Ron Martig Posted December 20, 1999 Share Posted December 20, 1999 I’m new to war games so please bare with me here. I was playing the Riesburg scenario as German and had all my men hidden for the first turn. A Sherman appeared from the back of the battlefield about 60 or 70 meters to the right of the road, it was in open ground and not buttoned up. My sharpshooter was in the original setup location and had a clear line of sight to the Sherman, (about400m) so I unhide him and target the tank to see what will happen. He fires one shot and the tank buttons up. Now for the rest of the game the buttoned Sherman never moves one inch, I think it did fire the main gun for maybe the next 4or5 turns, that I can remember anyway. After the end of game I checked its status and one crewmember was dead. My question is which dead crewmember would affect the tank in this manner (or did it just get stuck) and has any one else had a sharpshooter kill a tank crewmember? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest PeterNZ Posted December 20, 1999 Share Posted December 20, 1999 Damn you were lucky! My snipers seem to spend most of the game picking their noses. Yup, you killed the Tank Commander, and due to the low to average morale/experience of the Yanks the rest of the crew decided hidding and not moving was the better part of valour. Normally that would only happen for a cpl of turns at most, (i reckon), but seems like you got doubly lucky PeterNZ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionn Posted December 21, 1999 Share Posted December 21, 1999 As in real life sharpshooters are best used to go after enemy leadership and high value targets. Kill an FO team with 2 shots and that heavy arty barrage never happens. Kill a couple of TCs and the tanks are virtually crippled for the rest of the game. Sharpshooters are very valuable weapons. Personally I just leave them be. I do NOT target for them and simply let the AI kill TCs, mortarmen etc. Only very occasionally will I choose to over-ride targetting to pick off an MG team or something I can't otherwise get. ------------------ ___________ Fionn Kelly Manager of Historical Research, The Gamers Net - Gaming for Gamers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
not here Posted December 21, 1999 Share Posted December 21, 1999 I've gotten to really like sharpshooters- after I learned to use them the way Fionn said- just leave them alone. They usually know what to do, and when they do nothing there is usually a reason for it. In the Riesberg I'm playing right now, the guy has fired 5 rounds total (currently turn 19). For that, I got one TC and caused another tank to button; both Shermans were subsequently killed by other squads (one 'faust, one 'schreck). Those are kills I probably wouldn't have gotten on unbuttoned, commanded tanks. The sniper was running on autopilot and I call that a pretty good return on investment, for 5 7.92mm rounds. He has also suppressed a mortar squad pretty much on his own. I wonder if some folks having consistent trouble with snipers are finding them good LOSs and unhiding them at the right times? This go, I'm very lucky in that there's not much incoming in the sniper's direction. They take a long time to acquire a moving target and some suppression fire forces them to start over. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moon Posted December 21, 1999 Share Posted December 21, 1999 In a testing scenario looong time ago, I was walking my guys down an open field once - turn 1, dead silence, only a few birds chirping. My guys - that was an FO team and a platoon of rifle infantry. Then... bang! Followed by...ARGH! A sniper from *somewhere* shot one of the two observer dudes. The other one panicked and started running back, only to be shot by the sniper! That was my only FO in the scenario and ever since I value snipers highly. And I'll never let them walk down an open field anymore... PS. The rifle platoon found the sniper a few turns (and casualties) later. No, they didn't take any POWs... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionn Posted December 21, 1999 Share Posted December 21, 1999 LOL Martin... I made that scenario.. That's when we first got sharpshooters and I was testing them out ON YOU . That was a nice little map, snipers up the north, MGs in the middle and infantry in the south. Really a damned if you do and damned if you don't map . A sharpshooter is a very valuable weapon. They are so small (in game terms) that if they hide no-one will see them from any sort of distance at all. Then, if you simply pop them up your snipers can have a field day in killing the support weapons (MGs, mortars etc). A pair of snipers can easily kill and panic 4 or 5 mortar or MG teams. One thing I have found is that it is USELESS to reduce an MG team to 2 men.. With two men that team can still move and fight and has quite a lot of ammo... It is MUCH better to totally wipe out one MG team than cause 3 casualties to 2 separate MG teams. A sharpshooter in the enemy's rear is a perfect way to cause the enemy to send an entire infantry platoon back to take him on. If you spot this move your sharpshooter should be able to escape and for 1 man and about 10 bullets you can cause a lot of damage to his support weapons, slow their entry into the battle and cause the enemy to detach necessary forces to hunt you down. I also like using snipers to kill HQ units down to their last man and suchlike. Usually the other player will shield these HQ units behind lots of infantry making them hard to kill for any normal unit BUT a sharpshooter can reach out and whack them. In CM a leaderless unit is a virtually useless unit when assaulting. ------------------ ___________ Fionn Kelly Manager of Historical Research, The Gamers Net - Gaming for Gamers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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