Stuka Dive-Bomber + Close the pocket

This combo is highly devastating and unstoppable currently. It has a high munitions cost and doctrine dependent, but I've had a few team games completely turn around through a single use of this combo.

If you don't know, the conditions are simple. Gain visibility to a point. Use dive-bomber to make the point neutral. Activate close the pocket. Worldwide fireworks.

Just to clarify, he doesn’t mean the encirclement doctrine stuka, he means the ostheer stuka dive bomb used by another player using another doctrine such as Storm Doctrine.

Just to clarify, he doesn’t mean the encirclement doctrine stuka, he means the ostheer stuka dive bomb used by anoher player using another doctrine.

Yes this only works in team games to my knowledge

It is not Op.

Easy to counter, high risk, high reward. This ability is basically impossible to pull of in team games higher than 500. No need to balance around low ranks

Build a cache = GG

You can see this doc being used miles away.

Surplus it is one of the last unique commander abilities.

snip

If only you took 5 seconds to read my post below the OP...

For Ostheer to counter a cache without units and drop Close the Pocket he needs the following:

Player with Jaeger Armor:
- Recon Plane (60 muni)
- Stuka Dive Bomb (200 muni)

Player with Encirclement:
- Neutralize stuka (40? muni)
- Close the Pocket (200 muni)

It's an extremely expensive combo, but strong if you're unprepared. The 2 Stukas together will always destroy a cache and neutralize the sector, no matter in which order they're used. To counter it you just need the following:

- Reliable AA vehicle to perhaps shoot down the recon before it has sight over your cut-off
- Cache obviously.
- If it does get destroyed make sure you recapture the point ASAP again, ideally having a squad close already. Once your territory is connected again, any additional targetting for Close the Pocket will stop.

Scarier opponents are those who use the vehicle capturing and Stormtroopers well, instead of relying on this cheesy combo. The reason is because they can keep the sector from being recaptured for far longer (for example by repeatedly smoking it with Storms). I therefore advise also doing the following preparations:

- Destroy or triangle wire garrisons near the cut-offs.
- Place mines around the cut-off to damage engine vehicles and stop cloaked Storms.

Just remove the stuka dive bomb's ability to neutralize a point and it's all fixed.

For Ostheer to counter a cache without units and drop Close the Pocket he needs the following:
...

Stuka dive bomb neutralizes point regardless as far as I know.

Even so the combo requires at least 400 munition .

Just remove the stuka dive bomb's ability to neutralize a point and it's all fixed.

Just remove Stuka from Jaeger Armor tbh

Just remove Stuka from Jaeger Armor tbh

this

If only you took 5 seconds to read my post below the OP...

Since you basically need to stuka dives (You will have to cut at least 2 points on larger maps) i think the combo is fine.

Removing stuka from jäger armor, which i support, is a complete other topic

I think it's just a problem of how well the ability scales with higher number of players.

The ability is basically there to just grief worst opponents in a "humiliating" way cause in general it's not a good commander.

Can you commonly neutralise a single point in teamgames to cut off the enemy's side of the map? My understanding was that 2v2 and up generally didnt have "cutoffs" with as much strength as 1v1.

This is more of a meme strategy than anything else, surely?

Since you basically need to stuka dives (You will have to cut at least 2 points on larger maps) i think the combo is fine.

Removing stuka from jäger armor, which i support, is a complete other topic

Removing stuka from Jaeger armor and IL-2 PTAB run from Mechanized support is really overdue.

Good players use Storms, not stuka dive bombs. Sneaky sneaky panzershrecks and poof, it's gone. Good arranged teams can pull it off, especially vs random teams. At that point, it's an I WIN button on some maps like Redball, which in itself is a moronically designed lane-y map.

Red Ball is indeed badly designed for this abilities presence in 4v4 and 3v3 and can be a team strategy against both experienced and unexperienced individuals.

If were going to just use 400 muni as a justification of cheese then 325 old air supremacy and 60 muni recon to drop it was also fine. Loving that perspective kappa.

close the pocket commander is a one trick pony, high risk/high reward, which only real highlight out of the 5 abilities is the last one in the line....
you might be a burden on your team of 3 or 4 without going for something that has early or midgame impact, especially if you are trying to hide the fact from the enemy that you are playing that doctrine, which is often a dead-give-away like stormtroopers that the rear lines needs more attention.

once enemy knows this, commander is useless, unless it gets help from an ally (plz nerf teamwork)

regarding stuka bomb, its expensive and ''easy to dodge'', unless you are stationary, like fixed arty or a capture point.

jaeger doctrine might not need the stuka bomb, but storm gets to keep it imho.

as long as you pay attention, its the best counter to this combo, and i suspect many a fresh player have lost a lot to this doctrine.

but for those are seasoned, if it happens once, shame on you, if it happens twice, shame on me.

Personally I don't see players using recon planes to execute this. They use infiltration units to pop out a nearby building. The stuka destroys the cache (yea I tried that defense). Yea, it's expensive, but the payoff is well worth it. In 3v3 and 4v4 it's not hard to come by 400 munitions between two players.

In one game in particular maybe a month ago, I remember one of the players kept attacking one point next to my base with jli or st(some infiltration unit). They could never making it out alive, but he kept spawning them. Then I found out why when I was pushing on his team and he did it again during my offensive push, but this time activated ctp which must have eliminated about half my entire army value or more. So as I recovered, I put up extra defense on the point. I didn't want to rage quit or anything because the whole team was doing a pretty good job and we had majority map control. The JLI come again and meet a machine gun I placed. Just as I think I stopped the cheese, I hear the stuka. Point goes neutral and ctp is activated.

To me, it's cheesy. Maybe the ctp commander needs to be changed so it's not a one trick pony with an abusive skill button at the end. There is no defense against a dive bomber and ctp. Keeping up to 4 players from even seeing a single point in a game is a lot to ask and again, it's not hard to gather the munitions in a team game.

strictly speaking, close the pocket doctrine isn't something that OST really need, its a cheesy one-trick-pony with alot of potential sacrificing to acheive that end-goal. alot of factors must be right to pull that off.

so the doctrine might be altered to something else, but that debate is not one of balance, but cheesing, and i want other doctrines also to receive the same critical glance(looking at B4)