Hello folks! I'm Will (MonolithicBacon) from the Design team, here to present a very brief look at the British Forces in Company of Heroes 3! This overview won't be as in-depth as our previous posts, as much of this faction is still in development, but we can't resist showing you what we have.

Overview

The British Forces represent the collective armies of the British Empire, called from all corners of the globe to combat tyranny in Europe under one banner. Despite the considerable losses of the British Expeditionary Forces at the beginning of the war, the British Forces in Italy represent an army that is on the offense, bolstered by American arms and armor.  

The British Forces are the most well-rounded implementation of a British Faction we have seen in the Company of Heroes franchise, able to hold their own in both defense and on the attack. Use reliable and robust infantry to take and hold objectives, harass the enemy with versatile light vehicles, fortify with artillery and team weapons, and counterattack with massed allied armor. 

A host of new weapons, vehicles and units are being called into battle with the British Forces, along with firm favorites. Note that this faction is not as far along in development as our US Forces or the Wehrmacht, so expect many things to be subject to change. 

• Robust Infantry – Between Infantry Sections, Sappers and Guards, the British Forces have infantry options aplenty. Not to mention elite infantry joining the fight from around the globe. 
• Mobility in Force – Calling upon the experience of their desert exploits, the British have a host of light vehicles and tanks to push deep into enemy lines, most of which can be withdrawn if necessary, to facilitate bringing in stronger armor. 
• Artillery Support – Support your advances or cover your retreat with readily-available artillery support from your HQ’s 25 Pounder, or from a wide variety of indirect fire weapons, such as the Bishop self-propelled gun. 
• Arms Race – The British Forces and the BEF before them have always been outgunned compared to the superior armor and weaponry of the Wehrmacht. Weapons such as the 2 Pounder may be effective in the early game, but you will need to replace them eventually in order to keep the pace. 
• Simplicity – With only 4 core buildings compared to the US Forces’ 5, the British faction is by far the easiest to pick up, play and master, but lacks the sheer depth and specialization of the Wehrmacht’s Field Marshals.  

Playstyles 

Thanks to their simplified Tech Tree, the British Forces can choose how heavily they want to invest in each of their production buildings, without risk of constructing a building unsuitable for the opponent they're facing. While some more powerful units will need to be unlocked before they can be produced, this carries less risk overall and helps keep everything streamlined.  

Where British players will need to be alert is in preserving their vehicles – while the Humber Armoured Car might be a menace against infantry early in the game, it cannot stand up against later light vehicles, such as the 251/17 Flak Half-Track. Similarly, early tanks such as the 2 Pounder Valentine will quickly become outgunned against the likes of a Panzer IV. While these vehicles still have their uses, even towards the late game, British players should recall their vehicles, reclaiming some of their original cost, in order to upgrade. 

Where the British truly shine is in a balanced playstyle: using aggressive infantry such as Guards to secure territory, while relying on team weapons such as the Vickers HMG to hold them; bombard enemy emplacements with your 25 Pounder, before rushing them with Stuart Light Tanks; or soften up enemy vehicles with .55 caliber Boys Anti-Tank rifles on your Rifle Sections, to create an opening for Valentine and Sherman tanks. 

Units of Note 

Below is a selection of units to expect from the British Forces, including their Battlegroups: 

British Forces Infantry 

Called into action from across the globe, the infantry of the British Forces bring a wealth of diversity in their weaponry and strengths. 

• Foot Guards – Late-game infantry that enter the field equipped with M1 Bazookas. These elite infantry are an immediate threat for any vehicle but can hold their own against infantry of a similar caliber. 
• Gurkha Rifles – As stalwart as they are deadly, a squad of Gurkhas can easily turn the tide of an engagement. Able to rush the enemy with Thompson submachine guns or hold them at bay with Bren light machine guns, Gurkhas are deadly against infantry. Available in the Indian Artillery Battlegroup. 
• Rifle Section a.k.a. “Tommies” – Regular infantry of the British Forces, able to be equipped to suit their needs. Arm your sections with scoped Lee Enfield Rifles and flares for reconnaissance tasks, Bren light machine guns for defense, or Boys anti-tank rifles for anti-vehicle hunting. 

British Forces Weaponry 

Some of the best weapons of the war can be found among the British Forces' arsenal. 

• BL 5.5-inch and 25 pounder Artillery – Give the enemy a stark reminder of who wields the bigger stick. Fire devastating shells at exceptionally long ranges to soften up enemy positions. The 25 pounder is available as standard, while the BL 5.5 emplacement is available in the Indian Artillery Battlegroup. 
• ML 3-inch and 4.2-inch Mortars – While the standard British Forces can bring 3-inch mortars to bear, the heavier 4.2-inch mortar is available as part of the Indian Artillery Battlegroup. Clearing out enemy garrisons has never been easier. 
• Bofors Anti-Air Emplacement – Able to shift between anti-air and ground-attack roles, the Bofors 40mm gun can tear apart aircraft and light vehicles equally, making this emplacement a staple defense for the British. 

• Humber Armoured Car – Sporting a 15mm machine gun (which sounds amazing), this reconnaissance vehicle can scare off most infantry and even a few light vehicles before it becomes outclassed. Fast and lethal in the right hands. 

• Valentine Infantry Tank – After cutting its teeth in the deserts of Africa, the Valentine was seen as a dependable infantry support tank. Light and fast, it poses a threat to all enemy light vehicles and is maneuverable enough to swarm enemy tanks and hit them where they’re weakest. 

• Archer Tank Destroyer – Based on the Valentine chassis, the Archer wields the venerable 17 pounder anti-tank gun to bring some much-needed firepower to the British Forces’ late game. While lightly armored, the Archer is long-ranged and quick enough to get out of trouble without delay. 

Short but interesting. 

2pdr Anti-tank gun, 2pdr Valentine - new stuff to play with and likely a new "hint" for more "african content" because both systems werent in use in Italy.

Tbh i think the "big" changes for the british forces will be the "battlegroup system/content" with air support, different armies with specialists and special weapons.

So i can't wait for more information on the british battlegroups.

One point I would like to make is how odd the Valentine chassis is described. It should not be a quick and mobile low armor unit, but rather a slow and cumbersome heavily armored unit (for its low cost). Ideally, it would be balanced as a cheap, early, and very slow medium tank.

Getting a little bit concerned based on these three faction overviews that maybe the developers haven't actually learned any lessons from COH2 and adopting a shallow, arguably even stereotypical, understanding of the interactions between units, their roles, even their basic performance characteristics.

Take the Valentine for example. As posted earlier- they want to make the Valentine a "fast" unit? Are you for real? Ten seconds of looking it up on Google- the actual Valentine's top speed was 15 mph on roads. How can we expect you to understand and appropriately implement complex things like combined arms when you can't even get simple things like this anywhere close to right? If you want a fast British tank there are no shortage of options- the inventors of the largely failed 'cruiser tank' concept certainly did have speed in its favor, but that one is exactly the wrong choice. What, are we to likewise see Panzer IV's with thicker armor than Shermans despite the fact Shermans' armor was significantly thicker? Germans with more artillery, despite categorical German inferiority across the board in artillery in every theater?

I'll reserve judgment until I have actually played the game, but nothing in any of these three posts about their plans for faction designs give me any confidence they have any clue what they are doing. There is a high chance we are going to see shallow, gimmicky designs for factions and units, with finicky, hyperactive fixation on active abilities; and have arbitrary and nonsensical "Combined Arms' abilities that fake it by providing completely artificial adjacency bonuses rather than actually doing it for real based on units' roles and basic behaviors needing to support each other because it is their core function. Or have one faction be "the early game faction" and another be "the late game faction" because that's literally the best they can do for faction asymmetry instead of the genuine article. Shallow and superficial because they don't know how to do better.

Tanks are armor support for infantry because of the basic design of the unit, not because they get some artificial percentile bonus. If their mobility, vision, and side/rear armor are implemented correctly then infantry to protect the tank's vulnerabilities in terms of target acquisition and weak side armor, and the tank to protect the infantry using its cannon to defeat threats the infantry will struggle against, will be just how the units interact and will not require the same kind of shallow, forced, active ability design that almost every unit in COH2 suffered from.

ImperialDane wrote:

As long as the sections aren't bulletproof and there aren't any mortar emplacements anymore. I honestly don't really care much about the brits at this point. CoH1 and 2 has thoroughly ruined the concept of a british faction to me to such a degree that as long as the infantry isn't super blobbable and there's not nonsense design like Universal carriers and mortar emplacements. Then i don't really care. I just want to get away from the Coh2 brits at this point.

That said the return of the Bofors only brings bad memories.. just.. leave the brit emplacements in the trash heap of history where they belong.

I saw the Axis has the flak weapon team, what I thought was "they finally learned their mistake from Coh1 & 2, no more brain dead emplacement". Because the flak, as they said, is flankable, which is players have to setup their cone position. Bofors however, just build it and then you have a 360 degree MG42 with penetration rounds.