Hey all, I just wanted to post a little information to the power of my double T3 US Infantry company, especially as it has shown me the powers of basic engineers and what it can bring to any company that wants to rely on 'weight of numbers' over power of elites.
This is primarily done with my US Arty Company, but can be done for anything that relies on inticing the enemy to come at you (a calliope centric company or maybe airborne medics or assisting a British artillery company). In my case, since the howitzer will usually be a target to be blitzed, it makes a perfect bait for the enemy to make this build work.
The key (and most certainly core) to this company is the engineer. WHAT? I might hear you say? It's just a 3-man squad with crap health and even crappier guns! What can he possibly do to make for the backbone of your company?? But to that I say, low and behold they hide a secretive power that only a select few have truly come to understand, but which I will share with you. Firstly, let's get this out of the way, engineers are expensive units pool wise, being TWO against your infantry pool to deter huge numbers of them, and can only reasonably be fielded with a pure rifle company. Thus the engineer becomes your 'elite' in your company due to its pool cost. Adding rangers into the mix is a big no-no due to it stifling the amount of troops you can field to make this company effective. And if you're fielding engineers aplenty, then you need to follow the ALL OR NOTHING approach with them.
Why is that, you may ask? The reason being to make them effective, you must field them in sufficient numbers to provide a good deterrent and scare tactic for your enemy. Having one engineer with mines isn't really going to hamper your enemy and maybe you'll get lucky and get one good mine hit in. However, have 10+ engineers all with mines (x2) for 20 mines is very devastating and can be laid in every damn approach to your army or in a sector to seriously mess things up for your enemy! So that goes without saying... let's go onto the upgrades that are most beneficial to mine-oriented engineers.
Engineer Upgrades:Mines x 2 - Oh yes, a very powerful if under-utilized weapon in EIR. Very situation if only laying 1 or 2, but in mass are a very destructive force on the field. Lay mines in chokeholds like roads (due to vehicle pathing prefering roads), alleyways, and paths between openings in hedges. A good many axis infantry and vehicles has met their doom or had their attacks severely blunted by running into a mine, especially as they think they come for a defenseless howitzer! Mines will destroy or seriously stall large infantry blobs (best one was stopping 2 MP44 gren squads and 2 shrek squads coming for a howitzer as a single engineer with flamethrower hits all the suppressed men) or engine cripple and stop vehicles that may make a beeline for rear areas, or try to weave between obstacles that like urban environments. Also keep in mind that you can walk over friendly mines, so if you have that supposed 'helpless' engineer squad run from an ostwind, lead him into a mine and walk away laughing while you proceed to flame his support weapons. CAUTION - DO NOT STAND ON MINES and warn allies of their placement, as stray tank fire CAN detonate them and kill your own forces! Do not place them like sandbags like in front of friendly units, but should be more 'where will the enemy stand to engage me' and work from there.
Flamerthowers - May as well get them, as a riflemen/engineer company will be running excess of munitions (I ran enough to comfortably buy 2 snipers for lack of anything else to put ammo into). They are great if the squad is in a building, and equally effective against blobbed troops, especially if they are suppressed. I also generally suicide the squads and move on top of the enemy, as if the squad 'explodes', the fire from the flamer guy will be like a napalm grenade and hurt the enemy more if he does not immediately move. Talk about cooking with napalm!
Demo Charges - The most underused upgrade for engineers, I believe, but has become my new favorite tool with engineers next to mines. Why is that? Well, there's two very good reasons that I shall explain!
1. Line of Sight - It provides LOS immediately around the building you see.
2. Usefulness as Anti-infantry and Anti-vehicle.. but on demand! - Can instant kill any squads in buildings, AND can be used to detonate mines around the building or kill passing squads and vehicles near it.
These two things make demo charges a
must on every engineer in my company. Go into a town with wave of wave of engineers, demo every building and have great LOS into the city the whole game. My best use was in Tante where a Stug, 50mm HT and a vet 2 Shrek squad was in the building while a Vet 2 MP44 assault gren squad was running by in an alley, blew up the demo charge and killed the 50mm HT, took out the gun on the stug (granted both vehicles were a bit damaged before the explosion) and instant killed the shrek squad inside. In addition, due to the power of the explosive and its AOE, laying mines around the target building will usually force detonate them all, making for a great 'domino effect' explosion that you can trigger if the enemy misses the mines or stops near them!
To make this combination of 'crippling' effects even more powerful and predominant, I run a double T3 company (
Arty Fortification and
Grenade Experts). Why that particular pair of T3s? Well, the 10% ranger HP buff from Allied Grit is piddly and gives virtually nothing to riflemen and engineers, and on top of that you're out on both the 'carbines' T4 upgrade or the T4 Tank Reapers, and without TR you want to avoid rangers like the plague. And being engineers are double pool of riflemen, that's the only choice you're left with (as the expensive 'core' over the cheap riflemen bodies). So basically I run a mass army of 'vet 2' range riflemen who are all paired with an engineer with all the above upgrades. All call-ins are 8 pop, and their job is simple. Lay all mines and democharges, charge the enemy and inflict as much damage on them while crippling their heavy tanks. The quicker he kills you, the quicker you can bring in more 'trapping' squads to lay even more mines and demo charges. Of course this is assuming you're not just running into an HMG and just throwing your men away, no no no of course not! We're talking fighting to the last man style and making Jerry pay for taking your crater! In addition, the entire company is 'cheap' and lets you buy many an M10 tank destroyer, which many pro players will tell you serve as the best US Anti-tank 'tank' as well as being very good against infantry of all sorts, especially the expensive kind (sorry KCH, meet my treads!)
So the
second most important thing in this company are VANILLA RIFLEMEN with STICKIES. I run absolutely no ATGs as having crippling stickies can do many wonderful things that an ATG can't.
Advantage of using Stickies over ATGs:1. Chance to Cripple - Crippling someone's early game tiger or King Tiger or Panther is a huge win in that it will force the axis player to either cruise at Sunday Driver speed or force him to burn a repair. And with extra stickies and quicker recharge time off Grenade Experts T3, you can take out his engine again!
2. Chance to Immobilize - This is the BEST thing that can happen. Immobilizing a panther the entire game not only makes the tank near useless for the enemy, but also traps a good chunk of his pop in a 'bunker' of sorts that is unable to escape and takes forever to kill via Friendly Fire. My best game was crippling a Panther, Muni HT, Marder, and armored car all from one player on Bocage the whole game, and he pretty much was 'eliminated' as he was unable to pull the units off the field (and with the plentiful sticky usage, check up on the vehicles if they are repairing and lay a mine under them or sticky them again to undo any engine repairs they may make). And yes, you can use mines offensively that way, way better than a satchel charge due to it going straight for the engines.
3. Tough to Stop - While losing infantry to tanks is always a heart-wrenching experience, having a suicide six man squad can only be stopped if EVERY SINGLE LAST MAN is killed. As long as one remans, you have your 2-3 sticky usage (and great to hide the 1 man squads in towns as the enemy might be lulled into a false sense of security and try to take him out, only to be stickies and lose an engine to his greed. Also they serve as great time delayers in that a panther can kill infantry reasonably well, but to kill every man in say 2 rifle squads charging him while he backs up away from the front line will take it so long that you can usually overwhelm an area of the map with your allies now that a panther is out of action for a bit.
4. Plentiful and can't be captured or destroyed - You can buy many, many sticky bombs over the vulnerable ATG, which is not only more expensive in resources but also very slow and vulnerable to attacks. A sticky squad has durability of numbers (at least against AT sniping) and enough men to survive a barrage of gunfire unless its a horde of MP44s.
5. Bluffing - End game if you have been using stickies all game to harass your enemy and start coming down to non-sticky squads, you can bluff the enemy out of fear of Vet 2 sticky bombs and force him to run as you go for the cap!
6. Can still be used to destroy ATGs - Want to remove that pesky PAK gun that has been sniping your ally's ATGs? Sticky the sucker to death and watch it go boom! While not as effective as shreks or bazookas or RRs, given that you have 2-3 uses depending on doctrine choice... may as well! And being that a single ranger squad is 3 pool to 'rush' an ATG and 3 riflemen squads are the exact same thing, you have weight of numbers and the option to sticky any vehicle that tries to stop you from going for the ATG, forcing the enemy to sit back with a tank or light vehicle as you go in for the stick and lose a handful of men in the process out of three squads.
7. Tossing Range - The hands-down best ability of a sticky over an ATG is that it does NOT require straight LOS like an ATG or an 88mm Flak cannon. It can be thrown through buildings and over hedges, great for getting those tanks navigating a city or thinking they are safe behind a hedge, while at the same time is one of the best ways to neutralize those pesky wehr scout bikes that are spotting your entire army from the other side of a hedge!
Now lastly,
this build works very well with the 3rd and final piece of the puzzle: the Howitzers (which I run no less than 4 minimum). Why so many? You can recrew if the originally crew is chased off (but you do lose the awesome vet bonus on the howitzer should it ever be that seriously threatened) and the howitzer, being also 8 pop, can take out all support teams and recharges incredible fast (with Arty Fort, the only howitzer buff in the whole doctrine as well as the vet bonuses). Literally it is very close to firing a howitzer barrage every 60 seconds (great for taking out mobs of infantry - duh - and support teams that may impede your assault squads) at vet 3 and as the enemy will usually nuke them to death, having 4 gives you plenty more chances to bomb him to death (my best game being having 3 on the field at once with no protection but mines and shelling the enemy for a good 15 minutes all game).
The company's only vet lies in the howitzers (which I run 4 Vet3 howitzers), as everything else is expendable (and the howitzers themselves are very expensive to vet up due to high SP costs), which makes the company very stress-free in terms of not crying 'NOOOO MY VET 3 RANGER!' and the like while toasting much of your oppositions' vet. The Howitzer thereby becomes the main 'force' of your company, and will inflict many a kill per game than all your infantry and engineers combined. However, their job is to not kill but merely cripple and harass your enemy with explosives and sticky bombs to allow your allies more flexibility in moving about the field. And to another extent, so is the howitzer (how many times has an armored player cried out 'Someone get that Pak gun!'?
)
Whoa look at all these words on the screen! Well, was a lot to talk about, and the whole goal of this company is that it is suppose to synergize well with the whole idea of crippling the enemy.. engineers to cripple/damage units (with mines) and traps (demos), as well as being a force to reckon with and kill many before dying in - quite literally - a blaze of glory (Flamers), while riflemen with stickies are used to further enhance the crippling effect of the company and to further scare the enemy or neutralize his armor capability (via stickies). And finally, the real strength is the killing power or 'support' from the howitzer (taking out lots of infantry or support teams) while on top of that serving as a bait to force your enemy to come at you and thus your 'defensive' minefields and infantry (not having a howitzer would mean you need to go forward and lay mines potentially in LOS of the enemy, which would take out the element of surprise with the mines). Hope this guide helps anyone thinking of running a similar company! And if nothing else, I hope this article does convince more people to try out the usefulness of the engineer!
In Summary, the core of this company build should be as follows:
- Double T3s for best effect, US Infantry 'Grenade Experts' and 'Artillery Fortification for 60 second howitzers (with Vet 3 status, otherwise vanilla or recrews are significantly longer)
- Engineers with Mines and Demos mandatory, flamers optional on your preference.
- Riflemen vanilla with stickies OR with BARs in addition, getting Vet 2 Sticky Range via Grenade Experts and will serve as your primary Anti-vehicle deterrent weapon
- Howitzers Guns to serve as team support and otherwise artillery saturation to hell
