Sergei Posted January 6, 2004 Share Posted January 6, 2004 Am I the only one here who has a tendency of getting hooked to the excitement of situations like "okay, that PAK killed now two T-34's of mine, but if I send in a third one, surely the gun will be killed!" when the intelligent thing would be back off a bit and find another route, or drop smoke, or sumpting... if a gun has killed two tanks already, then the third one probably won't have much of a chance either! But it's just like with gambling... "Okay, this time I'm gonna hit the jackpot!" I have no resistance, hopefully I'll never go to Las Vegas. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dugfromthearth Posted January 6, 2004 Share Posted January 6, 2004 no, when a gun takes out 2 of my tanks I sulk and think of excuses. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joachim Posted January 6, 2004 Share Posted January 6, 2004 In that case I'd send 3 tanks - in a coordinated move. Well, at least that's what my brain says. My story: I send a IIf to help my grunts in a narrow street. Enemy light tank shows up in the same street. It kills my IIf and peppers my infantry, but is behind some Ivan grunts. No problem. I send in a IIIj(late). IIIj hunts around the corner... aims... ooops. The light tank has a T34 in tow. 98% hit, kill ok, 2 seconds command delay, 10 secs pause, a reverse order and 3 Tungsten rounds later, the IIIj (safely) reverses after wasting the tungsten rounds, while I send in a StuGIIIf/8. The Stug appears to find one T70 and 2 vet T34s running berserk. 2 turns and several inf casualties later, the green StuG killed the T34s while the PzIII and a PzIVg(early) move towards my left flank, where the infantry had to kill 1 KV and 4 T34 lingering there for 8 turns. The PzIV hunts for the last vet T34 there. The PzIV calmly rolls along a street, avoiding dirt on its tracks. Both tanks sporting exposed flanks when contact is made. The crack PzIV gets the first shot. Hopefully hits some distant vessel on the Volga. The T34 stops blasting at the nearby factory edge and gets off a shot at my tank. PzIV turret front or hull side at 200m. The result is obvious. Do I finally have to pay for my arrogance? It hits the turret front. No damage (???????) Bruaaaahhahahahaha. The PzIV scores. Did I Mention my reserves hiding on the left flank? 1 Tiger, 2 StuGs, 8 PzIV g and 4 PzIIIj. But why send overkill or even Über-Tanks? Play fair, give the enemy a chance! Gruß Joachim [ January 07, 2004, 08:15 AM: Message edited by: Joachim ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sergei Posted January 6, 2004 Author Share Posted January 6, 2004 Interest stories... in a recent engagement (Italy 1945) I had five Pz-IV's. Green, one conscript. The enemy is Crack. I had already destroyed one Sherman 105 that had wandered too far to front. The Ami player had now just a Sherman 76mm and a Stuart up against me. Piece of cake? Remember, it's crack... distances are less than 500 m due to hilly terrain. I'm unable to coordinate forces properly, and so two of my tanks get into an engagement with the Sherman and get killed. I decide that I have to kill the Sherman before my opponent can strengthen it with that Stuart. Again, coordination fails - now Sherman can deal with them one by one. You know what happens. So, then there's one green PzIV within 500 m from a crack Sherman. Meanwhile the crack Stuart has destroyed my SPW with 20mm autocannon on my left, leaving the infantry on their own. In that kind of situation you just have to pat your own back and say, "well done, even I couldn't have done anything like that", then remember that it really was me who did it. By then you'd at least have done enough "recon" to not send the last PzIV forth... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stikkypixie Posted January 6, 2004 Share Posted January 6, 2004 no you're not the only one, ever played CMBB cracking the egg? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Emrys Posted January 6, 2004 Share Posted January 6, 2004 My solution is to never send one tank or one squad where there is serious work to be done. They just die...one by one. There's strength in numbers. I keep platoon of infantry together and under command. I deploy tanks in pairs or better whole platoons. That way, if one gets knocked out, the rest of the platoon has a chance to nail the killer before they buy it too. "The art of strategy is never having to fight fair." I believe in not only kicking the enemy while he is down, but gouging out his eyes, ripping off his balls, and generally leaving him in worse shape than he was when he kissed his mama goodbye. :mad: :mad: :mad: Michael 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joachim Posted January 7, 2004 Share Posted January 7, 2004 "The art of strategy is never having to fight fair." (Michael Emrys) "Strategy is buying a rubber before going out on a date. Tactics is groping around in the dark after you've dropped it under the car seat. " (Michael Emrys) Welcome to the club of "those ignoring their strategic genius and trying to solve problems tactically that were never meant to be solved tactically". Founding members: Sergei, dugfromearth, stikkypixie, Joachim. Gruß Joachim 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
undead reindeer cavalry Posted January 7, 2004 Share Posted January 7, 2004 my main PBEM opponent is precisely of that type. it's no fun in the long run. first you plan for hours and then you watch him waste his tanks one after another. ugh. what a let down. absolutely no satisfaction. some examples follow. i have managed to get a jagdpanther into a good hull-down position. with great planning i manage to get the flanks secured with my limited resources. now, what does my opponent do? well, what do you know, he drives his 8 shermans, one by one, in front of the jagdpanther. snack, crackle, pop. oh god. how frustrating. i wasted hours in planning the way to secure the flanks and this idiot just drives his shermans into the jagdpanther's LOF one by one. why on earth didn't he try to flank or something! in gods name, what was he thinking?? getting a really special lucky shot?? another example. i am facing a horde of IS-2s and ISU-152s with just a couple of StuGs and a single PAK. the PAK is in the most obvious of all places possible and i spend hours in planning the strategy for the stugs. but what is this? what is this?!?! he drives ALL his tanks right into the LOF of the single PAK and they all get wasted, one by one. 3-4 tanks / turn. they don't manage to return a single shot. god have mercy on my distress! i would go on but my brains hurt too much. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joachim Posted January 7, 2004 Share Posted January 7, 2004 Originally posted by undead reindeer cavalry: my main PBEM opponent is precisely of that type. Play vs. the AI next time - it is a real challenge compared to that opponent. Gruß Joachim 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sergei Posted January 7, 2004 Author Share Posted January 7, 2004 Or give him a +200 % bonus. At least you'll have to be careful with your ammo levels. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andreas Posted January 7, 2004 Share Posted January 7, 2004 In a recent game, my opponent insisted on driving his T34s so close to an unreconnoitered forest edge that I could knock out one of them with a Panzerschreck. Then he decided he would drive a Sherman behind my lines in an attempt to destroy my T34s. He did not reckon on a PAK there. I wished he had sent more than one tank there. Puuuuuuuurrrrr 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesT73J Posted January 8, 2004 Share Posted January 8, 2004 I've not tried human opponents yet, for this very reason! I think you can easily get into some bad habits versus the AI, certainly the 'Vegas mentality' displayed in the first post affects me playing against the computer. I only recently bought CMBB, having had CMBO for a little while, and heartily enjoying it. After downloading what felt like a million megs of patches I tried a quick mission game (God bless whoever designed this format. It's heaven!). I played Axis attacking on a reasonably flat map with moderate tree cover (which turned out to be the village type with diagonal road crossing so familiar in CMBO). Things went surprisingly well. For a start, the AI opened up with a medium tank at extreme range. Educated in CMBO, I expected instant death for the Medium tank he was shooing at. In fact all his shots ricocheted, and my tank plugged him effortlessly in one shot. So far so good. The trend continued, and I was able to steadily advance right on top of him. Here's when I got sloppy. He had two guns (I never found out what they actually were!) right at the back of the map, next to each other in a small wood. They were actually quite ineffectively placed, only able to cover the bottom quarter of the map, and limited in LOS by the village buildings. Well, idiot here marches 3 medium tanks in. They got knocked out one at a time. Should have learnt my lesson after the first. So I sent two half tracks in left and right, to try and supress them. Both got knocked out. Eventually I brought my 50mm mortar man into a house nearby and just Arty'd them..but you get the point. I broke all my own simple rules about mutual support and coordination...again. I won the scenario, but couldn't help but think a human opponent would have harried me all the way, and generally made life difficult. Shame the AI still tends to open up far too early on these quick maps. It encourages my laziness. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sergei Posted January 8, 2004 Author Share Posted January 8, 2004 Not to mention that you even hit that Sherman with a Panzerschreck on its way, but with no damage. Soon all that will get accounted for, Andreas. You coward-punk. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andreas Posted January 8, 2004 Share Posted January 8, 2004 It does feel so good to rub it in... James - you need to play real humans in order to get to know CMBB. The AI is just there to be kicked. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Loke Posted January 8, 2004 Share Posted January 8, 2004 Unfortunately for a noob like me, it's the AI that's doing most of the kicking :eek: [ January 08, 2004, 02:27 AM: Message edited by: Alan Loke ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimmy81 Posted January 8, 2004 Share Posted January 8, 2004 Reverse tends to be a very useful thing when you end up stumbling upon a situation where shot after shot takes out your nicely organised group of tanks. Especially true if your against tigers and you're using crappy American Shermans which seem to blow up if they hit a bump in the road. I used to send one in after the other or at least try to nail the attack after he took out the first tank, but if you're against proper armour there is very little you can do in a head to head if you're the allies. If you're the Germans then half the time you've got some massive firepower. Defending is easy, you just hide your tanks all over the place hull down like traps all over so when he gets close you nail him easy. If you lose one then its no big deal coz there is another in another position waiting for him to move a little further forward. Keep them safe and out of sight I say. Let the infantry fight until you can get close enough to blast them within kill range, by sneaking around to the sides or forcing them into engagments in another direction, then attacking from the rear. If you're fighting with crappy tanks closing the range just totally evens out the problems of armour penetration and you're probably going to have smaller, faster tanks. The problem is basically the terrain and approach points and if you can't hide them until they close the range you die horribly! That said, if you've got some big armour on your side then head to head is a good option. Until you meet the bigger tank round the next bend, and you lose your lead tank, then the next tank, then the next one..... :confused: 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manchildstein (ii) Posted January 10, 2004 Share Posted January 10, 2004 yes it is very tempting to throw good troops after bad... in search of that 'quick score' which can 'get you back into the game' but alas.. it usually causes a player to fall 'farther behind' instead... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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