Ok, really irritating! Cloaking AA guns...

[Afrika Korps]

I was playing the Stalingrad campaign and in the first battle, just north and east of the town, across the gully, were two of Ivan's 37mm AA guns in fortified hexes. These guys must have been super elites, as they nailed about 10 AFVs/APCs a piece. I got so angry that I sent a stug and a IVg to squash them, as my arty didn't seem to be able to do anything to them, and long range fire only made them disappear.

I drove my IVg up the hill, and overran one of the hexes, only to find it empty...so I drove on past. The next turn, the AA gun fired at my tank, from the hex I was just in! I fired on the hex, and the gun disappeared again. I drove back to the hex, and parked on it--nothing in it (just the fortified sandbags or whatever they are--it was a clear hex otherwise, just grass). Then on Ivans turn, he suddenly assaults my tank and kills it, then proceeds to fire that damned 37mm AA like I have bullet magnets on my trucks...boom boom boom....

I finally had my Stug blast him to bits before he could vanish again with his borrowed cloaking device from another game...the Stug forced the other AA crew to flee and abandon their gun, after two full turns of point blank fire (and more vanishing)--the fleeing crew was cut to pieces by an 8-rad's 2cm guns, which I moved up to prevent any escape in the gully--I let out a shout of joy when it said "CREW DESTROYED!!"...my wife just looked at me like I was insane!

Those two units were biggest pain in the butt in the whole scenario--cost me dearly. Overall, the first battle was a draw, even though I had all but the four victory hexes on the south hill area, where those two platoons of T34s come roaring out of in the last couple of turns. Ivan just made it really costly for me--with these kinds of losses, I am screwed already...lol!

I just fell in love with my Engineers--those flamethrowers saved my game when I ran into those KV-2s entrenched in the town. Whoosh! BOOM! Mwhahaha!

So, is this common, the cloaking unit, or was this just a game bug? They were in fortified hexes in the open, that I could see just fine, the units themselves would vanish periodically--even when I was right there!

On to battle two...

[Gary Tatro]

Originally posted by Von Doom
I was playing the Stalingrad campaign and in the first battle, just north and east of the town, across the gully, were two of Ivan's 37mm AA guns in fortified hexes. These guys must have been super elites, as they nailed about 10 AFVs/APCs a piece. I got so angry that I sent a stug and a IVg to squash them, as my arty didn't seem to be able to do anything to them, and long range fire only made them disappear.

I drove my IVg up the hill, and overran one of the hexes, only to find it empty...so I drove on past. The next turn, the AA gun fired at my tank, from the hex I was just in! I fired on the hex, and the gun disappeared again. I drove back to the hex, and parked on it--nothing in it (just the fortified sandbags or whatever they are--it was a clear hex otherwise, just grass). Then on Ivans turn, he suddenly assaults my tank and kills it, then proceeds to fire that damned 37mm AA like I have bullet magnets on my trucks...boom boom boom....

I finally had my Stug blast him to bits before he could vanish again with his borrowed cloaking device from another game...the Stug forced the other AA crew to flee and abandon their gun, after two full turns of point blank fire (and more vanishing)--the fleeing crew was cut to pieces by an 8-rad's 2cm guns, which I moved up to prevent any escape in the gully--I let out a shout of joy when it said "CREW DESTROYED!!"...my wife just looked at me like I was insane!

Those two units were biggest pain in the butt in the whole scenario--cost me dearly. Overall, the first battle was a draw, even though I had all but the four victory hexes on the south hill area, where those two platoons of T34s come roaring out of in the last couple of turns. Ivan just made it really costly for me--with these kinds of losses, I am screwed already...lol!

I just fell in love with my Engineers--those flamethrowers saved my game when I ran into those KV-2s entrenched in the town. Whoosh! BOOM! Mwhahaha!

So, is this common, the cloaking unit, or was this just a game bug? They were in fortified hexes in the open, that I could see just fine, the units themselves would vanish periodically--even when I was right there!

On to battle two...

I will try to help. I hope that this comes across ok. First try not feel that there is only one way to solve a problem. If you move forward and get hit or fired at by an AA or AT gun STOP. Moving through Entrenched AT-gun sights is paramount to suicide.

Why you ask. Well most of your AA & AT Guns have a size class of 0-2. The smaller the number the harder to see. Now 37mm AA guns have a size class of 1. Now when a unit is Entrenched, subtract 2 from its size class. So the entrenched 37mmAA gun had a size class of -1. VERY SMALL. The only way you are going to see this is with an infantry unit unsuppressed at range 1 or 0 or with a Recon unit at range 2 though 0. That is it.

First there are a # of things that you could have done instead. Have the infantry in the AFV jump out and pop smoke in front your AFV when you got shot at. Maybe save the life of your AFV.
You could have moved a tank with smoke ammo up and had it fire off its smoke round right in front of the AA guns position. Effectivly making it useless.
You could have STOPED and ploted artillary smoke to do the same thing.
You could have loaded a tank with a recon infantry and move up to the hex and then overran it. (by the way the game will not let you overrun if you can not see the unit)
You could have direct fired at the hex multiple times with everything you had to suppress the unit then move up your infantry.
One last thing to remember that each unit in the game has streagths and weeknesses. And that there is a counter to each unit. You were using the units that the AA and AT guns were specifically designed to kill and work well against. I looked up the 37mm AA gun it is a nice piece of equipment. Has a fire control of 5, a range finder of 4, size class of 1 and max penatration of 59. That is pretty good. So next time try to figure out how to accomplish the task with the loss of the fewest lives or the destruction of the least amount of equipment. Did you have to kill thoughs two units or could you have gone around them? I am not sure I have not played the senario but it seems to me that you did not use your available resources to there fullest.

[Afrika Korps]

Originally posted by Gary Tatro


I will try to help. I hope that this comes across ok. First try not feel that there is only one way to solve a problem. If you move forward and get hit or fired at by an AA or AT gun STOP. Moving through Entrenched AT-gun sights is paramount to suicide.

I did stop, popped smoke, etc. The guns are well placed...they were making amazing long range shots and hits. They also cover the main roads to the town very well, and are set back behind a large gully. It was fun and frustrating trying to figure out where it was coming from as units would blow up and I missed the incoming fire lines (my eyesight is poor, even with glasses).

Why you ask. Well most of your AA & AT Guns have a size class of 0-2. The smaller the number the harder to see. Now 37mm AA guns have a size class of 1. Now when a unit is Entrenched, subtract 2 from its size class. So the entrenched 37mmAA gun had a size class of -1. VERY SMALL. The only way you are going to see this is with an infantry unit unsuppressed at range 1 or 0 or with a Recon unit at range 2 though 0. That is it.

Ohhh...this is where being pretty new to the game shows...these are the little things I need to learn, how size class effects how easy it is to see...I still play like an elephant in a china shop--if it shoots, squash it, rather than with crafty tactics...

First there are a # of things that you could have done instead. Have the infantry in the AFV jump out and pop smoke in front your AFV when you got shot at. Maybe save the life of your AFV.
You could have moved a tank with smoke ammo up and had it fire off its smoke round right in front of the AA guns position. Effectivly making it useless.

When these things fired, they never missed and killed the AFVs on the first volley. I used a lot of smoke, but one gun always found a target somewhere...gah!

You could have STOPED and ploted artillary smoke to do the same thing.

I wish I could have, but all of it was out of contact by then (I should have used smoke the first time when I had one unit available, but I used regular fire instead--mistake)...most of my arty was fired off at the town when I had it available...it was a burning rubble pile by the time I got there--it made the assault much easier. I had some 88s back on a hill, but there was too much overall smoke around that area after a big tank battle to see the AAs fortified hexes and attack with Direct fire, I moved them, but by the time I did, it was over. I made several tactical mistakes and got disorganized.

You could have loaded a tank with a recon infantry and move up to the hex and then overran it. (by the way the game will not let you overrun if you can not see the unit)

I had no recon inf., but had I known about the size factor playing into their ability to hide, I would have sent the tanks over with loaded inf squads. I will remember this for the next battle.

You could have direct fired at the hex multiple times with everything you had to suppress the unit then move up your infantry.

I did do this a lot, no effect...my inf had to run for cover near the north wall of the town (since those AAs were blasting everything that moved, and smoke can only cover so much), and they got sucked into the battle there, as the Ivan inf. was running all over the area from my arty hits. Add to this that I was disorganized, and forgot a couple of squads that didn't join the battle until late--a major problem I have, making sure ALL my units join the fight together, not pell mell, to be cut to pieces a few at a time.

One last thing to remember that each unit in the game has streagths and weeknesses. And that there is a counter to each unit. You were using the units that the AA and AT guns were specifically designed to kill and work well against. I looked up the 37mm AA gun it is a nice piece of equipment. Has a fire control of 5, a range finder of 4, size class of 1 and max penatration of 59. That is pretty good.

What does fire control 5 mean anyway, and range finder of 4? The AA guns did nothing to my tanks, only the halftracks and trucks, as expected...heh.

So next time try to figure out how to accomplish the task with the loss of the fewest lives or the destruction of the least amount of equipment. Did you have to kill thoughs two units or could you have gone around them?

They were well placed, you can't go around, although I could have made my assault more to the south. I ran my main force down the road and the west railroad tracks outside of town, and ran another element around to the south of the town, and hammered from both sides...eventually, the entire area was surrounded and they suffered 100% casualties there...mwhahaa!

I am not sure I have not played the senario but it seems to me that you did not use your available resources to there fullest.

I agree, I did not use my units to there fullest, as besides being disorganized when things get hairy, I don't know a lot of the nitty-gritty game mechanic details that come with experience. I still had a blast playing, I just have to learn more about HOW to play with the rules given.

[G_X]

Well, I'm assuming it was a canned scenario, one where you couldn't choose your own forces, so I understand you probably didn't have any 'Lawn Mower' Artillery, large bore/calibre kind that supresses up to two hexes away, this would have routed the AA guns in a single barrage most likely. I always take at least one battery of 155mm or larger, just for these kinds of jobs, and I save their ammo for these tasks.

What I suggest you to have done would be to run your infantry allong ahead of tanks, with HT's in a reserve position, waiting for a fight to break out where they can use their high speed (I've seen a German HT move about 35 hexes with the help of a paved road) to join into the fight. This means you have the eyes and ears of Infantry, preferably with Recon Infantry scattered inbetween, to make sure you can get unexpected annoyances out of the way. This means your tanks can probably only move forward 3 or 4 hexes at a time, but I never run my tanks forward much faster than that anyways.

Fire Control is the ability to hit a moving target, there's probably either some obscurely abstract way to figure out how well a FC of 5 would hit a target moving oh say 10 hexes, but I don't know it.

Range Finder I do grasp, there are little invisible rings around the gun, at certain range intervals (Something like 300m, 600m, 1000m, like that, maybe not those numbers though) And the Range Finder number tells you to what ring (In my example numbers, RF 4 is over 1000m) the gun can shoot to without accuracy drop because of range. Many AA guns have incredible RF and FC's because they are meant to shoot down planes which both move rather fast and can be a good distance vertically from the gun, as well as horizontally. So when AA guns are used as you described, they're incredibly vicious. These AA gun crews probably had alot of experience on them as well, further bumping up their chances to hit.

This could have been much worse, I once had an 88 on a desert map on top of a hill, with no cover around except that hill, I lost 12 PzIIIs to that 88 before I finally poured 3 barrages of 203mm Russian Off Board Artillery onto it.

These weren't cheap tanks either you know.

[Gary Tatro]

I had no recon inf., but had I known about the size factor playing into their ability to hide, I would have sent the tanks over with loaded inf squads. I will remember this for the next battle.

[/b]

Was this a senario? No recon infantry? I always take almost 5-10% recon if I can. In campaigns I will take them as support units since they have such high attrition. I usually go on one to two platoons of recon for each infantry company or tank company as a rule of thumb.

[/b]

What does fire control 5 mean anyway, and range finder of 4? The AA guns did nothing to my tanks, only the halftracks and trucks, as expected...heh.

Well fire control is how often a unit gets to fire. This goes from 0 up to 12. The hirer the number the more shots a units gets and the more opertunity fires a units gets. 5 is quite high. Range finders are what makes it easier to hit your target. The higher the number the better chance you get to hit with your first shot and the more your to hit increases with successive shots at the same target afterwards.

[fontenoy]

Hi Von,
What NOT to do:Playing a scenario Soviets vs Americans(Ground Zero by M4 Jess)I overran an entrenched American AA gun with an IS4(I love big tanks):D .Chortling with glee,I prepared to pulverize said AA gun...NO TARGET:( Alright,I thought,they,ve done the sensible thing and buggered off.)There was a lot of smoke in the adjacent hexes,so I figured I'd give them a good thrashing the next turn.During the American turn,the AA gun reappears in the hex and starts hammering away at the IS 4. NO FAIR,so much for suppression.My turn again and I find I have to rally the IS4.No such luck.The AA gun is sticking around this time(Feeling very pleased with themselves too,I should think)
Enough,as they say,is enough.I summon a nearby ISU 152,park it in an adjacent hex and...BOOM!NO MORE AA GUN...BOOM!NO MORE IS-4 All in one shot!That kind of value for shell expenditure I can do without.We would both do well to heed the advice of the gentlemen who also posted here.Sometimes SPWAW provides me with a good laugh.Even if it's at my own expense:) I hope you get as much enjoyment from the game as I do.Hmmm...maybe I should have posted this in the AAR section.
Regards,
Fontenoy.

[Hades]

Von if you think that mission is bad, wait until 3 or 4 when you have a attack a railroad depot guarded by three or four batteries of 37mms. I play about half of it before sucumbing to my frustations and charging my remaining units at the guns. It is a very hard battle.