General Gameplay
Some of the general gameplay elements that will help you to emerge victorious on the battlefield!
There are several gameplay factors which make S:44 unique from TA and other Spring engine games.
High-Explosive vs. Armour-Piercing
Many vehicles, mainly tanks and assault guns, have two types of ammunition for their main armaments -- high-explosive and armour-piercing. Naturally, both types are used for different purposes.
High-explosive is a standard explosive shell which has a large splash damage. For this reason, they are prefered against infantry and what are known as "soft targets" -- trucks and other unarmoured vehicles, as well as structures, as well as general suppressive fire. Vehicles equipped with both high-explosive shells will use that when force-firing. Though high-explosive is generally inadequate against armoured vehicles, there are some large enough that actually can post a threat; for instance, the high-explosive shell of a 75mm gun will still be quite dangerous against a light tank, and the high-explosive shell of a 105mm or 150mm artillery shell will do a lot of damage to even heavy tanks. Many vehicles have only high-explosive shells -- these units are designed as fire support specifically for that purpose. Artillery, too, has only high-explosive shells.
Armour-Piercing is used to, you guessed it, pierce armour! They are solid-slug shells fired with great force to punch right through enemy armour, usually splintering into thousands of deadly shards to make swiss cheese out of the inside of enemy tanks. Because they rely on kinetic force and not explosive power, the penetrative and destructive potential of an armour-piercing shell depends greatly on how long it travels before hitting its target. Armour-piercing shells, in short, become weaker the further the range. This can easily be spotted (well, maybe not too easily, as those shells move damned fast) by the colour of the armour-piercing shot; they will start out red as they are first fired at their maximum velocity, and turn yellow as they slow down and become weaker. In some cases, an armour-piercing shell will slow down so much that it basically loses all destructive potential and is little different than a man pitching a hunk of solid metal at the side of a tank like a baseball.
Don't worry, however; most of the time, a unit will not bother wasting armour-piercing shells when it has no hope of hurting anything, and will switch to high-explosive at long ranges (since high-explosive uses explosive and not kinetic means for causing damage, its damage is universal regardless of its range). For this reason, it is always best to move your tanks as close as possible to the enemy -- though keep in mind your own tanks will also be getting hit with stronger-powered shots. Sometimes, though, this doesn't matter; some tanks, like the Tiger, have very powerful guns which are capable of doing a lot of damage even at long ranges, while other tanks, like the Sherman, have guns with weak armour-piercing potential which will need to get up very close to a Tiger in order to have any hope of damaging it.
Some vehicles have only armour-piercing shells. These are Tank Destroyers -- their only purpose in life is to kill enemy tanks and armoured vehicles. Tank Destroyers can take a variety of shapes, from turretless light tanks with a large gun on top, to vehicles with turrets that look a hell of a lot like a normal tank, but usually lack a machinegun and therefore are useless against infantry. Because armour-piercing shells are so worthless against anything but armour, they're generally not wasted -- no point in using a 75mm armour-piercing shell to snipe a lowly infantryman. Tank Destroyers will always save their ammo for their intended targets, and therefore can not attack anything but vehicles.
Below: The Cromwell on the left is firing an Armour-Piercing round, which starts out as a reddish-orange. The Cromwell on the right is firing a High-Explosive round, which starts and ends a yellowish colour.
Dynamic Armour
Along with the dizzying complexity of armour-piercing weapons, all tanks and armoured vehicles, and some other units, have directional armour. What this means, basically, is that they will be stronger when attacked from certain angles, and weaker when attacked from others. In general, the front of a tank is its strongest, while the back is the weakest -- since, logically, most tanks will be fighting the enemy front-to-front, the heaviest armour is placed there, while the weakest is placed on the side the enemy is least likely to see.
The effect of this directional damage depends on the vehicle. For some, it may not mean much. For others, however, it can turn a tank into an almost invincible fortress -- the Tiger II, for instance, has an insane amount of armour on its front which makes it nearly immune to any anti-tank weapon from any distance, though can be destroyed relatively easier by flanking it and shooting it in the side or back.
These two features -- armour-penetration rounds and dynamic armour -- may seem like dizzying complexity, but you don't really have to worry about it that much. Just make it a habit to always try to get your tanks closer to the enemy and in a position they can attack him from the side or back, that's all. Especially if its a heavy enemy tank.
Below: In the top image, the M4A3(76) Sherman fires at the front armour of the Tiger II, doing no noticable damage. In the second image, a shot against the rear armour of the Tiger II does dramatically more damage.
Infantry are not Kbots, and Tanks are not Vehicles
Okay, well, yes, tanks are vehicles technically, but what I mean is, the OTA-esque relationship between Kbot and Vehicles does not apply to Spring: 1944. Vehicles inparticular are used much differently -- indeed, if yuo try to use them like you use TA vehicle, you will die.
There are two main mechanical factors for this, and several practical factors. Mechanically, all vehicles in S:44 are slower moving (including turning) and have much slower turret traverse rates. They simply do not have the flexibility and dexterity to be able to take part in high-mobility maneuvers, rushing around and through enemies and duking it out up close.
They're not quite stand-off units, though. Although it's hard to nail it down to a single statement, vehicles are simply more strategic and less tactical, but not to the extreme. It may take awhile before you become comfortable on vehicle usage, "learn the ropes" and understand what kind of gaming behaviour works and what doesn't. Your first few attempts to "tank rush" will undoubtedly end in complete failure. Your tanks will either run into a swarm of infantry, who will jump all over the tank and shove grenades in hatches and shoot submachineguns through vision slits and quickly slay the crew (and thus kill the tank), or they may run across a single anti-tank infantryman who will plug a 10-pound shaped-charge explosive into it. But "tank rushing" is still viable -- infact, the entire concept of "tank rushing" was invented in the Second World War with Germany's "blitzkrieg" tactic, which is essentially using well-timed armoured thrusts to exploit a weakness in the enemy's lines.
Let's say, for instance, you're playing on a rather hilly map, and your opponent is heavily dug-in near the center, with lots of artillery, anti-tank guns, infantry, minefields, and other horrors. A frontal attack, with even the strongest tanks, will most likely fail. However, if you take a small squadron of light tanks, make a quick flanking rush maneuver to exploit a weakly-held flank, and manage to penetrate his lines, they will make mincemeat of his defenses, destroy his Barracks and Yards and Supply structures, and could turn a losing battle into a quickly-won one.
Vehicles also have widely varied and very specialized roles depending on their armament, armour, and other factors, such as if they have turrets or not. Some tanks are designed as flexible "battle tanks", which have armour-piercing shells to defeat enemy armour, high-explosive shells to use against soft targets, and machineguns to kill infantry. Other tanks may only have high-explosive shells to serve as close-support vehicles, or only armour-piercing shells to serve as tank destroyers, with no other armament. It is very rare that a battlefield "role" is duplicated -- the only real universal instance of this is in Medium Tanks, which every faction has both a "standard" and an "advanced". For instance, the "standard" US medium tank, the M4 Sherman, has all of the weapons above; the "advanced" medium tank, the M4A3 Sherman, has a 76mm gun, making it much more efficient against enemy tanks, and slightly more armour.
Defenses
There are few buildable defenses in S:44. Mines and obstacles are pretty much it. Otherwise, the role of defense is taken up by mobile units, some of which can deploy into static defensive units. For instance, Germany and the Soviet Union have many turretless combat vehicles which, because of their lack of turret, are much more useful as a defensive weapon than an offensive weapon. And all factions have Towed Guns, which can not attack while mobile but can deploy into an immobile, sandbagged defensive position armed with that gun. All of these guns have a limited field of fire; none offer 360-degree protection, so must be carefully positioned, as this makes them incredibly vulnerable to flanking maneuvers. You could have a line of heavy anti-tank guns forming an impenetrable wall of death, but a single infantryman armed with a grenade sneaking around the sides and coming up behind them will be able to kill them all given enough time unless you do something about it, like lay minefields or form defensive lines with multiple fields of overlapping fire.
Below: Three M-30 howitzers in various states. At the top is its mobile form, being towed by a ZiS-5 truck. Note that when selected, a firing arc will appear to show where the gun will be able to fire when deployed. In the middle is an M-30 in the process of deploying. At bottom, a deployed M-30, ready to fire.
Mines
Mines can be a very strategically important form of defense and area denial. Their functionality is simple; have an Engineer build a minefield (several mines will automatically plant around him for every minefield you build). However, mines don't have fancy friend-of-foe indicators and will kill anyone who treads on them mercilessly. Anti-Personnel mines are set off by everything, and will kill infantry outright. They can also do heavy damage to lightly armed vehicles as they blow off tires, shatter tracks and otherwise cripple the vehicle. Anti-Tank mines are only set off by vehicles and tanks (infantry can roam freely over them) and will make mincemeat of any vehicle, no matter how big.
Because of their indiscriminate nature it is best to use mines to really deny an area to everyone; place minefields on flanks and chokepoints that you don't want to have to bother with (and know you or a teammate won't be sending vehicles through).
Clearing a minefield is fairly straightforward, and is done by Engineers. Move them close to a minefield, and hit the "Clear Mines" button. They will do a little dance and all mines within a small radius will poof and disappear, leaving little dug-up holes scattered about. This can be made complicated by enemy resistance, however.
Cloaking
Several types of infantry can Cloak. We call it "Sneaking" or "Hiding" because this is a WW2 mod and there were no cloaking fields back then. :P Sneaking is a more subtle advantage than in TA. Cloak ranges are usually very high, often equal or even larger than the actual range of the weapon the unit has. What it does do, however, is allow you to move specialized infantry with some amount of secrecy in order to launch surprise sneak attacks, if you're careful about it. The most efficient at this are anti-tank infantry, which can sneak up on unsuspecting tanks; observation infantry, whose sole purpose is to sneak around giving you increased line-of-site; and "Commando" style infantry. There are two types of "Commando" style infantry. The first are Soviet Partisans, though calling them "Commando" really doesn't fit. Partisans are exceptionally weak, badly-trained soldiers -- infact, they're not even soldiers, but civilians who manage to get guns. They have very little combat potential even in enormous numbers, and generally are used as roaming sneaking bands of nuisances and miscreants who can pop up in unexpected places and cause a real headache for an unprepared enemy. They're armed with Molotov Cocktails -- bottles of gasoline or other flammable liquids which are set on fire and thrown at things. This can potentially lead to a lot of damage being done to soft targets -- a rain of flaming molotovs descending upon a barracks will set it on fire quite quickly. The other Commando unit is actually a Commando -- a British Commando, to be exact. As the name suggests, they're basically powerful infantry, though not nearly as powerful as Commandos you may see in other games (such as C&C). Though they can easily take on double or even triple their own numbers, they're usually outnumbered much more than that -- you might be lucky if you manage to gather 3 Commandos in the same place. But as a strategic asset, they are nearly priceless. A single Commando who manages to sneak his way into the enemy's base can lay waste to it, setting demolition charges and blowing up multiple buildings before he's stopped, by which time it may be too late.
Artillery
Artillery is a very important weapon that deserves its own explanation. These are the longest ranged and most powerful weapons in your service. Though they fire extremely slowly individually, a small battery of 5 guns is more than capable of rending the enemy's base asunder if you manage to get them within range. Against close targets they're fairly useless, as they're very bad at firing directly on specific enemy targets -- they should only be used as saturation bombarders, throwing over barrages of indiscriminate death.
There's one special type of artillery which is used by Germany and the Sovet Union -- rockets! The Nebelwerfer and Katyusha were absolutely infamous weapons. In short, while a battery of 5 guns may be able to fire 20 shots in the span of about 60 seconds, rocket artillery can fire that many in 1/10th the time, unleashing a hellish torrent of flaming rockets to absolutely pound the enemy into dust in a very short span of time. Naturally, after firing a barrage, they take quite a while to reload for their second shot, and also cost a hell of a lot of Logistics to do so. But if you've got the Logistics to spare, these things can be real game-enders. They're also noisy as shit, too.
Artillery comes in two forms: Towed and Self-Propelled. All sides have access to towed artillery, while some have self-propelled artillery guns, such as the German Wespe and British Sexton, which do not require deploying or undeploying. These mobile artillery units give your strategic bombardments much more flexibility, as you can easily move a squadron of these vehicles into firing position, let off a few volleys, and retreat to safety.
Below: A battery of American M2 105mm Howitzers saturates an area with explosives.
Below: A squadron of BM-13 Katyusha launchers unleash a barrage of rockets.
Suppression and Pinning
When you play the game for the first time, perhaps the most noticable thing you'll see are small yellow and red stars over infantry. These are indicators for Suppression and Pinning states.
Suppression and Pinning are just as they sound (by their conventional military definition). Infantry who are Suppressed (yellow star) will drop to the ground and start crawling -- obviously something the enemy's shooting at them with has spooked them a little bit, and they're not about to run around to get blown away. Pinning (red star) is more severe; those poor little infantryman have become so scared that they just curl up into a ball and lay there until the horror's over, afraid that any movement they make will bring death upon them.
All weapons cause this effect, some more than others. The biggest causes are machinegun fire, sniper fire, and artillery/mortar bombardment. On the battlefield, these are usually the most demoralizing and scary weapons; machineguns fire sprays of bullets, any of which might hit you; you may get shot in the head by a sniper at any moment; or caught in a sudden explosion from a falling artillery shell and torn to pieces.
This plays an important tactical role in essentially robbing your enemy of his mobility. Place a good amount of mortars in range to support your infantry attacks, and those enemies you're up against will find themselves unable to move or shoot, allowing you to quickly mop them up. Get some machineguns in a defensive position and they can stall and even halt an enemy infantry attack, holding up a great many of the enemy in order to buy you time to counter the attack. And get artillery in range of the enemy's base, and you can tie all of his infantry down in there, robbing him of his ability to co-ordinate his forces over the map and allowing you to move up and move in relatively unopposed. Often times a unit's ability to pin enemy infantry outweighs its actual destructive capability.
Below: The three infantry states. The top image shows infantry in their normal state, standing around and chilling out. In the second (middle) image, the infantry are keeping low to the ground to avoid being hit, and have a yellow star above them. In the last (bottom) image, the infantry are under heavy fire, some curling up into the fetal position while others bury their heads in the dirt, unable to move. Note the red star.
Vehicle Nomenclature
Vehicles in Spring: 1944 follow a certain, fairly simple and easily-understood nomenclature to describe basic unit functions so that descriptions are not 2 sentences long. These are:
Support - These units are essentially designed to provide fire support for infantry in various ways. Whether they use effective high-explosive shells or rapid-firing automatic weapons, their strongpoint is suppressing, pinning, and killing enemy infantry.
Combat (Tank/Vehicle) - These units are mainly designed to engage enemy armoured vehicles and tanks in combat, and also have a relatively minor ability to also provide support in the role above, as they also have high-explosive ammunition (though, naturally, they usually do not perform this function as well as dedicated Support vehicles).
Tank Destroyer (Vehicle) - These vehicles have only armour-piercing ammunition, and so can only attack enemy vehicles and armoured units.
Turretless (Vehicle) - Many vehicles and tanks do not have turrets, instead having a fixed forward-facing gun. This means their maneuverability and mobility in combat situations is limited, as they must stop and face their targets to fire. They are generally cheaper than turreted vehicles and so are often used as cheaper alternatives.
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