Matrix Games Forums

Been so long since I have played this series, and this version is a lot different then I remember.

Anyhow on to the questions:

1. Playing the Stalingrad Campaign as the Germans. Is there any way not to get slaughtered by hidden enemies? I tried moving in smaller incriments, but that didn't seem to help. Any advice?

2. Some of the more obscure units(ie: Non Armor/Infanry/ATGun/Motorized Transports): Any essential, can't live without? Any unit guide out on the net somewhere?

3. 3rd Mission, updated Stalingrad Campaign - I have a gangload of PZIII-L's, handful of PZIV - F?(Best one available at the time), few Maurader II's, and various support units. Going up against the T-34's. I swear one of them must have taken 14 shots right up the poop shoot, and still didn't go down. I have no problem going up against better tanks, using tactics to take advantage of their weakpoints. But in this game, it is rather hard to maneuver like in Combat Mission. What is the best way to engage with weaker armor in this game(read:Requires side or rear shots to kill)? After contact, how do you position yourself for the kill.

4. That in mind, what AV on the German roster, can handle the T-34 from any angle, at the start of the stalingrad campaign?

5. Special Ops - How do you use these best?

6. Rally - What is the difference between left clicking and right clicking? Right clicking always seems more effective. Normally that means some kind of penalty, but I checked the info sceen and could not find any changes.

7. FO's - How do these work? I am used to Combat Missions FO's.

8. Barrage - Timing, what factors into timing? I selected a tank and hit {b} and noticed to call in an airstrike took 2.1 turns to hit an enemy tank 6 hexes away. Scrolled to the other side of the map, and selected an FO and did the same thing. Must have been over 60 hexes away, but now it says .4. Needless to say all airstrikes were called in on those blasted T-34's.

All I can think of now. Any other advice would be nice, especially from people going through/or who have been through the stalingrad campaign, with advice on the German's OOB.

Here's a little off the top of my head:

1) use recon units to lead with. Hex by hex movement , looking around after each hex moved.

4) probably none for all angles. Best bet might be StuG F with 75mm L43.

5) infiltration behind enemy lines at points of surprise to enemy.

7 & 8) calling in fire support. Best if target is in LOS (more accuracy). FO's have a higher artillery rating and have significantly quicker T.O.T responses.

I'm sure someone else will fill in the blanks I left.

Right-clicking the Rally button will cause a Full rally. It keeps rallying until it can't rally no more.

Clicking the Rally button gets a single rally attempt. Multiple clicks might be required to fully rally the unit.

Once you've discovered right clicking the Rally button (as I recently did, on this forum) you'll probably stop left clicking altogether.

Well well, R-click I shall try. Probably won't have to replace the mouse that often any more.

Thanks Cap'n P.

As for Rallying (Q#6): If your x0 unit of a formation is helping in the rally attempts, you may not want to right-click rally because once the x0 unit blows a rally he can't help rally any more (in general). So once a unit becomes combat effective again (e.g. suppressed but with shots to fire and a target to shoot at), you may want to move on to rallying another unit with the x0 unit before he blows his rally assistance.

Example: B0 is within 2 hexes of B1 and B2 who are both retreating. You left click to rally B1 until he is pinned and has a target to shoot at or until he has some movement. Then you start to left click B2 until he is pinned with shots and a target or gets movement points, then go back and finish rallying B1. In this way you utilize the B0 unit to best effect. If you just right click on B1 first, you may not get to have B0 assist with the rally of B2. Of course this is time consuming, but it can make the difference in a game.

Q#1 Those 50mm mortars are very accurate and can prep-baombard where you suspect enemy is. When a unit retreats you can often note whether it retreats into an occupied hex, thus warning you to be careful about charging ahead to finish it off.

Q#2 If you have a specific question about an "obscure" unit, one of us will be happy to help you out.

Q#3 When I am facing superior Russian armor, it is more about volume of fire on target than quality of fire. You can often supress the Russians with lots of MG fire. Also try for side shots to get suspension damage and then smoke the vehicle and move on.

Q#5 Spec Ops are rather fast movers and carry a big punch so don't use them as front line forces. Use them to flank and knock out suppressed tanks.

Q#7 I would only add that I have not noticed a huge improvement when the FO has LOS on targeted hex. Do a Forum search for Arty Tutoring. Someone did a very nice explanation of how best to use your arty and to keep it in contact.

Keep asking questions, we are all here to help.

2.) Obscure Units:
AT-Rifles may be a viable alternative to machineguns for use in protecting onboard arty. They can punch APC's and ground units... and hold them off for a turn or two while you re-route the rescuers (I'd suggest Motorcycles or Cav for that duty).

3.) Tank vs. Tank:
Like it's always taught in the tutorials: Position units as close to 180degrees orientation from the target, then alternate who fires.

5.) Special Ops - How do you use these best?
Their arrival time is better expressed in the early battles as an arrival DATE; it's based in part on experience. What I do is use to reinforce a weakened point of my advance, or to hold a particularly hostile sector--NOT to infiltrate. After a few battles, their odds of arriving on the battlefield on an infiltration mission are notably increased. 90+XP is pretty much required for them to arrive in a reasonable amount of time.

6.) Rally:
CAVEAT EMPTOR!!!!!
Do NOT right-click ALL the time. Let me show you why, with an example from a recent PBEM game against Chris Knoll. I was Japan, he was USSR. He parked two KV-1's in my backyard (okay, I lured them in, too). I didn't have engineers in the area... but I kept them occupied until the end of the game. How? I'd rally down to SUPPRESSION << 8, then assaulted. Sure, with 7 suppression, you're not likely to kill the tank. So you go to 22 SUPP. Left-click... Left-click... 11Supp... 7 Supp. Now I can assault again. Sure, I could drop to 3 suppression, then 1. But by then, my NCO's Rally score has dropped to about 30-some, and I won't be able to rally again. On the other hand if I keep assaulting with the maximum allowable suppression, I will suppress his tanks to the lids... they're not going anywhere or doing anything. Sometimes I WILL fully-rally a unit... but it's usually my biggest one, and I save that one's assault for last. That way the tanks were as suppressed as they were going to get, and I'd have the biggest, least suppressed unit geting a good chance to kill the tin can.

Same with other situations--if it's not one-shot one-kill. I'll often do this with infantry units that are taking opfire. Fire with one--it gets fired back on. So I fire with the other of my 2 infantry in the enemy's LOS. they get fired on. Rally the first unit ONCE (maybe twice if they're in terrible shape), fire on the enemy. Switch to unit two, rally once or twice, fire.

It's just like running--PACE yourself. If you've got a PzIV facing down a PaK and he HAS to take it out, then obviously, act like you only have one chance and right-click for the best chance. If you have time, though... use it.

Yes, Stug's can take T-34s, as can, I'd bet your Marder IIIs.

But, in urban terrain, here's an easy way.

Assault with infantry, to suppress it, then roll up a FlamPanzer and roast it.

Move on to the next and repeat

Also, the AI is very good, in urban terrain at driving past multiple groups of infantry to let them all have a chance to get in the assault in it's turn.

Alex

I have never used the rally button. If you use the hot key letter r on key board, it only rallys once then you must click again. Should i use the rally button on right side.

Thanks for the tips guys, cleared up some of the things that were eluding me. Helped me get past that infernal 3rd scenario of Stalingrad.

Couple more questions for you guys:

1. Do you just have to accept that you are going to take losses when trying to locate enemy units? Especially in wooded terrain? I consider myself lucky if the unit hasn’t popped smoke and pulled back after getting OP fire from a hidden enemy in the next hex.

2. Anti-Aircraft - Stalingrad scenario 3 has a lot of AA assets assigned to you. I actually formed a defensive perimeter around some of my more valuable assets, and while they did fire at the plane, I could not see any net gain from all those bullets. What kind of AA units, and how many do you typically need to defend against Air Attacks?

3. Units - Some units I was curious about, and don't know how to utilize properly:

a) Command Post
b) Pack Mules
c) Prime Mover - How does this differ from the other transport vehicles
d) Ammo Dump - Stationary Ammo refill station?
e) Recon Halftracks - Does any unit with the word "Recon" in it share common properties with each other? Ie: Do Recon Halftracks perform the same as Recon Squad?
f) Command Car - Can you replace your GE HQ unit with this? How does this unit operate if it is not AO?
g) Support Panzer - Could someone define this please. I could understand if it had retrofitted models in it, but these look like regular Panzer's to me.
h) Favorite onboard Artillery unit? Most efficient on board Arty unit? Both questions refer to anything classified as Artillery under the button.

4. Paratroopers - Any one care to share their personal experiences in battle with Airborne units?

5. A few of you guys mentioned suppressing the enemy as a favored tactic. How can you tell when an enemy is sufficiently suppressed?

6. Infantry in a Mechanized Army - Typically in games at this scope, I like to use tried and true methods of advancing, using combined arms. Like in Combat Mission, unless you are foolish, Armor never leads the advance. Infantry always always leads if you don't want to die a horrible death. I have found in this game it is a royal pain as infantry only moves 2-3 hexes per turn. I have been running low cost Armor units/Motorcycles on point, and using my HT's to bring my infantry up once contact has been made, jump out at the adjacent hex, fire until empty, then jump back in the HT. Has anyone figured out a way to use infantry in an offensive role effectively? - Ya this is a big one in scope, but its really bothering me. Especially because its often more effective to lead with armor. You can survive a lot of close assaults by revealed infantry, but I can send an entire platoon in woods to try and dig out one squad and they will all be turned back, just by moving into an adjacent hex.

Originally posted by OG_Gleep

1. Do you just have to accept that you are going to take losses when trying to locate enemy units? Especially in wooded terrain? I consider myself lucky if the unit hasn’t popped smoke and pulled back after getting OP fire from a hidden enemy in the next hex.

Yes. Men are going to DIE!! F it and Drive On (aka, FIDO). You can limit how many die by moving units one hex at a time--the less you move, the more setalthily you move, and if you move only one hex there is an additional stealth advantage (4-man Scout Teams get a slight additional advantage, 2-man even greater, and Snipers are hard to spot even if they're running around). The faster you move in mph, the more vulnerable you are if you're infantry.

That's one hex PER TURN, too, not click on the hex in front of the unit, then the next, etc. No, you click on the hex in front of the unit, then move on to the next unit... and go to the next turn when you're done moving all the units on the pointy end one hex. Same goes for tanks: Move them one hex, and they're harder to spot. When you do this, it solves one of your problems below.

Originally posted by OG_Gleep

2. Anti-Aircraft - Stalingrad scenario 3 has a lot of AA assets assigned to you. I actually formed a defensive perimeter around some of my more valuable assets, and while they did fire at the plane, I could not see any net gain from all those bullets. What kind of AA units, and how many do you typically need to defend against Air Attacks?

Check the threads. AAA is NOT ineffective... but let me put it this way:

AAA is about as effective against planes as planes are against ground units. Further, planes will target AAA first. Now, all you have to do to the plane most times is get a good strong hit. Normally, that scout unit hitting the plane with it's SMG isn't going to do it.. but if your Virbelvind hits the plane, or if an HT hits the plane with it's machinegune, then even if the plane survives it probably won't show up again.

Use AAA as uber-maschinengewehr primarily, but note that it IS slightly more effective against aircraft than any ONE other unit.

Originally posted by OG_Gleep

3. Units - Some units I was curious about, and don't know how to utilize properly:

b) Pack Mules
c) Prime Mover - How does this differ from the other transport vehicles

Both are transport. Pack Mules have a somewhat low carry capacity and are slow. Prime Movers seem to be those which can move one HELL of a lot of weight--usually 2 guns and/or 18+ infantrymen/crewmen.

Originally posted by OG_Gleep

d) Ammo Dump - Stationary Ammo refill station?

Yep.

Originally posted by OG_Gleep

h) Favorite onboard Artillery unit? Most efficient on board Arty unit? Both questions refer to anything classified as Artillery under the button.

Knee Mortars. One hell of a punch, decent range (Type-89), good-sized squad (I think around 16 men), and a trio of rifles as secondary arms.

In just the German OOB, there's a halftrack with an 80mm mortar. SdKfz 251/2. VERY nice. You get indirect fire with a better spread than the manportable (slighly less accurate weapon platform), AND an MG-34. Oh yeah... and these suckers can MOVE when they come under fire!!

Originally posted by OG_Gleep

5. A few of you guys mentioned suppressing the enemy as a favored tactic. How can you tell when an enemy is sufficiently suppressed?

Hover your mouse over the unit--sometimes I put it over the unit and then let go of the mouse. It should say, among other things, one of:

Ready
Entrenched
Pinned
Retreating
Routed

Note that the last 3 will be simply "Buttoned" for vehicles.

Originally posted by OG_Gleep

6. Infantry in a Mechanized Army

Sure, you can lead with the armor. Play the game in my .sig to find out why not. You will have to replace every tank that's destroyed. This give you a new crew at the base XP and Morale.

So suck it up, move your infantry one hex at a time once you think you're going to hit the enemy, and keep the tanks behind them.

I'd love to see what you're doing in your games to get the horrendous infantry losses (and tanks surviving several assaults). Maybe it's just the scenarios--I don't have the desire to play Stalingrad.

Hope this helps! I left out stuff I don't have much of a clue on.

Originally posted by OG_Gleep
Thanks for the tips guys, cleared up some of the things that were eluding me. Helped me get past that infernal 3rd scenario of Stalingrad.

Couple more questions for you guys:

1. Do you just have to accept that you are going to take losses when trying to locate enemy units? Especially in wooded terrain? I consider myself lucky if the unit hasn’t popped smoke and pulled back after getting OP fire from a hidden enemy in the next hex.

2. Anti-Aircraft - Stalingrad scenario 3 has a lot of AA assets assigned to you. I actually formed a defensive perimeter around some of my more valuable assets, and while they did fire at the plane, I could not see any net gain from all those bullets. What kind of AA units, and how many do you typically need to defend against Air Attacks?

3. Units - Some units I was curious about, and don't know how to utilize properly:

a) Command Post
b) Pack Mules
c) Prime Mover - How does this differ from the other transport vehicles
d) Ammo Dump - Stationary Ammo refill station?
e) Recon Halftracks - Does any unit with the word "Recon" in it share common properties with each other? Ie: Do Recon Halftracks perform the same as Recon Squad?
f) Command Car - Can you replace your GE HQ unit with this? How does this unit operate if it is not AO?
g) Support Panzer - Could someone define this please. I could understand if it had retrofitted models in it, but these look like regular Panzer's to me.
h) Favorite onboard Artillery unit? Most efficient on board Arty unit? Both questions refer to anything classified as Artillery under the button.

4. Paratroopers - Any one care to share their personal experiences in battle with Airborne units?

5. A few of you guys mentioned suppressing the enemy as a favored tactic. How can you tell when an enemy is sufficiently suppressed?

6. Infantry in a Mechanized Army - Typically in games at this scope, I like to use tried and true methods of advancing, using combined arms. Like in Combat Mission, unless you are foolish, Armor never leads the advance. Infantry always always leads if you don't want to die a horrible death. I have found in this game it is a royal pain as infantry only moves 2-3 hexes per turn. I have been running low cost Armor units/Motorcycles on point, and using my HT's to bring my infantry up once contact has been made, jump out at the adjacent hex, fire until empty, then jump back in the HT. Has anyone figured out a way to use infantry in an offensive role effectively? - Ya this is a big one in scope, but its really bothering me. Especially because its often more effective to lead with armor. You can survive a lot of close assaults by revealed infantry, but I can send an entire platoon in woods to try and dig out one squad and they will all be turned back, just by moving into an adjacent hex.

Hi Gleep,

Here's my answers on your q's...I bet anyone will post better replies any minute tho'...

1) Yes. Your recce units will be subject to an appalling casualty rate. Be glad it's them and not your panzers...

2) Always a tricky question. I'd say that anything automatic will increase your opportunities, i.e. AA ranging from 20 to 40 mm... the big ones are a waste of money and time. :p This is because small calibre automatic are much more likely to hit, and a damaged aircraft won't return!

3) This is VERY dependent if you play with C&C on or off! If no - guestions a) and f) doesn't matter much - a command post does leave you with opportunity to rally troops withing its radius, though.

a) see above
b) Pack mules lug around heavy loads - not that useful if you're not fighting a mountain battle, for example
c) A Prime Mover is just like any other transport vehicle, only heavier, and designated to do just that - move heavy stuff around. It's less prone to fail and it will carry more weight at a better speed cross-country.
d) Ammo dumps - GOLD!! If you have artillery on board, an ammo dump will refill the ADJACENT artillery's stock at almost the firing rate! Keep these babies safe and sound!
e) "recon" almost always means "elite", check the info in the OOB. You'll get an additional bonus for recon units making them harder to knock out and better to spot enemies.
f) as before, if you don't play with C&C ON, this will have little or no effect.
g) support panzers have a large calibre (>75mm), and carry lots and lots of HE (High Explosive) ammo, and not so much Armor Piercing (AP). I.e., a support panzer usually has a short barrel with low V0, but it doesn't matter much if you're going against infantry. (Big Boom Kills, YAY) Against other tanks, a support Panzer is almost worthless, as it doesn't have much to counter the enemy armor.
h) favourite onboard has got to be the 81mm mortars - lots of firepower and reasonably quick redirect times. My biggest hate object here is the US 155mm GMC - deadly! Remember, you can always confuse your enemy (if human) by tossing smoke grenades to elude your enemy from the real gun points.

4) Paratroopers are pricey, very likely to get killed but if employed properly can be devastating. Remember you'll go in w/out heavy weapons support whatsoever. Stay low and hidden, then rush to kill everything!

5) Experience! By time, you'll know when the enemy is suppressed "enough"! Remember this is always a relative value - a unit on owerwatch can easily kill an advancing unit. By holding the cursor over the enemy, a label saying "pinned" or "buttoned" tells you wether the crews are eating dirt and will not do anything or are preparing..

6) Too much to cover right now!! Are they HT carried infantry, or truck carried infantry?? Either way - they're FAST no matter what you say. I can't get much into detail but I'll say - hell YEAH i ALWAYS use regular foot infantry in an offensive role! They scout, they're hard to pin down, they kill AT guns and AA guns, they suppress the enemies and so on.... w/out infantry support, your'e a dead loser! Infantry means everything, keep them on alert, don't be afraid to scout around, call heavy support in when needen. The Infantry is the backbone of your battle! Use your squads to guard one another - i.e. move one unit with two other carrying heavier guns for support, when the first unit is up, take the next one and use the others as cover. Repeat until "all" units are safe. Use this all over the battlefield to "leap-frog" a unit to it's next target....

Great, thanks for the feed back. Exactly what I was looking for (most of it anyhow =) ).

Anyone have any really good Campaigns? I could only find a few:

1. Stalingrad
2. Russian Steel
3. Balkan Crisis
4. Fight over the Merderet River
5. Dien Bein

Any others floating around out there that are worth playing?


Also could someone please explain to me the "Mega Campaign" concept?

If I recall Balkin Crisis Germany vs Yugoslavia is an interesting one because you only get a few units so you have to be careful about what you buy and if they get killed in a scenario they are gone from the game.

Tanks at Munda!!

Originally posted by OG_Gleep
Great, thanks for the feed back. Exactly what I was looking for (most of it anyhow =) ).

Anyone have any really good Campaigns? I could only find a few:

1. Stalingrad
2. Russian Steel
3. Balkan Crisis
4. Fight over the Merderet River
5. Dien Bein

Any others floating around out there that are worth playing?


Also could someone please explain to me the "Mega Campaign" concept?

I'll agree that Munda is a great minicampaign. Other good ones are Rommel to the Rescue and Sealion. I am currently trying Drive to Tunisia, and am not sure I can recommend this one yet, since it features Italians that seem to outpreform the UK core at the start, and I hate to think how it will play when I finally reach the German troops.

The megacampaign is a special sort of campaign that comes with a predefined core force that you get to use part of in each battle, you don't upgrade and repair like you do in a normal campaign, the campaign handles that for you. The goal is to get thru all the battles collecting medals and such. Normally you get 3 choices for each battle, giving different situations for each, such as night battle instead of day battle, additional troops to aid the assault, or swing wide around and attack some other target instead.
thanks, John.

Originally posted by OG_Gleep
Great, thanks for the feed back. Exactly what I was looking for (most of it anyhow =) ).

Anyone have any really good Campaigns? I could only find a few:

1. Stalingrad
2. Russian Steel
3. Balkan Crisis
4. Fight over the Merderet River
5. Dien Bein

Any others floating around out there that are worth playing?

A couple of weeks ago I had a thread in the campaign and scenario section asking if anyone had any campaigns that I didn't have and I listed all that I had at the time, that thread should give you a list of all that is out currently, with the Chosun campaign out shortly.

showthread.php?s=&threadid=29248
thanks, John.