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Hey dakka dakka, i wanted to start an irish guard army. I am getting the hell's highway book. Is their anything else? Do i buy british infantry and others to supplement this army.

You can run US paras with them too I believe.

Welcome to Flames of War! The Irish Guards are an interesting choice. Just out of curiosity, what made you pick them? (At 2000 points, my lads turn into IG, by the by.) Their one shortcoming is that a Sherman is not (let’s be honest) a very scary tank. So you end up paying a lot of points for elite crews in mediocre tanks. Just for the record, in FOW ‘to hits’ are based on the opponent’s skill, not your skill. So Elite crews last longer, but they don’t ‘to hit’ better. That may sound like a winner, but IMHO Shermans have to swarm the target and the IG have a hard time swarming at low point levels. We are still debating the merits of putting Veteran crews in Shermans.
As to what you need, Shermans and some infantry is a good start. Let us know how you do!

Thankfully the British Army in WW2 understood the merits of veteran crews in Shermans...

True, but it is sad how many Sherman crews did not last long enough to become veterans.

Big P wrote:Thankfully the British Army in WW2 understood the merits of veteran crews in Shermans...

I appreciate this, especially when fielding armoured platoons in my 15th Scots.

DesslokUnfrozen wrote:True, but it is sad how many Sherman crews did not last long enough to become veterans.

Actually survival rates for Sherman crews were quite good, no worse than anything else, and better than alot of contemporary vehicles.

Hence why we got through so many Sherman tanks, I knew a British tank commander who had three tanks shot out from under him during a single day. Get knocked-out, go get another one. According to the latest research it was not the petrol fuel tanks that caused the problem, but the ammo stowage. Hence why the US adopted 'wet' stowage. In many cases the petrol tanks were found intact in Knocked-out tanks. Once wet stowage is introduced it reduced the problem of the vehicle catching fire and brewing up so frequently.

Safest place to be is in the tank.... Whatever it is. A Canadian tank regiment recorded that of 82 men killed only 24 were in a tank at the time of death.

Stanislaw Maczek from the Polish 1st Armoured reckoned - "It turned out, that on average per every 5 destroyed tanks one tank crew is killed, so more or less 5 men."

This tallies with the US Army average of one man killed, one man wounded per tank knocked-out taken from research conducted by 12th Army. This is further reinforced by British findings from after the Caen battles that reached much the same figure. Bear in mind they are averages of course.

Interestingly the Poles also recorded losses in the East to units equipped with T-34s and they found a higher loss rate among crews equipped with the T-34.

If you compare the US Army loss rates the tank crews had a 17.6 percent of becoming a casualty compared to the Infantry, with 26.4 percent of deployed strength.

DesslokUnfrozen wrote:Welcome to Flames of War! The Irish Guards are an interesting choice. Just out of curiosity, what made you pick them? (At 2000 points, my lads turn into IG, by the by.) Their one shortcoming is that a Sherman is not (let’s be honest) a very scary tank. So you end up paying a lot of points for elite crews in mediocre tanks. Just for the record, in FOW ‘to hits’ are based on the opponent’s skill, not your skill. So Elite crews last longer, but they don’t ‘to hit’ better. That may sound like a winner, but IMHO Shermans have to swarm the target and the IG have a hard time swarming at low point levels. We are still debating the merits of putting Veteran crews in Shermans.
As to what you need, Shermans and some infantry is a good start. Let us know how you do!

I am descent of a sgt from the Guard....so family...kinda have to do it. I started with Hell's Highway Book and a late war british platoon and Sherman Platoon.

Hey KamenRiderW, that's so cool!

Hey Big P,Thanks. Your percentages made me feel much better. I have just finished a book on Operation Goodwood, where the Brits lost many tanks, and that book made me worried about all those tank crews.

Irish Guards are pretty good, veteran tanks are kinda of expensive, but you get 2 Fireflies per platoon for extra 17 pdr goodness.

As with most tank companies, you will find recon to be really useful for stopping ambushes and remove GtG, either the Stuarts or the 2nd Household Cav would do.

Infantry wise, both US Paras and Guard Rifles are good choices, Paras have lots of FV stands and get TA3. While the Guard Rifles are pretty cheap (Just compare their cost to a Grenadier platoon...) and get a special rule for riding on tanks.

Eventually you might want some mortars, so you can smoke bombardment is very good against German heavies and pinning infantry before assault is great too.