Profile of MarcoRossolini

As you watch, try to keep an informal tally on who's losing more squads, positions etc. Often the deciding factor in a game is whose squads have been sapped away.

The mark of a veteran player is who has the most squads with the most vet mid game. Lategame it gets too easy to lose squads due to any number of reasons, but midgame, a player whose units are in good repair, with good veterancy is likely to not have played an extremely strong game, but continue to play an extremely strong game. I've played 2v2 randoms where my teammate loses squads constantly, whilst I end up with piles of veteran infantry. Being the player with that infantry allows you to carry the game quite effectively given a bit of luck.

A good trick I've found is to have Gren and MG42 squads linked together. When you come across an enemy, you immediately set up the MG42 and keep the Grens advancing.
The MG42 becomes your primary suppression unit and shuts down enemy infantry squads (which its really good at, especially if they're clumped together).
The gren squad is your buffer and deterrant to prevent the enemy rushing too close to your MG.

The ratio I try to keep to is 2 Grens:1 MG42.

If a molotov cocktail does land on your MG42, don't hesitate to retreat. Usually he'll have taken so many casualties he'll be forced to retreat immediately after.

Do be aware that the early game is currently the allies forte. Hold out for tanks, those really start messing up their infantry.

Best of luck, there's a lot of bitter vets around (such as myself), but I think the next patch promises to do a lot of good things to the game.

In reality what was the vision like for tanks to see behind them? I'm talking without someone up top of course.

I imagine they had rear vision slits/periscopes of some kind at least?
It would certainly make things interesting if they couldn't see behind them at all.

It really depended on the tank.

In Early Soviet tanks (super early model T-34 for example) had pretty limited vision. You had about 3 vision slits (if you were lucky) which faced out the front, one to the side and possibly a periscope that you could swivel to the rear (if you were a gymnast that is). There was a similar situation in tanks like the Panzer I and II and others. The Panzer III and Panzer IV on the other hand pretty much from their first iteration had a cupola (the big protrusion at the centre of the turret). It doesn't afford all round view, but it's great because it has little windows/ periscopes that allow you to look at areas all around and pretty much every turreted German tank had these cupolas. They must have been pretty indespensible because you see captured KV-1s which have had cupolas retrofitted to them.

It took a while for the allies to catch up with the cupola idea (though I'm sure they were around, I just can't think of any tanks which had them prior to the Germans).
Very late model T-34/76s had a cupola above the commander/gunner and all T-34-85s, ISs etc had them as standard. The Soviet cupola on the T-34 was actually pretty good because not only did it have the little periscopes dotted around the cupola circle, but it also had a standard all round periscope as well. Contrary to popular belief, both Soviet guns and Soviet optics were not as bad as is generally thought.

Early model Shermans likewise had a pretty much non-existant cupola, but with all later models (Easy 8s, possibly 76s, I'm not sure), they had the cupola as well.



In game terms this would translate as thus:

Tanks such as the T-34, and similar tanks without a cupola would have vision directly to the front and would have small arcs to the left and right, as it had a vision port there as well.

Tanks like the Panzer IV, which does a cupola, would have small vision ports all the way around, sort of like an 8 line cross, as well as vision to the front and to the sides from its vision ports.

Open topped tanks would have vision all the way around, but should be massively vulnerable to indirect fire (they aren't these days).


I'm not quite sure on the reasoning behind TDs and SPGs not having cupolas. Some did, (SU-100 is the prime example) but most (StuGs, ISUs etc) did not. Probably it's the fixed gun making it pretty much useless as also their more defensive role.

Likely in game terms these tanks would have vision straight out front, similar to the focus sight on SU-85 and JPIV

There's fleeting footage of Soviet soldiers using it in Berlin, but likely it's staged.

There were cases of airdropping smoke to support an assault.

There's this marvellous memoir by Anna Egorova who specifically details a mission she and her unit was given when they had to drop smoke to cover an assault at a specific point on a specific schedule to cover an assault.

According to the memoir it seemed to work.

Not cost effective at all. But man is it hilarious when it's set off!