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john g -> (11/28/2000 3:35:00 AM)

quote:

Originally posted by Charles22: john g: Naw, actually you don't want 88flaks up front, they're not standard issue ATGs, they're way too high. They don't cloak half as well as a 17 pdr. The AT gun is always one of the great equalizers, as you can buy many of them for the price of a tank, and unlike the 88flak (the actual 88AT may be a size '2' or smaller [which comes later in the war], while the 88flak is '3') cloak very well (just don't fire two many times a turn, and keep the blasted infantry away, so that they can't spot the guns).
Have you tried it? I have and aggressively using your 88's will work. You don't want to get caught towing one with enemy tanks firing at you but in the desert, with enemy tanks armed with 2pdr's you are better off having that 88 up front. The 2pdr seems to have a very high penetration compared to the German 50mm so they can whack any tanks in the 41-early 42 period. They are sitting ducks however to the 88. If I get the chance to site 2-4 88's where I know matilda II's or grants will be rolling, I can count on toasting more British armor than if I were to put a unit of 50mm at guns there. I have yet to see any tank of that time period able to advance against 88's. That 11 man crew for the 88 helps it survive as well. Why gun sheilds for artillery are not accounted for is beyond me. Several mutually supporting 88's with a sprinkling of tanks to help draw off fire and mg the survivers is an unbreakable position, assuming the historical British tank only frontal charge with 2pdr armed tanks. The same was true in late '44 where XXX corps advanced without infantry and was torn apart by at guns on the road to Arnhem. For the Germans in late 42, you have the option of converting to PzVIe so there isn't quite the need to keep the flak guns up front, but they do offer a choice of how to defend. An 88 flak takes several hits to kill, while a tank can be killed with one hit. thanks, John.



G. K. Zhukov -> (11/28/2000 6:16:00 AM)

quote:

Originally posted by Almogavar: Yes, probably was fighting sPz.Abt.506 [img]http://www.matrixgames.com/ubb/biggrin.gif[/img] Almogavar
OK, Fuerte, if you are always clashing with the schwere Panzer-Abteilung 506 and its ever-present KT's, try challenging your opponent to play a WWII Campaign. If the big cats appear during the September 1944 scenario, stop playing immediately and declare an Allied decisive victory in WWII. Then tell your opponent that he missed the opportunity to send sPzAbt 506 to Arnhem Bridge and therefore John Frost's paras held the bridge until the arrival of British XXX Corps, thus opening the way to the industrial heart of the Reich! No more King Tigers - end of story. Guess I need to go to sleep...



Pack Rat -> (11/28/2000 7:10:00 AM)

quote:

Originally posted by john g: Have you tried it? I have and aggressively using your 88's will work. You don't want to get caught towing one with enemy tanks firing at you but in the desert, with enemy tanks armed with 2pdr's you are better off having that 88 up front.
This was the thing I discovered very early in SP1 and very much to my surprise it is an historical fact. The Brits were really chewed up by being led into a barrage of 88 fire. They didn't have the distance or the proper type weapon on their tracks to deal with them. This fact has allowed me to see just how well Steel Panthers is modeled and make a great game greater. While playing SP2 I noticed the tendency of the Abrams and is NATO counter parts to fall into the same problem. Am I just looking for the black helicopters or are my fears warrented? ------------------ "More PT Drill Sargent" Pack Rat



Mike Rothery -> (11/28/2000 8:31:00 AM)

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Originally posted by Pack Rat: This was the thing I discovered very early in SP1 and very much to my surprise it is an historical fact. The Brits were really chewed up by being led into a barrage of 88 fire. They didn't have the distance or the proper type weapon on their tracks to deal with them. This fact has allowed me to see just how well Steel Panthers is modeled and make a great game greater.
The Afrika Korps tactic was to lure the British armour into chasing the German armour within range of the German AT guns. More often than not these were the 50mm PAK. The AT guns were normally towed by trucks (like the Krupp Protze) or those large 4 x4 cars (like the Horch Kfz 69) and were following the German tanks. The minute the tanks engaged, the AT guns would deploy, thus giving the tanks a protected escape route. I was at the Australian War Memorial the other day, and sat behind A German 50 mm PAK. They are quite small, with a very low silhouette. And you feel quite covered by the sspaced armour gun shield. I then wandered over and a had a look at a 2 pdr At guns, which is higher and you feel much more exposed. The 25 pdr field gun is not much bigger in silhouette. The FLAK 17/36 88mm at the Treloar Centre here gives the impression of being really high with very exposed crew positions, even with thebig gun shield in place.



Charles22 -> (11/28/2000 9:47:00 PM)

john g: I'm not saying that 88s on the "front" won't have a great effect, what I'm saying is that id a bad place to put them. In other words, it could be far more optimally placed. If by front or front line, you mean your first line of resistance, it could be far better placed. What's the point in putting it in the front, when you could have it 15 hexes back or more, in a lot of battles, and still be able to crush mobile AT units before they have much return fire? Besides, if the enemy is having to deal with something else other than just the 88s (like infantry) the 88s will last longer. Yeah, in the desert you might be able to get away with that, but frankly, if we're really talking front line here, it will be the first unit spotted, practically, so that you can expect them to be crushed by artillery. Even so, you can counter that by having transport around them, but if we're talking frontline, then what's the odds of getting the transport to load and get out in one piece, to say nothing of the passenger? There are two reasons why a 50mmATG doesn't work: 1. We're not working within the limits of the gun, which APCR aside, will only work on Matilda IIs on the top and rear (maybe the sides). 2. If we're putting a unit which can cloak on the front line, no wonder it doesn't do very well; it's not being used optimally. Besides the 88 being available, the 50ATG is the best the Germans have at that period, but the same rules apply; you don't stick your most destructive unit on the front hex and start blazing away. If the gun is placed further back and shots not all of it's shots off every turn, it can fire in certain circumstances and not be seen, which is a great advantage. It doesn't matter whether the opponent has weak anti-personnel Matildas, or PZIIIEs, for the optimal use of the gun is the same; to fire as often as possible and not be seen. Maybe you're not used to how 88s used to fall like flies to even direct-fire HE, and how the artillery would concentrate on them, maybe it's not that way in this game, but I've had a history of playing the 88s and I can tell you that I protect them very diligently; you'll never get my 88s, though they do have an AT role, just not the primary one. All this being said, as well, is totally from the perspective of one who plays campaigns, so that it matters a great deal to me that I make optimal use of all of my units so they can gain experience, particularly the 88s.



jerrek -> (11/28/2000 10:21:00 PM)

putting the 88's on the front is possible in the desert if facing a 2pdr tank charge but not really advisable. Those 2pdr are useless against softtargets so you have to worry about mg's. I usually stick them behind the front line if i am not adavncing. They destroy anything with reasonable accuracy as well at upto 40 hexes. With just 2 of them you can massacare untold numbers on british tanks. This should also apply to 6pdr tanks as they also had no HE. Beware of those damn humbers and mark 6's with the 15mm hmg - they are much more dangerous and must be the first target. For those who may think this turkey shoot is unrealistic, the british for some reason often kept tank battalions seperate from infantry and artillery - so often tank battalions attacked without support and paid the price. The germans in the desert managed to deveope a tactic of advancing slowing with light at guns (37's and 50's i suppose) by moving some forward with support and then the next moving up etc. Anyone here played operarion crusador by atomic games, it portrayed the desert confusion and also showed how british formed in non-supporting groups. i played the campain as german and had tobruk surrounded with a line of british on flank - those british were cut off by more flanking germans who were in turn cut off by britsih etc.



BA Evans -> (11/28/2000 10:50:00 PM)

quote:

Originally posted by john g: Why gun sheilds for artillery are not accounted for is beyond me.
1. If you put armor on an artillery piece, it would become a vehicle. 2. 2-pounders don't have HE and currently can't hurt artillery crew. 3. 2-pounders DO have AP and would now be able to destroy your vehicle/artillery piece like any other common vehicle. 4. Gun shields were never very thick so they would give your artillery piece a very low armor value. Since giving your artillery piece an armor value makes it a vehicle, almost every weapon will be able to penetrate it easily. Your artillery piece would now have the survivability of a truck, without the speed. BOOM! 5. Can all eleven guys hide behind the gun shield? 6. Artillery units are already hard to hit due to their small size 7. Artillery units gain the same defensive benefits, from terrain, that infantry units do. Would you like artillery units to treat terrain like vehicles instead? This would make artillery units much more vulnerable. BA Evans



Charles22 -> (11/28/2000 11:24:00 PM)

jerrek: Actually I believe I'm starting to see a point to the '88 on the frontline' approach. I forgot about the offensive, where the only practical use of it might be to place it in a defensive mode on the frontline, though often, the visibility isn't above 25 anyway, so the enemy's AT units better be within that range. On the offensive, I've got into the habit of buying prime-movers for them (and indeed on the defensive, the prime-movers are bought, in an effort to guarantee that noone gets my 88s), and moving them in after I'm reasonably assured that they can be brought up and play some sort of role. I guess I rarely think of this, but I suppose that when the decision is made to bring them up, it should be the VERY LAST thing that is moved or fired that turn, as the enemy will have shot off almost all of his opfire by then, but it sure does seem as though the AI has unlimited opfire, and usually three shots or more at valuable units, so that it almost seems pointless to wait until the end (for you might forget to move it). On the defensive, however, it's just not good generalship to expose it to more fire than needed. Is a gun which is being shot at with mgs at a range of 20 more effective, or one that is out of range of the mgs, or at least the mgs are also having to deal with infantry/mines etc? Optimal use. I'm wondering, what sort of organizational ideas there are out there, as I'm not too happy with mine and haven't found a solid method yet. What I do most of the time, is I pick like two platoons of tanks to start off my core, then ATGs and AA, then infantry, then more tanks, and then finally a hodge-podge of things that come to mind. What I end up doing, is when the enemy has little or no units destroyed, I will go through the units in reverse order, and if a lot of my last units are infantry, I will usually skip over them and get back to them after the tanks have drawn some fire. Later in the game, maybe around the 5th turn, I will shift to running through my units in alphabetic order instead. Has anyone discovered good technique for what units you buy in what order? I almost never go through an 'area' and decide that I'll pick up this unit and fire it, and then another one, it mostly comes down to what order I'm going through the units, though when things get real tight I will tend to abandon going through consequetive units. In going through the units in reverse order, at least you're exposing your support first, but this is somewhat complicated to allowing the chance that you'll forget to use the support infantry, if you're also in the habit of making the infantry fight last. How about some ideas on which units to go through, when (too bad we don't have a button that would allow you to go through all the armor, and then another for specifically the soft units - that might help)? [This message has been edited by Charles22 (edited November 28, 2000).]



Pack Rat -> (11/29/2000 12:20:00 AM)

I can only speak for myself, so here goes. I have a standard core I use for AI, pbem, on-line games. It doesn't sound much different than what you have and it goes something like this, I tend to get 3 platoons of Tigers, 1 platoon of Panthers(reserve), 3 airborne platoons to ride on the Tigers, one FO, 2 Rocket platoons, 2 ammo trucks. This usally will leave me with about 1000+ point to spend in a 5500 game which is what I like to play for a big map. Mobile anti aircraft I like to go with 6 sections not so much for the air cover but that they are fast and can be hell on ground troops. I tend to get about 3-4 more platoons of infantry. Any thing that is left goes to experimenting with things I've seen other players do. If I think I saw an exceptional idea I may forgo my core so I have the points for the experiment. Right now my pet play toy is the flame tanks. I almost never cycle through my troops as chaos and confusion are the order of the day after so many moves. Rather when I set up I have a general idea of what is going where. When setting up I load my airborne on the Tigers only 8 will fit and no room at all for the machine gun. I assign the machine gun to my A0 unit and so on. I assign my second ammo truck to the rocket battery it is suppling. In short I want all units to have second chance to rally if possable. In anything other than on-line play, because you get the op fire chance, take the time to set your ranges. The reason being it isn't healthy to give away your position for a shot that may be bad at best. I think half the max range is good. Way to long but thats a basic of how I do it. ------------------ "More PT Drill Sargent" Pack Rat



lnp4668 -> (11/29/2000 12:40:00 AM)

I believe the way that Rommel uses the 88 in the desert is to bury them to hide their high profiles. Probably could simulate this by makes it immobile and reduce the size.



Charles22 -> (11/29/2000 12:58:00 AM)

Thanks Pack Rat. Hey, I've another idea. Wouldn't it be great, for those who don't go through units consequetively, to be able to open a box on a number of units with the LMB and select them? While on the surface that may sound as somewhat useless, it would be great if so pulling a particular area up, would give you a list, similar to the all forces list, which would only pull up those units, while showing all their ids, and then you could go through those units in alphabetic order or not. For example, the box I open has six of my units in them, when it shows me the list, it might have the units: b1, b2, b3, d1, d2, j1. Let's say the turn just started, so that the unit I was at before this box, was A0. Well, if I open the box and hit 'p' for previous, instead of it selecting the last unit of all of your forces (BF4?), it would select j1. That would be quite a benefit if you always organised your forces to be structured a certain way (tanks a-d, infantry e-h, AT/AA i-m etc.), and always wanted the latter alphabetic units to fire first. Even if the only units were tanks, this could come in handy, for you might want to organise your best tanks as the earliest units ('b' series), and with that established you could easily get those to fire in the order you wanted them to (the prize tanks first or last).



Fuerte -> (11/29/2000 1:10:00 AM)

Thanks Pack Rat for your unit description! [img]http://www.matrixgames.com/ubb/smile.gif[/img] It doesn't help me anymore in our game, though. I have never used ammo trucks. Can they be used for anything other than on-map artillery?



Charles22 -> (11/29/2000 1:23:00 AM)

Fuerte: They really come in handy for the Germans for upping the supply level (assuming you're playing with limited ammo in the first place)on the PZIVC/D/E (for more AP shots) and the same goes for the SGIIIB and particularly the 88flak, assuming you're not buying the game's 88flak "AT" model. I've found myself more than a few times delaying offensives, just so some of the units with the lowest totals can be raised to something respectable (particularly important, perhaps, when going into an assault). In my practice, I like to limit my artillery, what little there may be, to just one intitial resupply, so that it might hit it's maximum, but resupply after that isn't permissable, and the trucks must move elsewhere.



Pack Rat -> (11/29/2000 2:25:00 AM)

quote:

Originally posted by Fuerte: Thanks Pack Rat for your unit description! [img]http://www.matrixgames.com/ubb/smile.gif[/img] It doesn't help me anymore in our game, though. I have never used ammo trucks. Can they be used for anything other than on-map artillery?
Ammo trucks can be used for anything on-board. Ammo dumps are faster loading but can't be moved which is important for on-board artillery to do if you want to use them more than once. It's my hope that a league gets started faction gets started for maps 100 x 100 and above. While that doesn't mean you will run out of ammo, I'm guessing that by the time turn 25 rolls around even your infantry will be low. I'm thinking, more units = more fights. Probably the only sure way to make ammo more critical is to extend the number of turns per battle, assuming the battle stays somewhat even. Which is the case with a game I'm playing with John Saffron, no way I can get those ammo trucks to where they are needed in time. Don't read this John [img]http://www.matrixgames.com/ubb/wink.gif[/img] ------------------ "More PT Drill Sargent" Pack Rat



john g -> (11/29/2000 5:16:00 AM)

quote:

Originally posted by Pack Rat: Ammo trucks can be used for anything on-board. Ammo dumps are faster loading but can't be moved which is important for on-board artillery to do if you want to use them more than once.
Actually due to a bug, the ammo dumps can be moved by a 2xx prime mover. You just end up with a crew size that is equal to the carrying capacity of the truck. The same way that you can carry tanks around. Personally I use the the ammo trucks and stack them up. Each truck adjacent will load ammo, so if you have 4 trucks together you get 4x the ammo. Really nice if you are loading 150mm+ shells and want to get those units into action fast. Not as nasty as getting ammo cannisters from the Norway 49 oob and carrying those with you, but in a long game you can dump and reload several times. Everyone does play with reduced ammo? I wouldn't dream of putting a brumbear or sturmtiger out there without having an ammo resupply available. I even would cluster my tigers around ammo trucks at the start of each game if I thought I was going to take lots of long distance shots (anytime vis was over 20). thanks, John.



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