Matrix Games Forums

Here is a tip for you veterans out there that thought you knew everything. We all know the dangers of moving our tanks up over the creast of the hill and firing all our shots until our movement is gone and then having your opponent return fire on thier turn, your poor tanker that is left in the open due to not having any smoke rounds or a smoke dispenser. This happens quite often when you are playing in the early years and the tanks just are not as nice as they are in 44. Or you can not retreat from an enemy because you do not want to turn your back on him and give him opportunity fire on your rear, but you have to retreat or you are ga ga next turn.

So does uncle Gary have a tip for you. What you do is during your purchase phase. Most tanks have some carrying capacity. This is ussually small, six and under(that is unless you are playing the soviets). Well here is what you do. For that company of great heavy tanks that you bought but have no smoke for, you buy four platoons of 2 men recon patrols(1-2 smoke rounds) and or 4 man recon squads (3-4 smoke rounds). Now you say to yourself I am waisting points that I could use to buy other troops. Well my friend the answer is that spending points on recon troops is never a waste, and what better way to make sure your tanks do not get ambushed by those pesky ATG then having there own personal scout. Third (was I counting) a four man recon squad many times will be able to suppress an ATG enough for you to finish it off with your heavy tank without any opportunity fire. And finally if you can save 2-3 tanks in a battle by doing this you have effectivly paid for all the recon units you purchased.

Now I am not saying that this type of warfair is for everyone or for every map environment (personnally I do not use a lot of tanks in wood-ambushed or swamps-sink), but immagine how supprised your opponent would be if you showed up with just heavy tanks and scouts.

And the Scouts are handy for taking those pesky building VHs without forcing you to possibly immobilize a vehicle. All manner of good things arise from using Scouts liberally. I do, most of the time.

A Scout is Thrifty (and Brave)

Hence the expression "Be Prepared" ?

It also makes those pesky city battles a little more AFV friendly, as the enemy unit hiding in the building your AFV is passing will fire at the scouts, rather than assaulting your vehicle. I've lost many vehicles this way. :p

Eric Maietta

Don't forget being able to dismount you scout and peek over that ridge to see what's there before the tanks bust over the top and find all those AT guns pointing at them.

not only do i place scout units/snipers on all my tanks, but i buy bazooka or other AT units with leftovers from main points and support points and put em on the tanks too....its amazing how often a bazooka can fire without return op-fire, when the tank it dropped from would be fired upon immediately.

another useful unit for tanks/AFV is the ANZ flamethrower commando, generally with only one shot when dismounted, it doesnt have much firepower, but a flamethrower is almost always effective.