Blast Radius

[Mustang]

Okay... I am playing valley of troble, american.

2 questions:

A: Those MG bunkers are annoying and deadly as hell. It's too long to wait to whack the 75mm pillbox and let my tanks take it. Can I reduce it's effectivenes if I have a 60mm mortar or two drop HE right in front of the firing slit and hope some shrapnel zips in?

B. My computer enemney is bright enough to put barbed wire in front of the town, and (presumebly, minefeilds). I am wreathing my troops in a pall of smoke before they rush in. I intend to lift my 105mm barrage moments before they rush in to town, getting the maximum effect from it. You must have noticed that off-board arty just saturates a good sized area, so can I expect a couple big-assed stray shells to perhaps blast away some wire or savage a minefield?

[Kingfish]

A) Won't work, so save your ammo for more lucrative targets like MG nests or rifle squads. I've dropped 14" arty on pillboxes, with some rounds landing 10 meters away. In real life the PB crew's heads would have exploded from the blast, yet they were untouched.

Neither mines nor barbwire are affected by arty fire. Mines are only removed by Engineers. If it is a daisy chain mine then just move the Engineer unit next to it. After a turn or two the mines are gone. If it is a regular AP or AT minefield then the Engineer will need to throw a satchel charge onto the field to clear it.

Barbwire remains for the duration of the game, as do roadblocks.

Hope this helps

[Silvio Manuel]

To that I would add that you can only spot "real" (non-Daisy Chain) Anti-Tank mines by driving a vehicle over them- boom. I'm pretty sure that any troop, esp. the higher quality ones, can spot

Anti-Personnel mines before someone steps on 'em.

[Olle Petersson]

Just wanted to add that there's a huge difference between bunkers (those made of wood) and pillboxes (concrete).

The only use for artillery on pillboxes is to blind them in smoke.

Bunkers can easily be knocked out by direct hits of HE.

To knock out a pillbox from a distance you'll have to direct fire HE through the firing slit (while the pillbox crew shoots back at you) or, if possible, direct fire AP or HEAT at the door on the rear.

Cheers

Olle

[JasonC]

For the AT gun pillbox, avoid its covered arc with your tanks until the tank reinforcements arrive. You can then either take it on with multiple tanks from different directions, or wait and flank it with infantry, if you've gone far enough forward by then. Use smoke on it as needed before then, but try to get out of its firing area (into low ground, or way over to the left, etc) to conserve ammo.

For the MG pillboxes, just put a tank, buttoned, in their covered arc. They will put a round through the firing slit quickly enough, and the MGs can't touch them in reply. You can also kill them from the rear with engineer demo charges at close range. Flamethrowers and bazookas have a chance, but are too vunerable to the MGs themselves if used from the front, and too ineffective otherwise. The trick here is to get a tank on them without being in LOS of the AT bunker, or while the AT bunker is smoked.

The wooden bunkers you can KO with anything except rifles and MGs. Bazookas are good at it, but tanks are still the best because they don't have to worry about their MG-only replies.

Avoid wire. Just go around. There isn't enough of it to force you to actually go through it. If you find mines, avoid them. Engineers can clear them by remaining stationary right next to them, though they do it rapidly only if not under fire, and for all but daisy-chain AT mines they will expend a demo charge doing so. Usually avoidance is easier. The only exception is clearing roads for tanks. There it is nice that AT mines don't effect the engineer infantry at all.

Since the various bunker positions support each other, you have to plan the sequence in which you take them down. If you do it right, knocking out the first one can get you to the flank of the next, and so on, unraveling the defense in sequence instead of trying to tackle it all at once. The nastiest by far is the AT bunker, at its position will often make it the last. A route in from your left, then rolling up left to right, works well on the default positioning of the bunker. With free placement, you have to find it and establish its covered arc. Everything else can be taken out easily by using the proper tool.

As for the "arty then rush the town" story, it isn't the best way to go about it. 105mm arty doesn't do all that much to infantry in buildings, especially stone. It is best at hitting infantry in trees, or gun positions (not bunkers). The best weapon against buildings is direct HE from tanks. The reason is that near misses are more common with indirect arty, and a shell that lands outside does little to men inside a building. Direct HE from tanks will hit the building - it is accurate enough for that. Which will always hurt the guys inside, and even demolish the building itself pretty rapidly (especially the Sherman 105s).

Methodical attack works better than any sort of massing and rush against the built up defense you see in Valley of Trouble. It is much more important to get the *right* assymmetric engagement than to mass or charge somewhere or smoke or prep fire in general. It is a paper-scissors-rock thing.

You want to eliminate one position after another with the least loss possible by using the right weapon. Then move forward through the areas that enemy position covered, and set up your next assymmetric engagement with the next enemy position. Stay out of LOS with everyone not needed for the particular fight currently "on deck". Lead with the infantry, to discover the enemy positions. Then get them into cover until you have the right heavy weapon - arty fire mission, tank, zook team, engineers, whatever it is - set up to take out the item holding you up. Take your time. (There actually is some need for speed, but not nearly as much as you might think).

You also don't have to go through every part of the map. Pick a route and clear everything along it, dismantling just the positions that can stop you there. Much of the defense will be put out of action by doing this. It will just be in the wrong spots, facing the wrong way. Or infantry out of position will have to move through the open to get over to your route.

Keep your losses down by *not* exposing the wrong unit types to enemy weapons, the kind that can hurt them more than they can hurt back. Thus, enemy guns you take out with indirect fire or mortars, not by exposing infantry. Enemy MG bunkers you take out with tanks, not infantry. Enemy infantry you take out with 105mm artillery (in woods) or tank HE (in buildings), before mopping up with infantry. Scout with infantry, not with tanks. You get the idea.

I hope this helps.