Soviet AA Half Track.

[Emjay]

So what is the point in this vehicle upgrade?

I appreciate that the Half Track provides the ability to reinforce squads which is great but as an actual offensive weapon its useless. It has without the upgrade a pathetic damage output that the most basic of infantry squads can just laugh off before firing a rocket of death at its face and destroying it. Then to make things even more interesting if you want to spend some ammunition you can upgrade it to an AA half track which as far as AA is considored makes it useful about 5% of the time and thats probably being generous, moreso because the damage output to planes is awful and they very rarely manage to shoot them out of the sky!

In the description it mentions something about being a nasty weapon for infantry, again this is a laughable weapon that infantry shrug off with ease. It provides a slight suppression bonus but frankly it takes too long to suppress considoring most of the time the enemy you are firing has AT capabilities, thus meaning it is 1 shot away from either being blown up or badly damaged to the point where it has to run away.

Again the AA upgrade does little to no damage and I had a match where I decided to use one against a blob of infantry whilst sending in a group of combat engineers, its safe to say the combat engineers did far more damage and my suppression kicked in only when both the engineers had to run due to damage taken along with the Half Track because it had a fraction of health left and engine damage from a simple AT grenade, which incidently had around the same range as the half track did.

I appreciate that this is a AA unit, but considoring its pathetically weak against aircraft I fail to see its use

If anyone is able to advise me as to why I should use it or better yet provide tips on HOW to use it then perhaps that would help.

Or is this really just a useless unit?

Just to note its axis counterpart fires flak which acts as multiple grenades against infantry units making short work of them.

[drumroll]

It is very good against infantry but with pumas, luchs and volk-shrek blobs on the prowl it is often a poor investment. Also T3 is piss poor compared to T4 for the soviets.

[♥]

support the halftruck with infantry, it is supposed to reinforce them, not being all tanky like.

it can also supress, put 2 of them, and infantry wont be an issue (assuming they supported by other units)

[SLAPPY]

Really great vehicle to reinforce squads and mantain the offensive (or defend position). In certain games, a must have for me

[Emjay]

The problem im facing is that whenever I use them even if I put infantry in front of them the enemy just ignores the infantry and panzershrecks them to oblivion. Even the panzerfaust (if thats its name) ability on the basic troops is deadly, coupled with equal range it kinda makes it hard to see a use in them.

Ill toy around with them a little more.

[Egro]

Just keep the thing away, only use it for reinforce. Drive it in time to time to flank the enemies but you should not use it on an offensive. It's the same with any other halftrack...the german halfrack is even more useless in a fight compare to the soviet.

[Patriarch]

It's useless, just like the t-70. Relic has a nasty habbit of balancing and never bringing all units up to date to actually make them useful. Considering mid - end game is all shrek blobs and german heavy armor and how low pop caps are I'd rather use the cap on an at gun or something that isn't beyond useless. It'll get fausted and gibbed or shrek't and gibbed the minute you even try to bring it in range, and good luck stopping a puma or luchs from super sprinting around and gibbing it.

[Emjay]

Yea considoring its speciality you would think it would outperform at least an AT gun vs infantry but it doesnt.

In fact considoring what its speciality is meant to be you would assume that planes would be nigh on useless with the AA on map and it would do at least more damage than the HMG squads.

Its worth noting that I say this for both teams not just one.

[Patriarch]

Originally posted by Emjay:

Yea considoring its speciality you would think it would outperform at least an AT gun vs infantry but it doesnt.

In fact considoring what its speciality is meant to be you would assume that planes would be nigh on useless with the AA on map and it would do at least more damage than the HMG squads.

Its worth noting that I say this for both teams not just one.

Good luck trying to use it to keep it in the back to reinforce as well, vs any competent ostheer or okw player you're going to be giving up ground often until you can roll out your end game commander call in units. Thous shalt not outsit fat ass german heavy armor at choke points or vp's. Pretty sure a stukka would kill it instantly as well, even hiding in the back. And trying to constantly micro manage that slow-moving schoolbus and get it out in time to not die to the endless german AT is just lol.

[ShodaN]

Are you kidding me? The M5 is about the best light vehicle support you can get for a T2 army. The AA upgrade is excellent. Even better once you hit Vet3, which is easy considering the low cost of the M5.

(Vet 2 +20% Reinforcement Radius +20% Acceleration +20% Max Speed +20% Rotation, Vet 3 +20% Reinforcement Radius +30% Sight -20% Cooldown)

Just drive very close to your target and you will rip them to shreds. Together with Overdrive this makes the M5 the best setup team counter there is. Consider that with Overdrive you can also chase enemies forever. If you face squads with a Panzerschreck or Panzerfaust you need to combine it with the rest of your T2 army. Pin the squads with your maxims (that the M5 keeps alive indefinitly) and charge in after the retreating units.

Even using it on max range will provide reasonable support fire and save reinforcement. The key is to know the maximum range you can close before the enemy has a chance to fire a Panzerfaust or hit with a Panzerschreck reliably. Keep your distance, but stay as close as possible, if you know what I mean.

Use Overdrive whenever the situation requires it. Remeber it is less likely to get hit by projectiles that way aswell.

On mid and close range it can easily tear appart Ostheer 222s and HTs aswell. So it is a really really powerful asset to have against them. Only thing you'll ever have to watch out for is the Panzerfaust. Deal with that as mentioned above.

If you say the M5 is useless, you just have no idea how to use it.

[Emjay]

Cheers shodan ill take that on board. Ill try and see what I can come up with.