New player - damn pillboxes!

[DaveDash]

Hi there. I recently stumbled upon this game looking for something new (after playing too much Rome/Medieval Total War).

Now the graphics arn't anything to write home about but I was so impressed with the gameplay that after playing about 10 minutes of the Demo I went online and bought it. Now I just have to wait for the damn thing to arrive

I completed the crossroads scenario with relative ease thanks to lady luck being on my side (managed to take out all the German tanks without losing one of my own, it was pretty easy after that)

Now I've hit the 'Valley of trouble' scenario - and yep, a valley of trouble it is.

Now I'm reasonably competent with tactics and so forth having read a lot of material (books on various wars, U.S. FM's online - very slow work day that) but I'd still consider myself a 'newbie'- particulary at WW2 warfare.

Anyway, in this scenario I am having difficulty with the Pillboxes (particulary the concrete ones). Artillery seems to be wasted on them, and due to limited map space it's difficult to manouver around them, with a checkerboard formation of pillboxes this is almost impossible.

The only success at actually taking them out that I have had has been tanks, but unfortunately in this scenario I have lost all my tanks (including the reinforcement ones). Two of them got taken out pretty much right at the start by an 75mm gun on the dominating hill and I lost another three to one German Panther tank, with my fourth tank being knocked immobile by another hidden anti-tank gun.

On the right flank of the map I have managed to get a bedraggled force of 2 squads and one platoon HQ behind the dominating hill and most of the pill boxes, but on the left flank my forces are pretty much being cut to pieces by pillboxes in a checkerboard formation and unable to out manouver them.

Any advice for taking them out?

Cheers

Dave

[Falcon988]

I recommend you gather your survivors and make a mad human wave charge at the nearest pillbox. You'll take horrendous losses but you'll -probably- capture it. Repeat as needed until all German fortifications are destroyed or your men mutiny.

[DaveDash]

The battle is in the balance right now and I've taken a fair amount of casualties. Im going to continue to work on the right flank where I have made a breach.

As some general advice against Pillboxes, are tanks the only things that work against them (and not very well) or do you need to do the infantry wave thing?

I would have thought 105mm artillery pounding the hell out of one would do some damage, or at least give the guys inside a bit of a scare (surpression)

[Philippe]

The thing to remember about pillboxes is that they only face one way and can't rotate.

If you aren't up against an anti-tank gun pillbox, I've had suprisingly good results with tank destroyers. Two or three of them working over a pillbox for a few minutes often takes it out with a shot through the firing slit. On reflection, it's probably too easy to knock out a pillbox that way: real pillboxes were more resiliant.

Pillboxes don't fire to the flank, and they have undefended back doors. Slip a team with demo charges around the back and they'll take it out pretty quick if you get them in close enough. Bazookas also work on the back door, as do handgrenades, if you have enough of them. Classic pillbox busting tactics involve using a flamethrower to super-heat the metal door and the air inside the bunker: I can't remember if this works in CM (I think it does) but there are some sweat inducing accounts of Germans on the receiving end of these tactics who were lucky enough to surrender without being killed by either side.

Human waves aren't necessary. One squad should do the trick, if it's armed with the right equipment and you put it in the right place.

[hoolaman]

The are pretty tricky. The only way you will kill them with a tank is with a firing slit penetration. It may take 10 shots to get one, by which time your tank will be dead.

My advice is to keep tanks away from AT pillboxes at all costs, and use infantry to sneak around to them. The one disadvantage is that they can't turn around so use them.

Machinegun pillboxes should be isolated and hit with tanks.

Small calibre guns with high rate of fire also kill them well due to the % of hits which can go in the slit, but this is considered cheating by some.

[DaveDash]

Some pretty good advice here, thanks. I've been trying to get around the damn pillboxes (outflank) but the checkerboard formation (see below) has proved difficult.

The situation I face is the following:

Red circles = active pillbox

Red circle with cross = knocked out pillbox

Blue circles = my infantry

Blue arrow = breach

As you can see I've managed to breach the lines on the right flank, but at great cost. My units on the left flank are pretty much pinned due to the remaining pillbox and tank.

My bedraggled unit that has breached the right flank is trying to move across and 'roll up the flank' but they're having a tough time.

Im also suffering surpressing fires from the town and I wasted too much of my artillery at the start trying to take out some of the pillboxes.

I will press on and try and move more infantry through the breach on the right. My flamethrower units are too slow to get around behind saftely so I've been moving a squad of infantry into the pillboxes and the Germans surrender.

-------------------------------------------------

Another question:

How do you use onmap mortars effectively(I dont have a manual with the demo version )? Do they need a line of sight to their target or can they be used if they are near a HQ unit that has line of sight?

Please remember this is my 2nd game so I still grasping many of the basics

Cheers

Dave

[ January 23, 2005, 10:26 PM: Message edited by: DaveDash ]

[DaveDash]

Well unfortunately ran out of time.

I had around 150 men remaining with roughly 47 KIA (cant remember the wounded) and the Germans had around 46 men remaining and 40 KIA.

I also was in a good position to win, the enemies moral was close to being broken.

They still had a tank and unfortunately I had lost most of my bazooka guys, that would have proven to be a problem.

However I moved my left flank through the trees to the victory location and avoided the one remaining pillbox (using terrain). This put a squeeze on the village and allowed me to move men down into the rear of the Germans defending.

I also was in the process of fighting off a platoon of Germans assaulting hill 209 (the dominating hill on the battlefield) and I was in a good position to hold it.

Alas though, those Pillboxes really slowed me down. Plenty of lessions learned though. Damn I wish the full game would hurry up and arrive

[McEvilly]

Smoke! Use your smoke to mask youyr movement!

Suppress the pillbox with other units.

Smoke your assault teams path.

And then go in with hiopefully some engineers with demo.

[DaveDash]

Yes smoke is a good idea - thanks.

What units are good for surpressing a pillbox? Other MGs (but the possible "exploit")?

Normal infantry?

To 'surpress' the pillbox do you target the pillbox specifically or do an 'area fire' around the pillbox.

Thanks for your time.

[Philippe]

I will recover eventually, but after looking at those screenshots my eyes hurt.

I think you really need to visit CMHQ at combatmission.com (the old semi-official CMBO site), download CMMOS 4.03 and all the CMMOS mods, and do something about those visuals. The world really doesn't have to look like the morning after a week of prolonged chemical substance abuse.

I can't believe the shade of vibrant green. Maybe Charles really does live in jar full of blue colored water...

Get Strontium Dog's Grass for starters. For buildings you'll need Tanks a Lot, Panzertruppen, and Magua's Normandy, and should switch back and forth between them, depending on the scenario. DD made the best hedges and bocage. Ed Kinney came out with an ultra high resolution wheat mod (at CMMODS in the CMAK section, I think) that looks incredible. Try Juju or Ed for stone walls, Magua for trees inside of Normandy, a combination of Ed, DD, and Old Dog outside. Strontium Dog did a great paved road and water as well, though Magua's Normandy water is really good (the water you use should depend on the sky conditions because it's reflective, so you'll need four or five of them).

[McEvilly]

Once you get behind them, use engineers or bazookas to blow out the back. Regular infantry can also work.

But look out for his security element protecting the pillbox.

[DaveDash]

Originally posted by Philippe:

I will recover eventually, but after looking at those screenshots my eyes hurt.

I think you really need to visit CMHQ at combatmission.com (the old semi-official CMBO site), download CMMOS 4.03 and all the CMMOS mods, and do something about those visuals. The world really doesn't have to look like the morning after a week of prolonged chemical substance abuse.

I can't believe the shade of vibrant green. Maybe Charles really does live in jar full of blue colored water...

Get Strontium Dog's Grass for starters. For buildings you'll need Tanks a Lot, Panzertruppen, and Magua's Normandy, and should switch back and forth between them, depending on the scenario. DD made the best hedges and bocage. Ed Kinney came out with an ultra high resolution wheat mod (at CMMODS in the CMAK section, I think) that looks incredible. Try Juju or Ed for stone walls, Magua for trees inside of Normandy, a combination of Ed, DD, and Old Dog outside. Strontium Dog did a great paved road and water as well, though Magua's Normandy water is really good (the water you use should depend on the sky conditions because it's reflective, so you'll need four or five of them).

Thanks for that, I don't mind the graphics too much as it is (and that's coming from someone whos been playing a lot of Rome Total War at 1280x1024 full graphics settings ), but after I figure the game out ill take a look at some of these mods.

[Vulture-suc4]

Originally posted by DaveDash:

Hi there. I recently stumbled upon this game looking for something new (after playing too much Rome/Medieval Total War).

Now the graphics arn't anything to write home about but I was so impressed with the gameplay that after playing about 10 minutes of the Demo I went online and bought it. Now I just have to wait for the damn thing to arrive

I completed the crossroads scenario with relative ease thanks to lady luck being on my side (managed to take out all the German tanks without losing one of my own, it was pretty easy after that)

Dave

Whilst playing against the AI, the real beauty of this game lies in the ability to play PBEM (or TCP-IP should you so desire) against other human opponents.

Would strongly recommend you visit/join one of the on-line wargaming clubs that have Blitz ladders where tournaments and campaigns are run.

This is one awesome game. I'l still playing CMBO daily 4 years after I got it.

Enjoy

Vulture

[DaveDash]

Thanks Vulture, I've been reading a lot of PBEM AARs and it's definately making me interested, however I need to clue myself into the game a bit more to make myself a worthy opponent before I tackle a human .

I realise the fighting the AI can get predictable and is a far different thing to playing another Human, but, baby steps

The full game arrived yesterday and I cranked up that 'clash of eagles' scenario. I won a Allied Major victory on turn 50 suffering only 70 casualties including 14 dead on my first go, capturing the main hill (but not the Eagles Nest itself) and inflicting serious loses on the Germans (over 400 casualties I think).

I completely avoided the river crossings on the right flank and used much of the advice here to take out the Pillboxes, (mostly a combination of smoke, surpression, and infantry manouvering to take out the anti-tank pillboxes then move in the tanks to deal to the rest).

I think my artillery and airpower was massively overbearing in that scenario because I only ran into at most one German company which got pretty much pinned down by massive fires and slaughtered by incoming artillery.

One of the first things I did was blow up most of the houses (wanted to take out enemy FO's) on the main hill with artillery so I suspect the Germans had lots of men in them.

I also installed many of DD's terrain mods, man the game looks way better now. I wish still that someone could do a mod that made all your men represented (is that aspect of the game modable?). My computer can surely handle 700 men on the battlefield if it can handle 8000 in Rome Total War

[ January 27, 2005, 01:22 PM: Message edited by: DaveDash ]

[Philippe]

The problem with the AI is that it is pretty good on defense, but not too good at launching co-ordinated attacks. Every now and then it surprises you, but you'll find after a while that you need a human opponent if you want to play defense.

I don't know how it works against the AI, but you might also take a look at Blood and Bocage. What I like about it is that it presents both sides with a range of tactical options: there are several very different ways for each side to achieve its objectives, which means quite a few different ways the scenario can play out. I can't remember if it's on the CD, but if not you can find it at the Scenario Depot.

[DaveDash]

Yeah the AI definately seems a bit of a joke on the attack.

It also tends to use smoke a lot but on your own forces when it should have used HE rounds, but sometimes it gets it together and gives you a nasty surprize, I agree.

Many times I often pretend that I am fighting a real opponent and I try to do things 'properly' without getting into bad habits anyway.

For example, in the Eagles Clash scenario I probably could have wiped out the AI forces well before turn 50 if I had more experiance with the game and the predictability of the AI, but I scouted properly and used plenty of overwatch movements so forth because I'm still new to this game and don't know what to expect.

At the end of the day I will eventually like to play against Humans (although I undoubtadly will have to get CMBB and CMAK too) so I definately don't want to become lazy in things like flank protection and so forth because im playing the AI. I like to use my limited knowledge of real world tactics anyway (which is why we play this game isn't it?) so I don't like doing silly things, call it roleplaying if you will.