COMBAT MISSIONS: Armour Tactics - Stuart !

[Manx]

I've finally got round to doing the King Tiger dossier started last month. Many thanks to everybody who took time out to share their thoughts and experiences with this vehicle.

Moving on to the next AFV in the series -- i would like you to concentrate your thoughts on the STUART - LIGHT TANK.

I know from feedback received that many people are finding this look into the units to be found in CMBO useful and educational.

A word of warning though - Just remember... by sharing your knowledge with a CM rookie, your making it a whole lot easier for him to hand your ass to you on a plate when it comes to mixing it out on the CM battlefield!

TIA

[offtaskagain]

The Stuart is great at killings MG pillboxes and bunkers. Its also a good scout car and halftrack killer. If you see any form of AFV run for cover first then get around its flank. AFAIK it can kill any german tank from the side at close range.

[Gen. Sosaboski]

Personally I love the Stuart. It is the Panther of recon vehicles/tanks. As the Allies, you can laugh when the Axis opponent's 20mm shells bounce harmlessly off the Stuart, then watch the German HT get toasted by the 37mm.

As mentioned by PzrWerfer42, it is also a great light bunker killer. With its 37mm gun, it can also ko a German tank with a flank shot (even Tigers can fall prey if you do it right). Also, the mere presence of a tank with a light gun and 3 (I think) MGs will make your opponent much more careful with the infantry. The Stuart also has a good top speed, although as with many Allied tanks, it is not meant to be a dueler head-on with Axis armor (unless its light).

Overall, I'd say its an outstanding buy and a great addition to any force, especially if you're doing counter-recon, but for just about anything else as well.

[Warmaker]

Well, I don't play as the Allies much, but in facing them this is what I find most effective. I never waste my time and 75mm/88mm ammo on these things anymore since they're overkill for such light armor. I'm on the lookout for Fireflies/Jumbos/76'ers. What a player using Stuarts has to look for, especially against a German on the defense, are 50mm ATGs and the very effective 37mm FlaK. Even if the German player is on the offense, a nasty 50mm ATG/37mm FlaK can be positioned to provide overwatching fire whenever the Stuart/Light AFV pops up. These things fire much more quickly naturally than the 75mm/88mm big guns. A flank shot from a 20mm may bring some bad news also. When rushing on the flanks to take out that "gamey little Panther" watch out for those flank traps any clever Axis player will set up...

Now, what do I hate the Stuarts for mostly? Yes, they do provide problems for infantry, but not as much. What they kill me is when they practically knock out all my light armor assets. SPWs/Marders/Wespes/Hummels/PzKpfw IV(come on! Look at that frontal turret armor! I myself consider it a light AFV with a damn good gun!) become dead quite quickly when these little things are around. The 37mm has a excellent ROF in dealing this type of business.

In support for bigger Allied tanks, the Stuart is the best if not second best in the supporting role.

[ 05-31-2001: Message edited by: Warmaker ]

[edgars]

One drawback of Stuart is, that the 37mm HE has practically no killing effect on dug-in infantry. It HAS 3 machine-guns, which comes handy when you're defending and enemy infantry has to cross open ground, but not on attack.

[Fishu]

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

One drawback of Stuart is, that the 37mm HE has practically no killing effect on dug-in infantry. It HAS 3 machine-guns, which comes handy when you're defending and enemy infantry has to cross open ground, but not on attack.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Use combined arms.

Infantry is not made to support tanks, but tanks are made to support infantry(!)

Enemy who is pinned down by Stuart, is much easier to assault with your own infantry, than if there wouldn't be Stuart, or you would be using manned MG's instead.

This little moving MG 'pillbox' moves faster than manned MG, and can support rifle infantry better. (and 37mm adds for a bonus for suppression)

[edgars]

Well, I didn't post in this thread to discuss tactics, but share my thoughts on Stuart itself.

Combined Arms doesn't make Stuart's HE much better, does it?

OK, to correct my small mistake and maybe to make it more clear i'll say: "Don't expect Stuart to kill infantry, but it does the job at surpressing it"

[Stixx]

I believe the stuart is one of the best infantry killing weapon's in the game.

It's 37mm gun doesn't pack much of a HE punch but it's 3 mg's do!!!.

I race them right up to enemy infantry when i find them, especially when the infantry are in front of cover. This way your only threat is enemy hand held AT weapons. I have had enormous success doing this with stuarts. I very rarely loose them when doing this either, the only occasions have been when i didn't have good intel of enemy composition and i ran them right into the heart of an enemy force.

They can easily suppress and kill 1 tight platoon but when numbers start getting higher than this it makes life very difficult.

[edgars]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> I race them right up to enemy infantry when i find them <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hmm, strange, what about PanzerFausts?

[WWB]

These things are deadly against anything short of a Panther at close ranges. Fast, quick turret and a fast firing, accurate gun.

WWB

[Fishu]

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

Well, I didn't post in this thread to discuss tactics, but share my thoughts on Stuart itself.

Combined Arms doesn't make Stuart's HE much better, does it?

OK, to correct my small mistake and maybe to make it more clear i'll say: "Don't expect Stuart to kill infantry, but it does the job at surpressing it"<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Umm.. Didn't I talk about Stuart then?

That was my feel about the Stuart, that it goes well for a cheap infantry support tank.

(read; cheap & fast)

hmm, I wonder what kind of thoughts im supposed to post then.

"Yes, its the best tank destroyer of CM!!!1"

[MikeyD]

About Stuarts as infantry killers.

There's this odd little detail seen in picts of some Stuarts in Europe. A small square plate (maybe 4x4 inch square?) set forward on steel rod 'legs' on the lower bow just beneath the hull mg. The general agreement is that it was a bullet deflector! The Stuart would roll over a fox hole and the bow gunner would point the mg at the plate, which deflected the bullets straight down on top of the hidden infantry. Seems the Stuart was as efficient a little killer in the real world as it is in CM.

[coe]

any opinions as to what is the german equivalent of the Stuart in CM?

[Warmaker]

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

About Stuarts as infantry killers.

There's this odd little detail seen in picts of some Stuarts in Europe. A small square plate (maybe 4x4 inch square?) set forward on steel rod 'legs' on the lower bow just beneath the hull mg. The general agreement is that it was a bullet deflector! The Stuart would roll over a fox hole and the bow gunner would point the mg at the plate, which deflected the bullets straight down on top of the hidden infantry. Seems the Stuart was as efficient a little killer in the real world as it is in CM.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

IMO, I think doing that is a quick way of meeting your maker as a Stuart crewman. Don't forget the abundance of Panzerfausts...ouch...

For a pure infantry killer, the plain, cheap Sherman 75 is much more efficient with it's better blast and since it still boats a respectable number of MGs. The Stuart's better suited for finding the German lights and destroying them. Hell, whenever I had PzKpfw IVs I was scared of those Stuarts since they almost always killed my IVs first with their turret speed and ROF. Running the flanks still has uses, but just be careful since anything 37mm up will take it out.

As for the German equivalent of the Stuart I feel CMBO has none. The lightest, turreted tank is the PzKpfw IV and it feels sluggish and is poorly armored in CMBO's timeframe but has an excellent gun. The closest thing to the Stuart is maybe the Lynx but the 20mm doesn't do as much, esp. with only a blast of 6. The best thing it's suited for is removing the halftrack nuisance and flank shots on Stuarts and other light tanks. That and reconaissance.

[Redwolf]

I don't like the Stuarts that much, and that although I usually like fast vehicles.

Mainly because the 37mm is not effective against the front of StuG or StuH. In ladder games, you see lots of StuH and if you don't nail them, your infantry is in big enough trouble to turn the whole game.

The Stuart is also vulnerable to the 50mm AT gun, a very cost-effective item on the CMBO battlefield and you don't want to multiply its effect.

When I want fast tanks (and I usually want them as Allied) I use Cromwells. Cost 25% more than the Stuart, are about as fast in practice, quite (not very) resistant against 50mm and also better when facing HE hits. And come with real guns.

[CombinedArms]

I like to use Stuarts as ambush weapons against tanks, etc. --hiding behind cover and waiting for targets of opportunity. These would include darting frontal attacks on lightly armored AFVs (it's surprising how many German AFVs there are with thin armor and good guns--right up to the Mark IV), as well as flank shots on Panthers and rear shots on Tigers. I've killed several Panthers from the side with these babies. I can't say I've ever actually killed a Tiger with one. As long as enemy tanks or TDs are a presence, though, you can't expose the Stuart for long and live. Hence, lie in wait or move swiftly from cover to cover. If you play a lot of Allies, you're used to this anyway.

If you've killed off the Axis armor with your cagey tactics, the 3 MGs are indeed effective against infantry and the high ROF 37mm is far from useless. As usual with Allied weaponry, don't rely on any one unit to complete the job, but treat it as part of the combined arms package.

Against infantry, I would stand off at first, to avoid 'fausts, then close to maximize MG fire when infantry is well surpressed. As indicated above, this can work great in conjunction with your own infantry, or as a followup to arty if that's already provided infantry supression. Supressed infantry is much less likely to fire fausts/shrecks. A Stuart / Sherman team can also make a good anti-infantry combo--those 6 MG's can keep a lot of infantry down and the two guns give you some blast for your buck. You can also team a Stuart with a TD against infantry, the Stuart making up for the comparative lack of MGs on the TD.

All in all, I used to dismiss the Stuart and I still rarely buy these guys on my own initiative--but I've been surprised at how useful they turn out to be when I'm issued one or a few in a scenario. And as somebody pointed out, there's no German equivalent--that's kind of cool in itself.

[ 06-11-2001: Message edited by: CombinedArms ]

[Grunto IV]

use the stuarts en masse if possible, along with supporting m3a1 halftracks and M8 HMCs.

use this sort of mobile force to 'hit and run' in close-range situations.

the stuart can knock out a panther from the side or rear, and can risk going against a panzer iv from the front. in other words, that 37mm gun is capable of taking out a pz iv from the front. of course, the stuart won't survive a hit from the pz iv so it is a dicey proposition, but possible nonetheless.

anyway, with the stuart think, 'close with the enemy!, side shot!, side shot!, surprise!, hit and run!'

it's definitely not a 'standoff weapon' like a jagpanzer iv, hetzer, or jagdpanther.

andy

[Cubbies Phan]

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

In ladder games, you see lots of StuH and if you don't nail them, your infantry is in big enough trouble to turn the whole game.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

This is why I rarely play QB PBEM games. You can pretty much count on a certain few vehicles. Maybe this will be better in CM2 with a much wider time span and vehicle choice.

[deanco]

I love 'em. This is one of the few units I've played a lot, thanks to a series of 900 pt. armor ME's I played with my buddy where the comp picked the forces. Time and time again they've been the heroes of my battles. I love the MG's, I love the big ammo loadout, I love the HT-killing ability, but most of all I love the mobility. I've had 'em win the game for me almost singlehandedly, and one time a Stuart of mine took out a King Tiger from 500+ meters, front armor. True story. It was weird because the Stuart was in a position where the KT couldn't see it, because it didn't seem to realize that someone was shooting at it. The Stuart fired continuously for at least 4 turns before the KT went down, and it was funny to see all those shells bouncing off.

Anyway, I'm totally sold on 'em.

[PzKpfw 1]

I have always been partial the M24 Chaffee myself, sleek, fast, well armored for its role & armed with a gun capable of dealing with anything up to a Panther frontaly. (Although i have seen Stuarts take out Panther's in CM with turret front penetrations) ......

Regards, John Waters

[ 06-12-2001: Message edited by: PzKpfw 1 ]

[JasonC]

To PzKfw I -

If you like the Chaffee you would love the Walker Bulldog. Think of it as a cross breed Chaffee by Hellcat - LOL. 76mm gun on a Chaffee basically, with 45mph top speed, longer counter-weighted turret. First came out in Korea, though.

On the Stuarts, the interesting thing about them is they are close to what the early war tankers had, on both sides. So when taking on infantry, guns, light armor, you get an excellent sense of what early war armor could do.

But by the time of CMBO, they are really obsolete for any sort of heavy combat. The gun is just not adequate to face any kind of real armor. In practice, they did a lot of scouting and they also got every other sort of duty (armored resupply runs through barrages, ambulance, messenger, FO tank, patrolling long flanks of breakthroughs, etc).

It is interesting that the U.S. didn't use the turretless TD idea to get more combat power out of this chassis, as the other powers did with their successful light tanks. A Stuart chassis should have been easy to turn into a "Marder". Of course, the M8HMC was based on the chassis, but only with a short 75mm pack howitzer.

The Germans put 75 longs and 105mm howitzers on chassis this big. Instead the U.S. used M3 Grant chassis for Priests with 105s, and M4 chassis for M10 and M36 TDs. There were a ton of these things built, and it is a shame they never got a more powerful gun.

They knew the gun wasn't really enough by 1942, when they changed from the M3 to the M5 Stuart model. It should have at least been possible to make a 57mm SPAT out of the chassis. Another possibility would have been an AA tank with duel 37 or 40mm AA, and even higher ROF. Or a quad 50 mount.

[litchy]

Fast and deep. then hide. This little darling is great for ambushing from the rear. Remember, don't go head to head but move and try to flank. From the sides and rear just about anything can be yours, if you can get their.