Question: How to get infantry use panzerfausts against enemy armor?

[Ligur]

Just finished a TCP/IP where a M8 Greyhound controlled a small flag for 6 minutes against a platoon of my regular German riflemen. The last three minutes the Hound just stood there, buttoned, and I had 3 squads with fausts sitting at under 50 meters. I had had them all target the Hound for at least 4 minutes. Only one squad used the Faust and missed. The rest just threw grenades and shot the kar rifle. And smoked cigarettes probaply.

"Look Hans, a Tommy AFV."

"So it appears, Herr Oberst."

"How amusing. Kamarader, let us smoke cigarettes."

The platoon is being shipped to the Ost Front at the moment.

The flag was left uncontrolled. I lost with 16 points.

So, my question is: How the hell do people get infantry to use those fausts or riflegrenades? Under what conditions? Sometimes they seem to do it on their own, sometimes what described above happens. I know they are not AT assets, but still. Having a single light AFV laugh at a platoon of men who are equipped to drop it infuriates me.

[Phantom Captain]

"Look Hans, a Tommy AFV."

"So it appears, Herr Oberst."

"How amusing. Kamarader, let us smoke cigarettes."

That was funny!

You don't get your men to use fausts, they use them at their discretion. Yes, it can be frustrating. I think their experience level definately has something to do with it, as veteran or crack troops will be more apt to discharge their fausts. Also helps if they have a side or rear shot and are as of yet unspotted. Otherwise it's just luck of the draw.

[YankeeDog]

Yeah, it's pretty much a position and pray thing. In my experience, infantry is much more likely to use it's faust in a situation where the AFV has not spotted/engaged it yet.

I'm not really sure targetting the AFV with a nearby squad makes it any more likely that the squad will use it's faust - usually when I target the and AFV with infantry, they just shoot small arms at it, or some grenades if it's close enough. I have more success just hiding the infantry and either setting an ambush where the AFV is likely to go, or just unhiding the unit when the AFV gets really close.

Unfortunately, this doesn't really help in a situation where you are trying to assault, rather then ambush the AFV. For me, even a buttoned AFV usually spots approaching infantry, even if they are crawling or sneaking, before the infantry gets into really good faust range and as mentioned above, the infantry is unlikely to use the faust once they're under fire. I had some success once having two squads rush the front of the AFV to distract it while I sent the third squad in a long arc around to get behind the AFV and hopefully pop it with it's faust. It worked, but the two frontal assault squads were pretty much hamburger by the time the Sherman was taken out.

One other thought - Greyhounds are open-topped. Actually, your squads had a pretty good chance of taking out that M8 with grenades. They may not have used their fausts because they thought they could get the job done with grenades and didn't want to use their big bang when they didn't have to. Come to think of it, I can't remember if I've ever seen a squad use it's faust against a light AFV (lighter than a Stuart, anyway). It may be more a matter of you having extremely bad luck with your grenades than anything else.

My pet peeve is when my infantry uses it's faust against a zook team it stumbles across in the woods in a foxhole, and then doesn't have it later when it gets a good ambush position on a tank. :mad:

[Specterx]

Once I had my veteran SS Panzergrenadiers ignore a platoon of Cromwell tanks that motored on by them and fire their faust at a CARRIER. They missed.

The AI for faust/riflegrenade needs to be improved IMHO, I would think that a squad with any kind of AT weapon would fire it immediately if an enemy tank came down on them...

[Das Reich]

I am leathal with German infantry squads against tanks.

Usually the trick is to have the element of suprise on the AFV in question. Or hope they stray too close to you. The German squads can really do serious damage against tanks, more so than their Allied counter-parts seem to be able too. But usually troop experience, element of suprise, and firing distance are the most important factors. Your best chances are within 30m, and allot of troops will seem to get nervous if they approach an AFV who has spotted them to get into position to attack it.

[YankeeDog]

Originally posted by Specterx:

Once I had my veteran SS Panzergrenadiers ignore a platoon of Cromwell tanks that motored on by them and fire their faust at a CARRIER. They missed.

The AI for faust/riflegrenade needs to be improved IMHO, I would think that a squad with any kind of AT weapon would fire it immediately if an enemy tank came down on them...

Wow. I've never seen that before. :eek: Maybe they were trying to fire the Faust at the Cromwells, but didn't have it ready in time, so they just fired it at the next thing with wheels that came along.

I'd agree that the faust/riflegrenade Tac AI could use some improvements, but I can't agree with you that a squad with an AT weapon would always fire it at an oncoming tank. Fausts especially make a lot of noise and smoke, and require the user to get at least partially upright to fire them. There's also a substiantial amount of preparation that needs to be done before firing. There are positioning issues, too - you have to make sure there's nothing directly behind you like a rock, tree or wall that could reflect the backblast towards you. On top of that, while the faust had a pretty good chance of killing even a heavy tank if it hit, it was rather innaccurate.

Given all of this, imagine you're the Sargent of a Volkgrenadier squad hiding in some bushes next to a road. There's a Sherman coming down the road almost straight at you. You have one Panzerfaust. If you ate your wheaties this morning and you think your soldiers are ballsy enough to pull it off, you have one or two of your men spray the tank with small arms fire while the guy with the faust tries to get the shot off from a different angle. If you are feeling more like you want to see another sunrise, or if your troops just don't look like they're up to the task (tired, low morale, or just plain inexperienced), you probably just hide and hope the tank doesn't see you as it goes by - and as long as it's buttoned it probably won't and you'll live to fight another day.

So for regular squads and below, I don't think the squad would fire the faust all of the time, or even most of the time, even if a good opportunity presented itself. I think the chance of firing the faust would go up substantially, though, if (1) the squad was of veteran experience or higher was in a high hit/kill percentage situation on the tank (otherwise, a veteran squad would know that firing the faust would probably just reveal their position and get them killed), (2) the squad had more than one faust, or (3) it was a situation where more than one squad with fausts was assaulting the same tank at the same time - I think this would improve morale since all the units would feel like there was a greater chance of success.

I'm not sure what factors CMBO uses to determine faust usage. Morale, chance of success and experience definitely seem to play a role, but I'm not sure how much and what else goes into the Tac AI's firing decision.

My big complaint about the Tac AI with fausts is that a squad with a faust will sometimes open up on a nearby tank with grenades and small arms, even if they do have a faust (like Ligur's experience above). I suppose this might happen sometimes with less experienced troops - one member of the squad might panic at the approach of the tank and open up before the faust firer is ready. Most of the time, though, this strikes me as highly unlikely - if I've already decided to assault an AFV, and I have a faust and a potato masher, you can be damn sure I'm going to try the faust before I try the potato masher unless I am assaulting a very light armoured vehicle where the grenade has a good chance of taking it out - the grenade is not going to raise a big cloud of smoke around my position and get me machine gunned if I fail to KO the AFV.

The above does not hold if the squad is already under fire from the AFV. Here, I think CMBO has it dead on - since the soldier with the faust has to rise up out of cover at least to a kneeling position in order to aim and fire the weapon, it's going to take a lot of guts (and luck!!) for him to do this with MG rounds and shrapnel flying all around him.

We should have lots of opportunites to practice our faust usage in CM:BB considering the overwhelming numbers of Russian Steel that were used on the eastern front. . .

Cheers,

YD

[Lanzfeld]

LIGUR....

You said that your squads were about 50m from the M8? What kind of faust's did you have? If you had the 30's.....no way. Even the 60's you would probably need to get closer to the M8. I find the infantry will usually fire around 50% of the fausts range.

[wbs]

My experience has been the same as Lanzfeld's, as stated above...

[Ligur]

Originally posted by Lanzfeld:

LIGUR....

You said that your squads were about 50m from the M8? What kind of faust's did you have? If you had the 30's.....no way. Even the 60's you would probably need to get closer to the M8. I find the infantry will usually fire around 50% of the fausts range.

True, true, what I ment the whole platoon was inside 50 meters. I few squads were particularly on top of it. Under 20 meters. The damn thing didn't even return fire anymore, just stood there. GRRRR.

In the past, I've dropped a slew of heavier vehicles with just fausts. But this instance motivated me to post here.

I guess the key is to ambush and fire from the rear. Come to think of it, that is how I've managed to do it in the past. I just figured side is just as good if the squad is not getting suppressed or targeted.

I hope the platoon enjoys fighting Siberians more.

[Lanzfeld]

Is there any chance that your squads wouldn't fire for fear of hurting other squads near the target? Is this modeled in the game? I think it is. If a faust hits the M8 and it goes BOOM it may wipe out some close squads. It's the only other thing I can think of. Move all squads away except for one behind the target at a range of lets say 20 meters and see what happens. Keep them in command too.

The battle is over by now probably though.

[ March 10, 2002, 11:23 AM: Message edited by: Lanzfeld ]

[YankeeDog]

Originally posted by Lanzfeld:

Is there any chance that your squads would'nt fire for fear of hurting other squads near the target? Is this modeled in the game? I think it is. If a faust hits the M8 and it goes BOOM it may wipe out some close squads. It's the only other thing I can think of. Move all squads away except for one behind the target at a range of lets say 20 meters and see what happens. The battle is over by now probably though.

I can't say for sure, but I really don't think so. I've had squads use Fausts, grenades (which would be even more dangerous to friendlies), and even demo charges when they, or another squad from the same platoon were right on top of an AFV. It might be the case if there were two squads, say, both directly behind the AFV, but one slightly closer - then the more distant squad would have to fire *through* the closer squad to hit the AFV. You could set up a test, but it would be kind of a pain in the @ss.

[Lanzfeld]

I am sure BTS would know and I kinda hope they would chime in here.

[CrapGame]

Trying to get your squads to use their 'fausts, PIATs or rifle-grenades?

Just play me. My AFV's seem to be walking billboards for enemy infantry units.

I can have a squad cowering under supressing fire from a whole platoon and heavy weapons, and as soon as I bring an AFV into range to finish them off, they will miraculously arise and put a faust through the glacis at 25m. Every time. It's like a bad movie. The enemy unit will then go right back into suppressed mode, and leave me more pissed than ever.

[Silvio Manuel]

Originally posted by Ligur:

True, true, what I ment the whole platoon was inside 50 meters. I few squads were particularly on top of it. Under 20 meters. The damn thing didn't even return fire anymore, just stood there. GRRRR.

There's a good chance that the Greyhound was out of MG ammo, they don't carry much...only about 60 for the .30cal and ~15 for the .50cal. If your opponent wasn't giving it the "use main gun? yes" command, that might explain it. You may even have been able to rush it a bit closer...those 37mm firecracker don't do to much against a full Pn attack. Food for thought...

btw, what variety of Faust were you using? It sure doesn't sound like Faust/100m variant.

[EvoRoadster]

CrapGame, LOL, that was good. I too have been there.

[Silvio Manuel]

Originally posted by CrapGame:

Trying to get your squads to use their 'fausts, PIATs or rifle-grenades?

Just play me. My AFV's seem to be walking billboards for enemy infantry units.

I can have a squad cowering under supressing fire from a whole platoon and heavy weapons, and as soon as I bring an AFV into range to finish them off, they will miraculously arise and put a faust through the glacis at 25m. Every time. It's like a bad movie. The enemy unit will then go right back into suppressed mode, and leave me more pissed than ever.

I can sort of relate to that. Last night I had a Vet. Rifle Squad kill a StuH 42 with a Rifle Grenade. However, the Squad wasn't targeting the tank- in fact it was facing 90 degrees behind it. Even so, the Grenade just flew out.

OK, so they weren't suppressed, but my point is perhaps the Rifle Grenade/'Faust targeting algorhythm operates independently from normal squad small arms fire? Clearly suppression should still be factored in, I believe the Manual covers that.

[Tank Man]

See those 5 green squares there?

Don't knock my Fausts cause thats one dead scout car.

[Commander Slip Digby]

Originally posted by Ligur:

Just finished a TCP/IP where a M8 Greyhound controlled a small flag for 6 minutes against a platoon of my regular German riflemen. The last three minutes the Hound just stood there, buttoned, and I had 3 squads with fausts sitting at under 50 meters. I had had them all target the Hound for at least 4 minutes. Only one squad used the Faust and missed. The rest just threw grenades and shot the kar rifle. And smoked cigarettes probaply.

"Look Hans, a Tommy AFV."

"So it appears, Herr Oberst."

"How amusing. Kamarader, let us smoke cigarettes."

The platoon is being shipped to the Ost Front at the moment.

The flag was left uncontrolled. I lost with 16 points.

So, my question is: How the hell do people get infantry to use those fausts or riflegrenades? Under what conditions? Sometimes they seem to do it on their own, sometimes what described above happens. I know they are not AT assets, but still. Having a single light AFV laugh at a platoon of men who are equipped to drop it infuriates me.

[Commander Slip Digby]

Ahhhh - i get it. Hey, i'm a Commander - what the hell did you expect.

I had the same problem with three, yes count them THREE Panzerfaust units, just sitting there, watching the Allied armour (I was Axis This Time - they seemed to be winning) trundle past without a care in the world.... damn spies.

I always wondered - if the chances of winning a battle are greatly increased by using spies, why not make ALL your troops spies. at least when your attacked all your men will be on their side and they won't have anyone to fire at.

Makes sense to me. Now where are my dried frog pills.. BURSAR!!!!