Xian's Hot Tip of the Day

[xian]

Another Hot Tip for WeGo:

Got a risky move to make? And concerned that awful things might happen to that unit during the playback when you have no control over the outcome for a whole minute?

Then it might be helpful to give the unit a 30 PAUSE before giving it other orders. This way you will get a better chance intervening at a critical moment during the following turn.

[womble]

Another Hot Tip for WeGo:

Got a risky move to make? And concerned that awful things might happen to that unit during the playback when you have no control over the outcome for a whole minute?

Then it might be helpful to give the unit a 30 PAUSE before giving it other orders. This way you will get a better chance intervening at a critical moment during the following turn.

That 30s also gives your unit and its friends 30 seconds to suppress any rude folk who'll try and upset the apple cart.

[xian]

Purchasing Units for Quick Battles Tip.

Sometimes it can be a bit of a giveaway when you click upon an opponent's tank and it says: "5th Tank Destroyer". Often it means that there are 4 others running around somewhere.

Here's how to avoid an opponent from working out how many tanks you have from the generous info provided by the GUI:

When purchasing a formation of vehicles on the purchasing screen delete those at the top of the list first. So, if you only want 2 tanks from a 5 tank formation make sure you keep the 4th and the 5th and delete 1, 2 and 3.

This way your opponent can never be certain if you really have the full compliment of 5 tanks or not. This can also be done with infantry, platoons, companies etc.

I suppose it's a bit like numbering your divisions non-sequentially to prevent the enemy calculating your actual divisional strength.

[A Canadian Cat]

Great idea - I wish I had thought of that:-)

[RockinHarry]

Sniper teams: Not a playing tip for given forces, but scenario makers can make single man "teams" by setting headcount to 50%. This usually removes the SMG gunner.

[dieseltaylor]

Good tips. Much appreciated.

[A Canadian Cat]

I just discovered one really good tip. Another reason to have infantry support for your tanks: because they can hear nearby enemy tanks! And your tank commanders cannot.

This just saved my behind in a huge tank battle I am fighting. I had a Royal Tiger Platoon in position on a reverse slope waiting for their infantry to arrive before going over the hill and attacking the near by town. They were in place and waiting for four minutes (the infantry were delayed and the attack moved further away due to enemy artillery). The tanks were happily waiting with no contacts of any kind. The truck with the infantry pulls up and the guys file out and with in 20s enemy contacts appear in the field next to my tank platoon. I was astonished - my opponent had managed to flank me and I did not even know it. The Royal Tiger platoon was in a wheat field next to the field was a 20m or so wide strip of light forest but lots of trees then a road and another thinner tree line so they had no visibility into the next field over - and neither did the infantry. Clearly these contacts were sound contacts.

Since I knew something was there I swung right and attacked through the trees. Caught his Churchills totally by surprise and shredded 6 of them in 2min with no casualties.

Afterwards I talked to my opponent about it and found that his tanks had been there for nearly 10 minutes waiting for me to attack the town. His plan was to bring them at me from behind while I was distracted fighting in the town. A brilliant plan. But he had no infantry support with those tanks and therefore he did not hear my tanks either.

[Amizaur]

Afterwards I talked to my opponent about it and found that his tanks had been there for nearly 10 minutes waiting for me to attack the town. His plan was to bring them at me from behind while I was distracted fighting in the town. A brilliant plan. But he had no infantry support with those tanks and therefore he did not hear my tanks either.

How did he know that your tanks are there, then ?

[A Canadian Cat]

How did he know that your tanks are there, then ?

He only found out when the four Royal Tigers appeared on the treeline of *his* field and destroyed 6 Churchill tanks in 2 minutes.

Since I knew something was there I swung right and attacked through the trees. Caught his Churchills totally by surprise and shredded 6 of them in 2min with no casualties.

[Amizaur]

But he said he waited for your tanks to attack the town and he wanted to attack them from the rear then. So I thought he had to know where your tanks are . I guess, he just wanted to attack from behind your forces in general, not your tanks.

[A Canadian Cat]

I miss understood your question. The town we are trying to occupy is in a slight valley. He knew I had a force on that hill because my lead tanks had taken up positions on the tree lined ridge of my side of the valley. The were dueling with his tank destroyers and tanks on the opposite ridge. So he dispatched a sizable force to flank my positions.

He felt his tanks were safe in their field because he thought my main force was further away (behind the tanks dueling on the ridge).

[womble]

If you want a team to Pop Smoke, then bug out, plot their movement points and the Pause (to allow deployment and development of smoke) before you do the "Face-Pop" combo. If you do the Face-Pop command first, the direction of the Face can be changed by the direction of the move order you give, and if you don't notice this, the smoke could be discharged in a useless direction, or if you do, you'll have to redo Face-Pop...

[cool breeze]

Wow! Great tip! Thanks!

[Vinnart]

Always check your wind direction when planning on using smoke. If it not moving in a favorable direction it is like pissing into the wind, which is also a good tip. Don't do it!

[MisterMark]

If you want a team to Pop Smoke, then bug out, plot their movement points and the Pause (to allow deployment and development of smoke) before you do the "Face-Pop" combo. If you do the Face-Pop command first, the direction of the Face can be changed by the direction of the move order you give, and if you don't notice this, the smoke could be discharged in a useless direction, or if you do, you'll have to redo Face-Pop...

Not sure I fully understand... can you please describe it another way?

Thank you,

Mark

[A Canadian Cat]

Lets say you have an infantry unit that is currently facing the enemy and you want them to pop smoke and withdraw.

This will work:

Plot your movement order away from the enemy (and any additional way points as needed to get to their new position). Then, with no way points selected, set a face command towards the enemy and set a pause and pop smoke. When the turn starts your guys will pop smoke and wait for your pause time then turn around and head away from the enemy.

This will not work:

Set a face command towards the enemy and issue a pause and a pop smoke order. Then plot your movement order away from the enemy (and any additional way points as needed to get to their new position). When the turn starts you guys will turn around and pop smoke in the direction they will be moving pause and wait then they will get up and start moving towards the smoke. Sadly this will mean they will leave cover and move into the open before they get to their smoke.

The problem with the second order sequence is that the face command is canceled when you issue a movement order - because by default they will face towards the next movement order.

[sburke]

The problem with the second order sequence is that the face command is canceled when you issue a movement order - because by default they will face towards the next movement order.

So THAT is what I was doing wrong, thanks, this is something I definitely needed to know. In retrospect it is kind of funny but at the time left me completely baffled - why the hell they'd smoke in that direction?

[womble]

Not sure I fully understand... can you please describe it another way?

Thank you,

Mark

I'll give it a go. Have to go back to basics to make sure I've fully covered it.

To get a unit that's capable of "popping smoke" (firing/throwing one or more smoke discharging objects, usually grenades a short distance), you have to first give the unit a Face command, to point it in the direction you want to throw the smoke (unless you're lucky and the unit is already facing that way), then go to the special tab and click "Pop Smoke" which changes the blue "Face" line to a Magenta (I think; reddish colours aren't my strong suit) "Pop Smoke" line with a range (usually 20m, IIRC).

It takes a few seconds of the unit doing nothing else for the smoke to pop and a few seconds more for the smoke to develop so if you want to follow the smoke throwing with the unit moving (away, probably), you'll want to add a Pause command at the waypoint where you are asking them to throw smoke from. I use 30s; 20s seems to result in no smoke, too often.

The problem comes if you set this up, and then give a Movement command (to do the aforementioned running away, for example). If the movement command is in a different direction to the current facing of the unit, the unit might change its orientation during the order phase, and any Face command previously given is relative to the unit's current facing, so if the unit starts looking another way, the Face command will not be pointed the way you wanted the smoke thrown, and since smoke gets thrown the way the unit is Facing, the smoke willl get thrown in the wrong direction.

To avoid this happening, plot any movement first, then, at the waypoint where you want the unit to "pop smoke" (including their current position which has many of the characteristics of a waypoint), put a "Face" order so the unit will be pointed the right direction, a "Pop Smoke" command so they do what you want and a "Pause" of long enough duration to give them the chance to chuck their smoke generators.

Is that clearer?

[womble]

When you're playing a scenario that's briefed as "push on and mop up", and you start seeing "?" icons at improbable ranges through unlikely quantities of vegetation in the predawn mist, consider whether you might be playing a scenario that's really a meeting engagement and you're actually running into a counterattack...

I hope there aren't any tanks rushing up... :-/