New player: Need some help

[Paulverisor64]

I'm enjoying the tutorials.

By keeping things simple (at least in the beginning) it makes it much easier to see what each unit does and how effective different tactics work in different situations.

Last evening I tried the 1st Infantry tutorial. I didn't know where to expect the enemy so I spread my forces out on the map, even splitting every squad. When I 1st contacted the enemy I thought to myself; is that it? Then I learned the strength of the foxholed MGer. I got beat up quite badly. Troops were fleeing, even my HQ unit was panicked through the game. Fortunately one unit was able to Sneak close enough to take out the MG nest, and I won the round.

Knowing I really didn't grasp the lesson; I tried again. Knowing where my opponent would be I split into 3 groups. 2 squads on the far left. 2 squads on the far right. With the HQ unit in the center. The game was a complete disaster. The troops on the right received fire a lot sooner than I expected, and even though this was at a sizeable range my one unit panicked and fled off the map.

As I had the MG squad surrounded I thought I could Advance the units not under fire and Sneak the units under fire until one of the units could apply the knockout blow. What actually happened is unit after unit panicked and fled. I thought I had a safe approach for my HQ unit but was wrong, and it was eliminated. I couldn't understand why my units never had the Advance command. I had to quit the round because all my units were routed and I had zero control over what was left.

This morning I finally put it together. I discovered that the Advance command was attached to units being under control of the HQ unit. Even though I lost the advantage of surrounding the enemy I moved my Platoon up the middle of the map in the widest spacing that HQ control would allow. This also speeded up the march accross the map because all units quickly got their orders.

When I contacted the enemy it was fairly tough to win against the superior firepower, but I advanced all my troops and at least 2 or 3 units at a time were not effected by the MQ fire and fulfilled their orders. Similar to the armored scenario; when I flanked the unit at point blank range it ended up breaking. By discounting the advantage of surrounding the enemy from a distance to gain the advantage of HQ control made a huge difference. The role of the infantry changed completely in this lesson from the last Armor lesson. In the last lesson the infantry was just bait. It was not used to seize an objective.

Good job with the tutorials!

I do believe you are correct as far as the previous tutorial and the immobile tank. It kind of sucked to have this happen during a critical manuever.

[JasonC]

On the advance command issue, the rules are as follows.

Conscript quality units cannot use "advance".

Green quality units can "advance" *only* if in command.

Regular and better units can always use "advance".

In that scenario, the men are all green quality, so the second applies.

[Paulverisor64]

That is good to know. The only other command that effectively moves the units forward is Sneak, and that is only good until the MG draws a bead on them. This is a situation that requires a quick action or you are a sitting duck. I noticed one more movement called Human Wave; would that have the same effect as Advance?

Another question that I've run into is in regards to armor strength vs. gun killing power. Is there a way in a glance that you can determine which guns penetrate specific armor?

[JasonC]

Several points - first, yes Advance is the most useful for crossing open ground areas under enemy fire. Move to contact is often useful early on, and while moving inside cover, to halt when you spot an enemy. A trick with that is that a unit with a covered arc and a move to contact order will only halt for enemy seen within the arc, and will ignore those outside it. It is, however, a "move" order, so the men are fragile if they take heavy fire, can panic relatively easily etc.

Sneak is slow but robust to enemy fire and to spotting. With any concealment terrain it can get to within good rifle range of the enemy (through wheat or brush e.g.), it just takes time, usually too much.

Human wave is specific to Russians. It has an extra long command delay to get going. Then the movement will divide into two parts - the first 100-150 meters will be a "human wave' movement order, which is like advance, a bit less tiring and a bit more robust to enemy fire in morale terms actually (not any better in terms of men getting hit, though). But any portion of the waypoint length after that initial segment will be covered at "run" - much faster, but also much more vulnerable to enemy fire. Also, tiring.

Human waves should not be directed at enemy occupied positions, unless you know they are already pinned or broken etc. Instead, use it to ram lower quality infantry across open areas to cover within rifle range of the enemy (e.g. a block of woods 100-200 meters shy of the actual enemy position). Expect the men that make it to need a couple of minutes afterward to rally, too. And there will be stragglers who fall out, etc. Occasionally a squad caught near the end on "run" will get slaughtered, especially if you press it too close to an unsuppressed enemy. Obviously, it is also extremely dangerous to use a long "human wave" with the men too closely packed together, as single shots will effect everyone within 25 meters of the aim point. So proper interval is essential.

But for conscripts that need to cross open, it is often an essential order to learn how to use.

Second major point of the early infantry training scenarios, though, is that movement isn't the main problem. It is a problem surely, but the best cover is outgoing firepower to suppress the enemy shooters entirely. Pinned enemies don't fire at your guys much, and that makes movement safe on any speed. It allows time to rally, etc. The hard part is often getting a "full spot" of the enemy shooter (as opposed to a barely-located "sound contact"). You need that to fire back effectively, and someone has to get close enough to see the buggers. Pinned men see very poorly, too.

Once you do get a spot, having a "mad minute" or two - meaning everyone stops whatever they are doing and just pulls triggers as fast as possible to shoot up the enemy - can pin them, rest everyone, rally the pinned units, and give you all you need in breathing space to continue closing to effective SMG or grenade range with 1-2 squads, that finish the enemy off.

In the next tests, using heavy support weapons to do some of this pinning fire for you, is also a major theme. You start getting 82mm mortars, Maxim MMGs, and in the third one, an artillery forward observer (low quality, forcing him to use "map fire" ordered on turn 1). Normally infantry is *not* called upon to cross fire-swept open ground *alone*, without support weapons standing by to pin any shooters that act to stop the movement.

The point of first learning that it *can* still do so, is to avoid the "paralysis when shot in the open" that can affect a less experienced or "drilled" player. If the enemy shooter is weak enough, a single unit, you can deal with him using the platoon alone, without "leaning" on its "supports". Against real, integrated positions of many units, supporting heavy weapons and "prep fire" from artillery or tanks, are generally required.

Next to your armor strength question, the color codes and such won't really help. The best first approximation are the penetration numbers. To see them, select a tank or gun and hit the return key to bring up its unit information window. You get little tables of numbers. Across the top are the different ranges, point blank, 500 meters, 1000 meters etc. Down the left side are 3 angles, 0 degrees, 30 degrees, 60 degrees. In each position in those little tables is a number, which is the standard armor thickness that gun (and round type, more on that below) can penetrate, at that range, and hitting at that angle to the armor plate.

The hit angle makes a huge difference. 60 degree slope is twice as effective as flat, by the cosine alone (the straight-line path through the armor has to penetrate twice its front-to-back thickness to get through, at that angle).

What angle is actually used? A total spherical angle that is composed of the angling of the armor itself from the vertical, which is part of the defending vehicle's armor layout description; plus the "side angle" set by the direction of the line of fire, to the straight-ahead or right-angle-side orientation of the vehicle.

For example, the front hull armor plate of the T-34 is angled 60 degrees from the vertical, and 45mm thick. Shots that hit that plate are going to use the lowest line on the penetration number charts, and can be even worse if there is significant side angle, rather than a head-on shot. Of course, increase the side angle enough, and it will be the side plate that is usually hit, not the front one.

A StuG on the other hand has 80mm of armor but only about 10 degrees from the vertical. Effectively, shots that hit it will use the top, 0 degree line or not much worse than that, unless there is significant side angle, again. If the side angle is 30 degrees, it would use the middle line (roughly) - the smaller angle from the vertical would make basically no difference in that case.

Now consider the total picture shown by a StuG turned 30 degrees away from head on to your T-34 shooter. You can see the front plate, at 30 degree side angle. And also the side plate, but at 60 degrees of side angle. The front plate would defend as 80mm at 30 degrees. The side plate would defend as 30mm at 60 degrees. The second is easier to penetrate, because the 80-30 difference is so large.

Anyway. How do you use all these numbers when the underlying details get that complicated (and I have only scratched the surface on that BTW)? Well, first, look at your shooting gun's penetration number for point blank range and 0 angle, the upper left number in its chart. That is as good as it gets for that gun. If the enemy armor is thicker than that, fergetaboutit. It ain't gonna happen. (There is maybe 5% random variation, and there can be reductions in effective thickness for lower armor quality ratings, but it is still the rule of thumb to use).

Now look instead at the number at 500 meters and 30 degrees angle. That is the most likely combo you will see. Longer range shots are relatively rare on CM maps, and often don't hit. Sometimes you will care about the 1000m line, but the 500m range will be the most common source for actual hits. And with at least some slope of most tanks, and some side angle on most shots, you will get that middle angle most of the time. Higher, the 60 degree line, for especially sloped targets only (e.g. T-34 hull, or a Jadgpanzer or Panther front hull, e.g.). To a first approximation, then, you can think of the 500m at 30 degrees number as the "normal" effective penetration of that gun, and the 100m flat number as is "theoretical maximum".

Well, if the target is thicker than your theoretical maximum you have no real chance, and if it is greater than your normal then kills will be rare, require close approach etc. Better to get a side shot, most of the time. If your penetration number on the normal 500m at 30 degree position comfortable exceeds the target's armor thickness, practically every hit will go in. Occasional rare hits may do less than lethal damage, to be sure, smaller calibers especially. But you can hurt the target.

Now the qualifications to the above rules of thumb.

First, "hail fire" by enough shots that can't penetrate, can still wreck a vehicle sometimes. About one hit in 6 will hit a track, and about one hit in 12 will hit the gun. Won't always do anything, especially if it is a weak gun. But hit tracks or gun 2-5 times and you will get an immobilization or gun damage result. Toss enough shells and those will "wreck" the vehicle even without penetrating. Shells continually bouncing off an already immobilized vehicle can be enough to persuade the crew to bail out, too. Dinky little ATRs or 20mm AA won't hurt things this way very much, but full caliber guns or even medium AA (37mm, 40mm) will.

Second qualification, even if the numbers look good enough the specific match up may fail to hurt the target, in practice. The leading cause of this is poor quality ammo and "shatter gap" against hard plates. The Russians suffer a lot of this in 1943, for example. Their 85mm should be able to killed Tiger Is, but in practice will get a "shell broke up" result, until better ammo is available in 1944. The same can lead to failure even against 80mm plates at ranges of 600 meters or more. Similarly, US 76mm that should be able to penetrate a Panther turret front to 1200 meters, will only do the job inside 400 meters. Longer, the shell breaks up before it penetrates. The same defect plagues early war Russian 45mm AP ammo, against 30mm plates at range e.g., that should be easy.

You just have to learn those specific problems empirically or as game lore from experienced players.

In practice, beyond the numerical details it is easier to just learn the specific counters to specific enemy vehicles in the different eras. E.g. in 1943, to kill a Tiger I the Russians need an SU-152 at any range or a 57mm antitank gun under 400 meters. Everything else is going to be ineffective at typical ranges and angles. Typical Russian 76mm guns (T-34s and towed) can kill 50mm plate vehicles at range easily, and 70mm defended ones (e.g. Panzer IIIL) inside about 400 yards. They won't hurt 80mm plate stuff until they get APCR ammo in 1944, and then will want point blank range, too.

Last comment is about ammo types. Most guns the penetration numbers you care about are the standard AP round. But some guns will have T ammo - that stands for "tungsten" and means APCR or "arrowhead shot", which can have significantly higher velocities and penetration. Especially at close range and against flat angles. American 76mm T ammo is a Tiger and Panther-turret killer, for example.

Also, howitzer type guns with low velocities often use HC ammo - that stands for hollow charge or HEAT (high explosive anti tank), and typically have excellent penetration, and is insensitive to the range. Can be sensitive to the angle of the hit, though. Large caliber HEAT will kill most targets. The difficulty tends to be not enough of the shells, and getting hits with the few shells available with a relatively inaccurate (because low velocity) gun.

The armor war side of things gets, truly, arbitrarily detailed. Thing to keep in mind though is that most decent tanks can kill their typical opponents if they can catch them from the side, making teamwork and tactics and numbers an effective substitute for better technical quality. There are expections to that, though - especially the Tiger I in 1943 vs. the Russians (80mm *sides*, at a time when the Russians have few weapons that can penetrate 80mm at range). The best countermeasures are special AT killers (57mm ATG, SU-152), or "asymmetric" tactics (tank hunter teams with RPG grenades, pioneers with demo charges, AT minefields, flamethrowers, an IL-2 Sturmovik, etc)

I hope this helps.

[Paulverisor64]

Jason: Thank you very much for your great advice. You definitely know the in's and out's of this game.

It appears that nothing is 100% in this game, (such as ending up with a blown track) but playing the percentages at the right time will lead to much better results.

I've received excellent help which goes above and beyond the manual. I know I can always come back to this thread if I get in a bind with a specific issue.