of 15 second target briefly commands, probably about 20-30 HE rounds used, would still leave plenty left for the assault. As I recall, a King Tiger carries something like 50+ rounds of ammo?
Lever a round or two of HE into a building, and see what comes out. Next turn, send more HE into another building. Recon by Fire as it were, but if you've already used up twenty minutes, you might as well start rolling in. You're not going to spot enemy infantry in buildings unless you either bait them into opening fire, or you flush them into the open.
How much time is on the clock?

They did, which is how we got the trenches and foxholes we have right now.

They did, which is how we got the trenches and foxholes we have right now.

So I take it you're one of the people in the "foxholes should make infantry immune to cannon fire" camp.
Feel free to start a thread and hash out the issue, but cherry-picking my statements won't help you. Here's the missing context you decided to leave out:
Moot point.
 
It's still not borg spotting though. It's all down to the player. CMx1 had borg spotting, where if even one unit could see the enemy, then all units magically became aware of their position, and all units with LOS and LOF could engage said unit with zero delay. That's what borg-spotting is.
Players using gamey tactics that infuriate other players is not a bug, it's a feature, and has no bearing on the relative strength or weakness of tanks.

So, I have, but it's usually a consequence of incorrect use.
As a test, try setting up a quick battle with a US squad in a stryker against some uncons in a city, and just roll up the streets. If you're perhaps 100m away from an occupied building, the airguards will pop out and join in the fire. That's a terrible situation to be in, and the reaction is one of desperation - if any of those had an RPG, the squad would be killed, so I don't think it's unreasonable to put as much fire down as you can, right now.
Naturally, Strykers should maintain range (or indeed, not have LOS at all) with any potential or known enemies, disembarking one terrain feature away. Their power is in mobility and (importantly) C2 - with careful management of C2 structure and scouts, your squads can have a really good idea (contact markers) about what they're going to disembark into. If the Strykers are used for their firepower at all, it's for long ranged supporting fires, preferably hull down, and often after the infantry start the engagement.
Strykers are great. They're not Bradleys, BMPs or even BTRs, they're their own beast. Like a lot of things in Shock Force, they over-match a lot of the Syrian equipment significantly.

Maybe I should have just said that.

So I take it you're one of the people in the "foxholes should make infantry immune to cannon fire" camp.
Feel free to start a thread and hash out the issue, but cherry-picking my statements won't help you. Here's the missing context you decided to leave out:
Moot point.
 
It's still not borg spotting though. It's all down to the player. CMx1 had borg spotting, where if even one unit could see the enemy, then all units magically became aware of their position, and all units with LOS and LOF could engage said unit with zero delay. That's what borg-spotting is.
Players using gamey tactics that infuriate other players is not a bug, it's a feature, and has no bearing on the relative strength or weakness of tanks.

No, they seem fine to me.

That's how they were done in CM:A and in CM:SF1 (and can still be done in CM:SF2).
But because they deform the terrain they are visible to everyone.....Thus they tend to attract artillery like flies to a t**d.  

So I take it you're one of the people in the "foxholes should make infantry immune to cannon fire" camp.
Feel free to start a thread and hash out the issue, but cherry-picking my statements won't help you. Here's the missing context you decided to leave out:
Moot point.
 
It's still not borg spotting though. It's all down to the player. CMx1 had borg spotting, where if even one unit could see the enemy, then all units magically became aware of their position, and all units with LOS and LOF could engage said unit with zero delay. That's what borg-spotting is.
Players using gamey tactics that infuriate other players is not a bug, it's a feature, and has no bearing on the relative strength or weakness of tanks.

45mm AT guns, and AT Rifles are not hand grenades, nor are they "close range" weapons.
The complaint being addressed is Infantry close assaulting tanks within hand grenade or bazooka range, or the lack of ability thereof.
If the enemy rolls up with a Tiger tank accompanied by infantry, and all you have to fight it is a grenade bundle or a bazooka, you might as well ceasefire.
 
Maybe if you read my entire post you wouldn't have missed my clarifying statement.

Let me try to muster up some surprise.

...

...

Nope. Got nothing.
 
That would be nice.

Let me try to muster up some surprise.

...

...

Nope. Got nothing.
 
That would be nice.

+1.  This.   Plus read everything you can find by @Bil Hardenberger and @womble.   The below was posted by womble in April of 2015 and is generally my SOP.  I paraphrased womble's post below.
Split your squads. You don't scout with whole squads, the SMGs are useless in the firebase element, the AT teams can be given separate orders to preserve their precious rockets for armored targets. The teams are smaller and easier to find cover for, they fit into buildings without crowding. Fire on one team doesn't pin the other team. I always split an Assault team off before the AT team, so the non-AT elements (even if you're going to go for a Split Team or a Scout Team in the end) get some grenades: if you split the AT Team off first, they'll take almost all the grenades. Also has the advantage of the C team being assigned the correct icon, where the icon is differentiated.