Road to Nowhere – Hotchkiss

Mark Goddard

Now another two units done! I’ve done enough of these little guys for an HQ and 2 5 tank platoons, though for my EW french currently I only need 9 of them – in three different ways.

The obvious one is for my HQ, and it’s one of the long barreled Hotchkiss, I’m strangely annoyed I can’t choose long or short, as I can see my poor CO being gun tanked easier, but with a little extra range and AT I shouldn’t complain.

The main role for the Hotchkiss in my list is in an anti infantry role, I have a platoon of 5, which should do an alright job in combat with 2-3 kills when they assault. The other part though is softening the infantry up prior to the assault – now the difficulty here is a combination of 1-man turret and a short ranged gun. Basically at range I can’t hit infantry, and once in range I will not hit that well when I move in range. The trick seems to be getting within 16 of the infantry, but over 16 of any static AT guns behind them. At that range AT 6 is still not too worrying IMHO.

I think I’ll need to pair them up with my recce Hotchkiss to be really effective. These three are all short barreled, and are less useful on assault (being recce and only 3 strong) but together, these three get within 16, able to lift GtG or shoot at AT guns, if the enemy stay gtg, I lift it and 5 guns fire, or they shoot me – scoot away and the 5 can move in shooting on the way in for a change!

I think they will be tricky units to use, but I look forward to trying!

Thanks for reading

6 thoughts on “Road to Nowhere – Hotchkiss”

  1. I have found Recon Hotchkiss can assault early war infantry (assuming you don't get shot up on the way in) since even the Germans have few infantry units with significant Anti-tank capability.

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