And do you guys have any tips on mid-late game? ----- Oh, and the slow repair of ost.
The way I see it, Ost is not designed to repeatedly 'tank' damage with its armour, as it can take too long to repair. Its not designed to be overly aggresive and apply hard pressure, like allied tanks are, which is why allies need faster repairing.
Ost tanks are designed to slow grind the enemy, and play defensive, trying to avoid as much damage as possible, here is a host of things that helps you do this:
Many Ost units can use RANGE to stay out of trouble;
- Elifant is obvious example
- Command P4, use it so your grens/paks win the infantry war
- Hull down, I really like it for Ostwinds and Panthers, its soo underused, but the added range keeps them from taking too much damage, esspecially backed up with panzer smoke, keep infatry forward to screen them.
- Brumbar has vet 1 barrage, to wreck stationary inf/support weapons at a safer range
A mistake people can make with the faction (imo), is relying to heavily on the armour, its still the infatry that needs to win you the late game most of the time.
A good example is trying to use panthers as your main anti armour, the slow rate of fire will mean you get out DPS by opponent and out repaired at same time. You should always rely on paks or maybe elefant as main AT, keep the panther just out of harms reach, and when the enemy takes a volley of Pak fire, if you think you can finish it, you chase with the panther.
Panther is a chase unit, to add needed speed and manouverabilty to otherwise slow Ost. But its not meant to work on its own (unlike say T34/85).
Charlie Dont Surf
Relic Entertainment
