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Flamethrowers vs. Armor


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JJL,

I wondering if any of you have used flamethrower teams against tanks or armored cars and what results have you seen. I'm about to spring a concealed team on a friend of mine (our first PBEM of CMBO) and don't want to waste these precious German lives if unnecessary.
In a long ago BB tournament game, from a small wooden building, one of my Ruskie FT teams killed a PzII as it drove past that building on an adjacent road. :eek: It was most interesting, gratifying, and a quite unusual occurance.

Many, many moons ago, in a BO game, an American FT team on the top floor of a two story building killed a German halftrack. tongue.gif

Otherwise, I have not seen FT teams kill any other vehicles. Thus, I would not bet the usefullness of FT teams versus vehicles. However, if you are set up to spring a trap, do it. It should be fun filled experience. smile.gif

Cheers, Richard

[ February 17, 2004, 10:29 AM: Message edited by: PiggDogg ]

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When playing in a campaign, if there is no suitable use for flamethrowers in the current fighting, I use them to torch abandoned enemy vehicles. Prevents them being used against you in subsequent battles if the enemy has good repair and recovery. Use available cover, though, because the explosion of the vehicle can be dangerous to the FT crew.

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I have had a flammpanzer [tank] take out a T34/85 with three jets at about 50 metres as it came around a lump in the hill. The other T34/85 coming from another direcrtion backed off and an infantry squad assuming the death of my tank got flamed at the end of the move.

And this was against a reasonable player .opies of the CMBB film are available ... :D

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as someone posted earlier, the tank crew may not know what is firing on them. one moment they're cruising along hoping not to be blasted by an AT crew, next their tank is on fire!

i cant begin too imagine what that would feel like. looking thru a vision slot and all i see is flame.

i can guess primitive feelings like "i must run" come to mind and being trapped in a burning vehicle or sitting it out and seeing if fire goes out takes more balls than i care to speculate on.

a large negative moral modfier would be in order with any flame attack i imagine, hence the bailings

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Originally posted by dieseltaylor:

I have had a flammpanzer [tank] take out a T34/85 with three jets at about 50 metres as it came around a lump in the hill. The other T34/85 coming from another direcrtion backed off and an infantry squad assuming the death of my tank got flamed at the end of the move.

And this was against a reasonable player .opies of the CMBB film are available ... :D

Nah, we all know you cheat. That's the only way you could be beating me as bad as you are right now.
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Originally posted by Valancourt:

Right close in. Have actually completed that game without razing the building Do I presume that targetting the building and selecting `use main gun' -> yes will activate flamer rather than cannon automatically? (For future reference) Tx

I'd try "No". The main gun is the 75mm, the flamer is in a MG slot....

Gruß

Joachim

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Have you tried flamethrower tanks?

I used a Russian one in a CMBB town game recently and he set the whole joint on fire!

Good thing was he was deadly from quite a range, and the German boys who seemed happy and secure in their large stone buildings were suddenly reduced to refugees on the streets.

For town games, I think a flamethrower tank might be top of my shopping list from now on. Very impressive!

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  • 10 months later...

Know it's been a long time since anything's been added here but figured I'd add one instead of start a new posting about it.

Had a QB I played vs the russians (cmbb) in around 1942ish, computer determined all units so I ended up with some realy bad tanks with only 30mm armor vs some t34's. There was only 1 flag and it was in some woods on a hill closer to me than him. I setup this brutal defensive screen using the SMG's and 2 FT teams.

I guessed perfectly as to where the AI( i know I know .. but I just wanted to play) would come up to attack. I had a staggered line of smg's and regular infantry squads with my 2 FT's in between and about half as many squads in the rear as reserves. It was a brutal masacre, if my smg's didn't get them and they got too close .. the FT's finished them off. I was out numbered at least 3-1, the only real casualties I took were when I tried to deal with the t34's that came near the woods. I'd send my squads out to throw packs and some got gunned down before it happened. Still got all the t34's with my infantry tho!!

But the Ft's realy helped in this since I'd probably have been overwelmed from all the enemy troops. All the FT's lived to fight another day!

Wamphyri

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I find that in my limited experience (AI only...so far...) that I can assault with FT in tandem with lots 'O smoke.

Advancing on trenches and fox holes from as little as 10m is incredibly effective!

Twice I have plunged FT through smoke (While supressing /w Inf.)and devastated defence positions.

One of those times I broke a squad just by showing up! I guess the sight of my fire vomiting teams advancing thru the smoking hell of war was just to much!

I have yet to try FT on vehicles but I am very glad this thread has been "ressurected".

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Can't comment on the reality in battle, but in the year I've been playing the game, my best moment came when my hidden FT opened up on 3 Russian BT model tanks. They had moved up seeking cover from the building my team was hidden in. In the next one minute, all 3 were toast! Used all my fuel, but sure was nice to see the 3 smoke plumes in a row (universal distress signal).

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  • 1 year later...

I will bring back this post by saying that I took out a T-34 with a FT. I didn't even tell them to fire on it. Then I suddenly see a blast of fire and bye bye tank. He survived for like five more rounds but did little more damage but scare away the remaining tanks.

Tim

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Unless meticulously maintained, any internal combustion engine is bound to have drips and leaks

which are combustible, as are rubber hoses, as is wire insulation. This was true of gasoline powered mowers I used as a kid and even more so of combat vehicles. Aircraft have to be maintained to very high standards in order to fly, but just look at all the drips and runs on them. Tanks are much worse than aircraft in this regard. Also, crews tend to stow personal gear on the outside of their tanks, interior room being at a premium, and bedrolls, packs and the like burn nicely, as do the camouflage nets commonly found on many AFVs. It's even more exciting if jerrycans of fuel, boxes of grenades and spare ammo are externally carried.

Tanks have these nifty things called intake ventilators, and guess what happens when the tank is suddenly sheathed in flaming sooty hydrocarbon?

We know ventilators can be significant because a King Tiger crew abandoned ship after a WP round set the bedrolls on fire and the smoke got sucked in, causing the crew to believe that the tank was ablaze. I believe the entire T-34 family had no bulkhead separating the engine compartment from the fighting compartment.

In closing, I believe that JasonC's statement about depriving the crew of oxygen may well be off the mark. If a flamethrower can do that to the crew of a pillbox, then if a suitable opening exists, it ought to be possible to do the same to an AFV. A pillbox can't possibly be any more crowded than a StuG crew was, and many pillboxes were several times larger than that. Shall have to check my ORDNANCE IN THE FIELD Army Green Book to see what it says on the matter in its extensive flamethrower coverage.

Regards,

John Kettler

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