CoH3 Glossary

This is a glossary of various terms you may hear CoH3 players use, in alphabetical order. Some are just simplified military terms, but there are also a lot of specific slang utilized in strategy games or CoH games specifically.

Ambient buildings: Refers to any neutral structure that is pre-placed on each map and is not constructed by players. These typically can be garrisoned by infantry units, and can be destroyed through various destructive weapons (commonly anti-tank weapons, satchel charges, or indirect fire/artillery).
A-Move: Attack move command that many units can be ordered to do. Attack move will tell a unit to move to the target location, but interrupt its movement to attack any enemy units within range along the way to the destination.
Arty: Artillery.
AT: Anti-Tank. Can be used in reference to a variety of specific weapons, most commonly the AT Gun. Another example is “AT nades”.
AT Snare: Anti-tank snare. Several abilities in CoH3 are commonly referred to as 'AT snares'. These typically are abilities that debilitate enemy vehicles through inducing penalties such as reduced movement speed.
BAR: Browning Automatic Rifle, also known as M1918. An upgrade/weapon that the USF can receive. The can call in air-drop crates that may contain BARs as well.
Bleed / Resource Bleed: Refers to losing resources over time, i.e "I'm bleeding Manpower". In CoH games typically Manpower 'bleeds' the most as players will need to constantly reinforce squads and otherwise spend Manpower nearly all the time. Bleeding Manpower due to constant or heavy losses can be very detrimental as a shortage of Manpower results in slowing down rate of reinforcements and prevents production of new units.
Blob / Blobbing: Refers to grouping multiple units together in close proximity, typically controlling them as a single group as opposed to micromanaging each individual unit.
Bounce: Common alternate term for projectiles that failed to penetrate its target, resulting in a deflection or ‘bounce’.
British / Brits: Alternate name for the United Kingdom Forces faction (UKF).
Cheese: Typically a pejorative expression to refer to strategies that are highly unconventional and designed to take opponents by surprise.
Cloak / Camo / Invis: Refers to the Concealment ability that various units have in CoH3, which renders the concealed unit invisible unless enemy units get too close. A concealed unit typically cannot be seen nor directly targeted until revealed. Concealment is typically also called other terms, such as cloak, camouflage (camo) and invisibility (invis).
CoH: Company of Heroes, with CoH3 meaning the third game.
Commonwealth: Alternate name for the United Kingdom Forces faction (UKF).
CP: Command Points. In CoH3 skirmishes the Battlegroup system uses CP to unlock various perks within them. Each individual point is generated through an experience-like mechanic, where build-up to gaining a single point is displayed on the right side of the user interface. CP is generated very slowly over time, but faster progress is made through combat via taking and dealing damage with units.
CQB / CQC: Close Quarters Battle or Close Quarters Combat. Typically refers to units/weapons that are specialized for close range damage, but are generally ineffective at longer ranges. Ex. Sub-machine guns.
DAK: Deustches Afrikakorps, a playable faction in CoH3 skirmishes.
Deflect / Deflection: Refers to projectiles that failed to penetrate a target’s armour, resulting in significantly less damage done and often seen in-game as the projectile deflecting or ‘bouncing’ off the armour.
Direct Fire: Refers to units/weapons that fire directly at enemies, typically requiring line of sight in order to fire. Majority of weapons function this way.
Doctrinal: A legacy term from previous CoH games, referring to the old 'commander' gameplay system which is now currently the Battlegroup system in CoH3. Players may refer to Battlegroup specific abilities/units as 'doctrinal' abilities/units.
Entity / Entities: A common term referring to individual units in CoH3. An individual soldier within a squad is often called an entity or model.
E8 / EZ8: Easy Eight, the common abbreviation for the unit.
Floating: Refers to accumulating excessive amounts of resources. In CoH games specifically, it can mean accumulating too much Manpower, Munitions, and/or Fuel, i.e. "I'm floating too much Manpower". Floating unintentionally is typically a sign of unoptimized or inefficient gameplay, as resources are meant to be spent in order to gain advantages and hopefully win the match.
Hard retreat: This term refers to ordering units to actually retreat via the Retreat order.
HE / High Explosive: Refers to specific weapons/abilities that fire High Explosive rounds. These typically have greater area of effect but reduced penetration, making them effective against infantry but less effective against vehicles.
HMG: Heavy Machine Gun. This typically refers to the machine gun weapons team units, which require setting up in order to fire. They are the primary means of suppressing and pinning infantry units. This includes the USF , UKF , Wehrmacht , and DAK .
Indirect Fire: Refers to units/weapons that fire indirectly at locations or enemies, typically without requiring line of sight. Artillery units like mortars count as indirect fire units.
Jeep: Common slang for the USF unit. The unit is based on the historical Willys MB vehicle, which was known as Willys Jeep or just Jeep. Jeep is also a US manufacturing brand and thus the name is avoided in the in-game descriptions, likely to avoid copyright issues.
Kiting: Common gaming slang. To 'kite' an enemy is to continuously create distance from the target as it advances on you, similar to constantly moving while using a kite. In context of RTS games, this allows one to keep for example, a vehicle safe by reversing as an enemy advances, allowing it to fight at range while moving safely away.
LMG: Light Machine Gun. This typically refers to special weapons/upgrades that can be granted to various infantry units, such as the Bren Light Machine Gun for the UKF , or the MG 34 Light Machine Gun for the DAK .
LV: Light Vehicle. Players typically refer to several units as LVs, or light vehicles. These units tend to be vehicles with typically lower health and armour values, making them vulnerable to all sorts of weapons (to varying degrees). Examples include typical recon and halftruck vehicles, as well as armoured cars and light tanks such as the USF , UKF and DAK .
Macro / Macromanagement: A strategy game term. Refers to the ‘strategy’ or ‘bigger picture’ side of the game, focusing more on larger scale tactics such as resource/economy management, tech/upgrade management, producing units, overall game plan, etc.. A player with good macro will typically be able to gain more map control, more resources, tech/upgrade at the optimal time, understand game flow, and produce more units over time.
Mainline infantry: Refers to specific infantry units. Each faction has access to specific infantry squads that for most players tends to be core to their gameplay, and thus are rarely skipped in matches. They are available early in matches, frequently are produced in larger numbers, and tend to be strong generalists that are useful throughout each match. They all commonly also share the feature of being able to unlock some sort of anti-tank snare ability. Examples include the USF , UKF , Wehrmacht , and DAK .
Micro / Micromanagement: A strategy game term. Refers to the ‘tactical’ side of the game, focusing more on smaller scale tactics such as managing units effectively through proper utilization (ex. Movement, positioning, using abilities effectively, retreating appropriately, etc.). A player with good micro will typically utilize units and smaller scale mechanics more effectively, allowing them to fight effectively with their own units against similar numbers and unit types, win even when outnumbered or disadvantaged initially, and has impeccable unit preservation.
Model: A common term referring to individual units in CoH3. An individual soldier within a squad is often called an entity or model.
Nade: Short for Grenade.
Pen / penetration: Refers to the CoH mechanics of weapons passing or failing a penetration check against armour values. Weapons that pass this check will penetrate the armour, dealing its full damage.
PG / Pgrens: Panzergrenadier Squad unit. Note that there are two different units with the same name (One for Wehrmacht, one for DAK). As such, players typically need to specify which unit they are talking about by mentioning the faction.
Pio: Wehrmacht unit.
Pin / Pinned: Refers to the CoH mechanics of pinning. After a squad has been suppressed, if the unit continues to receive suppression from a weapon (such as an HMG), they will eventually enter the Pinned state, which makes them unable to move, attack, or use abilities. Pinned units are completely vulnerable and cannot fight back, and thus must be relieved or ordered to Retreat.
PJ: DAK unit.
P4 / PZ4: . Typically refers to the Wehrmacht version, although DAK also has their own version which are rarer to see in matches due to higher requirements.
Push: Essentially means to go on the offensive. Typically refers to moving forward in an attack, hence the term to ‘push’ into the enemy line or ‘push’ to take territory.
Sappers: The most common slang used for the UKF .
Side-tech: A strategy game term. Tech refers to a faction's "technology tree" (see Tech in glossary for more info), with "teching up" referring to progressing through this tech tree. Side-tech refers to going for specific unlocks of units/upgrades that do not necessarily further the progression of the tech tree. In most cases, it refers to unlocking additional units locked behind specific upgrades, which are not necessary to progressing the tech tree. Ex. UKF players can unlock access to producing the , though this is not required in order to build the next tier of production building.
SMG: Sub-machine gun. In CoH3 some weapons are classified as SMGs, which are very effective at close range but are very ineffective at longer ranges. Examples: USF , DAK , and upgraded with Thompson SMGs.
Snare: Refers to abilities that debilitate vehicle movement. The most common usage of this term is in reference to the ‘anti-tank snare’ ability that are available to all mainline infantry (ex. Sticky Bomb for USF ).
Soft retreat: This term refers to ordering units to move away from a fight, as opposed to actually using the Retreat button (which is a hard retreat). Soft retreating is typically used in conjunction with field healing/reinforcing outside the HQ in order to maintain a strong field presence.
Stoss: . The pronunciation is similar to “Stoss-Stroopen”, hence the transliteration of “Stoss” in English.
Suppress / Suppression: Refers to the CoH mechanic of suppression. Some weapons, especially HMG (or machine gun weapon teams), are capable of suppressing enemy infantry after firing at them. Suppressed infantry are severely limited in movement and combat prowess, and are represented as the squad diving to the ground and crawling for movement, with other indicators appearing to show players what is happening to the unit.
Tech: A strategy game term. Most often is used to refer to a faction's "technology tree", or tech tree. When player say "teching up", they are referring to progressing this tech tree by building specific structures and/or researching specific upgrades. Teching up is how players can gain access to more advanced units in a match - in the CoH franchise, this usually means more elite and varied infantry units, as well as more advanced vehicles like tanks. Teching up typically requires a significant investment of resources and time in each match.
Tommy / Tommies: The most common slang used for the UKF .
T0, T1, T2, T3 ...: Stands for “Tier #”, where # is a specific number. In the CoH franchise, players typically use these terms to refer to the specific production buildings available to each faction, with the numbers associated with how each building is listed from left to right order in the user interface. For example, for USF buildings T0 means , T1 means , T2 means , etc. More information about the ‘tier’ terminology in CoH3 can be seen in another planned article.
UKF: United Kingdom Forces, a playable faction in CoH3 skirmishes.
USF: United States Forces, a playable faction in CoH3 skirmishes.
Wehr / WM: Wehrmacht, a playable faction in CoH3 skirmishes.
WP / White Phosphorus: Also known as 'Wily Pete'. Refers to certain abilities that create White Phosphorus clouds which both obscure sight and continuously damages infantry in its area of effect.