A squad's special weapons...

[Ezmartini]

I'm a little confused on how to use special weapons, such as satchel charges, fausts, rifle grenades, etc. When in range of, say a tank, does the squad automatically use it? If so, what is the maximum distance for a charge or a rifle grenade? Thanks, Matt M.

De Oppresso Liber

[Guest Babra]

The squad will (or will not) decide to make use of these weapons under the appropriate circumstances. The player does not control this, but it is not "automatic" in the sense that they are guaranteed to be used.

[JasonC]

They fire automatically, as the other fellow said. The rifle grenades will generally be used at 50 meters or less, and are nearly sure to fire only when a vehicle "bypasses" an infantry unit with one, driving through the same or an adjacent tile. Even then, the infantry needs to be relatively unsuppressed, and can miss. I've taken out StuGs (from a flank) and Pumas with them. They seem to penetrate around 35-40mm of armor.

Demo charges are point blank weapons, at close combat distances - around 10-15 meters, in the same tile basically. Their effect against infantry is laughably small - about like a grenade - so forget about trying to use them to kill infantry in buildings or foxholes. They can KO bunkers or the rear of pillboxes, and can take out armor if you get lucky. Engineers (only) that have one remaining can also use it to blow a lane through a spotted minefield to "clear" it, in ~30 seconds to 1 minute. They have to be stationary within about 20-25 meters for that.

German fausts are overpowered rifle grenades, in the above sense. They can take out just about any armor, but their effective range is about half the listed range rating (15, 30, 50 meters for the three types), and they can be frustratingly slow to fire. The best chance is from ambush, with the shooter unspotted and unsuppressed and the range ~20 meters, or 40 meters for the best faust 100s. A platoon ambush marker from their HQ while within command radius, also seems to increase the chance of their use.

If you think of all of them as confering a close combat ability against enemy armor right on top of your squads, provided they aren't pinned or panicking, you will have the general idea.