ChinaWins999 Posted November 19, 2003 Share Posted November 19, 2003 The tank when playing strategic command i find the most commonly useful or produced unite for me is the Army because it has no problem aginst any unite just a little bit slow now please help me out what is tank good for and when should it be mass produced? and how to deploy tank? just questions about tanks answer please! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChinaWins999 Posted November 19, 2003 Author Share Posted November 19, 2003 THis might sound like a bad top but i could not find anything in the search regarding tank. I could not find any use for my tank because the army seems to do all the work please help me! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerseyJohn Posted November 19, 2003 Share Posted November 19, 2003 Aside from their speed, tanks do a better job than infantry attacking cities and fortresses. If you hit Gibraltar with air attacks and three tank groups it falls more quickly than if you were only using infantry. Their main weakness, for me at least, is it's too easy to run them out ahead of their support, especially in the USSR. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChinaWins999 Posted November 19, 2003 Author Share Posted November 19, 2003 Jersy thx for the help I have played dozens of game i really did not notice any difference between tank and army beside speed. when attacking fortress i always reduce the entrenchment to zero before attacking with army and tanks seems to be to expensive and no good! Maybe is just i am a damn bad player but tanks is got be good for something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerseyJohn Posted November 19, 2003 Share Posted November 19, 2003 China, you sound like a damn good player, not a bad one; you're asking all the right questions. And you're right about reducing that entrenchment value first. If you've got them, and they're a luxury item, rockets L3 and up are ideal for that job, reducing strongholds before spending casualties on them. Another good thing with armor is attacking opposing infantry when they've got low anti-tank levels. L3 or L4 tank against L0 anti-tank infantry is murder! [ November 18, 2003, 10:09 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Les the Sarge 9-1 Posted November 19, 2003 Share Posted November 19, 2003 Tank vs Infantry. Compare this question to "right tool for the job". Tanks are good at doing what they do, but often they are not better merely by being tanks. They cost a lot more than a corps for instance. If your situation needs a corps, you use a corps. Tanks for the most part are an attack weapon. Therefore, they are the wrong tool if you are planning on "holding" the terrain. If the unit is merely a speed bump, then maybe an army is too much. And if you are playing layered defense, Maybe two corps cover the ground better than one army. I have seen guys hammer me with a tank unit, then I take out the tank unit with infantry. Doesn't always happen though. Tanks are not enough on their own as well. The best way to deal with when and where issues, is to look at the terrain and the defense. How far are you going, and what is in the way. One last thing, tanks are usually no better than infantry if you forgot to bring your airforce. You lay a beating on the defense with your air, you soak off the damage with your infantry in near hexes, and then you use that tank(s) to cause damage in the rear. You can't just drive a tank up to a prepared defense and smash it with a tank as if the tank was a do all sledge hammer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terif Posted November 19, 2003 Share Posted November 19, 2003 In the manual is a section with the "terrain values" against the attacks of different kinds of units. Fortresses (4) and cities (2) have a better defence value (doubled !) against tanks than against infantry (2/1). Therefore it is better to attack them with armies and not with tanks. On the other side Oilfields for example have a defence bonus against infantry, so tanks have advantages when attacking there. Where are tanks the most useful ?: In my opinion they are primariliy for breakthroughs and to cut off enemy units. Sometimes they can be useful to defend key positions in Russia, but only very seldomly. A typical use for them is: - armies kill an enemy unit in the frontline - tanks from the second row move through and into the gap - tanks are very good in defence, if the enemy attacks them, the attacking units will be very damaged after the attack and most likely be destroyed in the counterattack - if there are two breakthroughs in the north and south, tanks from both sides move to the middle to meet each other and cut off the enemy front-units. - armies move forward and destroy the cut off units, while tanks hunt down the fleeing ones. - in case there is no real enemy frontline, they can use their speed to move around, cutting of enemy units (killed later by the slower armies) taking some ressources or reaching key positions to hold them until the infantry closes up. [ November 19, 2003, 04:27 AM: Message edited by: Terif ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerseyJohn Posted November 19, 2003 Share Posted November 19, 2003 Thanks for posting that Terif, I always figured fortresses and cities would be hard targets and tanks would hit them better. Going on that assumption it always seemed tanks did the job more quickly but I reckon I was wrong. Thanks again for the correction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terif Posted November 19, 2003 Share Posted November 19, 2003 Youre welcome, Jersey John. Things like this also happens(-ed) to me . I still have some habbits/tactics from the beginning. In the past I somehow thought it would be good to do it this way, and didnt check it since this time again...but thats the way it goes: you always can learn something new (not only) in SC - especially after 7 patches with a lot of changes . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerseyJohn Posted November 19, 2003 Share Posted November 19, 2003 "... especially after 7 patches with a lot of changes ..." Hadn't quite thought of it that way but you're right Terif. A lot of good tactics in the original are completely changed now. That could be part of the reason Hubert's hesitant to make another; at this point the system must be convoluted from it's original design and probably it's a matter of undoing and rerouting two things that work to fix one thing that doesn't. You've got a good point about learning new things, it's still a fairly complicated program even if the player interface is simple. In one recent game I noticed for the first time that the Suez arrows disappear after the Axis captures the port. A simple detail, but I never happended to look at the Moroccan coast before in that situation. Just a few weeks ago I was wondering if the Axis could transit Africa; the answer was right in front of me! [ November 19, 2003, 08:17 AM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terif Posted November 19, 2003 Share Posted November 19, 2003 I had a similar experience only some days ago: One of my axis airfleets was standing in Africa (near Tripoli): first it intercepted an enemy airfleet, then a bomber from Malta attacked it - so far so good. But then the same axis AF - that had already intercepted in this turn - intercepted the bomber attack on itself. An enemy carrier now intercepted my own AF intercepting the bomber... It was the first time I saw this, but it was quite funny . We never stop learning new things...in life and SC. [ November 19, 2003, 09:13 AM: Message edited by: Terif ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ErrantRecce1 Posted November 19, 2003 Share Posted November 19, 2003 Immer, I did share my brain storm.. The oldsters.. the really annoying ones.. and you ALL know who you are.. not the ones silent majority like, the other ones.. I have a name for you.. THE GET ALONG GANG... I thought it was soo "clever you could pin a tail on it and call it a weasel" .. Baldric, Black Adder I'm assuming you didn't find it nearly so brilliant and eye gougingly wonderous as I did? drat.. back to the drawing board. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ErrantRecce1 Posted November 19, 2003 Share Posted November 19, 2003 Please ignore the above, my bad, wrong thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Friendly Fire Posted November 20, 2003 Share Posted November 20, 2003 I played a game a while back where I experimented with tank tech instead of air tech, with the goal of using massed armor and infantry to pummel soviets. Discovered that this is not cost effective. It seems Armor units lose effectiveness quite quickly in the face of Anti-Tank defenses (despite advances in Heavy Tank technology). Best to use Tanks for reasons Terif describes: cutoff the enemy, make lightning strikes, and also they are great for counterrattacks. my recollection is something like this 1. lvl 0 tank vs lvl 0 army (e.g. france) does well 2. lvl 2 tank vs lvl 0 army (e.g. opening moves in USSR) entry does very well 3. lvl 2 tank vs lvl 2 army takes more damage than it inflicts. In terms of MPPs such an attack is counterproductive. 4. lvl 5 tank attacking a lvl 2 infantry still takes signifiant (and expensive) losses 5. lvl 0 tank versus lvl 2 infantry, bad idea. Of course there are lots of other factors, supply, HQ, experience, entrenchement at play. But these are my general impressions. has anyone tested this in detail? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaka of Carthage Posted November 20, 2003 Share Posted November 20, 2003 Friendly Fire Yes, the details of Armor combat has been worked out, along with combat in general. Here are the reasons you remember what you do, and why Terif is offering the advice he does. A Tank Group uses its Soft Attack factor when it attacks a Army or Corp unit. Since there is no R&D tech that increases the Soft Attack factor, you cannot increase the ability of a armor unit to do damage against a infantry unit. For the infantry though, its a different story. An Army / Corp uses the Tank Defense factor when it defends against a armor unit. The Anti-Tank tech will increase that factor by one (1) for each level. Hence... Armor (4) vs Army (2) if both are level 0. Armor (4) vs Army (5) if both are level 3. Guess who gets the worse of it as the tech level increases? Then we get to a Corp. Armor (4) vs Corp (1) if both are level 0. Armor (4) vs Corp (4) if both are level 3. You now run into the problem, that a tech level increase will increase the factor by one (1), regardless if its a Army or Corp. In other words, Russian Corps with A/T tech, are the last thing the German Armor want to attack. This last part is a little more difficult to understand, so let me make the general statement first. The strenght point increases that each tech give you, will have little or no effect on combat losses. It will allow you to absorb more damage of course, since you have more strength points to give. Otherwise, its insignificant. Here are the details... For each Attacker Str pt over 10, will increase defender damage by 0.13. For each Defender Str pt over 10, will increase attacker damage by 0.067. It basically means, that you need an extra four (4) str points for the attacker to see an extra point of damage being given to the defender. The above, as well as the effects that experience bars have, produce results that some of us feel are wrong. If you track down the effects any change will have, is why many many posts ago, I've suggested that we need to do something to get the ability for the Russians to bleed the Germans thru attrition. You don't see the effect when the Reds fight the Greys. But you do see it when the Russians fight the Germans. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Friendly Fire Posted November 20, 2003 Share Posted November 20, 2003 Thanks a lot for the post Shaka, this explains exactly my results. So is the Heavy Tank tech good for anything? Perhaps only to counter enemy tanks? But is it worth it, you can counter enemy tanks with high strength infantry... This looks like another reason games fall into this very predictable pattern: Axis - lots of air, armies, and enough tanks in the early war to encircle soviets. Primary Tech: air, air. air. USSR - Lots of infantry. Primary Tech: AT, IT I haven't seen a lot of variations to this theme in the AARs, except maybe some players use rockets. [ November 20, 2003, 03:56 AM: Message edited by: Friendly Fire ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaka of Carthage Posted November 20, 2003 Share Posted November 20, 2003 Friendly Fire With slight variations, the strategies you described for the Axis and for the Russians are winning strategies, which is why everyone eventually uses them. Rockets make no sense, if you can purchase Air. The only way to break the above, is to be a good enough player that you can win despite using a weaker strategy, or change the conditions that force you to employ that strategy (ie use house rules). PS... the only advantage (once the enemy starts to get A/T tech) for Armor, is the action points. [ November 20, 2003, 04:06 AM: Message edited by: Shaka of Carthage ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Desert Dave Posted November 20, 2003 Share Posted November 20, 2003 Yep, poor old clanking tank is somewhat limited in its usefulness. The longer you play, the more woeful and bedraggled it becomes. BUT, early in the game, it has great utility, especially in Russia BEFORE they have gotten much if any... anti-tank tech. Encirclements, resource nabbing and clouting the behind-the-lines AFs for example. So. What is the ideal number? I would say... 4. Any more than that and you are wasting MPPs, IMO, which could be better used elsewhere. Besides, later you can deploy the VERY inexpensive Corps in a similar sort of mobile adventuring. No doubt, the SOON-coming! Can't wait! SC2... will provide a more menacing and longer lasting blitz-tank. With a better and stronger sloping armor configuration so to deflect the upgrades in anti-tech. :cool: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KDG Posted November 20, 2003 Share Posted November 20, 2003 No doubt, the SOON-coming! Can't wait! SC2... will provide a more menacing and longer lasting blitz-tank. With a better and stronger sloping armor configuration so to deflect the upgrades in anti-tech. Amen brother. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kurt88 Posted November 20, 2003 Share Posted November 20, 2003 stronger sloping armor configuration Like the Super Deflect Mouse. Hit me ! C'mon hit me goddamit ! C'mon you suckeeeerrrssssss !! [ November 20, 2003, 02:33 PM: Message edited by: kurt88 ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Desert Dave Posted November 20, 2003 Share Posted November 20, 2003 Hooray! kurt88 ... you have said it far better than I... great action pic! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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