British TOE. Nobody uses it. Why?

[boy_Recon]

I've never yet to see anybody voluntarily choose a purely British force in a QB. Why not? You get a free PIAT with every platoon, the tanks are no worse than the US's, and the arty's fine. What is your problem?

If anybody doubts the efficacy of the British set up, feel free to email me for a pbem: 2000pts meeting QB; I'll take the Brits.

[PawBroon]

Well you should play more people as I for once do mostly the Brits.

I've seen many others with that Pro Brits bias.

Change partners and you'll get diversity...

[PawBroon]

If you've hanged long enough in here through multiple patch releases you'd also noticed that the increase in tungsten efficiency gave quite a boost to Brits TOE due to Fireflies and the likes.

Wasps are also and big favorite from most Brit players.

All in all, Brits, Canucks & Poles gives the more fun...

[Alex heritage]

Hey man i totally sympathise with ure situation. I think its because there are more americans playing the game. I totally agree with ure point of view. if mr syker tourns up he'll just completely slag off the brittish go to best allied/axis infantry killing vehicle thread to see what I said to him.. :mad:

[boy_Recon]

Thanks, Alex. Most games are developed in the US so there's always a bias, but fair play to Big Time for getting the Brits in there. Doesn't always happen.

[Yaba]

I have been quite fond of playing both Brits and Canadians for the past few Quick Battles. I am quite fond of a number of British units (Churchill VIII, Wasp, Wolverine, Sexton, PIAT, 4.2 inch arty). About the only thing that doesn't match up too well is the infantry straight up against German SMG or regular squads. Still, it is fun to mix things up a little.

Yaba

[Pud]

I tend to play Brits,I love the churchil/firefly combo and that piat!! I suspect im wrong here but I find the troops are less prone to moral failure, perhaps its something in their tea?

[Terence]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Yaba:

I have been quite fond of playing both Brits and Canadians for the past few Quick Battles. I am quite fond of a number of British units (Churchill VIII, Wasp, Wolverine, Sexton, PIAT, 4.2 inch arty). About the only thing that doesn't match up too well is the infantry straight up against German SMG or regular squads. Still, it is fun to mix things up a little.

Yaba<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I like the British TOE a great deal: The Vickers is perhaps more effective in real life than it is in the game, but those little 2 inch mortars are very useful for suppression, and the tanks are monsters that look like prehistoric beasts.

I think the Universal Carrier more than makes up for miserable slowness of the vickers too.

And you'd have to get a barrel of monkeys to have more fun than two or three wasps....

The British Airborne is a lot of fun too. Anyone not familiar with it should play Ham and Jam, which comes on the CD, I believe.

The only downside, really are the voices: Dont STOP. Fiyuh only on my OhDuh....

[boy_Recon]

The voices are a high point. We all talk like that, Gor blimey guv'nah! Its almost as realistic as Daphne's accent in 'Frazier'.

2" mortars are good, but nobody bothers with them. Churchill is very good, but slow. We still thought tanks didn't need to move faster than infantry (hangover from WW1), hence the Churchill's 16 mph top speed.

[Michael Dorosh]

Commonwealth troops suck.

Especially the Canadians.

[Kingfish]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

Commonwealth troops suck.

Especially the Canadians.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Whenever I play the Canadians I usually have a reserve of American troops standing by, ready to bail them out of trouble, and to show them how to win the battle. The same for the British troops.

wooooooOOOOOOSSSSHHHHHH THUMP!

OW, hey I was just kidding!

[Michael Emrys]

I always enjoyed playing the British/Commonwealth/Allied side in War in the Desert. First beat up on the Eyeties and them make life miserably frustrating for Rommel. It can be done. Good fun.

Michael

[goodwood]

I don't mind playing the brits. I play Germans, Brits and the US and very rarely mix nationalities (allies that is). I like the Brit OOB useful tanks and arty and paras ok too.

[ 05-04-2001: Message edited by: goodwood ]

[Berlichtingen]

I can only answer for myself... I never, given the choice, chose a British model force. I prefer to play heavy infantry forces, and British model infantry sucks. Trying the style tactics I favor with British model infantry will fail every time.

[lcm1947]

I will never play the British until they apologize for the tea thing.

[von Lucke]

Gor' blimey --- here we go again...

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

"By that 'Bailey Crap', you wouldn't be refering to that monument of British engineering envied by the rest of the civilized world, would you?"

[Redwolf]

I play pure British often. I like the Carrier in all variants. The Cromwell is a much better choice than a Sherman in random or bad weather. The 3" mortar is great, direct hit knocks out Pz IV and StuG. The Kangaroos are fast APCs as thick as tanks. The 25pdr towed howitzer is for such a gun quite mobile. Late in the war you get cheap VT arty.

You also get the halftrack with the .50cal.

What I miss:

- cheap HE delivery like M8 HMC and SdKfz 251/9

- Fast light tank that is somewhat effective against infantry like Lynx or Greyhound

- mortar carrier (not overly useful without HQ spotting, though)

I agree that the Rifle squads are not very good. I am also disappointed that the 95mm gun does not model the higher effectivity against infantry in foxholes as the German infantry guns do (tried that).

[M. Bates]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by redwolf:

I play pure British often. I like the Carrier in all variants. The Cromwell is a much better choice than a Sherman in random or bad weather. The 3" mortar is great, direct hit knocks out Pz IV and StuG. The Kangaroos are fast APCs as thick as tanks. The 25pdr towed howitzer is for such a gun quite mobile. Late in the war you get cheap VT arty.

You also get the halftrack with the .50cal.

What I miss:

- cheap HE delivery like M8 HMC and SdKfz 251/9

- Fast light tank that is somewhat effective against infantry like Lynx or Greyhound

- mortar carrier (not overly useful without HQ spotting, though)

I agree that the Rifle squads are not very good. I am also disappointed that the 95mm gun does not model the higher effectivity against infantry in foxholes as the German infantry guns do (tried that).<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Generally I prefer to play as Americans because I consider that (in CM) their rifle Squads are a good balance between hitting power, cost and durability.

I would play the Brits, but then Brit Rifle Squads are "hobbled" in CM. The Mark 4 rifle is a good piece of equipment and it gets such puny firepower numbers in Combat Mission

[Kanonier Reichmann]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Terence:

The only downside, really are the voices: Dont STOP. Fiyuh only on my OhDuh....<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Whaddya talking about! The Poms have the BEST saying in the whole game. When a valuable enemy tank or whatever is knocked out you often hear "stick THAT up your pipe, Fritz".

With those sorts of voices it's almost worth playing the Poms for the sounds alone.

Regards

Jim R.

[Londoner]

heh. Dam aussies

On a more serious note, as mentioned apart from the rifle squads, Brit forces in my experience are well up to taking on a good German player. Cheap infantry, piats and 2' mortars are almost free. Good, cheap tanks, 17pounder is pretty effective against every German tank frontally, bar one or two is it? Unlike the US 76mm. If your using fionns short 75 rule or any of the lighter versons, IMO the 6pounder is the most effective ATG in the game. Its deadly against any tank your German opponent is allowed to field, and its cheaper, smaller and has a better ROF than the 75mm PAK. While the German 50mm ATG lacks frontal killing power against quite a few Brit med/heavies. Support weapons are effective and cheap, the paras 75mm pack howitzer comes to mind. Personally I'd take the Vickers over any MG bar the MG42, because CM gives it so much ammo. In 35+ turn games that can make a real difference. Brit Arty has plenty of ammo and theres a decent choice. If i'm allies i always use Brits in a QB. If my opponent lets me have airborne troops I'd actually prefer Brits over Germans if we are using any of fionns restrictions (mainly due to nationalistic considerations). IMO if you use the right restrictions/parameters, the game is balanced almost perfectly, with any of the Allied nations. You need to play a few more people m8.

[ 05-05-2001: Message edited by: Londoner ]

[Pvt. Ryan]

I think players shy away from the Brits because as a whole we are probably less familiar with UK hardware that US hardware. I just finished the UK section of the Encyclopedia of British and American Tanks of WWII, and I am amazed at the crap that the British produced. They still had the WWI mindset so that their tanks plodded along at the speed of a wounded puppy. American armor wasn't much better, especially the early stuff, but at least American tanks had the advantage of speed. The Churchills are pretty thick skinned though and I enjoy using them. I can't wait for the desert verion of CM so we can use the Matilda II. It sounds like it was invincible until the 88mm came along.

[Michael Dorosh]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by M. Bates:

I would play the Brits, but then Brit Rifle Squads are "hobbled" in CM. The Mark 4 rifle is a good piece of equipment and it gets such puny firepower numbers in Combat Mission <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

There is no Mark 4 rifle. Do you mean the Number 4 Mark I?

The majority of firepower in a Commonwealth squad came from the Bren and Sten guns - see the earlier threads on this subject - search for "SLA Marshall".

[Wild Bill Wilder]

I've done a few, Boy Recon. Have you played those?

And a new one coming up, based on actions of the Schwere SS Panzer Abeitlung 102 north of Falaise. Give me a few days and it will be out there.

[Firefly]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Pvt. Ryan:

They still had the WWI mindset so that their tanks plodded along at the speed of a wounded puppy. American armor wasn't much better, especially the early stuff, but at least American tanks had the advantage of speed. The Churchills are pretty thick skinned though and I enjoy using them. I can't wait for the desert verion of CM so we can use the Matilda II. It sounds like it was invincible until the 88mm came along.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well the Brits had some pretty fast tanks, the Cromwell IV is probably the fastest medium tank in the game. British doctrine called for fast cruiser tanks whose job was to kill enemy tanks (Crusaders, Cromwells, Comets and Challengers) and slow heavily armoured infantry support tanks (Matildas anf Churchills) which only had to keep up with the footsloggers. One reason why the Firefly/Churchill combo is pretty ahistorical.

[Blackcat]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

The majority of firepower in a Commonwealth squad came from the Bren and Sten guns - see the earlier threads on this subject - search for "SLA Marshall".<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Not the Sten gun surely. The Sten was a very cheap easy to produce SMG that was designed and implemented on the rush post Dunkirk. It had a very short range, an even shorter effective range (after all it fired a pistol round), was very unreliable and was not a standard infantry squad weapon. Airborne, Commando and specialist units (combat pioneers & the like) did carry stens in some numbers but not line infantry where its use was limited to senior commanders & HQ troops as a last ditch self defense weapon.

The standard ten man squad would have one man with a bren gun and the rest armed with the excellent long Lee Enfield (pretty much the same weapon that shot Greman assaults flat in 1914). In 1945 in the 14th army the section Corporal was issued with a Thompson SMG to give greater firepower to the squad but my reading says that this was not popular with the troops not terribly effective in practice.

As a fine point of interest the Austrailians produced their own version of the Sten called the Owen-Stanley which was a much better weapon and was still carried by some Royal Marine Commando units into the late '50s.

The British replaced the sten with the Sterling, a more honest and better produced weapon which was issued to Armoured & HQ troops as personal weapon well into the seventies. However, although all infantry men were trained on it, it was still not carried in a line infantry section. In fact in my time (1970's) the infantry section still had one LMG (the lovely GPMG in bipod mode) and everyone else carried a rifle - the SLR (Self Loading Rifle, 7.62 version of the Belgian FN), a superb if somewhat heavy weapon - especially compared to the heap of junk they have to use now.

Cheers