how to use halftracks

[emccabe]

I keep forgetting how thin the armor is that and end up using halftracks like an apc from shockforce

an example would be sending them very close to the town and have the gunnes covering the infantry as they advance down the street and this works for the most part but the gunners die very quickly and I end up having to leave a few people behind to man the halftrack gunner position

is there a this an effective way of using a halftrack or were they not designed for combat

[Fizou]

This has been discussed at leangth.. numerous threads about it if you do a search.

In short they where not, with some rare exceptions, used close to the actual fighting. They offered protect from shrapnel but not full protection from small arms.

[Skwabie]

Use a short covered arc on them. With it, the gunners won't pop up. In turn the HTs do not receive small arms fire. This is the best way for me.

[Kieme(ITA)]

Let's just say that halftracks are like normal trucks, but with better off road mobility and protection. Imho, consider them as a truck, which just can't die due to a couple of rifle shots or a too close mortar shot, but still can't properly fight..

The MG? well, it's a bonus support you might use from great distance, nothing more.

[emccabe]

so if I am using the mg on the halftrack how far back should it be from the enemies

[womble]

so if I am using the mg on the halftrack how far back should it be from the enemies

Depends very much on the circumstances. If the enemy are well suppressed, you can use it to maintain that suppression with a degree of impunity, and get pretty close if you can be sure closing doesn't expose the track to new threats which are not suppressed. If the enemy has elevation advantage and is hidden and unsuppressed, there's no real safe range where you can be effective without losing gunners at a fair clip.

[JasonC]

jerome - 250 meters minimum, I would say. The distance can be less important than the cover available, though. The main trick with them is to "keyhole" - which means peek out between two obstacles so that only a narrow "pencil" of ground is visible into the enemy side of the field, isolating on the specific enemy position you are trying to suppress. That prevents all that enemy's friends from seeing the halftrack and replying. As long as that enemy isn't a heavy AT weapon, the 'track should be able to keep them pinned down enough to protect themselves. If the target you are suppressing is a machinegun, then you want the distance as well. Against a squad or fire team, you can get away with being closer if the "pencil" is narrow enough and you pin them down quickly.

The two things to not do with them are to run them through wide areas of open ground that most of the enemy side of the field can see - because heavy AT shooters will clobber them - and not to park them in spots with wide lines of sight as MG nests, for long periods. They aren't tough enough to take on the whole enemy army, and it is relatively easy for the enemy to find a shooter in his kit bag that can smash them. When instead you pick which enemy gets to see them, and then keep the exposure time to that location short - 2-3 minutes tops - they can be perfectly effective.

[Andrew H.]

I did discover - accidentally - that HTs can survive attacks from SMG squads surprisingly well - even at ranges < 100 meters. I suppose it shouldn't be surprising given that SMG bullets are much less powerful than even rifle bullets...but given my normal HT experience, it's pretty amazing to see hundreds of bullets ricochet off of a HT at short range with no penetrations.

Of course the gunner is screwed if he pops up in that situation. But FYI.

[mjkerner]

jerome - 250 meters minimum, I would say. The distance can be less important than the cover available, though. The main trick with them is to "keyhole" - which means peek out between two obstacles so that only a narrow "pencil" of ground is visible into the enemy side of the field, isolating on the specific enemy position you are trying to suppress. That prevents all that enemy's friends from seeing the halftrack and replying. As long as that enemy isn't a heavy AT weapon, the 'track should be able to keep them pinned down enough to protect themselves. If the target you are suppressing is a machinegun, then you want the distance as well. Against a squad or fire team, you can get away with being closer if the "pencil" is narrow enough and you pin them down quickly.

The two things to not do with them are to run them through wide areas of open ground that most of the enemy side of the field can see - because heavy AT shooters will clobber them - and not to park them in spots with wide lines of sight as MG nests, for long periods. They aren't tough enough to take on the whole enemy army, and it is relatively easy for the enemy to find a shooter in his kit bag that can smash them. When instead you pick which enemy gets to see them, and then keep the exposure time to that location short - 2-3 minutes tops - they can be perfectly effective.

^^^ This, but I would add that if the it's a Russian fire team, make certain it doesn't contain an AT rifle, because they can penetrate HT armor.

[womble]

And all the codicils apply double to Allied halftracks which really don't have the armour to stand up to rifle-calibre fire and lack any proper protection for the gunner.

[MikeyD]

CM is the place where tactical theory meets virtual reality and oftentimes tactical theory doesn't come off very well. If a player is unable to reproduce the tactics presented in some 1942 Blitzkrieg combat training movie reel perhaps the fault doesn't lie in the game.

[womble]

Every time someone cites some "training movie" as a reason something should work in CM, I'm reminded of the US small arms familiarisation movie that touts the M1911 as entirely adequate for a single man to assault a building. Pretty much all the "training" movies of the time are as much propaganda to build up the esprit de corps of the intended audience as they are instructions on how to perform military operations.

[Kommissar]

Every time someone cites some "training movie" as a reason something should work in CM, I'm reminded of the US small arms familiarisation movie that touts the M1911 as entirely adequate for a single man to assault a building. Pretty much all the "training" movies of the time are as much propaganda to build up the esprit de corps of the intended audience as they are instructions on how to perform military operations.

Yeah, in the same vein there was that hilarious US training/propaganda video that talked about why the M1917 Browning was actually far superior to the "inaccurate" MG42:

[A Canadian Cat]

jerome - 250 meters minimum, I would say. The distance can be less important than the cover available, though. The main trick with them is to "keyhole"

All good advice. It also matters how many threats your enemy is facing. If you try to use a single HT to fire on the enemy - even from a long way off - it will attract a lot of attention. But if you have multiple fire teams and men moving around and several HTs the enemy will be focused on the closer threats and the HTs can operate without much hassle.

[Michael Emrys]

All good advice. It also matters how many threats your enemy is facing. If you try to use a single HT to fire on the enemy - even from a long way off - it will attract a lot of attention. But if you have multiple fire teams and men moving around and several HTs the enemy will be focused on the closer threats and the HTs can operate without much hassle.

This has been my experience. I haven't used HTs this way in the last year, so I wasn't sure that it still worked the way I remembered it, but when BN first came out I used to do this a lot and it always worked. My HTs might not have gotten a lot of kills, but they did a lot of suppression, which is what I wanted of them. And I recall only once or twice getting a gunner popped in return, though that might be more likely now as a result of some of the recent tweaks.

Michael

[A Canadian Cat]

This has been my experience. I haven't used HTs this way in the last year, so I wasn't sure that it still worked the way I remembered it

I saw your nearly identical advice in the other thread. At first I did a double take - "I thought I wrote that - what - oh that was in another thread"

And I recall only once or twice getting a gunner popped in return, though that might be more likely now as a result of some of the recent tweaks.

Actually the HT gunners are less of a target with the new tweaks. I used them to good effect in Frosty Welcome recently. I actually ran them dry - no ammo left at all. Used just this way. I lost a few gunners but nothing unreasonable. And you are right, low kills amongst the HTs compared the the squads that did the heavy lifting.