M13/40s

[coe]

I just got CMAK. So I played a small scenario with M13/40 tanks aginst Cruisers (Mk. I). It was kind of funny... with the M13/40s you could hit but it often wouldn't kill. With the Cruisers, the 2-pounders would hit the M13s and KO them in one shot. Though I had an italian tankette with it's machine gun cause a Cruiser to explode. I tried to put the italian tanks in an unexposed position so that all they had to do was to hunt up a slope 5 meters to expose their gun and start firing and I waited until the British were 2-3 hundred yards away and were exposing their flank. Yet when I did this, my veteran tankers (against the regular british) were often unable to get the shots off first and in all times got the worst of the exchange.

(the idea was this, I didn't want my tanks on the slope to already be exposed to the open field because there was a slope on the other side where the british would come over, and that would have led to hull down vs. hull down as they ambled over their own ridge so I waited out of sight till the british went over the hill).

Any ideas, will the hull down tactic work with regular German tanks instead of the mobile coffins?

Conan

[MikeyD]

Hi coe, hope you're enjoying CMAK.

Its funny your bad luck with M13/40s. Before CMAK came out everyone was expecting the Italian tanks to be meat-on-the-table, and they were shocked sometimes to find them handily besting the Brit cruisers! If you were to check the Brits you might see a "burns easily" line in the vehicle stats, and laughably thin armor. And the 2 pounders are firing solid shot, which usually means multiple penetrations to get a kill.

To the Italian's disadvantage, I think they're pretty much blind when buttoned-up (like BT fast tanks in CMBB). That one fact may have made all the difference. Sounds like you had a touch of bad luck with your M13/40s. My only advice is with most-all early war tanks (except the Matilda) use it as though it was unarmored, because at ranges under 1000m it might as well be. That means a lot of "Shoot & Scoot", and maneuvering for cross-fire and rear shots so you can nail him before his turret swings around.

[stoat]

Hull down tactics work with any armored vehicle. The only problem is that since all of the hits on your vehicle come on the turret, they are quite frequently fatal in early war scenarios.

It seems to me you just had a single bad go with the M13/40s. I've discovered that they're a good match for everything British up to the Crusader IIIs. What seems to work best for me is having multiple tanks target the same enemy tank. One on one exchanges are too unpredictable, whereas two or three on one will generally always go in your favor. You don't have to have armored superiority over the entire battlefield. Try to gain it in a small part of the field, and then expand this as you overwhelm the enemy armor.

[note] This has been another tip of questionable worth from someone that only pretends to know things.

[MikeyD]

"...problem is that since all of the hits on your vehicle come on the turret..."

Ah, you just reminded me of that old running argument from the CMBB side about hull-down vs the PzIV! I think the eventual consensus was it may be a bit safer to NOT be hull-down with the PzIV. With hull-down the only hits will be against the 50mm turret front, as opposed to the 80mm hull front. with this game engine the decreased chance of being hit isn't enough to offset the guaranteed turret hit.

[Other Means]

Did you use cover armor arcs? Use them to concentrate the commanders minds on a specific area.

[Aco4bn187inf]

There's also the question of rate of fire and accuracy at range, comparing the 2 pounder vs. the 47mm. Did anyone make a chart of those things for CMAK?