Infantry - What Do You pick?

[Charles22]

Originally Posted by Ramm

My idea of the best infantry squad would have the 1st weapon as "SMG"(range 2-5) 2nd weapon as "LMG" (range 10-12) 3rd weapon "LMG", 4th weapon as AT, something effective, with at least 5 range.

Cheers,

Andrew

I have never seen an SMG which went over range 3. The winSPWW2 rifles are quite good, and often hit even at the maximum range of 10 in the better circumstances. As far as slot 4 goes though the AT weapon being that range may be next to impossible on an actual full unit (a 2 or 6 man unit wouldn't be full). Taking the Germans for example, you have in the later war both the panzershreck and panzerfaust. The faust has only range two, while the shreck has a range of six. The problem is, I don't think you can get the shreck with a full unit. As well, the ATR of the early years is so ineffectual that it's almost worthless.

In my view slot four is almost a throwaway for anything worthwhile that is AT and ranged (though pnzrfst's only go out to range 2, they are very good). Slot four often seems just as useless when getting much good for anti-personnel purposes (though an unrated sniper rifle may still produce good results, but I don't know, having not tried them there before). In general fighting though, slot four is often not terribly necessary for anti-personnel purposes, because usually the waepons 1-3 will knock the target into a retreat, thereby eliminating slot 4 from firing that one chance. So what I find generally most useful for slot 4 would be an AT weapon of any sort. Ranged would be better, but so much of the war has to be fought with those awful ATR's that it's probably better to have a very effective close range weapon there, if possibke, that is, if you can assume that the close range AT weapon is of much use anymore, given what I said earlier about a too high fail rate.

When you think about it, having a short range weapon there, could be quite disturbing for your own side, as it seems a very easy way too pick up instant high suppression especially bad for the defensive fighting. Perhaps the studious player would be better off disabling these weapons until they're needed during the player turn where they can be rallied? It looks to me as though I'm seeing like a two-thirds failure rate or better with the starting German engineers and that's way too high to be of any use defensively. It might not be until pnzrfsts, and considerably higher experience can be found, that slot 4 is of much use in the AT role unfortunately.