Armoured tactics in CMx2

U

Ushavov

Guest
Hi All,
I am looking for some help on how-to armoured tactics in CMx2. Turns out I fail quite miserably where in CMx1 I could do my thing.
Any links, help, whaeffah, is appreciated!
Tnx,
Ushavov
 
Excellent link - Cheers PhilM hope you don't mind me checking this out, this is just the sort of stuff I love to see...
 
Richtig said:
Excellent link - Cheers PhilM hope you don't mind me checking this out, this is just the sort of stuff I love to see...
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Don't mind at all (unless you use the tactical acumen so acquired to beat me at some point in the future ... :D );
on the contrary the more people see it the better!

I must admit I haven't been back there to look in detail myself for a little while: I think Bill did stall a little bit from his initial progress on getting stuff up on there, so he may or may not have resumed his expansion of it. But even the initial stuff is well worth a look.
 
Yeah, that is a superb site from a guy who knows his stuff. Should read his AARs over at BF site, they are lessons in tactics 101. Hate to take this guy on in a PBEM.
 
Maybe these Tactics videos from Armchair general will come in handy also. First episode here:

Or the "Monster Combat Mission Normandy tutorial" (2:41 Hours!!!!!)
 
Ushavov said:
Hi All,
I am looking for some help on how-to armoured tactics in CMx2. Turns out I fail quite miserably where in CMx1 I could do my thing.
Any links, help, whaeffah, is appreciated!
Tnx,
Ushavov
Click to expand...
I am far a hardcore tactician like Bil H. over at BF but have been playing the game since CMX1. To be honest reading all these tutorial and watching these videos are all good but the best way to learn this GAME is to just play. You will notice little things that should work with tactics 101 actually do not work. You might have a piece of armor sitting in over watch when an enemy tank rolls up spots second but gets the first shot off. Happens. Not trying to take anything away from these guys mentioned but I honestly just learn the GAME from mistakes. I read and watched all their stuff and you can pick up some good points but if you have been interested in war like the rest of us you already know the basics.

Do not make the mistake to compare this game to CM1. Totally different. I am just the opposite of you. I try and try at CM1 but still get my ass kicked but do half decent with CM2. I make the excuse that the only ones still playing the game are the hardcore veterans who know what works and what does not. They tend to put it to me. I am in the Birthday Bashes over at WEBOB and routinely get my ass handed to me.

I do know that if you spot a tank and then it either disappears from your view or backs away some you should still fire on it sometimes (you will give away your position so be careful with other armor in the area). Even with area fire you will cause suppression and the commander to button up restricting his view. You may also cause damage to his tracks or a casualty if he is unbuttoned. If you are up against some big boys this may make a heck of a difference if you can slow them down even more. Also there have been many times that I have area fired to the area in front of a tank even though I did not have visual and still scored hits. Your tank may aim high sometimes shooting into the Action Spot behind the one you were aiming at. Mortars have also helped me even against the Big Cats. Putting fire down around them will suppress and also cause track damage. Lastly keep your armor buttoned up any where near infantry. HT gunners and Tank commanders are prime targets to get picked off. CM2 simulates this on the far fetched side as you can read about on the forums. They supposedly tuned it down but I have not seen it in the games I am playing. If your commander gets picked off, your tank may panic, pop smoke and reverse the hell out of there. Once they start to get nervous they seem to stay pretty jittery in that any excessive fire on them will cause them to flight instead of standing and fighting.

Like I said, you can read as many tactics 101 textbooks that you desire but if you want to be good at this game you need to play, play, and play some more. You already know this being a CM1 vet.
 
Nice comments

@eniced73

I totally get what you say, but inevitably we all want to try and bring some sort of order to the chaos. But I suspect you are right overall, the school of hard knocks will be our best tutor.
 
Richtig said:
Nice comments

@eniced73

I totally get what you say, but inevitably we all want to try and bring some sort of order to the chaos. But I suspect you are right overall, the school of hard knocks will be our best tutor.
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Yes. I agree. I wish BF would give us some hints on how the engine actually works on certain things. Some of their posts over at BF are pretty ridiculous on their explanations. In fact I really do not remember seeing one post that actually explains what the code is actually doing. I know a lot is abstracted or whatever, but sheesh give some clues. Like the current thread over there on hull down spotting. I was doing a quick test with HT's and lightly armored vehicles against the 50 cal. I had my units on an open map playing two player hotseat switching back and forth between the sides. I had a American HT sitting on a hill looking down on an open field that had around 5 lightly armored vehicles sitting in it. Those five vehicles spotted me as soon as I crested the hill which I would find reasonable. But it took my HT (unbuttoned) around a minute and a half to spot the first vehicle. I checked LOS and I did have clear blue to all Action Spots. So the spotting calculation is pretty much one thing that I would like to see explained a little better. You just do not know what is going to happen. I guess that is what makes this game challenging and fun.
 
Bill has indeed updated his blog with more information. He has training scenarios for infantry and armor, but you must have MarketGarden or the latest patch to play them. Great training!
 
eniced73 said:
Even with area fire you will cause suppression and the commander to button up restricting his view. You may also cause damage to his tracks or a casualty if he is unbuttoned.
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LOL
I'm playing "My Honor Is Loyalty" H2H at the moment, and the SS tank commanders don't button up even when I bounce a couple of 75mm AP rounds off the turret. Those guys are TOUGH!
 
@Deane
Get used to it. You have you anomalies every once and a while. That is why I posted in this thread that you need to play to learn the game and real life tactics work about fifty percent of the time if you are lucky. I will go through spurts where I get nice side shots by moving my armor into position only to watch them sit there and not spot an enemy that should be clearly visible. Then they get taken out a few seconds later. Just tonight I had three squads put down area fire on the top floor of a near by house. With the amount of fire that they put out that upper floor would have had more pot holes than a 14 year olds face. But his MG team stationed there cooly pops up and mows down around 5 of my men in two or three squirts of his death dealing juice. Makes you say WTF just happened. It is a game no matter what all the nut swingers over at BF may say about it being a simulator. Just my opinion.
 
@eniced73
I hear you mate. When I read your last post about wondering how the software actually works, I nearly posted to say 'be careful what you wish for' - often these things aren't quite as good as we expect, and our imagination fills in any gaps, we can all justify extremes of good and bad luck in games. And indeed so it should be - as it happens (I have read many times) in real life. The best tank won't defeat the poor tank if the crew are distracted or don't see it. All we can do is keep setting up favourable situations with the best tactics we can and hope it bears fruit. As you say...
It is a game no matter what all the nut swingers over at BF may say about it being a simulator.
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I have to say tho for all its faults it is the best tactical game we have, and playing people who care and want it to work 'realistically' is all I need to keep me happy. When you get those tanks side on and the shot knocks out your opponents tank you can enjoy the moment, when you ambush something with flanking fire, you have the feeling of a job well done.
 
eniced73 said:
@Deane
Get used to it. You have you anomalies every once and a while. That is why I posted in this thread that you need to play to learn the game and real life tactics work about fifty percent of the time if you are lucky. I will go through spurts where I get nice side shots by moving my armor into position only to watch them sit there and not spot an enemy that should be clearly visible. Then they get taken out a few seconds later. Just tonight I had three squads put down area fire on the top floor of a near by house. With the amount of fire that they put out that upper floor would have had more pot holes than a 14 year olds face. But his MG team stationed there cooly pops up and mows down around 5 of my men in two or three squirts of his death dealing juice. Makes you say WTF just happened. It is a game no matter what all the nut swingers over at BF may say about it being a simulator. Just my opinion.
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No disrespect or disagreement intended. I know exactly what you're saying. That's why I play H2H. You own your move and can never go back. My opponent was complaining about not being able to hit a thing. I must admit though, as an old grunt who never participated in any combined arms with armor, it's still difficult for me to learn the combined infantry-armor tactics. Bill H's armor tactical toolbox is a very good starting point.
 
Deane said:
No disrespect or disagreement intended. I know exactly what you're saying. That's why I play H2H. You own your move and can never go back. My opponent was complaining about not being able to hit a thing. I must admit though, as an old grunt who never participated in any combined arms with armor, it's still difficult for me to learn the combined infantry-armor tactics. Bill H's armor tactical toolbox is a very good starting point.
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No disrespect taken. I have been playing this franchise a long time and new things pop up every day. Makes the game a game. Your basic tactics work but do not put too much into Bil H's toolbox. Although appreciated I really do not think he has shown anything that we do not already know about the game. No one knows how the spotting works (just look at the current threads at BF). It is almost getting to the point of your lucky if you spot first. Not sure what kind of cycles the engine is on but when your spotting times vary from 10 sec to over 600 sec in the same situation I am not sure how to take that. I am talking about Van's posts over at BF on hull down spotting.
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01-14-2014, 07:07 AM
Vanir Ausf B
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Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: In the middle of a desert in SW Wyoming, USA.
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From the locked thread.

Quote:
Originally Posted by BadgerDog

I'd be really curious about the results of this testing ...

I'm currently in a large CMBN match with nothing but PzIV's against Shermans. The map is huge and the engagement distances are very long range.

I'm getting the floor wiped by Shermans who spot my PzIV's, even sitting in wood lines and I have yet to see one of them first. In fact, I'm lost 2-3 PzIV's to one Sherman that was actually sitting out in the open picking them off. It wasn't until 2 turns later until a Jagd crew elsewhere on the map spotted it. I realize it's an anecdotal observation, but it's consistent in this particular match.

I thought the German tanks were supposed to have superior optics that shined at long ranges for spotting and accuracy...

Regards,
Doug
I'm not sure I can provide a definitive answer. Here are my test results.

All tests done at 1200 meters. All tanks buttoned and in the open. 10 tanks per side per test run. Each test run 10 times (except Sherman vs Sherman which was run 50 times), so 100 iterations per side per test.

Sherman 76 vs Sherman 76

Average spot time: 106.1 seconds. Standard deviation = 100.5

M4A3w Sherman 76 vs Panzer IV H late

Sherman average spotting time: 123.5 seconds. Standard deviation = 105
Pz IV average spotting time: 119.4 seconds. Standard deviation = 117.6

M4A3w Sherman 76 vs Panther A late

Sherman average spotting time: 111.5 seconds. Std dev = 107.4
Panther average spotting time: 139.1 seconds. Std dev = 138.5

If I tally the number of "wins" by comparing which tank spotted the other first in each test run we get:

Sherman 76 wins: 49
Panzer IV wins: 51

Sherman 76 wins: 58
Panther wins: 42

I would not put too much faith in those numbers given the huge standard deviation. Also, the Sherman 76 has a 6x gunners sight which is better than the 3x sight on the Sherman 75 and most other Allied tanks. Then again, the Panzer IV gunners sight is only 2.5x
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The sight on the Panther can be switched between 2.5x and 5x.

But I do think there is enough here to conclude that whatever German optics advantage there may be in the game is too small to be tactically significant.

For anyone who's interested, this is the raw data from the Panther test. Spotting times in seconds.

Code:
261 297 40 93 84 162 19 92 250 366
29 27 10 74 329 38 411 148 85 26
380 76 125 98 30 624 77 216 91 15
32 133 342 74 374 29 37 104 28 115
43 5 48 24 27 26 2 122 50 20
484 101 313 13 279 53 152 101 466 54
146 54 36 188 179 444 1 115 60 116
91 93 212 56 244 200 147 217 323 44
123 71 666 60 80 233 276 35 19 76
33 18 96 153 80 72 281 6 27 317
__________________
Remember, CM has always been, and always will be, about realism first. -- Steve Grammont
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Both the Armchair General Youtube series and Bill H's website provide excellent tips for using armour.

A couple of tips I've found useful which you may or may not already use:
  1. Try to advance with an infantry screen in front of you if you think there is any danger of running into enemy infantry. This is particularly useful for spotting panzerschreck/bazooka teams and AT guns - all of which can be well hidden. If your infantry have problems with enemy occupied buildings or strongholds you can always keep your tanks back (and well out of bazooka range) and use area fire to take them out.
  2. If you know your facing enemy armour, where possible manoeuvre your armour in packs. If one of your tanks gets taken out at least the other/others will have a good chance of spotting the unit and destroying it before the enemy has a chance to fire at your other armoured units. Plus more tanks means you've got a greater chance of getting the first shot off.
  3. If you've got a 'big cat' use its superior range and armour and where possible position it 500m+ from the frontline. Many maps will stop you from doing this either because of the map size or physical obstacles, but most Allied tanks are not capable of taking out a Panther or Tiger head on, and positioning your tank further back will limit the chances of it being flanked by enemy armour or stalked by infantry tank hunter teams.
  4. Where possible use mortars/artillery to take out identified AT guns rather than armour, that way you've got no chance of losing a tank to the gun.
  5. If you know that enemy infantry are likely to be within 200-250m of your tank, try to keep the commander buttoned and use your infantry for spotting.
 
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