Profile of Hawking

Just played a 1v1 on Angoville against an OKW guy who camped out the bottom right point with a flak HQ and two ISGs. Thankfully my sappers were able to be on 24/7 repair duty for my Mortar emplacement, but, Jesus Christ. If he hadn't ran them forward at one point, where I roasted one with a wasp and the other with a Comet...

These things could really use some looking at. My Tommies were almost useless given the laser JDAM accuracy of these things, only my hold of the left side won me the game.

I wonder how would atomic bomber runs would fare against an enemy with an actual air force and good ground anti-air unlike the crippled and exhausted japanese of 1945? They would surely require a huge number fighter escorts squadrons, and those had terrible ferry range. A bomber on it's own is a sitting duck.

The Red Air Force, while reasonable by 1945, absolutely would never have stood up to the USAAF and RAF of mid-late 1945. The Bombers wouldn't have too much trouble getting INTO Soviet Airspace. Ground anti-air is definitely a reasonable point, but, I'm not sure it would have stopped bombing campaigns or helped the Soviets to establish air superiority. Certainly would have slowed things down, though, for the West.

Also the US and Royal Navies would likely have plopped a bunch of aircraft carriers in the Baltic Sea, which would have given them a massive advantage. Leningrad would have disappeared very quickly. The Western Allies owned both the Atlantic and Pacific by this point, so, gives them a lot of options to make use of their rather large and by this point very experienced navies.

If my Hearts of Iron game is anything to go by, the Western Allies get absolutely shat on by 10,000,000 super strong Stalinium steel Soviet Motorized divisons, until I drop 10 Airborne divisions on Moscow and win the war.

but then new york gets invaded by soviet marines

Also basically what LeYawn said. The US still had millions and millions of people left to throw into the fight, and their navy and air forces were only getting bigger and increasing in tempo. Plus, had they thrown the defeated Wehrmacht in with them, I have no doubt that Western Allied industrial might and technological advances would have beaten the Soviets. (A-Bomb withstanding, they didn't have quite enough of those to win the hypothetical conflict simply by nuking a bunch of Russian cities, although firebombing them ala Japan from bases in Western Germany and Austria would have done immense damage)

Can confirm.
Brit mines wiped 2 full squad PGrens last night as they tried to close in on my 17. Pdr.

I think their damage vs. vehicles got changed, though, in favour of more critical chance? Had an Ostwind and P4, who were both on about 1/2 HP at the time, roll over the M6 Mine and only get taken down by about 1/4.

Not sure. Someone summon the Cruzz that we may find out.

Hey there guys.

Just got out of a game where I played Encirclement Doctrine for giggles. Luckily the dude I was playing against decided that Penal spam into M5 into T-34 was a good idea, and lost the game quite promptly. I had time, however, to grab out a Stormtrooper squad, grab them their STGs, and get them up to Vet 3 with 803% efficiency.

However, using these Stormtroopers, I was struck by how weird and seemingly out of place they are. They have no real defined role, they're just kinda...there. They have a great STG upgrade and an okay Shrek upgrade, but I still feel like they've been left behind with the leaps and bounds the game has made since Encirclement was introduced. They're specialists, this much is true, but, could they be reworked and given some love to be given a more defined purpose? Especially with Partisans(their rough equivalent), getting some attention recently, I thought it might pay to have a bit of a review of Ostheer's strange specialists.

Personally, I'd love to see them get more utility(demo charges, mine laying, ability to do an AA Rangers swap between Pshrecks and their original weaponry, that sort of thing) in exchange for a cost increase to fulfill a role similar to Commandos, but hopefully without the uber-suppressed-special-forces-chris-kyle-callofduty-spraydown-instawipes that categorized the glory days of the 'Mandos.

Would love to hear your thoughts.