I don’t know if using snipers to kill AT guns is a cost-effective strategy, but it is a hilarious one.
A friend and I had hilarious times against the AI using sniper-pairs to take out mortar, MG and AT teams. Instant kills.
Mortars just seem so slow compared to snipers. Where it really shows up is in buildings. When I first started playing the game, I tried to use mortars a lot, figuring their big role would be to take out things entrenched in buildings, etc.
Though it might be my poor play, I’ve found that mortars reduce entrenched buildings very slowly. It seems to take forever to kill off a machine gun nest in a building with mortar fire, for example, whereas a sniper does it in a matter of 20-30 seconds or so.
Meanwhile, mortar teams really don’t survive being hunted down any better than snipers, so there is not really a “heartiness” benefit to having the mortar team either from what I see.
I’ve never really experimented with the mortar smoke ability that much. I suppose, for example, that one use would be to drop smoke so that a flamethrowing engineer squad could get to the building at issue. That type of micro in a hotly contested game is a bit beyond me, however.
Sly
I used mortars like so…
Build up a set of defenses (maybe just an MG or AT team, depends on the case) and have the mortar team hit whatever target from so far away they have to come to you to get the mortar team.
Also, snipers are cool and all, but they have to be in pretty close comparatively. I use snipers as spotters (turn on hide, off attack) for longer range things (artillery types, mortars, etc). Or use them sparingly. They (snipers) are pretty easy to take down if you’re prepared for them.
Mortars are used in urban situations behind buildings for indirect fire. That’s about it. They have very long range, longer than the sniper.
One direct hit from a mortar will kill an AT gun crew, though. That’s their big role.
Yea, i’ve never used Mortar smoke either. Might be worth trying with Airborne as they get tons of almost-free MG and Mortar squads.
Sometimes it’s almost unfair. I use them for this all the time and just pound, pound, pound the oppositions base. My dude rarely ever dies as long as he’s in a good hiding place. Fun.
Yeah, I don’t think enough people use them this way. The default range of site isn’t the limit of most artillery types.
I agree they have a bit shorter range, but you do know that their range increases if you have someone spotting for them, right? Ordinarily, their range is their line of sight, but if you have something else (infantry or whatever) that can see the target, the sniper can fire further and hit that target.
Same goes for antitank guns I believe.
heh, yep, very aware of that. :)
Are flattracks (ally trucks) allowed to resupply if given the weapon upgrade? I’m finding that 2 of them plus AT and rangers are a pretty unstoppable group.
Also for the axis does anyone use the officer unit? During the campaign he rained down arterly shots with his one power.
Officers are a very goofy unit that don’t fit well into Company of Heroes, although they are a way for the Axis to get artillery anywhere they want, at any time. You can’t attach them to squads, and they don’t provide any passive bonuses.
I believe upgraded halftracks can still reinforce squads, only losing the ability to carry troops.
I would probably build more Axis officers if I remembered which building was required; among other things, their “force retreat” power is extremely powerful when used correctly.
- Alan
The officer is a lot like a cheaper, more fragile version of the Terror Doctrine.
For 150 munitions he can call in an artillery strike which is very powerful and accurate and tends to not telegraph itself very much. For 50 munitions he can do version of Propaganda and force a squad to retreat. In 1.5 though his Force Retreat only hits a single squad and does not do an area like Propaganda does.
Both of these abilities have a range of roughly a sniper shot.
I think a single officer can be good because he can directly turn munitions into major ass-kicking and can single-handedly turn a battle, but if you’re going Terror he’s very redundant and not necessary.
I’ve always found the mortar to be a useful complement to the machine gun: The MG suppresses incoming troops, and the mortar rains explody death on them while they can’t move. It also generally messes with troops when things just start blowing up in their general area.
The mortar’s most useful property is that it ignores cover. Have a bunch of enemy troops hiding behind a wall near your defenses? Drop a mortar on them! This is also why they are so effective at taking out AT gun crews.
Cool thread - I’m still playing the single player campaign and have failed a few times on the (I think) St Lo map (take the town square, hold against the counter attack and destroy the nebelwerfers). I’ve just realised that I haven’t been deploying MG’s in my defence of the square…doh.
Yes. In terms of usefulness, you also can place them somewhere out of the fray, and they will fire on targets that are in range. I had always assumed you had to manually set the bombard area on the target you wanted. That is not the case. They will engage on their own, and make a somewhat useful tool to just forget about off to the side of the map, as they will drop shells on stuff that passes through the center.