jBrereton

1 - it's a Panzerfaust, silly! 2 - the same reason that 'Cavalry' class infantry are on foot stands for why we don't get donkey-mounted PFs. I'd assume

There is an anthology of useful posts that are stickied for this kind of thing, but I'll make something in a while, I guess.

Fanaticism? Stops your troops running away, ever. They'll run into HMG fire and keep running, as long as a single one of the men in the unit is left.

You shouldn't engage an ATG with odds like this. I would advise at least a 3-1 ratio. Otherwise all the tanks get killed, crest or no crest. </font>

Let's have a more realistic test - 4 tigers on 3 guns. Guns behind a crest. Regulars on both sides. Non-open terrain.

Anders Schmidt. As a guess. No idea really.

If they're not moving, it's imminently possible. You just make an estimate on the first couple of shots and refine your aim for the final one. If the target was moving at that kind of range, you'd never hit, though, yeah. If your squad is still firing at a crawling enemy after any length of time, it's because you will have directly ordered it, and your squad doesn't think that there are any more grave dangers which could invalidate those orders. No idea if the AI gets a benefit on this, I'd doubt it, but, hey, how would I know.

Like a recon type thing.

Yeah, agreed, but it can be extremely useful if you're about to get annihilated by a King Tiger or what have you and would rather pull back and lay an ambush a bit later.

Well you're ruining your own game by abusing glitches to win, which is really pretty ****ty, to be honest. Do you not love the subtlety of the game, and the fact that actually, it's much better to play well and realistically and lose than to win game after game essentially by cheating? Yeah, you can take out such guns with mortars and offmap artillery, but preventing DF from hitting such guns is a bit out of order, and takes away a lot of the vulnerability of the guns which they realistically had - so you're just spoiling the game, really.

Because they're about as good as each other. When you get rarity in CMBB and CMAK, you'll notice a pricing difference. It's basically a fast move towards you own edge of the battle with no delay, that worries the crap out of everyone. Can be somewhat useful, though.

It got shot up and they ran away?

Fair enough, maybe it's just a matter of personal preference. Towed guns are indeed useful, but they're not particularly mobile. Fair enough, put them in scout cars, but then they've got to unlimber, and that's often a big problem in itself. Having a tank with the same calibre gun makes this issue less of a problem - although I can definitely see where you're coming from, the mountain guns in particular are a massive bargain. My real issue in this debate is the one of costs and how much the vehicles are actually worth. All of the advantages (other than having a small silouette) point to the T-34, and they're often a lot cheaper, in relative terms, than a T-70, if one uses rarity. And your good armour point is pretty dubious, as well, to be honest. It has one good location. The rest are crap. If, for the price of 1.5 T-70s, one could get a T-34, then it makes a lot, lot more sense to get the T-34, no? Decoys, yes, scouts, not really. You want to scout with something that has some teeth, on the off chance that you meet any foes. In the real world, the T-70'd be the better scout, due to being amphibious, but in CMBB, it isn't, which reduces its usefulness. A-ha! This is where our main difference lies. I want something that can give back what it takes. A T-34 can do so. It can take a few hits, and genuinely give out some damage. A T-70 is rather poorer in this respect. Yes, it'll roll over mines and get crippled instead of a T-34. This is quite useful. On the other hand, whereas an immobilised T-70 is useless, having a poor gun, an immobilised T-34 can be useful in the same fashion as a towed long-76, albeit being easier to destroy due to being on a tank, which is full of volatile fuel and ammo. Agreed in one respect - they do make rather fine distractions. On the other hand, a T-34 very seldom needs a flank shot on an enemy vehicle, and when the Axis' heavier tanks arrive, so does the T-34/85. At this point, flank shots are still more useful, but on the other hand, the tank-mounted 88mm guns of the Axis will blow a T-70 to pieces in a single shot almost every time, making them a rather poor distraction. In fact, distractions in general are a poorer idea, and simply battering such enemies to death is often more effective.

Which is a complete waste of points if you can get the same effect from your T-34s, leaving those points free for stuff like THTs and armoured cars. It's sure as hell what I use as soon as I can. Even a 37mm is going to punch holes in a T-70. Your front, centre armour is fine. It's just that everything else is a bit crap, which leaves it horribly vulnerable. There are two things which mean that I'd still pick a T-34 at this time - 1) I play with variable rarity. T-70s are often more expensive that they're worth. T-34s in one form or another are always cheap. I don't really mind taking model '42s in 1943. Even a Cast Turret '41 is fair enough at this point. 2) T-70s are still crap. I know that Stalin said that quantity is a quality all of its own, but this is not one of those cases in which it's true. A 45mm gun simply doesn't really cut it in 1943. It's too weak to really punch holes in Axis armour at this point. It was never good enough against troops. A 76.2mm is still extremely useful at this time. It's powerful enough to have some remaining use against Axis vehicles, and it's good against troops - especially since the /76 tanks can use canister shot, which is immensely useful against infantry.

Depends what 50mm gun, and where it hits. In the turret or the lower body, the T70 is in a lot of trouble. It can take a few hits to its mid-level frontal armour before its internal armour gets weakened enough for real damage to occur. I prefer platoon of T-70s and one T-34 in 1200 (or 1500) pts ME rather than 4 T-34 in 1943 (summer) because opponent has points enough only for 1 good armor, and this armor is stug. Another reason to pick the T-34, then. The 45mm gun of a T-70 is poorly suited to anti-infantry work. The 76.2mm gun is a damned sight better in that respect, too. Plus, if the enemy's taking Heavy MG42s, the T-70 is somewhat vulnerable at close range, if hit anywhere where it has little armour. The T-34 is not. In fact, the Germans have little in the way of handheld personal AT weapons until '44, so it's basically safe when enemy armour is destroyed. I'd much rather have four good tanks than five rubbish ones and a single good one.

And by the way - Panzerfausts are extremely good at knocking out armour if they hit. Even the 30k is quite a reliable tank-stopper.

On the other hand, they get the crap kicked out of them by late PSW 222s. And if you can flank with a T-34, you'll get the same results even more dependably.

1) Not really, no. 2) No. With the smoke shells, there is a dedicated 'smoke' order. For everything else, the TacAI picks shell types. 3) No 4) Press the Return key. It's listen under 'blast'.

What about peoples' eyes - that's my question. Blinding, perhaps?

Actually, as long as the location is "Finland", they can be used whenever. But very early in the game and mid (IIRC) '44 is when the actual Finnish wars were fought. Shame that there are no Finns vs. Germans options (such as happened in Lapland).

Good point, it'd be the second Finnish War ('44) in which they got 'Schrecks. Tank hunters are indeed handy, and fairly realistic in this period - every company had, IIRC, 8 'bombers' - tank hunters with Kasapanos and molotovs, too. And I'd be wary of trying to sneak up on them with THTs, due to them being an extremely important target for the TacAI. They'll get hammered in a single burst of MG fire, and if the enemy is using KV tanks, that threat is also there if you try to sneak up from behind, too.

Why on earth did you post this here?

Other than BT-42 tanks, which are used for infantry support, mainly, I'd wholely advise against using Finnish tanks in any role to be honest. Stick with man-portable weapons - especially the Panzerschreck weapons (especially the 3-man '44' version) and try to be a bit stealthy with Jääkäri, or simply keep them in heavy cover, and use their grenade bundles to take out tanks. That, combined with some of the heavier support gear, such as AT guns, will see off Soviet tanks in a much, much better way that your own tanks. The only answer I could think of would be, ironically, using captured T-34 tanks to fight off enemy tank forces and other AFVs. [ December 05, 2006, 12:49 PM: Message edited by: jBrereton ]

In CMBB, it's much more useful to scout using your infantry, generally in small formations. I generally 'scout' with platoons of Mech. or SMG infantry, for the large amounts of firepower which they can provide at short range, which is when they normally detect enemies in deep cover such as pine or woods. Outside of that kind of terrain, I generally rely on the bonics of units - I usually take a few LMGs for this purpose - a unit between 9 and 12 points (usually), but due to the binoculars inside these units, they make good spotters. In cities, however, things get a bit more complicated. Infantry get absolutely leathered unless they stay in buildings, and tanks become extremely vulnerable. Oftentimes, I'll take a couple of assault guns in cities and annihilate anything that looks a bit shifty - although that brings with it the risks of enemies advancing under the smoke created by destroyed buildings as well.

Fire the Banzerfaust 100!