Reinforcing Stonne (Ardennes 1940 & 1944) tips

[Kvatch]

I am really struggling on the reinforcing Stonne mission as the Germans.

Anyone got any tips on how I can beat it?

[Corey Trevor]

For some reason the French tanks are unstoppable, I just switched to france and beat it.

[valentintestingcheval1234]

Originally posted by Trevor Lahey:

For some reason the French tanks are unstoppable, I just switched to france and beat it.

Because they were.
Stonne was a clear victory for the french.
Most german tank in the battle of France were actually already obsolete, apart from Panzer III ( only anti tank capable ) and IV ( short barrel, so anti personnel only )

[Mandalore]

Just put the reinforcement count lower. Some missions are extremely unbalanced and require you to do this because the enemy have more tickets than you have time.

[Radioactive_rat_007]

Originally posted by Trevor Lahey:

For some reason the French tanks are unstoppable, I just switched to france and beat it.

As a nerd for WW2 history, I've learned Germany ironically had "okay" tanks at the start of the war (and kinda throughout) despite them being propped up as having the best in the world at the time. The light Panzer 2's were the workhorse of the armoured divisions and with very limited numbers of Panzer 3's and Panzer 4's until roughly 1941-42. Which both were not capable of reliably penetrating french armour.

The way the German's really beat the French actually flies in the face of the memes of them surrendering. The Allies were just slow moving (among other things), and the Germans capitalised on their armour being more mobile and coordinated more often. Add a dash of luck and the Germans, to the surprise of everyone including themselves, surrounded the British, half the French military, and defeated France inside of 1-2 months.

[Mandalore]

Originally posted by Radioactive_rat_007:

I've learned Germany ironically had "okay" tanks at the start of the war (and kinda throughout) despite them being propped up as having the best in the world at the time.

As a rule pretty much every mainstream version of any war is total BS. Truth is the first casualty of war and the lies of war often outlast the wars themselves.

Germany started the war with the worst tanks, ended with arguable the best. The only advantage German tanks had over French tanks where German tanks all had radio's so they could coordinate better. But German tanks had thinner armour and weaker 37mm plinker guns, they ran into the same problem against the Russians in Barbarossa. I honestly find it quite amazing that Germany pulled of so many victories in the early war purely via great tactics and strategy because they were totally outgunned in the early years.

And the memes about France surrendering are awful. The French IMO put up a good fight but where let down by trying to fight the last war instead of the current war. I think American's started that anti French surrender meme, because the British and Dutch where there fighting too and also got destroyed and the Brits had to Dunkirk themselves away yet only French get made fun off. Yet the French Char B1 BIS really gave the Germans trouble when they encountered them, meanwhile the British had to replace their entire tank stock after 1940 because they failed against German armor and then got left behind in the retreat. French Somua's also did pretty good against the German's giving them a bit of trouble.

[Lokaror]

Originally posted by Mandalore:

Originally posted by Radioactive_rat_007:

I've learned Germany ironically had "okay" tanks at the start of the war (and kinda throughout) despite them being propped up as having the best in the world at the time.

As a rule pretty much every mainstream version of any war is total BS. Truth is the first casualty of war and the lies of war often outlast the wars themselves.

Germany started the war with the worst tanks, ended with arguable the best. The only advantage German tanks had over French tanks where German tanks all had radio's so they could coordinate better. But German tanks had thinner armour and weaker 37mm plinker guns, they ran into the same problem against the Russians in Barbarossa. I honestly find it quite amazing that Germany pulled of so many victories in the early war purely via great tactics and strategy because they were totally outgunned in the early years.

And the memes about France surrendering are awful. The French IMO put up a good fight but where let down by trying to fight the last war instead of the current war. I think American's started that anti French surrender meme, because the British and Dutch where there fighting too and also got destroyed and the Brits had to Dunkirk themselves away yet only French get made fun off. Yet the French Char B1 BIS really gave the Germans trouble when they encountered them, meanwhile the British had to replace their entire tank stock after 1940 because they failed against German armor and then got left behind in the retreat. French Somua's also did pretty good against the German's giving them a bit of trouble.

Anecdotal but as a kid in the united states i started hearing the "france surrenders" joke more often after they had concerns about more modern wars that were starting at the time... Thats here nor there but i always found it interesting. Same kind of thing with the "freedom fries" type of thing.

[Corey Trevor]

Originally posted by valentintestingcheval1234:

Originally posted by Trevor Lahey:

For some reason the French tanks are unstoppable, I just switched to france and beat it.

Because they were.
Stonne was a clear victory for the french.
Most german tank in the battle of France were actually already obsolete, apart from Panzer III ( only anti tank capable ) and IV ( short barrel, so anti personnel only )

they had decent tanks sure, but you could stop them by lobbing a bunch of rounds into the gun or engine bay, the German tanks during the invasion of France were pretty useless; but the French tanks also didn't stop the Germans either. The SS used French tanks as support tanks up until the end of the war in small numbers. This however is a video game and requires a certain amount of imaginary balance to make multiplayer worth while.

[TheIdiot]

You can win this as the Germans, but it's one of the hardest missions I've tried as them (this is with normal unit counts - if you go any higher it's going to get exponentially harder). Definitely the hardest of the France campaign.

You essentially have to avoid the French tanks. You can try using the Panzer that spawns at the start but the AI tanks will invariably eventually knock you out as there are just too many of them. You can still use the tank for a while to slow them down but as soon as your tank gets knocked out, grab a dead German's machine gun and get shooting as you have to drop a LOT of Frenchmen to win.
Make sure you're using the MG 34 - you literally can't kill the French soldiers fast enough with anything else, you need the rate-of-fire, damage and ammunition it carries to kill them rapidly (I say this as someone who usually uses bolt-action rifles - you literally cannot kill them fast enough without anything else). Make sure you pick up ammo whenever you can as doing so gives you 200-round belts instead of the pathetic 50-round drum magazines the MG 34 is usually loaded with. When firing, DO NOT peek out of any positions that are facing the direction the French come from as there are way too many dudes looking in that direction and you will just get obliterated, losing your critical MG 34. I cannot stress enough how important the MG 34 is here as you need to kill the French soldiers at a very high rate in order to stop them from overwhelming your largely useless buddies, who are going to basically exist to hold objectives while you play ahead of the objectives and try to slow the French down.
You can hide in bushes in the early stages as the AI can't see you in them - if you're not in the line of fire you're nearly invulnerable. Once you get pushed back into the village, the best method of dealing with the AI is to hide around corners, pop out for a second and drop 3-4 guys, and then duck back - the AI takes about a second or two to actually aim and shoot, which is your window. Then you duck back into cover, they'll shoot at you but miss, and then if you wait another couple of seconds they immediately forget where you are and you can repeat the process. They will probably storm whatever building you're in if it's in their way but if you just keep moving around and breaking line of sight, often they won't react, and you can run around and blow them away with hip-fire at point-blank range while they blindly sprint past you.
You can cause a TON of casualties when they attack the final objective at the church (which they will in all likelihood do because the other objectives are too exposed to the tanks). You have to run back and forth covering both sides of the backside of the building as well as killing anyone who tries to get inside through the French-side entrance. Again, DO NOT try and fight from anywhere that a large number of French soldiers can see you or you will die. Cover the flanks and keep moving to prevent them from aiming at you. When I played this scenario, I still had to kill 150+ enemies at this objective, but I managed it by doing this tactic. The enemy tanks came up on the front-flanks of the building but never pushed behind it so I was safe from them.

I don't want to make it sound easy, because it's not - this scenario is really hard as the Germans. It is the only scenario other than Cisterna in the Anzio campaign that I lost multiple times while playing solo. You CAN win, but you essentially have to carry the entire team because your team-mates don't understand the concepts of ambush or skirmish, which are absolutely critical when fighting against invulnerable tanks.
It's probably easier if you have some buddies you can play with that will help you since three or so decent human players can probably stop the French attack at the first objective. Doing it solo, you really have to make some power-plays. This was the only mission in the Battle of France campaign I actually had to re-play several times as the Germans.

Originally posted by valentintestingcheval1234:

Originally posted by Trevor Lahey:

For some reason the French tanks are unstoppable, I just switched to france and beat it.

Because they were.
Stonne was a clear victory for the french.
Most german tank in the battle of France were actually already obsolete, *snip* IV ( short barrel, so anti personnel only )

This is straight-up not true, at least in gameplay-terms. The HEAT shell fired by the PzKpfw IV 7,5cm KwK 37 has greater penetration potential than the short-barrelled 5cm KwK 38 (kurz) variant that is ae-historically mounted on the PzKpfw III modelled in this game (it should be the 3,7cm KwK 36, which is even more useless). Its penetration is also consistent at range due to it being a HEAT shell rather than APHE. Its major disadvantage however is its incredibly crap muzzle-velocity which makes hitting enemy tanks at range that are moving very difficult.
I can't tell you how many times I've been rampaging around around in my invincible T-34 in multiplayer, happily blowing away PzKpfw IIIs like its nothing while their puny 5cm shells bounce off my Stalinium armour, when suddenly a sneaky PzKpfw IV creeps up and one-shots me from a funny angle which the PzKpfw III would have struggled to penetrate at the same range range.

...so, by all means, if people want to keep insisting on the PzKpfw III being a good tank-killer (minus the 5cm (lang) Ausf. J-M variants), go right ahead. It's a good death sentence to try and duel anything other than maybe a guy with a water gun in that thing. I'll be sitting cozily in my T-34 drinking vodka while what Germans call "superior engineering" continues to bounce ping-pong balls off of my hull. "What's that, Ivan? Oh, just those pesky Fascists launching pebbles at our tank again. We will deal with them soon, but first another verse of the State Anthem, comrades! *laughs in Russian*"

[Kvatch]

Thanks for the answers everyone.
I also liked the little bit of WW2 tank lore

[Corey Trevor]

Regardless of opinions or facts about equipment, we need a historical mode and a balanced mode. At least balanced in the sense that there are more PZ III's on the German side than the real battle to keep things interesting.

[watermatte]

start with the PANZER ll and keep it alive as long as possible you need to keep it alive until you get to the city early and destroy all their buildings and the positions with the full auto flak cannon and conserve ammo as much as possible with 20MM full auto flak cannon you will be able to destroy the main fortified positions and all the buildings with resistance before your soldiers follow up as for tanks let the bigger tanks face them and get AT soldiers close they are effective with german AT grenades or destroy them with panzerschreks

[watermatte]

also the special dogtag soldier Karl Schwappacher is good for clearing out the houses with mauserc96 with stock and ammo box