Request for gameplay advice

[|7th|Nighthawk]

Hello everybody,

recently a friend and I started to test the waters in PvP in BK. We comp stomped only before so it was quite the change for us. Since we just get rofl stomped in online games against players who do have a bit of experience playing against human players, we decided to play against each other at first. However since we are professional comp stompers, we are both going full turtle mode rather quickly. I have attached a (very long) game that resulted in me leaving the game after a while because it was dinner time. We tested a few things at the end so disregard the last attacks that contained a few very retarded choices on both sides. We both started some attacks here and there in the game but neither of us really managed to make a real dent at any point. I would advise you to watch most of this replay on 8x because it's quite camp heavy. It would be great if you could give advice to both of us on how to break out of such a stalemate. General tips in what we did wrong in general would be nice as well. I am pretty sure we have a very narrow mindset on the game because of playing against AI for so long.

Sincerly,
Nighthawk

EDIT: At one point he remanned his Flak 18 but it was bugged and had no gun so we paused the attacks for a moment.

[Shanks]

first: the game is not balanced for 1v1
second: his game is similar to ..... for example: many bunkers and 88 mm vs. US armor doctrine, and USA with many tanks on the other hand, Pershing SP Shermans and Hellcat ....... I mean is that the game should not reach that point, usually in pvp, you should not give time to the other, nor resources
third: the map you chose is one of the worst, I think, normally you will not see people playing labyrinthine maps, or not revised
fourth: I think you should see the repetitions of tiger 1996 on YouTube, it's the most practical, if you really want to learn, because if I'm going to explain how to play, I would write a lot, and even then, you would not understand well, because in pvp, you move from according to the circumstances, there is not a single way to play, it is all relative, according to the need during a certain time of the game, and the doctrine chosen by the partner
fifth: how good they want to play pvp, maybe we will not see on the battlefield one day of these
sixth: my English is crap, but I hope you understand my point

[kwok]

You look like you run into the same problem as this guy: viewtopic.php?f=30&t=2198
We added commentary for him on how to take on a turtle. Maybe give that post a quick look.

I also recommend you check this post out, a list of PvP tips written by Wake that helps jumpstart players. It's a bit outdated but a lot still applies: viewtopic.php?f=30&t=1154

Coming into PvP there are a few things I think new players often fall mistake to and should be their first steps in correcting:
1. Know the units. A lot of comp stompers don't really know the full extent and limits of units because they aren't challenged against counters. For example, you sent Recce's to go after emplacements and armored cars a few times. Your recce would take damage and do no damage in return. This takes experience, but if you are more conscious about noticing how units perform, you will learn much faster and catch up in knowledge
2. Map awareness. You kept going to attack a side that didn't have that much resource to gain and had the strongest defenses. Meanwhile, the opponent's base and main resource income was undefended. Use binoculars and scouts more to gain map awareness. Remember, the objective of the game isn't to kill all the enemy's units but to destroy the base. You don't need to kill the 88's he sets up if they don't pose a threat to you completing your objective.
3. Contest the strong points/center. Because both of you are new, neither of you really contested the center spot. You eventually walked up and took it but typically in PvP that will be the first place players will go. If you do not contest it, you will facing an uphill fight through the whole game. I'm hoping to get time to write a whole post about BK openings that will give more details on why this concept is important and how to most effectively open a game.

I do replay reviews for some friends like this: https://youtu.be/sMLGZJXYmt0

[|7th|Nighthawk]

@Shanks:

You mean that we let each other grow too "strong" to be able to break through? Yes, the map was not great but I see a lot of repetition whenever I bother to look into the server browser. One map that gets played to death and is incredibly stale to me is Autry. Why one would choose a three corridor tube like map repeatedly is beyond me. It seems to me that those kind of maps get locked down even faster than the others.
Yes, I understand that there is no rigid path to take; otherwise it would be boring but I was just looking for key mistakes we both made. Like absolute no gos. I understand you well enough, no worries, and thanks for answering.

@kwok:

I'll give both of those a look, thanks.
1. Yes, I have noticed that there are quite a few of abilities that one would never use against AI and that can be great against players.
On both of those you mentioned: I know the Recce is not great against armoured cars and terrible against emplacements but I wanted to harass the repair crew on the Vierling, thinking that the Reccee is imprevious to 20mm shells. It was planned as more of an annoyance than anything. Against that armoured car however I never thought that the Recce would seriously damage the 20mm car from the front (maybe from the back?) but I was very shocked that the 20mm really wrecked it so hard. Isn't the 20mm gun the same exact one as in the Vierling, only that there is one instead of four?
2. Hm, true, I never looked at the amount of resources that I could have cut off. We both fought mostly in the west but we both had a few defences everywhere and I don't know how quickly one can rush them without the other noticing it. Like taking care of that trench, Flak 18 and MG42 in the east would have taken so much time that he would have been able to react, right? Likewise, the middle had less defences but his whole defence force would have been there in no time or am I mistaking? About attacking the base: I always find myself torn when attacking it. Like attacking it is fine but raping it with planes or arty seems very shabby to me. I could have used recon planes and fire bombs to continuously rape his base but what kind of awful game would that have been? He could have done rather similar to me. Of course we both only had planes instead of artillery but if we had taken other doctrines, it would have been that kind of game that turns friends into foes
3. The center of the map where I had the officers? Yeah, but there was only a normal CP on it, right? Is it worth taking it nontheless? Also, would you recommend moving the officers with the attacking force or "park" them in safety?

I'll take a look at that video as well, thanks for your answer.

[kwok]

1. Haha, technically yes but attributes are not consistent across "same weapons". That comes with experience and built up knowledge from playing a lot... or diving into corsix.
2. That's why it's important to have vision over anything. Knowing where he is at what time will give you a sense of how soon/fast you can hit before he can react. viewtopic.php?f=30&t=1152
3. True, it is not a high resource value point BUT it is a vantage point to make attacks. You can respond quicker on any sector of the map from the center. Do you play chess? In chess "opening theory" you want to move your pieces to the center right away and control the center zone. If you have a knight in the center versus a knight in a corner, your center knight can respond to threats and attack areas quicker if it doesn't need to traverse the entire board.

4. Officers, it depends how your strategy and how you want to use them. "parking them" is being defensive. Do you want a strong reserve or defense force? Bringing them with an attacking force is aggressive. I would say as new player, keep it in the back so that you don't need to micro and baby sit your officer as much. But as you get better and improve your micro, attacking with officers will make your assaults all the more powerful. Triple LT at full vet stack infantry is.... brutal.

[|7th|Nighthawk]

1. Yeah, I did see that with the M2HB variants vastly differing in performance. Even their sound differs greatly. The .50 on the trucks, jeeps and tanks sound like peashooters while the M2 nest sounds incredibly powerful in comparison. It's probably all balance stuff but it still takes me by surprise sometimes when the very same gun has a very different effect (Just take the 75mm L/24 that can only shoot very close on the Panzer IV Ausf. D and E and is an epic sniper weapon on the half tracks).

2. Did you think my vision on the enemy was not large enough? I honestly don't know how I could have meaningfully extended it with the Brits. They don't have spotters and if you park that Recce next to some bushes, they will just throw a Geballte at it and troll away. Likewise his bikes would have been spotted by me going into position and wrecked a while later (like that one bike he managed to park in the east).

3. Heh, very rarely but I get what you mean. I did try to secure it at first with the Boys but moved them to help out against the Sturmpioniere. It was a good retreating point before I used the glider on the west corner.

4. I find it highly annoying that officers don't retreat with the group but instead walk up to the enemy some more in order to get blasted to pieces. Is it worth having a Captain next to the front? I never saw him getting any veteran marks and for me it's basically a walking rally point with binoculars.

[Krieger Blitzer]

Hello and welcome

Also, would you recommend moving the officers with the attacking force or "park" them in safety?

My answer is also same as Kwok right there, as it highly depends.
If the map is big, then I wouldn't recommend moving the officers too much.. otherwise u would lose them. However, if the map is not too big.. u could probably construct a retreating point and then keep ur officer nearby ur troops wherever they go! Though, if u use the "follow up" ability so that the officer would keep following a certain unit all the time.. then the officer will definitely not retreat with it.. but will keep "walking" after them to the friendly base or the retreating point, unless u click on him and press retreat too. Also, as long as he is following a particular unit.. the officer will not be selected with your mouse if u ever try to select a group of units altogether. You would be only able to select the officer if u click at him directly, but as I said that's only as long as he is following up a certain unit...

And by the way, not only officers can follow up units, but in fact any unit can follow another!
Not many players know about this, but actually if u select any unit (including tanks) and order them to move while clicking with your mouse on another unit, then the unit u have selected would start following this 2nd unit that u have clicked on... Even buildings work the same way!
I think you already know that u can order any of ur HQ buildings to deploy the units anywhere on the map, so once they are deployed, they will automatically start moving to that particular destination on the map. Nonetheless, what you might not be aware of; is that u can also order the building to deploy the units to wherever a certain other unit is located on the battlefield. This for example works great when u want ur freshly deployed engineers to directly go wherever ur tank is located on the map, even if the tank would keep changing its location all the time...

Also, if u r interested in watching some Bk Mod commentary and game-play PvP videos.. then feel free to look up my channel in ur free time as Shanks has already suggested that to u previously

I do replay reviews for some friends like this: https://youtu.be/sMLGZJXYmt0

Nice one there.. though, what's with the black strip of the screen? What program did u use to record? It should be easy to adjust the resolution.
If you have a capable Nvidia GTX GPU, then u should use the built-in ShadowPlay.. it's so far the best for recording. And in case u don't have a capable GPU, then OBS should be ur best pick... It's free! Also, the game sound is a bit too high and u speak too quietly that at some points it's very hard to hear ur voice by the way. Lastly; your model detail graphic option is set to minimum or what??
I can clearly see ur unit models completely disappearing at the edges of the screen!! If you bypass these flaws, then it would be great to publish more of these in the future maybe even as public videos too, because why not

[|7th|Nighthawk]

@Tiger1996:

Hello and thank you

Hm okay, Brits don't have a rally point though, right? Yeah, I have noticed that and it's highly annoying, especially since he always tries to stay behind them so he actually walks right into the enemy fire when you retreat the troop.

Oh, I really did not know that; that's good to know! Does it work like the normal follow ability? As in: Does the unit always try to stay behind the other unit? I knew about building rally points and I knew that you could point to a tank and have the tank commander enter it anywhere on the map but I did not know that regular units were able to walk to it as well.
I have watched a video with you playing against Smurfs. The only big difference I noticed was that you rarely fully retreated troops, which is something I do more often. I find it hard to spot the crucial differences between our ways of playing. They are obviously there because your game never went into a hard stalemate and you don't get stomped in PvP like I do but pointing to crucial errors, or in your case, decisive actions, is very hard for me to spot. It's not like other games like let's say Lol, which I never played, but where you can see the mad micro skills of good players and it is obvious what makes them good for a large part - insane micro. I did not see that as much in your game but it is probably way more about positioning and while I like to think that I don't position my troops that awfully, there is still a difference. Also probably timing of attacks etc. I usually rebuild my army after an attack instead of instantly counter attacking because Flak 18 and MG42 can make incredibly short work of damaged units, thus negating any advantage I had.

@kwok:
For some reason that Walder 1v1 review loads incredibly slowly in comparison to other Youtube videos.

[kwok]

Strange, I'm new to YouTube so I dont know how their infrastructure works. It is a pretty long video... I can also just do a review with you over discord or do a commentary alone and post it privately for you. Up to you if you want it. I might do a solo one on my own, give it to you to see if you are okay if i posted it publicly.

[Warhawks97]

1. Yeah, I did see that with the M2HB variants vastly differing in performance. Even their sound differs greatly. The .50 on the trucks, jeeps and tanks sound like peashooters while the M2 nest sounds incredibly powerful in comparison. It's probably all balance stuff but it still takes me by surprise sometimes when the very same gun has a very different effect (Just take the 75mm L/24 that can only shoot very close on the Panzer IV Ausf. D and E and is an epic sniper weapon on the half tracks).

The gun used to be vefy different from tank to tank with each gun being better against a certain target. Like the stug used to be worse in all aspects, the Tank IV the best with decent stats vs jumbo and Hetzer much worse vs jumbo but much better vs churchills.... and so on.
That got fixed.

The cal 50 are indeed very different. Those on tanks mounted for example have good damage per hit vs inf but lower accuracy.
The one mounted on cal 50 jeep has the same stats as the vehicle mounted MG42´s from axis. Or very similiar. Just in terms of rof the cal 50 has its 9 per sec vs i think it was 15 (MG34) or 25 (MG42). Basically a worse MG34 with the look of an cal 50.

So you observed that very well.

[|7th|Nighthawk]

@kwok: Maybe it's not high priority with the few amounts of views Sure, either would be great.

@Warhawks97: Yeah, I mean I get that you have to tweak a few things for units to become not too samey but when the very same gun does two very opposing things just because it is mounted on a different vehicle, it really breaks immersion since this game uses RL units and not fantasy ones.
Interesting. What about the .50 cal MG nest?

[Warhawks97]

The one in the nest is probably the "most realistic". All have in common a realistic rof. So far all small arms have that except the hull and coaxial MG´s. Their rofs, bursts etc are messed up to being nothing more than noises for their most time.

The cal 50 nest as well as all infantry weapons use realistic rof and magazin sizes. Only the FG42 has a few more rounds in the mag as it actually had.
vehicle top mounted MG´s usually have realistic rof but not magazin/ammo box size. Thats why the cal 50 MG nest is most realistic bc it has realistic ammo box size before reloading. Those on tanks and vehicles are pure fiction.

But i am totally sharing your point of view.

[|7th|Nighthawk]

Yeah.

Just a few more questions while we're at it:
1. How do I keep tanks from driving into battle backwards? The BK feature to facilitate retreat is something I tend to dislike overall because it does more damage than good. It does not matter whether I click or click pull to wards a location, the tank will often go out of it's way to reverse into battle, get a shot in the rear, turn around and get wrecked entirely. This drives me mad and I would very much prefer having to retreat carefully by clicking behind the tank slightly instead of having to deal with that idiotic behaviour. A lot of battles look like slapstick because both sides suffer from it. The AI can't deal with it either and sends wave after wave of reversing Shermans into the defences. I have briefly watched that one King Tiger replay where the Jagdpanther constantly drove into the enemy with the rear armour exposed, had to turn around in slow motion and get rekt.

2. Tanks "bounce" back when you order them to attack something that starts moving later. How do you attack tanks? Do you click somewhere around them and have your unit fire at them automatically? Do you use manual aim or do you click and have your tank do the moonwalk instead?

3. Brummbär or Grille? The Brummbär seems nerfed and also focused so quickly get rid of. The Grille costs ammo with every shot and I imagine that it can be rushed often as well because people really don't like getting bombed by 150mm guns so it needs a lot of babysitting.

4. M10 or M18? Some doctrines don't even use the M18 or allow only one of it. I mean it's obviously faster but gets damaged by pretty much anything above 8mm because it's just a barely armoured chassis with a gun on it. I take it has probably faster turret traverse? Since the guns is the same, is it fair to say that it's comparable to Panzer IV Ausf. J vs H?

5. Likewise, when do you use Tetrarch with 2pdr and when with 76.2mm?

6. Is there any reason to choose the Bren over the Dingo?

7. Is the Kangaroo worth it? I mean you can do hilarious bullshit with the CW truck, like putting Vickers into it and pretending to be the Taliban with technicals. The Kangaroo gets killed rather quickly from my experience. In this game I used it as PIAT platform once and it worked but got shredded so quickly by SD-2 and Geballte Ladung that I don't think it was really worth it.

8. Tiger II with Porsche or Henschel turret? The cost of this tank is huge anyway so those few MP and fuel don't seem a big problem if you get the "Kill everything" MG on top. The Porsche turret just looks incredibly retarded and was a terribly weak design anyway though but I guess it's actually the better version of the tank in this game, right?

9. What about those PaK40 replacements? Sure, they move faster and one of them can still camo while the other has stationary position. I am still not sure whether the guns perfrom similarly and whether it's worth it to put them in danger of one shot of a vehicle just for them to move faster around the battlefield. I read Kwok's starter tips but they are old so I don't know whether what he says about the PaK40 still applies.

I have more questions but I forgot them so I will ask those later.

[Warhawks97]

Yeah.

Just a few more questions while we're at it:
1. How do I keep tanks from driving into battle backwards? The BK feature to facilitate retreat is something I tend to dislike overall because it does more damage than good. It does not matter whether I click or click pull to wards a location, the tank will often go out of it's way to reverse into battle, get a shot in the rear, turn around and get wrecked entirely. This drives me mad and I would very much prefer having to retreat carefully by clicking behind the tank slightly instead of having to deal with that idiotic behaviour. A lot of battles look like slapstick because both sides suffer from it. The AI can't deal with it either and sends wave after wave of reversing Shermans into the defences. I have briefly watched that one King Tiger replay where the Jagdpanther constantly drove into the enemy with the rear armour exposed, had to turn around in slow motion and get rekt.

Microing vehicles and tanks can be a pain sometimes. But idk what to answer here to be honest.

2. Tanks "bounce" back when you order them to attack something that starts moving later. How do you attack tanks? Do you click somewhere around them and have your unit fire at them automatically? Do you use manual aim or do you click and have your tank do the moonwalk instead?

Well, yes. Its silly sometimes and happens often with flank speed active. I usually drive manually or get into range and click target manually. What bugs me that tanks have no more aim time. Almost every time when i am attacking a tank my tank made the first shot before standing still and thus wasting the first shot. For some reasons Panther have the biggest issue here. Attacking is quite difficult bc of that.
The aim time was literally removed to prevent some bugs with manual aim or so. But i never use this kind of ability as it requires too much attention. That in turn means that i am as attacker waste my first shot.

3. Brummbär or Grille? The Brummbär seems nerfed and also focused so quickly get rid of. The Grille costs ammo with every shot and I imagine that it can be rushed often as well because people really don't like getting bombed by 150mm guns so it needs a lot of babysitting.

True. But at the other hand quite powerfull when you do so. The problem is that the user of these units is prone to get a lot of defensive stuff in order to protect these units. On the other hand he can sit down on his as, camp with 99 units and attack with these single units. Thats what i call "Offensive camping". Somehow you have to but its also "easy".
I woud like to have grille cheaper and short ranged similiar as for example the 95 mm churchill.... 120-140 range instead of 200. That way the unit would be used more as anti defensive rather than "quick counter" to everything, esspecially arty. In turn lower cost and easier replacment would mean less necessary babysitting= less many defensive units necessary= less campy games generally.

4. M10 or M18? Some doctrines don't even use the M18 or allow only one of it. I mean it's obviously faster but gets damaged by pretty much anything above 8mm because it's just a barely armoured chassis with a gun on it. I take it has probably faster turret traverse? Since the guns is the same, is it fair to say that it's comparable to Panzer IV Ausf. J vs H?

Guns stats of hellact and M10 are quite the same. Most prefer Hellcat bc of the speed, faster turret traverse that makes ambushes easier, the cal 50 on top and the HE shot. So the hellact can also be used to harrass and shred infantry.
My main defense are M10 thought. No matter what doc i play.

5. Likewise, when do you use Tetrarch with 2pdr and when with 76.2mm?

I am not an RAF player but it depends. Some need it against vehicles while killing inf with inf. Others use it to shred inf while using inf to stop tanks. The best is to know what and how your enemie is playing.

7. Is the Kangaroo worth it? I mean you can do hilarious bullshit with the CW truck, like putting Vickers into it and pretending to be the Taliban with technicals. The Kangaroo gets killed rather quickly from my experience. In this game I used it as PIAT platform once and it worked but got shredded so quickly by SD-2 and Geballte Ladung that I don't think it was really worth it.

It once used to be OP taking lots of shots and used as sniper/piat platform. I havent seen this unit in a longer time. Thing is the sd2 deal way too much damage vs vehicles of this type.

8. Tiger II with Porsche or Henschel turret? The cost of this tank is huge anyway so those few MP and fuel don't seem a big problem if you get the "Kill everything" MG on top. The Porsche turret just looks incredibly retarded and was a terribly weak design anyway though but I guess it's actually the better version of the tank in this game, right?

it is. Thats generally a BK issue. Top mounted MG´s are deadly as fuck. No joke. The top mounted MG34 (they look like 42 but its actually 34) have very good accuracy, rof and bullet damage. Meanwhile hull and coaxial playing no role in this game. So yeah, top mount is always better. Thats why US sherman is so much better than CW one or Panther A/G to D or tank IV H/J over F2. I often requested to spread the damage of the tank MG´s over all three and not having one that deals 99% of the damage and two dealing perhaps one. I had lots of ideas regarding this matter but no one wanted to listen. For example reducing the overall dps of top mounts (by lowering accuracy/bullet damage and more frequent reloads) while the hull mounted MG´s have a range of just 45 (thats the range of hendheld AT weapons) and an effective deadly range of 2-20 or 25. Kind of close range defense against inf that attempts to use AT nades or stickies. Top mounted Tanks wouldnt shred all inf from far distance, top less tanks wouldnt be completely helpless in self defense. The coaxial kind of mid range MG´s that start shootig at ranges of 50-55, most effective between 7-35 range. (7 would be minimum range as they cant depress so much).
But till now nobody was open to such rethinking. But many issues of tank performence differences to tanks of the same type would be reduced.
I just hate how top mounted shred everything like laser beams while others without have little chances of self defense.

9. What about those PaK40 replacements? Sure, they move faster and one of them can still camo while the other has stationary position. I am still not sure whether the guns perfrom similarly and whether it's worth it to put them in danger of one shot of a vehicle just for them to move faster around the battlefield. I read Kwok's starter tips but they are old so I don't know whether what he says about the PaK40 still applies.

Depends on your gamesytle. Since paks are for me kind of "hold the line" weapons to get a comeback on the long hand i do prefer the towed as they cost no fuel.

[kwok]

I have a few notes to add on top of Warhawks. I think playbetter once told me the 76mm tetrarch is the better option because inf vet is more dangerous than light vehicle vet. And you always have the Daimler which plays the same role as the 2inch tetty

[Krieger Blitzer]

1. How do I keep tanks from driving into battle backwards? The BK feature to facilitate retreat is something I tend to dislike overall because it does more damage than good. It does not matter whether I click or click pull to wards a location, the tank will often go out of it's way to reverse into battle, get a shot in the rear, turn around and get wrecked entirely. This drives me mad and I would very much prefer having to retreat carefully by clicking behind the tank slightly instead of having to deal with that idiotic behaviour. A lot of battles look like slapstick because both sides suffer from it. The AI can't deal with it either and sends wave after wave of reversing Shermans into the defences. I have briefly watched that one King Tiger replay where the Jagdpanther constantly drove into the enemy with the rear armour exposed, had to turn around in slow motion and get rekt.

Never had this issue.. and throughout the KT ACE replay, I think TH doc player just didn't pay enough attention to his JagdPanthers in the first place.

The aim time was literally removed to prevent some bugs with manual aim or so.

It wasn't really removed, just it was reduced to a certain value for most tanks, which is "0.5" as far as I am concerned... Some tanks even already had this specific aim time value without having to change it, such as ACE tanks; both Tiger and Pershing! So, other tanks just received the same value.
I know pretty much everything MarKr has done regarding this matter in particular.. as it was me who asked him to do it.

[|7th|Nighthawk]

You never had tanks going out of their way to drive into battle backwards?!? BK mod did introduce that "easy retreat" feature, right? In vCoH you had to click right behind the vehicle for it to reverse instead of turning around to get shot in the rear. When retreating a vehicle was made easier, I fear that attacking with vehicles was made harder in the process. Often enough you have a tank get to a choke point, turn around slowly, come out backwards and drive to the battle like that, start to turn the turret to hit the enemy, turn around the hull, only for the turret to be at the wrong place and then get shot to pieces. It is highly annoying and trying to correct it while it's doing this only makes it worse. I sadly don't have a replay of it but the next time it happens I'll post it here. I am sure it will happen.

Yeah, SD2 seem to be indeed over performing against vehicles. They have an explosive charge roughly 1.5 times of a Stielhandgranate 24 which is quite decent against infantry maybe (although I don't know if it has as much fragmentation as a grenade) but not that impressive against vehicles. I would be very fine with it being able to decently damage light vehicles like the M3 half track and maybe de track smaller tanks but the Kangaroo is based on the Ram which is apparently an improved Sherman and seeing it lose half of it's hitpoints and get detracked because it ran into two SD2 mines seem a little over the top.
Btw, does the Churchill trigger them with it's mine thingy? I never saw it do anything so I never buy it. I just wonder if it is an effective tool against mines. The Sherman mine flail I indeed saw take effect against mines. Also can the Brits only use mine detectors to get rid of the mines if they don't use Royal Engineers? Having them run around and defuse them is highly dangerous as any HE lobbed at them will shred them all because of the mines that get triggered by the initial HE, resulting in almost always lethal blast. Shelling the area with a mortar yourself is only semi effective as well because it's not as thorough.
One last question: The mortar emplacement cannot fire smoke rounds. Can the 2 inch mortar? If so, is it's smoke effective in any way because it's a very puny caliber to put any ordnance into?

Thank you for your answers.

[Redgaarden]

I would say a big problem new players face is that alot of things are misleading, for example the single 20mm killed recce when 4 20 mm couldn't. And about officer, I would say it all depends on the officer, if it's a british LT, it has low buff range and can't buff other units without endangering itself. Wouldn't use it as a buffing tool and rather a anti camo and spotting unit. They do fit well in kangoroo transport but that is putting all the eggs in one basket and really dangures. If it's a WH or US officer, I would alwasy try and keep them behinde the units, I may look like the WH officer has larger buff range, but that is just becasue the US one is bugged and only show the buff icon itself when units are within 30 range. The range of the buffs is 40.
Then you have commando stromtroppers and Hauptman, those can just go into combat and kill stuff together with other units, but dont clump them up. A good formation for large infantry squads is a W formation, so an airstrike can kill maximum of two squads at a time.

Other misleading things could fx be that the rear armor of some tanks are weaker than the front. But such is not always the case. The 76mm gun on the sherman is not meant for tank destroying duty and should not be used as such. The 76mm M5 has the highest penetration of all the 76mm guns US has but is completely worthless if the enemy has any form of arty. Camoflauge is a mechanic that i meant to be absued, so never go to a place with high priced units if you expect invisible units to be there. M20, Motorcycles, Recce, Scout cars can all be suicided into enemy lines to draw fire and reveal cloakced units.
Another thing is if you're used to Vcoh smgs then you will find that unlike vcoh smg are better when firing from a stationary position instead of while moving. So when you get close with an smg squad, stop them from moving when they get into good range, and dont sprint in since the squad groups up and will be killed by a single nade when the frezze up.
Stay away from thompsons. Both from enemy thompsons and from getting them yourself, They are designed to have the highst burst dmg in the game but are useless every 4 secs of an engagement. An engagement usually last 5 secs.
Smoke is not decent cover. it may stop one or two bullets or tank shell, but your unit will still die like flies. Smoke is best as anti suppresion. But units will still be suppresed by WH defensive structures that goes through "Suppression Immunity". Officers reduce suppression.
Edit: There also alot of HE weapons that dont suffer penalties firing into smoke. And even if they miss the important stat of HE is scatter, and scatter does not get affected by smoke.

Infantry held anti tank are burst dmg weapons and not meant for sustained dmg. PIAT are an exception since they have 50-100% faster reload speed comapred to other handheld antitank. Anti tank squads are extremely delicate oiece of infantry, they die easily, take times to aim, and cost as much as elite infantry to reinforce. Always target these kinds of infantry first. So always retreat after the first shot, because it usually takes 15-20 secs to reload, and an egaements usually last 5 secs.

One last question: The mortar emplacement cannot fire smoke rounds. Can the 2 inch mortar? If so, is it's smoke effective in any way because it's a very puny caliber to put any ordnance into?

Thank you for your answers.

Calliber is relevant. Most smoke use same ability, like 105 mm arty has same smoke as 60mm mortar. Dont know if this is the case anymore.
and 25pounder is also odd since 2 of its arty barrages are 87mm and the rest of them are 105 mm.

[MarKr]

6. Is there any reason to choose the Bren over the Dingo?

This one was left off...by others. Most people preffer Dingo because it gives to CW another option to do recon (upgrade it with camo net and then you can camo it and use Binocular to get vision in big area).
If you compare them - both are bullet proof, both come armed with Bren LMG, cost is comparable . The difference is that Bren carrier gives you an option to transport your troops around the battlefield and they can shoot from inside (though this can be accomplished by the armored car too - it comes later though). Somebody mentioned here that Lieutenant of CW is very vulnerable - you can load him into Vickers and then you basically give him "mobile cover" and he can boost soldiers around from inside. The biggest advantage of Bren carrier is probably the option to upgrade it with Vickers HMG - then it becomes basically early-available mobile HMG platform which can provide to you advantage in early game - unlike HMG teams, the Bren carrier cannot be sniped or killed by bullets, rarely gets one-shotted by mortat shell, it can use the AP burst to attack early armored vehicles, it supresses infantry...

In general it is better to go with Dingo but in certain situations (such as if you play with someone you know and you agree that they will do the scouting for you) the early HMG Bren can provide advantage to you in early game.

[Redgaarden]

The biggest advantage of Bren carrier is probably the option to upgrade it with Vickers HMG - then it becomes basically early-available mobile HMG platform which can provide to you advantage in early game - unlike HMG teams, the Bren carrier cannot be sniped or killed by bullets, rarely gets one-shotted by mortat shell, it can use the AP burst to attack early armored vehicles, it supresses infantry...

They are also good late-game since they can stop and kill ALL axis infantry without problems.

[|7th|Nighthawk]

@Redgaarden:

Yes, I learned that the hard way with a few vehicles and guns. But sure, gameplay before realism. I guess you could probably still say that the Vierling shoots mostly HE while the vehicle uses a mix of AP and APCR or whatever (hah, the fans explaining the plot holes, right? ).
Ah, that's good to know about the officers. I noticed that those transport vehicles make X amount of passengers die when they explode. I don't know what the chances and percentages are but it seems like when I put an officer into them, they have a very high chance to die when that happens so I avoid doing that.

Yeah, except that some units sadly have to be clumped together. Not infantry on it's own but vehicles with infantry. This works pretty good quite often until enemy artillery rapes both infantry and tanks.
I know that the bike has a bigger detection range than the Schwimmwagen. Does something like this apply to M20 and Jeep (except that they are not replacement to one another)?
In my experience it is almost always better to use M3 Grease guns (ugh, what an awful weapon) than BARs. They seem to deal damage on any range quite impressively. Yes, I have noticed that standing still in general is very important in BK which is why attacks are so hard to perform in it because you're always at a disadvantage. Oh, so the Thompsons are basically useless? What about using them on British commandos? Don't they outperform the Sten?

Smoke works very strangely in this game and I have looked at a thread that explained it a bit more. In practice I noticed what you said when I tried it against AI. I rushed an 88 with two pios with flamethrower and two or three crocs and managed to kill it with huge losses in the end. So big that I don't think it would be something you would do in a PvP game because you would have lost a huge amount of resources on killing one emplacement. It seems reasonable that MGs can spray through smoke and still do decent damage but an 88 expertly sniping your tanks with it's high RoF really gets you by surprise. Now obviously you don't want to make it too easily killable by using smoke but since you have to go out of your way so much to actually get smoke anywhere, I find the effects to be rather poor. Yes, I've read that about HE as well.

Yes, that AT infantry. I don't have a lot of PvP experience but if you play against bots, the AT infantry, especially the Panzerschreck squad, really feels like the Ritterkreuzträgers all over again. They can shrug off an impressive amount of MG fire while sniping your tanks.

Lol, which attack has what effect?

If you say all, do you also mean the aforementioned bullet and suppression dodgers?

@Markr:

The Vickers leaves a passenger seat open? I never knew, thanks for the info. Yes, it would seem that the Ding is for the generalist while the Bren is for the specialist. Also if you take RAF, you can buy a Bren in the glider and have the Recce do the spotting. On the other doctrines I would heavily tend towards Dingo because using officers for spotting seems to be a bad idea since they cannot camo and are easily killed.
Yeah, but working teamwork needs working solo work first and we're far away from that.

[Redgaarden]

Ah, that's good to know about the officers. I noticed that those transport vehicles make X amount of passengers die when they explode. I don't know what the chances and percentages are but it seems like when I put an officer into them, they have a very high chance to die when that happens so I avoid doing that.

They upped how many died in car crashed, becasue it was too "Unrealistic" that 18 dudes jump unhamred out of fiery crash.

Yeah, except that some units sadly have to be clumped together. Not infantry on it's own but vehicles with infantry. This works pretty good quite often until enemy artillery rapes both infantry and tanks.

Which is why you shouldn't build units that can't handle itself. I would rather just let it die by itself than let arty kill it all.

I know that the bike has a bigger detection range than the Schwimmwagen. Does something like this apply to M20 and Jeep (except that they are not replacement to one another)?

M20 has a really high vision range and spotting range, It has higher spotting range than jeep since it's build for that very reason.

In my experience it is almost always better to use M3 Grease guns (ugh, what an awful weapon) than BARs. They seem to deal damage on any range quite impressively. Yes, I have noticed that standing still in general is very important in BK which is why attacks are so hard to perform in it because you're always at a disadvantage. Oh, so the Thompsons are basically useless? What about using them on British commandos? Don't they outperform the Sten?

M3 grease guns are quite amazing smg if I have to say so myself. BAR are simply not cost effiecnt compared to M3s.
And when you move with a rifle you lose 85% of your accuracy, with an smg it's only 25%. So when shooting on the move, the rifle has same accuracy as an smg. BAR loses 50% of its accuaracy when moving, FG42 loses 25%. Other lmgs usually can't shoot while moving.

And I have heard that Stens are even worse than Tompsons, I personally didn't believe it before. Since I thought Low tier smgs all had roughly same stats. But stens are just crap tier, Thompsons just has longer bursts and more dmg per bullet.

Smoke works very strangely in this game and I have looked at a thread that explained it a bit more. In practice I noticed what you said when I tried it against AI. I rushed an 88 with two pios with flamethrower and two or three crocs and managed to kill it with huge losses in the end. So big that I don't think it would be something you would do in a PvP game because you would have lost a huge amount of resources on killing one emplacement. It seems reasonable that MGs can spray through smoke and still do decent damage but an 88 expertly sniping your tanks with it's high RoF really gets you by surprise. Now obviously you don't want to make it too easily killable by using smoke but since you have to go out of your way so much to actually get smoke anywhere, I find the effects to be rather poor. Yes, I've read that about HE as well.

About smokes. Me and some other people are kinda in a disagreement in how they work. But this is how I see them.
Smokes does not give any cover if the smoke is between the targets, And I think it stacks if you put smoke on both yourself and the target. I also have a slight feeling that units in Heavy cover do not get any bonus from being in smoke and they only get worse aim. There are alot of HE guns that dont get any debuf from either shooting in smoke nor out of it and simply just ignore it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBdtMAupj6I
This is a vidoe about M20 command car defensive aura which does exact same as smoke stat wise, Smoke may not be reliable, but it's fun as fuck.
You can't see it from the video, but there is actually a M20 buffing the croc.
Edit: you want tanks that dont die in one hit to make smoke twice as effective.

So my general rules using smoke is, It will not save you from Mg fire, It will not save you from tank shells, and it will not save you from artillery fire.
But it does save you from suppression and bolt action fire. Flamethowers are fun combined with smoke since, they ignore smoke just like HE. And the fact they can destroy anti tank guns without endangering tanks or costing any aditional munitions.

[MarKr]

The Vickers leaves a passenger seat open? I never knew, thanks for the info. Yes, it would seem that the Ding is for the generalist while the Bren is for the specialist. Also if you take RAF, you can buy a Bren in the glider and have the Recce do the spotting. On the other doctrines I would heavily tend towards Dingo because using officers for spotting seems to be a bad idea since they cannot camo and are easily killed.
Yeah, but working teamwork needs working solo work first and we're far away from that.

The Vickers removes the passenger seat. Few patches ago we returned the vCoH feature which puts the original Bren gun on a pintle to the back. So you will lose the option to transport but you baiscally have a forward-facing Vickers and Bren gun - it is substantial ammount of bullets flying towards enemy and it, as Red said, quite deadly vs any infantry - especially if they leave cover.
So as already said: Dingo is more of a utility thing, Bren is a firepower boost.

[|7th|Nighthawk]

@Redgaarden:

Realism? Lol, as if cars and tanks exploding Micheal Bay style 100% of the time was realistic.

Hm, sounds good in theory but how many "I can do it all" units are there?

Good to know, thanks. W

Okay, Thompsons only for Commandos then and only if I happen to have too much ammo.

I'll take a look at the video. I take it that those sturdy vehicles are only Churchills, Pershings and upwards for the allies?
Sounds interesting, I'll have to play around with that combination. Sometimes very trollish tactics can win you a game

@Markr: Ah alright. You mean the Vickers? The Bren is the gun that sticks out the front, right? Yep, thanks!

[Kr0noZ]

@Redgaarden:

Realism? Lol, as if cars and tanks exploding Micheal Bay style 100% of the time was realistic.

That's an unfair remark. The fact that all vehicles in CoH/BK explode is an engine thing.
Relic did that because the game uses 2 different models for each unit, the regular one and a so-called "death clone" which is the wreck.
If a unit dies, the model is removed and the wreck spwaned in it's place and without a big fireball covering up the scene at that moment you'd see the model replacement in the form of "model disappears into thin air and wreck pops into the scene". That just looks dumb so relic devised a cover-up built into the game at an engine level. We could remove the effect, but I think that would actually trigger people more than "Michael Bay style".