flamethrowers

[Redwolf]

MOS, if you fire the flamethrower at units that are not supressed, not running and not exhaust, they usually get away intact.

Thus, you need the supression not only to protect the flamethrower, but also to make it effective. Unless the fact that the enemy went away is enough for the purpose at that moment.

If you are against enemies in good cover (foxhole, buildings), you need small arms firepower around 150 or 30 seconds mortar fire from 81mm or 3", 60 seconds from 60mm or 120 seconds from 2" to make them so head-down that you can move in the FT.

FT teams in Kangaroos driven behind a building that provides cover work more often than not and can disrupt the opponent's plan in a major way.

They could also be used against hunn-style counterattacks with SMG units.

Also note that the British flamethrower is better than the U.S. Historically, the U.S. should have more ammo for the shorter range.

[willbell]

I want to test FTs out now to see what all they can do.

My only contribution (since I am a fairly new player) is to say that in WWII the flame throwers were used pretty much for bunkers and tunnels. Any constricted space makes them nasty. In a building you can just run the other way.

[Ex Bellator]

If you want fun with flame on the attack then the Churchill Crocodile is definitely the way to go. Mind you, it is expensive fun!

100m flame range, big armour, tons of fuel, and a 75mm HE and MG's attached. I've burnt down whole villages with one. German Infantry were terrified of them in RL and when you've used them you can see why.

Hopefully your CMBO has arrived in England by now, I had to wait 2 weeks for mine to get here but that was a while ago. I can't praise this game enough so I hope it gets to you soon.

[Slappy]

I've only found 2 uses, both defensive.

1) Limited Visibility on Defence. Put them in woods, among dug in squads. The attacker can't tell what they are until they start flaming. This will usually 'panic' at a minimum. It will also flame a section of woods, channeling the attack around it.

2) Fire buildings along routes of attack to deny cover. You can usually get 1-4 fires out of a FT depending on luck. This makes artillery and DFHE more effective. It also may force the attacker to change attack route during the attack causing delay and confusion.

As far as using them on the attack: Not worth a damn.

For soft targets, if I could suppress the enemy enough to walk a FT up to it, I woulden't need the FT.

For bunkers, grenades will do the job in 90sec most of the time from the rear. Given the terrible speed of FTs, they will be lucky to arrive earlier.

Side note: You would be shocked how fast a Veteran armored crew will bail if you can get 2 FT bursts off at them. My guess is that there is no way to actually kill an AFV with a FT in the mechanics, but they will sure run.

[JonS]

I've just managed to use a pair of them, in combination with a pn of engineers, some artillery, and a few Shermans and halftracks, to take out a 75mm PB closely supported by a rifle pn and some armour. There were quite a few other forces a bit further out, able to cover all approaches to the PB which was was defiladed, and causing havoc with my attack by being able to fire clear across the map.

The FTs created a smokescreen by torching some handy scrub. This allowed the rest to move up closer to the flank of the PB. The artillery was dropped on the supporting Heer pn just behind the PB. With the 'smokescreen' screening the troops from the rest of the battlefield, and the engineers, AFVS, and Artillery suppressing the close stuff, the FTs were able to crawl near enough to torch the PB from the flank. Took ages for it all to come together, but waddayaknow ... combined arms tactics work

Regards

JonS

[Sir Uber General]

I have to say the Churchill Croc is definately the baddest flaming ass of them all, and is one of the reasons I love playing commonwealth over the other allies. Very hard to stop one if he moves up with an infantry screen in front and a TD or two covering his flanks and rear. Nasty, and has really high survivability despite being an incoming fire magnet.

SUG

[Stacheldraht]

Don't forget those inexpensive little Wasp flamethrower carriers, either. Obviously, they lack the armor and heavy firepower of a Croc, but they're cheap and fast. In swarms, they can torch whole towns in a few turns. As long as they're working in concert with infantry (as all vehicles should when anywhere near the enemy), they're effective on the attack or defense, particularly in urban areas, where the can move between buildings for cover--and then torch them should some Germans stupidly pop their heads out

[ 01-23-2002: Message edited by: Stacheldraht ]</p>

[Boo Radley]

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

I've only found 2 uses, both defensive.

You can usually get 1-4 fires out of a FT depending on luck.

.<hr></blockquote>

Are you talking about American FTs? Mine have always run out of juice after one session.

[Berlichtingen]

I find them to be effective on attack and defense. On the attack, it does require that you aren't attacking over open ground

In forests or urban settings, I break one squad of the platoon down into teams. I then form up the platoon with one team out front, two squads and one team on line with the platoon hq and the FT teams in the rear. The lead team scouts for the enemy. Once the enemy is located the platoon moves forward (usually sneak) and lays down fire on the enemy. The FTs crawl forward to firing range and will usually not be spotted until the unleash their first shot... the enemy rarely sticks around for a second. Another trick that I just learned that works on the attack is if the engineers are mounted in HTs... If you move the HTs into FT range of the enemy and plot the FT to dismount at the point that the HT is going to halt, the FT will dismount and fire... usually before drawing any fire. This meathod works particularly well if you have the HTs with squads dismount first, thus giving you supressing fire from the squads as well as the MGs from the HTs

[Sir Uber General]

Berl: exactly!

Dont mention this in the FT thread on the other board though JasonC might bite your head off

[Berlichtingen]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Sir Uber General:

JasonC might bite your head off <hr></blockquote>

Won't keep me from using them

[Yowie]

Besides what Berli wrote (which I totally agree with), FTs are also very effective at night attack since they don't get spotted as easily.

Also with FT, just discovered something interesting (after playing CM for 18 months), my FT got shot dead while riding on the back of a moving jeep. :eek:

The FT corpes just dropped off the jeep, and the jeep kept moving without slowing down at all! Never seen that before. My experience has always been - jeep gets abandoned first, then the passenger gets shot.

Interesting.

[ 01-24-2002: Message edited by: Bad Dog ]</p>

[Berlichtingen]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Bad Dog:

Besides what Berli wrote (which I totally agree with), FTs are also very effective at night attack since they don't get spotted as easily. <hr></blockquote>

My most satisfying victory took place at night in dense fog. This was a QB early on in my CM playing days (post beta-demo & demo of course). THe lone VL was a building... which my opponent rushed to occupy... with everything he had. I surrounded the building with my engineers (sneaking and hiding of course)... and then burned the building. The piles of bodies around that building was... gruesome

[Berlichtingen]

Another trick I have used to good effect involves defending in towns...

Instead of putting the FTs in the front lines I set them up behind the front line buildings... hidden with ambush points set to the back edge of the building. When the pressure becomes to heavy for the troops holding the buildings, they fall back to the second line of defense... the attacker (cheered by his success) naturally occupies the building... only to set off an FT ambush

[athkatla]

Originally posted by JAK:

Don't get pissed over 1 and a half weeks arrival time Alex, I lived within 3 states of BTS and it took me 8 days including the weekend for my copy to arrive. Hope this helps, and be paticent its well worth the time it takes to ship!

Jake

I ordered my copy on the 17th June, its now the 20th, and I recieved an email from amazon.co.uk this morning, saying it had been dispatched by Royal Mail, 1st class, I am expecting it to arrive tomorrow, and yes, I live in England

[xerxes]

I've gotten brutalized a lone FT of JxSpoons. He was in a city and I was attacking. His flamer hit a building with two of my squads, they ran out into the open and were mowed down. My third squad in a nearby building moved up to get LOS on the FT and opened fire. The FT was not surpressed, returned fire, burned my building and my squad spilled into the street to be be cut to ribbons. Basically one FT was the proximate cause of the demise of an entire platoon of mine. To add insult to injury the FT pulled back and survived the rest of the battle.

An FT team helping a defense in the city can be invaluable. No matter what anyone says tot the contrary.

[ June 20, 2002, 09:31 PM: Message edited by: xerxes ]