[WM] StuH 42 Guide

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[Katusha]

A lot of players look past the StuH 42 - a wonderful Tier 2 unlock from the Blitzkrieg doctrine. If you are a new player, I hope you can extract something useful from this guide to maximize the effectiveness of your StuH's. If you are experienced, my hope is to rekindle your trust in german engineering, and terrorize the Allies with powerful blasts from your awesome new tank!

The unit itself:

380 Manpower
160 Fuel
8 Population

Upgrades:

    Top MG42 - 50 Munitions
    The StuH has the same MG as it's brother, the StuG. This top MG is arguably the best in the game, revered for its superb suppression and killing power. Highly recommended upgrade.

    Skirts - 30 Fuel
    Now that skirts are only 30 fuel, it is a great bargain. Factoring the StuH's already superb armor when facing handheld AT, adding skirts makes you nearly impenetrable to bazookas and boys AT rifles. Piats will bounce all day, except a lucky scatter hit on your rear armor.

    Medium Repair - 30 Munitions
    This cheap repair is again very important for the StuH. The StuH has relatively low HP, so this will allow your damaged StuH's to repair very quickly to get back in the fight.
    *Note: With German Engineering T3 unlock, you can purchase an extra repair, so if used right, you will get 3 StuH's out of 1.

Most helpful doctrine unlocks:

     Bottom T3: MG gunner upgrade gives +10 sight/ +20% more accuracy
           +10 sight is great for saving your StuH from M10 rushes, and also prevents somewhat from stumbling on AT gun positions. Considering you will buy the MG42 on most of your StuH's this is a great buff.
           +20% accuracy helps a great deal with using Attack Ground (read more about this below)

     Middle T2: Keep it moving! Ability that makes infantry sprint near your tanks. Very useful with helping infantry assaults, combine with smoke canisters for awesomeness.

     Middle T3: HEAT rounds - Buffs StuH damage by 15%. This is useful for killing a bit more infantry on each shot, but I prefer scrapping this T3 and going for bottom T4, which gives your grenadiers and stormtroopers elite armor. This provides for great infantry support for your StuH's.

     T1 - Smoke canisters: Fires an arc of smoke canisters, which is great for screening your infantry for an assault. Again attack ground is still effective in smoke.

     T2 - Precision Strike: Great for removing pesky AT guns before an assault

     T3 - German Engineering: You can scrap smoke canisters and get this. It will be very helpful for getting the most out of your StuH's. However, I recommend getting better with them first, before you invest double munitions into one tank.

How to support your StuH:

    1. PaK 38 - MUST MUST MUST have! Keep a pak 38 following your StuH like a lost puppy, and your StuH's worst enemies will be nullified. (Refer to tips for worst enemy list) This is your best friend when versing a firefly!

    2. Grenadiers (Panzershreks) - They are great, especially when you get the bottom T4 which gives them Elite Armor. In pairs, or even in singles, you can use them to take out ATG's to clear up an area for your StuH. On the defensive, they are great vs rushing tank destroyers like m10s.

    3. Mortar - This is up to you, if you are expecting an opponent that has a lot of ATG's supported by mgs, which you cannot clear with infantry, the axis mortar will work wonders for you with its long range and epic damage.

    4. Double Shrek Stormtroopers - Personally, I don't like putting 300 munitions into 1 at squad that only works at short range. However, if you feel you are good with stormtroopers, these are great, and will waste any tanks trying to rush you, and can ninja-kill ATG's, or even scout for your StuH's

What to do with your StuH:

     Well here comes the part you probably came here for, although support is very important! You should use superior scouting to find unprotected enemy infantry and finish them off in 2 or 3 shots. See an ATG repositioning? Move in for the kill! Utilize your ability to one shot squads and support weapons. However, never use your StuH as the spearhead of an attack, because you will just stumble into ATG after ATG.

     Engaging AT infantry:

     Rangers with bazookas: Laugh at them and move in and suppress/crush them if theres a high probability that most ATG's have been taken out.

     Airborne with RR's: This one is tricky. They will penetrate you most of the time, however, they will be very scared of attacking you head on because of your ability to gib 4 guys or entire squads. Use your infantry to scout for any flanking airborne and finish them off.

     Commandos with Piats: Very easy, StuH's are great at deflecting piats, and with good micro they should never even be able to hit you. One note: Do not engage around hedges and buildings. Do not chase them around a building...

Miscellaneous tips:

     1) Your StuH's worst enemies: to be continued...
              a)M10
              b)Firefly

This concludes the main guide, until I can think of more tips/strategies to help you out! Hope that was helpful.

P.S. Feel free to post any suggestions on what should be added/fixed

Edit: added [WM] to title

[DarkSoldierX]

Very nice job! *clap*

[Malgoroth]

The StuH is a unit I always wanted to use because I really liked it, but could never fit it into any of my strategies. I'd rather derp about with a Tiger 

I remember quite fondly the old school direct fire StuHs in vcoh.

[RikiRude]

This is great! I have always loved stuhs in fact it was always the only thing i liked about blitz. good scouting really is the best friend of stuhs, i want to try them now with smoke canisters and such. seems like a bit of fun!

[NightRain]

Scrap all the ATGs. Who the fuck needs atgs when you can get schrecks when playing with StuH. The StuH's only weakness is armor and its major weakness is same as StuGs. The m10. Therefore having a PAK is not going to save your StuH from that pesky M10. No. Schreck is the key to it. Having 2 Schrecks around the StuH kills those M10s or chases them away.

StuH also suffers from one annoyance. Its shells splash accuracy is shit, therefore you can score a direct hit without it causing a single damage. This pesky problem can be solved with a little micro. Attack ground. Using attack ground gets rid of this problem and improves the splash accuracy quite a lot. That being said. Having 2 StuHs on the field at the same time next to one another you can pretty much gang any ATG and take it out with dual shot. Ultimately the only weakness is the M10. While firefly is an annoyance it can still be avoided as it stays out in range unlike M10 that comes to close quaters. That is why Schrecks are important. PAK can be stuffed up yer butt if you ask me it is only good vs Firefly.

Though with this being 160 fuel + 30 fuel for skirts paying same ammount than 1 M10 comes a bit overpriced in all honesty. For what one StuH can accomplish one single StuG can accomplish the exact same result while being slightly cheaper (175 fuel with skirts).

Keep it moving is important when it comes to infantry. HEAT is something you might want to skip. Your 15% more damage only increases StuHs damage from 100 to 115 which isn't something to clap to. The 15% more penetration is also a bit of a giggle. You can shoot armor but you ain't gonna do much to it anyhow.

Remember to utilize StuHs nice range too. If I recall correctly its 45 so you can take shots 10 meters further than any hand held AT.

PS: Never try to Crush PIATs. You can't do it without suffering major damage.

[Rahx]

Nice one bro !

[nikomas]

A P4 supported by a StuG and TwinShreck Storm is a blast...
It's my start group 

[Mister Schmidt]

Do you really all have to ruin the thread?

PS this should be moved to Axis Strategy.

[tank130]

Thread cleaned

[Katusha]

lol.. i wonder what the stupid posts were 

Nice advice NightRain! Will include when I have time