help with scenarios.

[wupwupzoidberg]

im going to play against my cousin alot soon because im going over soon but i keep loosing as allies. i usuraly get a couple of m10 motor carrages as armour to take out any stugs ( he uses them most) but he also always uses a 150mm infantry gun wich can take it out easily. how can i identify them and take them out easily

[DavidFields]

The usual counter against guns are mortars. Medium size.....even the tiny ones can be effective.

It helps that most people put their guns in woods, so you get treebursts.

And I don't think those 150mm infantry guns are very stealthy (unlike the Flak guns in the Crete operation, Descent on Maleme--I still have nightmares hearing but not seeing those things) So you might even be able to trick you opponent into firing at some infantry at range, with a motar/HQ combo of yours overwatching and making a deadly counterstroke.

[Bannon DC]

Agreed. Mortars. Even better is to have the mortars in command with an HQ. That way you can move the HQ around as the spotter and be able to bring the gun under fire quicker.

A 150mm is no AT gun. Your opponent would do better by scaling down to a 75mm AT gun which would be slightly more stealthy and quicker to load and fire... and more accurate and deadly.

[stoat]

The downside of facing a 150mm is that its shells will knock out anything you bring to the party. It'll disable or blow up tanks, and has been known to wipe out whole platoons of infantry. That means that until you locate the gun, you will have to operate in fear of the damage that first shell will wreak.

That being said, your opponent should only be able to get off one or two rounds at the most. The 150mm has a very slow rate of fire, and is also very slow to turn and nearly impossible to move. Therefore, once the first shell hits you should be able to either move your armor away from the focus of the blast in opposite directions, to allow them to fire while forcing the gun to turn, and thus preventing it from firing; or you can pull everything back and wait for onboard or offboard mortars or offboard arty to pull the coup de grace, knowing that the gun will still be where it was previously after the 3-4 minutes this will take.

So if you stay spread out before finding the gun, its first strike should inflict only moderate damage at the worst, and you will then be able to fire and maneuver against it. Expect to lose a vehicle, though, as hidden guns will generally always do at least some damage before they succumb to your forces.

Like the other wise gentlemen before me have said, onboard mortars with an HQ spotter are the preferred antidote of choice. 81mm mortars will do the trick quickly, and 3 inchers are only slightly less effective. The trio of 60mm organically located within the standard US rifle company will also knock out a gun in a turn or two. 2 inch mortars are not so great. Halftracks with 81mm mortars mounted can be excellent on-board artillery assets, depending upon the terrain. They have a very high ammo loadout, armor, and a turret-ring .50 cal for self defence. A halftrack mortar with a good spotter and advantageous terrain can be more accurate and effective than an offboard four-tube 81mm spotter.

150's are expensive in terms of points, and given their short combat lifespan, few players purchase them with regularity. They can do quite a bit of damage if employed well, but usually the German player would be better served with another veteran platoon of infantry.

[wupwupzoidberg]

okay. thanks. i generaly try to take them out with mortars but he keeps it hidden untill he has a good target so i cant find out where it is untill he has destroyed something nice. how can i find it before it hurts me. also instead of making a new thread are their any good british infantry in 1945? they all force you to buy rubish mortars, piats that cant do any damage to any of the big german tanks and flamehrowers that are only good in defence. the enginere squads are the only ones that dont but they are so expensive. also this leaves me with so few support points i cant get any AT guns so the armour has to deal with that tiger or stug. not a verry nice way to spend armour points. sorry but i realy need help

[stoat]

Like I said, hidden guns will almost always be able to do some damage with their first few shots, and your only real recourse is to keep your units spread out to minimize this damage. You could push ahead with only infantry and hope that these units would spot and destroy the gun, but though this would likely save your armor, it leaves your infantry unsupported and may slow up your attack.

I've never been a big fan of Commonwealth pattern infantry. Smaller squads, and less firepower per capita. PIATs can be effective, but are less so than bazookas, and I agree that 2 inch mortars are worthless beyond laying down very small smokescreens. Motor rifle squads only exacerbate the small squad/low firepower problem. I understand that a motor rifle squad will fit into a universal carrier, but I don't like to use them either, so the utility is lost on me. Recon platoons also consist of small squads and lack hitting power. Engineer squads are often seen in QB play, and while they are large and pack demo charges, their firepower isn't great, consisting of 11 rifles and 1 Bren. All commonwealth countries (and Poland) follow the British pattern. So South African, Polish, New Zealanders, Canadian, and Australians when available (not '45) are all loaded out like British units at the platoon level. If you don't like what you see, all of the above countries will likewise be poor options.

Two choices remain: French and American. You'll obviously see a lot of American troops used either do to player bias or because they are the heaviest squads that the Allies have (American armored infantry is lower in firepower than British infantry). American infantry also has useful organic heavy weapon platoons and bazookas attached to each platoon. It's a popular choice.

But the French are very frequently overlooked. They more closely pattern American troops than British, but retain some differences. Late war, they have Springfield rifles mixed in with Garands and BARs, which results in lower firepower output than American squads, but still higher than Commonwealth units. Their organic heavy weapons are perfectly usable as well (60mm mortars like Americans, not 2 inch). And I know you aren't talking early war, but if you were Foreign Legion units pack two LMGs to the British units' one, making them preferable in the desert.

[Bannon DC]

Do you have to be the Brits? Not much variety in terms of Commonwealth infantry... in CM in general, very few options in terms of infantry equipment unless you find a SMG squad. The American infantry has the bazoka, and the very effective 60mm mortar, plus the M1 Garand giving the squads more firepower. Watch out for the Engineer/Pioneer units. Since they are supposedly carrying their engineering equipment in addition to their weapons, they tire more quickly than standard infantry. Fine in an urban environment, but could be trouble crossing an open area in rural terrain.

Depending on the terrain, you can buy a cheaper lower caliber AT gun. It would still be effective at 100m or so. If you are in an urban environment that may be as as much as you get. For dealing with Tigers, etc... you can try to draw the enemy closer to you and hope to ambush him. If you are using it to guard a flag in more open terrain, it could still be helpful depending on how much cover is nearby.

For finding that big gun before it finds you... you have to go looking. If you can send an infantry squad beating through the trees you may stumble upon it before it finds you. Baiting it to fire at your infantry as Rankorian suggested is a good idea too.

Good luck

[Vaunu]

okay. thanks. i generaly try to take them out with mortars but he keeps it hidden untill he has a good target so i cant find out where it is untill he has destroyed something nice. how can i find it before it hurts me. also instead of making a new thread are their any good british infantry in 1945? they all force you to buy rubish mortars, piats that cant do any damage to any of the big german tanks and flamehrowers that are only good in defence. the enginere squads are the only ones that dont but they are so expensive. also this leaves me with so few support points i cant get any AT guns so the armour has to deal with that tiger or stug. not a verry nice way to spend armour points. sorry but i realy need help

I like British inf because I like flamethrowers and mech-forces. British inf is little bit cheaper than American inf thus you can afford some halftracks. Use those halftrack to carry your flamethrowers, pias and mortals and give extra firepower for your inf. British inf aint so bad choice.

[dieseltaylor]

1945 British infantry has 10 man squads and FP equivalent to the normal German squads - not Fallcshamjaeger - you know who I mean

Also if you have casualties on - as is historically accurate you may be able to buy the British battalions with the 6 6pdr's and the Wasp flamethrowers. Ideal for a lot of battles where armour does not rule the roost. BTW the 6pdr's with the tungsten can upset any German tank on a battlefield.

Pre-45 the British infantry are underpowered but as mixing nationalities is a bit of a no-no for most games/people you have to weigh up the benefits of having a great 3"mortar and tanks with 151mm of armour against poorish infantry.

[wupwupzoidberg]

thanks for the heads up on the french. ive never realy looked at them because all the allies just lookedf like coppies of american or british forces. ill try them. also how good are teh us 60 mm mortars? thanks

[Bannon DC]

The American 60mm mortar is equivalent to the CW 2 pdr and the Axis 50mm. It has a far better range than both with the CW 2 pdr being the least effective in terms of range.

Ammo load out? Again the British 2 pdr comes out at the bottom of the list. IIRC you'll get in the neighborhood of 30+ rounds for the 60mm.

[stoat]

also how good are teh us 60 mm mortars?

Admittedly, the 60mm is not a very potent weapon. It has a blast rating of 9 as opposed to the British 2 incher's 7, the German 50mm's 6, and the Italian 45mm's 3, but while an improvement over the others, a '9' is still not a very large explosion. In terms of ammo the 60mm comes with around 35 shells, usually 30 HE and 5 smoke (max of 52 shells, but this only happens when a player edits the loadout). These numbers are rarely exact multiples of five, but rarely deviate by more than two shells. The 2 inch comes with 20 shells, and an even HE/smoke split (max 30). The German 50mm comes with 30 HE shells, no smoke (max 45). The Italian 45mm comes with 80 HE shells, no smoke (max 120). The 60mm has a range of more than three times any of the other mortars listed, so it can hit farther away targets.

But that only tells you how its stats compare with other light mortars. In my experience, the 60mm is best employed against troops in the open and against guns. It will have little effect when used against troops in foxholes, trenches, rubble, and buildings, and though it can and has taken out halftracks, this is a rather spotty endeavor. I usually use the 60mm's in groups of three, combining the firepower of all three mortars in a company's heavy weapons platoon to attack guns. Three tubes have more effect than one, and more often than not do more damage than a single tube could. Still, expect no more than a gun or 2-3 infantry casualties per battle from each tube.

Your own experiences will guide you better than my advice. If you want to test 2 inchers and 60mm's head to head, the French at the end of the African campaign have both types in their support column.

[dieseltaylor]

One thing the 2"mortar has is no minimum range. Useful in night fighting - how useful I do not know as I have carried out no tests. Probably also useful in dense wood and very broken country where there is limited command range. Given the choice the 60mm is probably more potent as it has the extra ammo AND range.

The concept of ranged fire being bought in on troops engaged in a firefight is interesting as morale generally at night is very fragile. I have also used it against buildings to suppress enemy squads - here again no testing done.

Interesting to see the French can have both Stoat - good spot.