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Charles2222 -> RE: Low on smoke (4/8/2004 2:47:39 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: robot
Got a draw whoopie. This was due to there dern guns only. Destroyed 39 guns. One crew was left running in panic. Destroyed all there squads. One 155 left off board only. There was 1 rifle pit after i knocked out 9 forts.
Thanks for the advice about the smoke. Did not want to use the engineers as there smoke does not get out far enogh to allow a good advance. But did figure out about the PZV smoke. This allowed my troops to get close enough to destroy the arrty they had every where on the board.
I had enough engineers to take out the forts but had a tough time gettin them close enough. I buy extra engineers besides the platoon i have in my core in all assaults. This allows me to get thru the mines faster with the rest of my force.
39 guns?????? I can't recall the last time I saw 20, but then again that has something to do with playing SPWW2 with the AI as a tank heavy force. It occurs to me that maybe you're just playing with what I's regard as a rather peculiar force. Are you real infantry-heavy? In any event it's very rare that I see 20 guns, much less 39, but then I may always have more tanks than you.
Also recall that the PZIV's can fire smoke just like a regular shot, as far as it can see (the 'D' described earlier is the smoke discharger which works only directly in front of the three angles the turret is facing. If I recall correctly, when firing the few smoke rounds they may have (independent of the smoke discharger) that it will eat up fire orders for combat, so it's something of a tradeoff. I think I've seen others that claim it won't use orders to fire smoke, or when you run out of orders that it can still fire smoke at then no cost.
Take heart though, as the French are a pretty sticky wicket often enough. I recall an SPWAW quite a few versions ago when the default size campaign force I had faced 150 S-35's with them assaulting. Believe me, the GE guns weren't as strong back then and I had an army which had nothing decisive victories to that point. I had like maybe 30 tanks. Fortunately I used mines to help me out somewhat and I also just plinked away at him. Sometimes when facing overwhelming odds, you just have to be satisfied with immobilizing them along the way. It at least keeps them from massing more completely when they're on top of your units. Four rules I use for facing overwhleming odds: 1) Don't forget that ALL main gun fire can knock out a track. 2) Learn to concentrate fire. This has to be done with gameplay experience. You study over time, just what some of your units go through in suppression building, and can use that to measure just what it takes to put the enemy unit a 99 level without over-suppressing him. The idea is to suppress, in this example tanks, before they can really do damage, that what was maybe 10 tanks originally is down to 7 or 8, since the others got delayed or routed so much that it'll be a while until they catch back up. 3) Spread out fire. IOW, the opposite of #2. Leave your least potent fire for trying to answer every AI turn fire you receive. The idea is to therefore make sure you've hit them with "ONE" suppression point, thereby spoiling their otherwise accuracy bonus. It's very hard to keep up with what unit has been fired at, but at least that way maybe 10-20 of the enemy units won't get the accuracy bonus per turn. That's another thing to be said for trying to rout an few enemy units a turn, is that even should they rally that unit all the way to it's highest on their turn, they're still stuck with 1 suppression point, thereby having their accuracy bonus already spoiled for that turn. Once I had routed a unit, I would then try to rout a different one. The only time I'd just keep pounding away senselessly was if I was hitting an invincible unit that I was trying to hit it's track, or if it was the only unit within range that could destroy my armor, such as T34's in 6/41. 4) Spoliers - IOW, try to take out all the weak units. See a T34 and a T26 approaching? Destroy the T26 first. I tend to favor the suppressing-the-monster strategy more, but if you mean to destroy with your fire it's the only choice. This also plays into the whittle down approach. A T26 can destroy any number of GE tanks, while a T34 only does that better. So you can rout the T34's and/or go to track hit them, or you can reduce enemy overall fire by destroying the weaklings. If I'm of the mind to go for the weaklings, I'd "at least" make sure that the monsters are given a shot or two to spoil their accuracy bonus.
Oh, the French battle with 150 S-35's? I destroyed maybe 40 of his tanks, and he was just about starting to mingle with my infantry defense line, when he surrendered. Remember when you're facing an overwhelming enemy, particularly if they're French, that if you hold all the objectives, they may surrender the entire battle. Frankly I was stunned, as I had never seen such a superior force wimp out so easily, but fighting to keep those objectives, and whittling them down can help a lot. It just so happens that the S-35's were expensive, so when he lost so many expensive units, even though it wasn't even a 1/3 of his tanks, much less a 1/3 of his entire force, he just saw no way to get any objectives.
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