Crossing open ground

[LampCord]

Hi All!

This is my first post and first of all I'd just like to say this is the best tactical level war game I've ever played by far.

Anyway, back to my Q.

I've been playing a few random battles, pure armor vs. unknown to familiarize myself with armor tactics in a desert environment.

Occasionally, I'll end up with a game in which I need to advance and the terrain is completely flat. The enemy has AT guns in rough terrain and can punch holes in my tanks before I even see them.

With no place to hide other than behind my own dust, how can I cross the ground quickly enough to get to a point where I can see what's shooting at me?

Specifically, is it considered 'gamey' to shoot at the ground in front of suspected enemy gun locations in order to kick up dust to use as a screen?

How about smoke? My tanks will pop smoke out of self defense right in front of them, is there a way to get them to launch it further down range?

I've also tried running one tank full speed diagonally ahead while the rest of the tanks follow behind in its dust cloud to obscure vision.

It works. For everyone EXCEPT the lead tank. He tends to have a pretty rough day. :eek:

Any tips would be greatly appreciated!

[Pirx]

I dont think any of those tactics are gamey. Let me know if they work and I will try them!

Some tanks carry smoke shells (abbreviated "S" in the ammo listing). You can fire at an area target using the "target smoke" command (at least I think that is what it is called). There is no way to control when your tanks pop smoke in self defense.

If there are suspected enemy hide outs visible, such as a building or patch of rough, it's perfectly acceptable to do "recon by fire".

[LampCord]

Thanks Pirx!

I thought I saw something about firing smoke in the manual but when I ran into this last time, none of my tanks had that option. I guess its something to look for in the purchase screen.

[MikeyD]

I've found artillery can be more useful dropping smoke than HE sometimes. Instead of your wimpy 75mm artilley spotter dropping 50 rounds of HE onto that village and maybe supressing the enemy for a few turns you can instead drop smoke onto your own men and their route of march. Get your guys up to shooting distance without being shot at.

One nice thing about CM is a lot of the 'game' solutions to problems are also real-world solutions to problems. Getting incoming fire from a distant building? Well, just blow the whole freakin' building up! Heck, blow up every building you see - its called 'preparing the battlefield'.

[zmoney]

Originally posted by LampCord:

Thanks Pirx!

I thought I saw something about firing smoke in the manual but when I ran into this last time, none of my tanks had that option. I guess its something to look for in the purchase screen.

Well for instance early tanks of all nations usually don't come with smoke. Some of them only have AP rounds avalible.

MikeyD has the right idea. Except I would say drop your smoke on the enemies location instead of yours, especially if your advancing some where. This way it only blocks his sight to you and everything else. Where as if you dropped smoke on yourself you wont be able to see anything around you, so you will not have very good LOS to anything. Plus if you are using tanks you will just simply drive out of your smoke screen and you will be back to square one.

I use typically anything under 105mm for smoke and reserve the big stuff for HE use. But sometimes as a last resort I will use the big stuff for smoke too. It last longer and covers a wider area.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by zmoney:

Well for instance early tanks of all nations usually don't come with smoke. Some of them only have AP rounds avalible.

But the British and the Germans (I don't know about the Italians) all had tanks that did carry smoke. The CS tanks of the Brits and the Panzer IVs. I forget the exact mix, but I think there were 2-4 in every company (squadron). So buy a few for your armor. You might get a mortar spotter too. They are great for putting down smoke.

Michael

[Nemesis Lead]

Lampcord,

It is Rock, Paper, Scissors. Armor versus AT Guns usually results in dead armor. You need to bring (on-map) mortars (preferrably 81mm or British 3 inch) to kill the AT Guns. You can also use artillery, but on-map mortars are more responsive and accurate. Use "area fire" to kill the AT Guns.

If an AT Gun is in a trench or rough terrain, fire two mortars at the AT Gun.

Note that the dust, in very dry conditions, can block the mortar's LOS. This can be frustrating, but stick with it.

It's all about combined arms....

[zmoney]

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by zmoney:

Well for instance early tanks of all nations usually don't come with smoke. Some of them only have AP rounds avalible.

But the British and the Germans (I don't know about the Italians) all had tanks that did carry smoke. The CS tanks of the Brits and the Panzer IVs. I forget the exact mix, but I think there were 2-4 in every company (squadron). So buy a few for your armor. You might get a mortar spotter too. They are great for putting down smoke.

Michael </font>

[JasonC]

I want to echo the combined arms point. The right counter to ATGs is artillery, not charging. That includes on map mortars, and FOs. In CMAK, have the FOs fire HE. You might take out 1-2, and you will obscure the target with gobs of dust about as effectively as you would with a smoke mission. Close on fast while the rounds are falling. Back up into your dust when you want to break contact. Once you are in range to get spots, gain up on the nearest ATGs with a whole platoon of tanks firing HE. By hitting the nearest, and keeping arty falling on and off, you can get a series of many on fews while the rest of the gun line is masked by dust.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by zmoney:

You are correct my friend, thats why I said "early tanks" ie. Matilda and previous for the Brits, PzIII and previous for the Germans...

There were CS Cruiser tanks before even the Matilda came along. The Panzer IV was contemporaneous with the Pz. III. All of those were in NA. I have to note though that you would not expect to find a CS Cruiser among a squadron of Matildas. There was a Matilda CS but I don't know in what numbers they were produced or issued. I don't recall reading about any in NA ops, thought they might have been. I don't know if they are in the game. I don't recall ever seeing them.

Michael

[LampCord]

Thanks everyone for all the great tips.

Last night, I played a bunch of early war German advances in N. Africa along with some Italian.

No smoke, but I used the 'Armor' option in the battle menu instead of 'Pure Armor' so I got support units including mortar and artillery spotters.

I'll have to try the wide target option mentioned above because I still had trouble occassionally taking out AT guns with artillery alone but I did find that if I focused all available firepower on one AT gun to suppress it, I could rush my tanks to a good spot and hammer it with HE and either take it out or get the crew to bail.

I did lose a few armor that way though. Those Brittish 2pdr's seem to murder my PzIII's. But I'm doing a lot better now that I'm using arty than before.