Nyvre

Pease read the op before posting, I clearly outlined the following:

• A king tiger costs 2100 manpower
• You need 1800 manpower 300 fuel and 150 munitions to kill one when playing armor and even more when playing infantry.

The fact that airborne can handle them with a single air strike if there are no distractions is strange but if it compensates for the fact that armor and infantry have no cost efficient counter is a very different question. I personally think that needing a specific doctrine to deal with something at a low price and otherwise needing such a wealth of resources that they are almost unthinkable isn’t desirable.

• This reply was modified 7 years ago by Nyvre.
• This reply was modified 7 years ago by Nyvre.

The issue begins not when they take the second VP, but when they got to hold unto two fuel points for a big part of the game. It is this which allowed them to make a large number of 76mms and why they got to spamming shermans right after. From the point where they got 2VP onward it was +33 fuel for them vs +16 fuel for you, far from a favourable scenario. Because you didnt have much Anti Tank in place and you were surrounded they got easy pickings at where to attack and what to attack, which is a big advantage. The Allied player kind of played into them being weak at first, he saved a lot of resources to push out a lot of tanks when he got the fuel. Since he put a MG on every of his tanks, panzerjager teams lost much of their effectiveness and would only work at proper effectiveness when camouflaged. You always had units not doing much at all, I can understand if you are distracted/gearing up for a big attack but still most of your infantry units spent ~25% of their time standing still with full health and would’ve probably done better on the front line or being returned for manpower, although I understand if you dont want them to get slaughtered by the sherman spam that took off at this point.

However, to some degree it is wasted potential, they could’ve helped holding off enemy infantry or been returned to buy you a few more tanks or AT guns; look for units with a clock icon in the top right or use the hotkey. A beobachtungswagen can’t beat a 76mm, think of them as something kind of like a worse panther, fast, big gun and a bit armoured. Depending on their equipment shreks(countered by MG), AT guns(countered by HE) or jagdpanzers /should/ help. The shermans got hurt but they didnt get killed, because your AT units died one by one. Like I said before, the principle of tank warfare is that your anti tank forces must attack as a whole when the opportunity is there, although judging such perfectly does to some degree depend on your intell. Intell seemed low during most of the game, killing or avoiding the enemy tanks is much harder if you dont know where they are. There were /multiple/ points where a butterfly bomb strike could’ve hit them while the crews were outside of their vehicles, for example. Your ally was far from optimal, often had his units sitting somewhere being useless, but the amount of impact you can have on that is, sadly, not that big, beyond maybe some shouting.

By the point the enemy got wolverines he had 350 fuel from having double your fuel income for a decent amount of time. Watching your ally throw a single stug at the two wolverines was a silly sight to behold and the fact he eventually only built tigers was just a bit silly, especially considering he didnt, as you mentioned, use them to fight the 76mm. Your MG firing on the KT was a waste, retreat and set it up in camouflage with holdfire if you want to keep it near the front, firing on the KT just makes it slowly lose men.

When the enemy has 5 tanks, you have 1 tank and 1 AT gun and you have half the fuel income your situation is precarious, but my advice would be to, rather than send in one AT gun, wait untill you have a few, so you can instantly kill a sherman, that helps put the fear of germans back into the allied hearts and a dead tank is much better than a few dents. That is really the BIG difference between tanks and infantry, infantry you can just bleed down, but tanks are all or nothing, it either dies or it gets repaired, so you need to bring enough to kill them dead and fast or not fight at all. This may sound a bit silly but you did have 600 manpower in reserve the moment you sent your AT gun at them and had some volksgrenadiers who proceeded to do nothing for the next few minutes. As the game goes on beyond this, the chances of victory get less and less, the enemy has more tanks and more resources and I understand it is hard to pin point when to make the all out counter attack but even keeping 3 AT guns at camouflage would’ve helped more than trickling in anti tank to their deaths. The barrage on their single wolverine once again hallmarks bad intell and was better saved for when the enemy would face your AT with his tanks. When the situation became this, your ally became worthless, not returning his crews for manpower and just only building a tiger now and then. Here we reach the point where the enemy tank blob only grows and your chances of victory begin to disappear. It is then my replay crashed, but this should be comprehensive enough as it is.

While the dissertation above includes some nitpicks, my main points are:

• Use AT together and all at once or keep it on the defensive/camouflaged/behind untill you can, tanks are all or nothing, they either die or get repaired
• Intell is key
• If units dont do anything, use them or return them for manpower. I can understand them waiting for a big charge, but them sitting not even on the front line and doing nothing is a waste, although I understand you may not be focused here.
• And really, this game came for a big part down to resources, letting your enemy get a lot of fuel while they had saved a lot of manpower was what lead to this tankspam of theirs.

Hope this was helpful!

I mean the crew, the coloured bar on the weapon, no the white one. Grenades (and, allegedly, sniper rifles) do seem to do damage but rifles, SMGs, etc. don’t.