How to kill a tank - single battle spoilers (?)

[wham]

Hi everyone!

 

A friend of mine and I played 2 bigger games in the last couple of days, and we realized that killing the latest T-90 or the Abrams seems next to impossible.

Now I am wondering if this is caused by player error or if these tanks truly are so hard to kill. Below are short descriptions of two battles we had with tanks in them.

 

 

T-90

 

We played a quick battle, with me defending 3 towns as Ukrainian infantry, armed with copious amounts of artillery support, RPG's and ATGM's.

My opponents had to cross one of 3 bridges to attack my towns, and I also placed plenty of AT mines near the bridges. He picked his force out of almost pure T-72 and T-90 mix, totalling almost 20 tanks, with only a handful of infantry.

 

The mines did nothing, as his tanks simply rolled over them without a single detonation. Artillery was completely useless, for obvious reasons, against moving armor, managing only to immobilize a couple of vehicles.

 

The ATGM's did nothing, save for killing 2 of his Tunguska's. The MBT's used smoke, APS and reactive armor to survive all ATGM hits. Additionally, the tanks identified the ATGM launch sites with pinpoint accuracy, killing the ATGM units before they could retreat after firing.

 

Finally, as the tanks rolled into the towns, I managed to score a handful of hits with RPG's at close range, eventually destroying a few of the tanks, but the MBT's simply blew my troops out of their buildings and hideouts with concentrated cannon fire whenever my troops opened fire. I tried keeping my troops in "hide" -mode, but the tanks seemed to spot them relatively easily despite this.

 

In the end I had to surrender in order to avoid complete annihilation of my defenders.

 

 

Abrams

 

We played one of the pre-made battles, cannot remember the name of it, but it's the one in which US forces must attack Russian forces, crossing fields, then a river and finally occupying a town at the edge of the map. My attacking US forces had a number of Bradleys and about a dozen Abrams tanks, as well as artillery and air support and drones. The defending Russians had well-hidden T-90's, Tunguskas and plenty of mechanized infantry with BMP-3's.

 

At the start of the battle I put the drones in the air and immediately got my eyes on one of the T-90's hiding in some trees. An advancing Abrams swiveled around and single-shotted the T-90 before the poor Russian crew had even a chance to realize they had been spotted.

 

With a combination of drones spotting Russian vehicles hiding in trees and between buildings, and a spotter dropping excalibur precision shells on them, and the advancing MBT's killing anything that dared move, I was able to advance almost completely unopposed to about halfway across the map. Only the enemy AA was being effective, downing one of my drones and both of my Apaches with ease (this was carelessness on my part, I did not identify the source of the AA launches and failed to order the heli's to retreat).

 

I lost 2 Abrams tanks to carelessness, as I had advanced through enemy positions, thinking they were neutralized, when in fact scattered infantry armed with RPG's was still present. The infantry managed to score penetrating hits on the rear of the Abrams tanks. Bradleys and infantry cleared out the trees and I was able to continue. At around this time I was reinforced with a further 8 (!) Abrams tanks and a dozen Bradleys.

 

As in the previous battle, the Abrams were well protected from ATGM's by reactive armor and APS, which resulted in zero ATGM hits on the tanks. Enemy T-90's only managed to get off one or two shots before perforated by the Abrams cannon fire, and most of the time the advancing Abrams tanks were able to spot and kill the T-90's before they even spotted the advancing tanks.

 

In the end, I pretty much wiped the map clean of Russian forces, while suffering only the 2 destroyed Abrams tanks, 3 damaged tanks and a handful of damaged or destroyed Bradleys. The scattered survivors surrendered.

 

--------------------------------

 

With these two battles the score seems clear: tanks are immensely effective, at least until they are forced to enter a dense urban environment.

 

What is the correct way to kill MBT's? ATGM's and even close range RPG shots seem to be well handled by the APS and reactive armor, so these tanks seem almost impervious to attack (as, I am sure, was intended in their design).

 

 

[Vanir Ausf B]

The mines did nothing, as his tanks simply rolled over them without a single detonation.

That, at least, was just bad luck.

[antaress73]

Against a human opponent buy lot's of AA as the russians.. Kill those drones and dont place your tanks on a line where they can only hit the front armor of M1A2s. Keyhole fire and ambush the M1s with two tanks from different directions. The M1 is vulnerable to the front to russian tanks but you need 2-1 superiority even on defense to get away with it. Get side shots from two different directions and you'll kill them on a regular basis. Not easy. Use your infantry as a distraction for the M1s (sneak tanks on them) and the occasional kill. If you can kill the Bradleys first then deal with the M1s. If you have airpower, use it on them.

Ukrainians ... Good luck

Edited February 19, 2015 by antaress73