British Emplacements

[Giannhs]

I think we can all agree it’s time we talk about the current state of the emplacements and why they need buffs and/or tweaks.
Emplacements are a major part of the British army, mostly used as defensive tools but also really effective as offensive tools but have some really huge problems.
Emplacements are expensive to the point where it can lose you the game if you lose one (more on that later), for that alone emplacements aren’t really encouraged to be offensive or used at all, another problem is their durability is rather ♥♥♥♥ dying too fast to flamers and having a large hit box which in turn means it will take damage a lot more than a regular team weapon squad, add that you can attack emplacements with AT guns and you start to see problems so let’s talk about the problems.

1. Cost
Apart from the bofors the mortar pit and the 17 pounder cost a lot of resources, is that a problem you may ask well yes it is, you see once your emplacements reaches zero health you lose it completely, you cannot salvage it or recrew it to take it back, once you lose the emplacement its gone unlike team weapon which you can take back and use them again.
This also punishes aggressive use of the emplacements (which is bad), also since emplacements cost a lot this leaves the British player with little to no resources to do anything to defend the emplacements.
2. Flame Damage
It’s time we talk about flame damage on emplacements and their role vs them.
K I get it they are meant to be an anti-garrison/cover weapon BUT why do they annihilate emplacements and not decrew them??? I mean really it makes more sense to decrew emplacements with such damage not outright wipe them, and we are talking about expensive units being outright destroyed by flame weapons/nades,I am not saying flame weapons should not do damage, I am saying they should not do THAT kind of damage and what’s with this extra bonus damage flamers do to emplacements anyways aren’t they effective enough? We should really either reduce their damage OR at least make them decrew emplacements NOT wipe them.
3. Hit Box/Size
To some this might not be huge BUT to many British players this is huge problem, this makes emplacement placing hard and in many cases forces a British player to avoid their use it also makes them a rather easy target to hit.

What can we do about them?
Well there are solutions and paths we can take to make emplacements viable and fun to play with and against
1. Emplacements should be very durable BUT the crew that operates them should take quite a bit of damage and get decrewed, this will help solve the price problem abit and problem with flamers BUT will not solve problem 3 much (you invest a lot to them but should someone attack you, you won’t lose the emplacement outright and should you take back ground you can save the emplacement and won’t lose it completely)
2. Make emplacements smaller this fixes problem 3 and in a way problem 1 BUT we don’t solve problem 2 at all (slightly harder to hit but also able to place emplacements in more places)
3. Make emplacements cheaper, this solves both problem 1 and 2 BUT doesn’t solve problem 3 at all (emplacements stay the same it they are cheaper which means you will be able to bring them sooner and be able to replace them should someone take them out)
4. Give upgrades to the British that support emplacement use (apart from the royal engineer self-repair ability and anvil heavy engineer upgrade) this will leave emplacements mostly untouched BUT can solve issue 2 and 1 and maybe even 3(ideas needed)

If something better comes to your mind please post it, it will help a lot solve this emplacement issue British are having AND allow us to remove power from other units.

[Brave Sir Robin]

Mortar is the biggest problem. Brits don't have a regular mortar or smoke grenades, so if you need to remove a well placed MG or bunker it's drop 400 MP on an immobile mortar pit or try and use the UC w/ wasp that will die if anything sneezes on it. I don't know why they gave it 2 mortar teams; the easiest fix would be to shrink it, give it one mortar, and drop the cost significantly. Maybe let tommies build it.

Bofors I feel is fine.

17 pounder has the same problem as the Axis 88; it's way too expensive and niche for an immobile AT gun. There isn't really a role for it outside of a single player 'defend for X minutes' mission; you're better off with a standard AT gun that's both cheaper and mobile in any other case. I'm not really sure how these can be fixed other than a cost decrease.

Honestly though the best fix would be to make the mortar pit a commander ability or something and just give a Brits a normal mortar team.

[Surmene]

tl;dr Brit emplacements nerfed to schiss because Lelic.

[Riley]

I wouldnt mind if they straight up removed the mortor emplacements, gave us default doctrine mortor teams and replaced the mortor emplacements with howtizers instead, which would be much more highly used and were much more effective in coh1.

[PC Gaming Master Race]

Well, if you want your 17-pounder emplacement to be a static de-crewable heavy weapon, it's crew should be vulnerable to mortar fire, regular grenades, sniper, etc. I think it will be better for british players to have current emplacements.

[EpicRice]

How are the British emplacements underperforming? Most british players I've seen use them really well (Except for this one guy who built a mortar emplacement in front of a puma)

The flame nades will thankfully be removed with frags in the new patch thankfully, but the pioneer flamers whenever I advance with ostruppen/grenadiers to burn them out usually don't do enough damage that the bofor can't handle it on it's own, especially with the standfast ability (or whatever it's called?) which gives the Allies a bit of time to rush units to help.

The British mortar pit is a bit of RMG but i've seen it squadwipe infantry numerous times and the LeIG and Ostheer mortar teams don't seem to outrange it so the fire rate typically squad wipes LeiG and mortar teams

I only own the Soviets/Allies so excuse me if I don't know how the UKF works, but whenever I try ostheer/okw they tend to perform really well, especially on areas where Allied players are already there.

Is the bofor an autoattack unit or can you control and choose what units to focus? Also, do 17 pounders function like the German Super Pak and fire through buildings as well?

Another thing to note is the Spearhead German halftruck, which has the flame mortar ability which can do massive damage to the emplacements and burn out engineers that try to repair it. I've also seen the Sturmtiger for some reason decrew the emplacement, not sure if that's intentional but a bit odd that flames destroy the emplacement completely while the sturmtiger shot decrews.

[DROPbear]

it depends on how do you use them?
vcoh: emplacements are tough and it act as a frontline defence.
coh2: emplacements are 2ndary defence with good support range and firepower but very vurnable. it is used to reinforce your frontline.

[Kidnappings]

Originally posted by EpicRice:

How are the British emplacements underperforming? Most british players I've seen use them really well (Except for this one guy who built a mortar emplacement in front of a puma)

The flame nades will thankfully be removed with frags in the new patch thankfully, but the pioneer flamers whenever I advance with ostruppen/grenadiers to burn them out usually don't do enough damage that the bofor can't handle it on it's own, especially with the standfast ability (or whatever it's called?) which gives the Allies a bit of time to rush units to help.

The British mortar pit is a bit of RMG but i've seen it squadwipe infantry numerous times and the LeIG and Ostheer mortar teams don't seem to outrange it so the fire rate typically squad wipes LeiG and mortar teams

I only own the Soviets/Allies so excuse me if I don't know how the UKF works, but whenever I try ostheer/okw they tend to perform really well, especially on areas where Allied players are already there.

Is the bofor an autoattack unit or can you control and choose what units to focus? Also, do 17 pounders function like the German Super Pak and fire through buildings as well?

Another thing to note is the Spearhead German halftruck, which has the flame mortar ability which can do massive damage to the emplacements and burn out engineers that try to repair it. I've also seen the Sturmtiger for some reason decrew the emplacement, not sure if that's intentional but a bit odd that flames destroy the emplacement completely while the sturmtiger shot decrews.

i dont think they are removing flame gernades they are removing volks regular gernades from the december patch as stated in patch notes nothing said about flame nades.

i think the biggest issue is the flamers on emplacements and how big the hit boxes are it constantly gets hit by motar squads/ISG its not like a tiny object/crew hardly getting hit this is a big thing on the map constantly getting rammed by motars making it hard to repair as the shell usually squad wipes engineers.

the prices are a bit steep for something that can get destroyed way too fast even early game. (i personally dont mind the prices) but i do mind how fast an emplacement gets wiped out fast.

i know one issue being fixed in the decemeber patch is the emplacements will not be decrewed anymore so i dont know if the survivability from flames/motars fixes this problem or not.

[Mister Cat]

Sam do you know if that fix you mentioned will apply to Axis emplacments like the PAK 43, howitzer and flak emplacment?

[Ás Fífldjarfi]

I foresaw this problem when I first read about emplacements. They sucked in CoH1 and they suck in CoH2... why did they have to make emplacements instead of just immovable teamweapons like the germans get, OKW flak gun and the pak43... those are not emplacements, just static team weapons and end up decrewed all the time instead of destroyed.

This would be less of a problem for the british faction, if Relic hadn't buffed all team weapons to make the weapon invulnerable until it's been decrewed.

[Mister Cat]

Yea but if they did that then people would complain that their emplacements get de crewed and turned on them. That's why you rarely see people play with the Pak 43 and Flak gun, it's too much of a risk for most.

[Maschinengewehr]

Just give the Brits a damn 240 MP mortar team in T1 ffs. Ditch the mortar emplacement completely.

[[OC] Kolter]

yeah british mortar bunekr is weak as ♥♥♥♥, that needs either longer range or more hp. this is just stupid, the way they made it now.

[Giannhs]

Brace could be buffed back but then again i dont think relic will ever do it, it took them 3-4 patches to remove the suppression from the Pack/ISG.

[snellejelle99]

they should be like the OKW PAK 43 is that what you mean with decreqing and stuff. and like the flak guns

[Giannhs]

not that way....

emplacements should be durable buildings that stand alot of damage BUT the crew inside doesnt.