150 infantry gun

[Wingmanx]

I'm sure the infantry gun has already been discussed in depth, but the context of my post goes beyond just that as I'll outline below. First off, a bit background on my own experience so far as I've been learning through playing online.

It's been in my experience that almost every player I've gone up against so far (I'm sure this dosen't apply for all) who takes Germans almost always seems to take the infamous 150mm Infantry gun. I admit at first I didn't know what was so special, until I tried it myself and realized the thing was blowing apart tanks with HE shells and the like, and for a relatively cheap price on top of it.

To be truthful, at first I was discouraged. Especially when I got BB and started encountering it as I was getting used to the Russians while my T-34s were getting slaughtered by this HE chucking monster of a gun.

At any rate, it was in a CMAK game in a small map with just infantry that I had a bit of a revelation that I'm sure any CMAK veteran would just consider common sense, but hey it was a new thought to me. Upon setup, I had a 105 mm howitzer for support, but I -knew- my opponent would no doubt pick up a 150 and pound the crap out of my guys. On a whim, I decided to hide my artillery piece (anyone would do that anyway I assume) but give it a controlled arc so it would not open fire right away even on enemy infantry came into view. I wanted it to just stay put and stay quiet for now. I started the session and, away we went. Sure enough, it wasn't long before I heard that familiar *BOOM* and one of my poor squads was introduced the hard way to the infantry gun, though thankfully they were in good cover and the platoon was spread out at the time, so while the squad was devastated from two direct hits, the rest of the group was fine. Sure enough, no sooner had the boom gone off that I got a definete contact in a certain group of trees on a rise on his side of the map. I knew he'd pick one of those spots to put it but had no way to know which he would choose initially as there were several. Sure the identifier just said 'Gun?' but it didn't take a genius to figure it out. Needless to say on the next round I ordered my Howitzer out of hiding and to fire on where I'd spotted the gun contact, which had now vanished. Two explosions later, my opponent suddenly messages me with a 'wtf did you knock that out with!?' which was supremely satisfying to say the least to know that I'd not only swatted an uber gun but pretty much wiped out his on field artillery in short order.

So now I quit rambling and get to the actual -point- in my post. I know the 150 is considered overpowered by some. But now I'm starting to notice that for all it's strengths it seems to have some big weaknesses too. One of which is much like any other big gun, when it goes off it announces its presence to -everyone-, so you can start dropping something on it's head in short order to keep it busy. What this got me to thinking of though, is what are some other weapons that might be considered 'uber' in the game that a player might be tempted to try and overruse? And how to counter them? Or are there even any others? Someone was warning me about 76mm canister shot but I haven't seen what that involves yet.

[Kingfish]

Sometimes referred as 'Mortar magnets' or 'One shot wonders', the 150mm gun is rarely a good buy. You are better off with a pair of the smaller 75mm IGs, or the 37mm flak, both of which have good ROF and decent traverse. The 75mm Pak40 is another good buy, and can take out most allied tanks.

BTW, the 76mm canister is shot from the T34/76, which can shred an infantry squad the same way as the 150mm IG. Look for the 'C' designation in the tank's ammo loadout. That tells you it is carrying canister rounds. The early PzIV armed with the short 75mm also fields a 'C' round. I think the US 37mm gun carrys one too, and there may be others.

[stoat]

The US 37mm did fire a canister round and they were used by Stuarts, Greyhounds, and 37mm ATGs.

The Japanese developed various forms of canister shells, the largest being an 18in. AA shell fired by Yamato class BBs. These are, of course, outside the scope of CM. There may have been other canister-firing guns in WWII but all that I could find have already been mentioned in this thread.

[Soddball]

There's canister available in the early war for Panzer IVs with the short 75.

[dieseltaylor]

Soddball doesn't read posts! BTW the short barrelled MkIII at war end has it also I think. Regardless of that I did a trial as the Germans knocking out Matilda's with 150mm -- or not as it turned out. I was amazed that several hits did nothing to it. Of course the 105 and 75's were no use either. I take a view that the delicate workings of a 2pdr were not susceptible to violent explosions!

I knew someone who left his 76.2mm firing across a bridge at night. It went rather wrong when he advanced his troops roughly about when the gun ran out of HE. It got 22 infantry kills - and many routed units : )

[junk2drive]

Captured Matildas can be taken out by early USA M3/Stuart I 37mm.

Canister shot is fun to watch fly across the battlefield.

IIRC one of the 8 wheeled German ACs has canister.

[Brent Pollock]

...whichever one has the short 75 mm IG in it, which, IIRC, is the only German canister chucker. If an AFV has that piece, it gets to spew canister.

Originally posted by junk2drive:

IIRC one of the 8 wheeled German ACs has canister.

[securityguard]

I made a huge thread on 150mm tactics awhile back, do a search on it. Has some countering info, but you mostly hit the nail on the head. Yeah, 150mm is a risky buy but in general it's so cheap it doesn't really matter. It can do almost quadruple its point value in the right situation.

A lot of people think the KV-1 is over powered in early war, and it probably is. I think the Panzer IIIJ can counter it but just barely. If you fight early war you can pretty much expect a KV-1 in your fight, so it's just best to examine the tank and find the right gun for it.

[JasonC]

I have never regretted taking 150s, not once. A pair of them are vastly more likely to win me the battle than one additional infantry platoon, or a weak small caliber FO. You just put them someplace where they see what they need to see, but the whole map can't see them. That handles most of the instant counter-fire. They can mess up entire companies in a matter of minutes. And the one that lives long enough to deliver its whole load can level half a town, at 2 shots a minute.

[David Chapuis]

Personally, I prefer 150 SP's. The 150mm stationary guns just take too long to move and will certainly become a target. Whereas the 75mm IGs can move very quickly for a gun, and theyl deliver a good enough punch to break a squad. They also can double as tank killers on a limited basis.

[JasonC]

75mm IGs are fine for breaking point targets, but they do not break entire platoons with a single shot. sIGs do. As for maneuvering them, it often isn't necessary, particularly on defense. They just keyhole or wait on a reverse slope until enough attackers are in view.

On attack, sometimes the start line gives decent firing positions, usually I drop them off once. Occasional slight repositionings to change the angle the look around some keyhole edge. Mostly, they set up, hide, or fire.

Once they've fired they just keep firing every turn, whether they see targets or not. The ammo lasts. They blow up every observable piece of cover in their keyhole. Makes it relatively hard to sneak up the spotter to mortar them. The crest line of whatever slope they are behind explodes continuously. Etc.

[Carl Puppchen]

Not that this is the purpose of the thread but I think the 150 IG is too cheap in battlefront terms if you pick on defense or in QB's. Just like when the 'ol puppchen was 26 points in the original cmbo and that weapon tore everyone up with 88mm fire.

If people always pick the 150 IG and the KV 2 then you are playing opponents that you shouldn't be playing. Once in a while, but it is better to try to win with a more realistic mix of troops.

[securityguard]

150 IG has been under priced for every version of CM, for sure. Anyone who says otherwise has no idea how the game works or doesn't use them right.

I think they're priced at 53 pts (rarity depending) and can easily destroy 100pts+, more if not countered. An 81MM spotter cost slightly more than that and doesn't have nearly the same effect.

Infact, one reason I couldn't play CMBO online anymore was due to 150mm whoring. SMG squads and 150mm guns, man that sucked for online quick battles.

Carl Puppchen, you're right. Most of the time people pick those in competitive play which is why I don't do competitive games. I mostly play online campaigns with friends (using the Robo Campaign Generator) or scenarios / ops. QB's are just too predictable, even with variable rarity + casualties.

[JasonC]

I agree, 150mm HE direct is simply far too powerful, overmodeled, and too cheap. And the sIG is the cheapest access to it. I consider it perfectly appropriate to ban all types of 150mm on map weapon, and all off map stuff over 200mm. But when they are allowed, they rock.

[l.cassidy]

Originally posted by Wingmanx:

what are some other weapons that might be considered 'uber' in the game that a player might be tempted to try and overruse?

Apart from the "usual" uber-cats (Tiger & Panther), I think the Brummbar could be a serious candidate for overruse (expecially with rariry off). Bigger ammo loadout and an armor that is light years better than the other 150mm sp. guns make for a real match winner.

Don't get too cocky with this beast, though: the other day I wanted to whack the AI a little, so I bought a couple of Brummbars for the purpose.

OK, let's not consider the one that got bogged in a place that had LOS over... nothing.

"**** happens", I thought, "I still have the other one...". So I moved the other Brumm with a "hunt" command to smash a puny T70 that had the guts to come up and play: T70 fires, missed. Brummbar fires, missed. T70 fires, gun hit...WTF? GUN DAMAGED! AAARGGHHH!!! :mad: :mad: :mad:

In despair, I punched the ALT + A keys and called it a day.

Even if you sport a Brummbar, always play it safe, because the Murphy's law lies in wait.

Cheers

Cassidy

[David Chapuis]

Originally posted by securityguard:

150 IG has been under priced for every version of CM, for sure. Anyone who says otherwise has no idea how the game works or doesn't use them right.

I more or less disagree with that. It is an extremely powerful weapon, but the sIG is easy enough to kill once spotted. Unless it is keyholed, in which case its usefulness is drastically reduced.

I'd take a pair of 75's over a 150, unless I knew my opponent had no mortars. But, like you say, maybe I dont know how to use them right.

[JasonC]

Since you think their usefulness is "drastically reduced" when they keyhole, yeah, you clearly do not know how to use them right. It is what keeps them alive long enough to deliver large portions of their ammo loads (which are huge, much larger than SP 150 vehicles for example, and a big part of why they are underpriced).

Keyholing done correctly does not appreciably reduce their firing time. They do not need to see everything, just something. They do not need to fire until their arc is well populated with targets. Then they clear it and they keep it cleared. If you can't see how to use that to construct a strong defense then you obviously haven't constructed a lot of solid "closed" defenses before.

They make covered locations full kill zones, while lighter fire handles distant open ground areas and infantry handles close approach. Those zones are then integrated with TRPs, minefields, and each other, to conceed some areas to attackers but smash them after they enter others. When you can plan on an entire large wood or a large stone building being a death trap instantly, the moment a sIG opens up, obviously you can make much stronger defenses and incorporate a wider variety of traps, than when heavy cover actually protects attackers.

Meanwhile on offense, keyholing works by walking the seen locations through the enemy position, ahead of attacking infantry. Only a spot about to be attacked needs LOS, therefore that is all that gets LOS to the keyholing gun (or AFV, they do it too - are better at it, even).

A sIG has so much powerful ammo it can blast every turn, area fire, once set to handle a given area. Before the enemy has time to react to his knowledge of the sIGs presence there, the area is inundated with 150mm HE and then close assaulted by infantry, minutes behind the shells. Where is the mortar spotter supposed to set up? If that area is in its blast zone and then overrun, the spotter won't live long enough to take the sIG out.

Also, attackers can afford much lower levels of attrition impact than defenders can. A pair of sIGs that take out a few squads are breaking even. A pair of sIGs that break two platoons are over the attackers "useful attrition" threshold by a factor of 3. If it also takes the defender significant ammo to take them out (half an FO, a mortar's entire load), even higher.

[David Chapuis]

Originally posted by JasonC:

Since you think their usefulness is "drastically reduced" when they keyhole, yeah, you clearly do not know how to use them right. It is what keeps them alive long enough to deliver large portions of their ammo loads (which are huge, much larger than SP 150 vehicles for example, and a big part of why they are underpriced).

The sIG does have a huge ammo load, but in my experiences that advantage is very seldom exploited. Their lack of mobility is what makes them appropriately valued.

Originally posted by JasonC:

Since you think their usefulness is "drastically reduced" when they keyhole, yeah, you clearly do not know how to use them right...Keyholing done correctly does not appreciably reduce their firing time. They do not need to see everything, just something. They do not need to fire until their arc is well populated with targets. Then they clear it and they keep it cleared. If you can't see how to use that to construct a strong defense then you obviously haven't constructed a lot of solid "closed" defenses before.

I dont really disagree with your tactics - just that you think the 150 is under-valued.

Once you clear a key-holed location, to continue expending ammo does not necessarily increase the value of the gun. Key-holed or not, if you can fire 10 shells from a 150 sIG on enemy units, your opponent has made a mistake. This is not true for the 75mm. When the 150's extreme lack of mobility is compared to a 75mm gun, its value seem appropriate to me. Or you can compare to an SP's mobility and reduced ammo load.

And I dont consider the SP ammo load numbers too small. The 150's usually have 7-10 turns worth of HE, which on a 30 - 35 turn battle is plenty. Two rounds of HE into one spot, and it is time to manuever those boys. By the time you relocate and repeat 3 times, the game will be over.

[securityguard]

Does anyone actually move AT or Infantry guns mid QB battle? How does that work? The first turn you fire with the gun, everything sees it. It will almost always be fired at and the gun will abandon, unless your opponent is unlucky and doesn't have mortars. If he doesn't have mortars, then theres no reason to move it - huge waste of time.

I'm not saying the 150mm can't be countered, or isn't easily countered - it is. However for 53 points theres almost no reason not to take the risk with one since they are so immensely powerful. Even if you only get a turn of shooting out of them they can change a battle drasticly. Two turns of area fire will almost assuredly result in devestation if it's appropriately placed. Two 75mm Infantry guns are a good purchase but if your opponent is prepared than you end up spending more points for less damage (depending). 150mm gun does nearly 5x the damage of one 75mm in just one shot! 248 blast value VS 47 blast value, for only 25 points more. It is a bargin no matter how you look at it!

[ August 14, 2005, 03:52 PM: Message edited by: securityguard ]

[stoat]

My 150s remain stationary. If the enemy can take it out, bummer. If he can't, then my gun can fire every turn without movement and setup delays.

[David Chapuis]

75mm Infantry Guns are fast enough to move and escape enemy mortar fire. they can also reposition and find another good target without using transport.

150's no chance.

[Nemesis Lead]

150mm infantry guns are only one of the many reasons why one should almost always bring medium mortars to a fight.

When attacking and you fear the enemy has 150mm IGs...don't bunch up, use scouts, and never move units (other than scouts) into areas that are not overwatched by mortars.

When defending and you fear the enemy has 150mm IGs....think about using reverse slope or close in defenses (completely nulifies them), don't bunch up, and bring mortars with good fields of fire and/or covered routes should you need to reposition them to fire on an IG.

In both attack and defense, you can also use smoke to blind 150mm IGs, move your threatened units to safety, and then mortar or direct HE fire the hell out of the IG. They are so slow that they are relatively immobile.

Personally, I don't use these things much for reasons mentioned above. They take a long time to set up, move slowly, reload slowly, and cost a lot vs. 75mm inf guns (damn cheap). Often the inf gun will break an inf squad or two before it is knocked out. Not a good trade in most cases.

150mm IGs are devastating in those situations where they have some time to work (e.g., when your opponent has no mortars or his mortars are not overwatching properly). Having said that, a good player will deny you this opportunity (for reasons mentioned above).

Also--one needs to consider overkill. A 75mm inf gun will reliably break squads while a 150mm inf gun will nearly annihilate them. In my mind, breaking a squad is sufficient--you don't need to annhilate it to get it out of the fight. They extra damage you do does score some points, but is "wasted" killing troops who are out of the fight anyways.

Are they overmodeled and/or underpriced? I don't think so. I think they are VASTLY OVERRATED by players who don't know how to fight them. 150mm inf guns will absolutely slaughter those who do dumb things like bunch up in treelines without mortar overwatch. The amazing thing is that people do not learn to respect and counter these bad boys.

[JasonC]

The amazing thing is that people who think they are good at CM believe it is physically possible to overwatch every keyhole location that bears on places their forces have to move through. Their countermeasures only work against dumb wide LOS gun deployments. They also say things like "use reverse slopes, they completely counter them" without noticing the same is true of mortar countermeasures. Somebody has to crest. And if there is a sIG on his side, the crest is exploding.

[Kingfish]

Commenting only on the CMBO guns, I ran the following test:

1x reg 150mm IG (94 points)

3x reg 75mm IG (33 points each for 99 points total)

Area fire for one turn

150mm IG fired 3 times. That averages out to 1 shot / 20 seconds. 3x blast factor (164)= 492

3x 75mm guns fired a total of 22 times, for an average of about a round every 8 seconds per gun. 22x blast factor (35)= 770

3 guns will survive longer in a CM fight than one, and with a higher ROF and quicker traverse can cover a larger area.

[YankeeDog]

Blast is not linear, so you cannot simply add up blast ratings and get a good idea of the relative effect of weapons systems.

One very important difference is that a single 150mm HE shell landing near a tank will quite frequently cause gun or track damage. In my experience, you can area fire 75mm shells near a tank all day, and only rarely will you cause damage. Another big difference is the effect on buildings -- 1-2 150mm shells will knock down a large building, often before enemy infantry can get out. It takes a lot of 75mm shells to do the same, meaning that any enemy inside has a chance to escape.

Nevertheless, IMHO sometimes 3 75mm guns are more valuable than one 150mm; it all depends on the details of terrain, tactical situation, etc.

In my experience, against good human players, most guns 75mm caliber and larger get 1 good turn of action -- it's only the really small ones that can go several turns as a sound contact that really have longevity. Once a gun is spotted, a human player will mark their position, and bring in mortar fire or Arty. Sometimes, you can extend their usefulness by moving them before the mortar fire comes in, or using other tricks, such as JasonC's keyhole + "keep firing" trick with a 150mm, but to my mind, but only occasionally do I manage to pull something like this off against a human player of similar skill and competence to my own.

The AI is another matter. All you have to do against the AI is hide the gun for 1 turn, and it completely forgets where it is. Then you can unhide it up again when an new target shows, rinse, repeat, etc. But this is a "stupid AI trick," and will get you burned against human players.

So to my mind, the chief advantage of the 150mm is that it can easily take out a medium tank, or destroy 2/3 of a platoon in a single turn of action (2-3 shots), thereby "paying for itself," even if it does get taken out by mortar fire or whatever thereafter. And often, I can score a few more points by using JasonC's area fire trick to fire off a few more shells into possible enemy positions -- the area of effect of the 150mm shell is quite broad, so you only have to get in the general vicinity of enemy units to score casualties.

In my experience, it's harder to kill 33 points' worth of enemy with a 75mm gun in a single turn -- certainly not impossible, but harder. 1 turn of 75mm fire ususally panics a squad, and causes 3-5 casualties, or somewhere around 10 points' worth, depending on the quality of the squad. Of course, the 75mm more than pays for itself if you take out a tank with a HC shell, but that takes some luck and cooperation from your opponent, except in tactical/terrain situations where short LOS mitigates the 75mm IG's poor accuracy at range. And you really need to know the precise location of enemy units to do any damage with 75mm area fire.

Since you ran CMBO tests, Part of it may be a CMBO vs. CMBB & CMAK difference. In my experience, the AT performance, both in accuracy and BAE, of the 75mm IG is substantially toned down in CMBB/CMAK. The addition of crew panic modeling also makes large HE considerably more effective against armor. Infantry also panics and breaks more easily in CMBB/CMAK, and stays broken for much longer, meaning that when a single 150mm shell kills 1/2 a squad, the remainder may well stay broken, and therefore combat ineffective, for most of the rest of the battle.

But in a nutshell, I get 94 points out of my 150mm IGs more often than I get 33 points out of my 75mm IGs. I dunno, perhaps it's just play style.

Cheers,

YD