Profile of simonp2

I'd like to know this too, if they're supported it's really tricky.

Barring a soviet mistake that lets you get a scoutcar in close the only thing i've had a little success with is artillery (mortars) The napalm strike from the mortar HT hits a large enough area to have a good chance at burning the sniper or at least making it run home.

I've not tried the panzerwerfer much i'd imagine it's similar, hope for a lucky hit.

As people say it's obviously good vs defensive Soviet play (T2, maxims, mortars).

It's also great for killing AT guns threatening your tanks. It's way better at shoot and move tactics than the regular mortar - but don't let it get hit by the soviet mortars, it's brittle and will die from it.

It's easier to use it offensively since it moves at vehicle speed, so it can follow your attack troops.

If you are doing an infantry centric strategy it gives you a decent fuel-dump and a way to threaten enemy support weapons who will otherwise shut down your grenadiers.

A followup point i forgot. Scouting is difficult in COH2.

In COH1 you had a fixed 360 sight range going thru everything, hence you could scout by approaching via shot-blocking terrain, going into buildings also gave you a larger spotting range.

And of course you had the bike and the jeep who both had massive sight ranges.

Due to truesight you don't have this option in COH2, the only way to know where the MG is is moving to contact and letting a squad get shot up, so it's actually more difficult to plan your flanks who are weaker in the first place.

If the MGs had a worse sight range on their own or there was another unit in T1 that had a longer sight range (think bike/jeep) this would be less of a problem I think.

I realize you have better scouting options later on but they come too late to really matter in the basic infantry & MG phase that comes early.

1). What I perceive as the problems, and why.

I think the problem is mostly one of durability and their effectiveness unsupported. Their supression, damage and arc would be fine if you could just kill the damn things by flanking. Support weapons should be support, and work well in combined arms setups, not run around alone. They're also really good in buildings due to the super-effective cover that buildings provide.




2). What I perceive as specific solutions to the problems, and why.

The major issue is the weak small arms damage, you simply can't kill an MG by flanking in a reasonable timeframe, they can just walk away, or turn around and kill you. So do something about the time-to-kill from basic infantry. This could be by buffing infantry damage or lowering the durability. I suppose what I'm really missing is stronger soft-counters (by way of positioning) in this game.

Lower building cover effectiveness, this would be better for the game overall, including the MG's.

Lower the sight range of MGs, if they had much worse sight range they would be of less use running around alone, attack-moving around would be more dangerous if you would be almost inside molotov range when you see the enemy. This would force combined arms which is a good thing (tm) in my book.

3). Free commentary/responses to others.

Yep, Panther can do OK if you can use terrain to get in close and circle. The problem is the combined arms army with SUs, Snipers, conscripts with AT grens/guards.

The time's i've beaten it it's been by being defensive and giving up ground, then looking for a chance to break one of the "legs" of the setup (either the SUs or the snipers). It helps to be able to reinforce in the field (halftrack) so he can't eliminate your presence completely.

Panther getting in close on isolated SUs works, sneaking a scout around the back to either kill or chase off the snipers also helps, snipers do take a while to get back in the action so making them run off is a small victory. Artillery works too in threatening the snipers in the back.

But really, the above only works on people who aren't that good.