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Action at Manutchskaya


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Interesting.

I won it as the Germans (tactical i think) in PBEM and i found out that the german armour was far superior to the russian, especially at long range.

But the ground condition make the German attack pretty difficult : i immobilized several precious tanks in the snow and my infantry advance was awfully slow.

Maybe it's this kind of scenario where when things goes wrong for one side, they go completely wrong ?

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[spoilerS AHEAD]

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I kicked some Russian tail in this one. I think the key is to bring Russian armor in the village under threat from the flank - so split your armor up into two task forces. You can make it REALLY hard for them to maneuver this way. Save the 81 battery & halftrack for enemy guns (or smoke if necessary & useful - which it probably won't be), and use the 105s on whatever targets present themselves - I set my 105 spotter up in cover on the flank, where he could see most of the village.

The armored cars and Pz IIs are expendable, so send them forward to get information about enemy dispositions; just don't count on them coming back. The Pz IIIs are your battering ram - the Russians just can't hurt them frontally at more than about 250 m - with the possible exception of the Lend-Lease Shermans, which are your top priority targets. Keep the Pz IVs back & on the flanks, overwatching for everybody else, trying for engagement ranges in the 700-1000 m range, preferably nearer the short end of the range; hunt them forward as practical. Don't be shy about rubbling buildings (the Pz IVs are good at that) if you have reason to believe the enemy has occupied them, but don't fire shots off indiscriminately.

Keep the halftracks in reserve to give a couple platoons of infantry emergency mobility or to use them later on for scouting & mobile firepower in areas cleared of enemy armor (and, if you need to, to hold control of objectives). Send a platoon (at least) of infantry into every covered approach, because you DO need to flush out the AT guns before your armor starts to present side shots; try to let the armor and artillery do the heavy lifting once they're spotted, though, because you're outnumbered and don't have as many SMGs. Once you've won the armor battle, you can manhandle the enemy infantry as needed.

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After the game was over (Duh...I think I'm supposed to do this before the battle starts) I examined the gun vs armor data and found that the T-34 could penetrate 50mm armor at 1,000 yds. Is this correct for Jan. '43?

If this is correct it seems the germans should engage T-34s beyond 1,250 yds. Any Grogs out there care to comment.

Thanks,

Ken

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After the game was over (Duh...I think I'm supposed to do this before the battle starts) I examined the gun vs armor data and found that the T-34 could penetrate 50mm armor at 1,000 yds. Is this correct for Jan. '43?

If this is correct it seems the germans should engage T-34s beyond 1,250 yds. Any Grogs out there care to comment.

Although I believe that is true, the T-34's chance to hit is still fairly low at 750 m or so. If you engaged at 1250 m, I think you'd run out of AP ammo (a serious consideration with the Pz IVs, not so much with the Pz IIIs) before you ran out of targets, at least with the deployments my opponent & I used. I only lost about three Pz IVs while trying to engage at closer ranges (and destroyed all enemy armor) - and at least one of those losses was a lucky hit at over 1000 m.

If I recall, it's also hard to engage the Russian left flank from 1250 m or more due to some hills & trees. Part of the reason I moved forward as far as I did was to get better LOS - my initial plan had been as you suggest, to engage from longer range - but I found that 750 m worked just fine for the most part.

[ June 11, 2003, 07:43 PM: Message edited by: demoss ]

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Originally posted by demoss:

..... the T-34's chance to hit is still fairly low at 750 m or so.

I know I got one lucky hit at the end of the game, which prompted me to check the gun vs armor data (a green T-34 got a side turret penetration on a P-III at 1,037 yds. with his first shot and the second shot KO'ed).

Maybe because I was able to gang up on my opponents tanks I was (overall) able to get the hits for kills? Don't get me wrong, my T-34s died fast and furious when they were out in the open, but when you keep them hull-down they are tough. And I was shocked at how fast the Germans could die if they were not hull-down.

Fun scenario and a real eye-opener as far as armor and guns for that time period.

Thanks,

Ken

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