German abilities rarely seen

Relief infantry is just stupid. Why to kill valuable grenadiers/panzergrenadiers to get underperforming Osttruppen, who will die instantly if in neutral cover?

Well the ability might be really under used . But the principal is ok, you activate it in large assaults when you are losing many grenadiers anyway. Your not sacrificing them. Your gaining map control and some free Ost thrown in for a few munis.

The smoke bombs also got another advantage:

they give you LoS of the area they are flying above. So you got kind of a recon in a reconless doctrin ^^ this can be useful in many situations

I used to use the smoke bombs a lot. I'd often drop them on enemy tanks (because I wouldn't realize they didn't do damage; i just saw a Stuka and said... Stuka kills tank. Use Stuka) but I think arty smoke drops. A good way to fool the enemy into retreating a blob or backing up tanks. The problem is that it's only on a few (or even one?) doctrine.
I think we should buy abilities rather than commanders and create our own mix, with some guidelines as to what you can put in a commander. (i.e, not all passive abilities, not all airstrikes, etc.)

Thanks for your answers!

4. Do you know by how much % the damage received is reduced? And it sounds like it works with inf & tanks, doesn't it?

5. Aaahh so you don't need to lose whole squads? That's what I understood from the description, but your one sounds better.

6. Does the LeFH do significant damage to vehicles/tanks like the soviet one? And how good is it at killing inf? (I know it probably wont do as much damage as the sov one, but it has never been used against me so far)

9. 30 fuel is quite much for the vehicle you get imo, it's not even able to reinforce your troops. And idk if you want to order another Grensquad @3CP. Do you use it?

I use the officer when I will be using lots of artillery and mortars. I forget the name of the map but the one where it is really narrow 4v4 you end up getting bogged down and it comes down to indirect weapons. I move the artillery officer and call the barrage artillery ability and all indirect weapons in area volley the area. Waite for the recharge and repeat.

For the post rupee ability if I am playing a 3v3 game or 4v4 game and my teammates are spamming vehicles I use this ability. Basically I am the infantry doing most of the capping. I save up for the ability then march my blob onto the objective. I normally keep going past the objective to clear the area out. Once a squad gets down to two men I retreat them. For every four men lost you receive one oostruppen squad of 6 men. Once the ability runs out or I run out of guys (due to retreating) I stop the attack and consolidate the position. I use the oostruppen to redrew support weapons. Waite to recharge and repeat. Means you quickly reach pop cap but that is ok if your teammates are focusing on heavy tanks.

Hi folks,

there are some abilities I rarely see used or use (because I don't find them that usefull, and apparently most of my enemies too), maybe you could tell what you think about them and what their best use is in your opinion (and maybe answer some of the questions below).

1. Artillery Officer: the smoke barrage is cool, but I'm not sure about the rest... how does the 20mun ability affect units excatly (stats)?
2. Heavy Strafing Run (AT): the few times I used it, its damage was not that good and I had the impression that it need LoS to be effective. true?!
3. Hull down: massive strategic impact, as you're vulnerable to arty and usually want you tanks to move, but is the bonus worth it? (what is it anyway?!)
4. Command tank: how does it affect the units in its sector?
5. Relief infantry
6. Trenches: what is the exact bonus for units?
7. Arty: when playing OH I never find myself saving the 600mp for this one...
8. Smoke Bombs: Ok their use is quite obviously for blocking LoS, but do you find it useful?
9. The grens in the SdKfz from Mech Supp

A3 I use a lot of P4 s I sit them on top of the objective go hull down. I don't normally attack with P4 s too vulnerable I primarily use them as anti AT on the defence. Hull down complements this by increasing survivability and ROF.

Anyone here know if there is any difference on the damage, range or accuracy between normal barrage and counter barrage for arty and panzerwerfer? Or is it just that it fires automatically?

As I recall, there are differences in at least damage between normal Barrage and Counter-Artillery.
I'll check CoH2stats once I get home from work.