Tips for Soviets on Mittelaschenbach

[Simcoe]

Played a PBEM of the Mittelaschenbach scenario. What is everyone's opinion on this one? I played the Soviets and I had a hard time taking on M60's with BMP's. 

My plan was to start on the first objective suggested in the briefing. There are two M60's guarding the town. I sent in infantry to start but they couldn't make it past the tree line without being mowed down by the tanks. I decided to rush the M60's with six BMP's and assaulting infantry. The final tally was four BMP's and scores of infantry for two M60's.

The US seems to have two platoons of M60's to start with. I took out three with the dismounted AT-4's. with the other two destroyed M-60's that leaves five remaining. I tried sniping the remaining with ATGM's from the BMP's but the remaining M60's either outshot me or reached my hiding spots and shot the remainder. 

I know I receive tanks later on but I would like to discuss how BMP's should be handled when facing MBT's.

[domfluff]

What you start with are the reconnaissance elements. Their job isn't to attack main battle tanks, but to set the conditions for the later attack.

That means the two companies of tanks are your leading element, supported by your artillery.

In terms of that artillery, you have a battery of 120mm mortars and six batteries of rocket artillery.

I'm going to say that again for some emphasis. You have 36 BM-21 Grad self propelled 122mm multiple rocket launchers. 

So the real answer of "how do I fight M60s with BMPs" is that you don't. If you were forced to, the BMP-1 can penetrate M60s frontally with both the ATGM, and the HEAT round from the 73mm cannon. Neither is a great option, which means if you're forced to then something has gone wrong, but you do have the tools to do it, if you can create situations of local superiority.

One of the ways you can do that is by using some of the 1440 barrels of 122mm rocket artillery that you're given.

[Simcoe]

1 hour ago, domfluff said:

What you start with are the reconnaissance elements. Their job isn't to attack main battle tanks, but to set the conditions for the later attack.

That means the two companies of tanks are your leading element, supported by your artillery.

In terms of that artillery, you have a battery of 120mm mortars and six batteries of rocket artillery.

I'm going to say that again for some emphasis. You have 36 BM-21 Grad self propelled 122mm multiple rocket launchers. 

So the real answer of "how do I fight M60s with BMPs" is that you don't. If you were forced to, the BMP-1 can penetrate M60s frontally with both the ATGM, and the HEAT round from the 73mm cannon. Neither is a great option, which means if you're forced to then something has gone wrong, but you do have the tools to do it, if you can create situations of local superiority.

One of the ways you can do that is by using some of the 1440 barrels of 122mm rocket artillery that you're given.

I used all six batteries and it didn’t kill one tank even though several were caught in the barrage. Artillery doesn’t have much effect on tanks in Combat Mission. 
 

For reconnaissance, you can’t get into the high ground across from the starting position without taking out the two M60’s defending the first objective. The briefing tells you to take the 1st object and move into the high ground.

you can’t move across the valley floor without taking fire from M60’s. 
 

if you don’t act aggressively the US tanks will box in your starting position. Your only hope is to assault quickly while the M60’s are spread out.

I’m happy to be proven wrong by a Soviet player that has beaten an opponent on this map.

 

[Halmbarte]

The artillery is important to be sure. One of the things it does is forces the US tankers to button up, reducing their spotting advantage, and if you're lucky, breaking tracks and immobilizing them. 

In the case you're talking about, as I remember I used infantry firing RPGs to take out the tanks. RPGs will penetrate M60s from the front pretty reliably. 

H

[Simcoe]

2 hours ago, Halmbarte said:

The artillery is important to be sure. One of the things it does is forces the US tankers to button up, reducing their spotting advantage, and if you're lucky, breaking tracks and immobilizing them. 

In the case you're talking about, as I remember I used infantry firing RPGs to take out the tanks. RPGs will penetrate M60s from the front pretty reliably. 

H

• I guess you could get lucky but I caught multiple tanks in the MLRS and I got nothing for it. In real life you would damage optics and other delicate electronics from near misses but in Combat Mission only direct hits will do any damage to the tank. A very very close hit will only knock a track.
• US Tanks still kill BMP's all day when buttoned up
• any half decent player will never let you get close enough to fire an RPG. In this scenario the US doesn't need to hold the first objective. All they need to do is make sure you don't flank into the hills across from the starting position. They will sit an M60 on open ground and mow down any infantry that gets close.

[Erwin]

On 11/29/2022 at 5:44 PM, Simcoe said:

I’m happy to be proven wrong by a Soviet player that has beaten an opponent on this map.

I played the US vs Probus as the Soviets and Probus easily kicked my (pretty experienced) ***.  While the arty cannot easily kill tanks, the Soviet ATGM's (if placed intelligently) can take out any M60's that happen to be exposed - ie: can be seen from the Soviet hill.  My experience was watching tank after tank simply explode and I never saw any of the Soviet ATGM's.  The BMP's are not for attacking tanks, but good vs inf.  It seemed to me that in this scenario the US were almost blind.  My US units seemed unable to even see the Soviet units until they were at short range.  But, the Soviets seemed to be able to pick off US tanks easily while often staying invisible.  It felt like playing the Syrians in CMSF.  I actually concluded that it was a mistake to play this H2H as it was "clearly designed for Soviet vs US AI".  So, your experience is a surprise to me.

[Pelican Pal]

Yea, dismounted ATGM are difficult to spot especially if you are able to position them well. Ideally you are able to rely on these over the BMPs, but if you do want to use the BMPs then getting a spotting marker bonus, keeping at long range, and getting multiple BMPs on one target are all beneficial. Charging forward with them pretty much guarantees that they are going to have the worst possible outcome. Being more easily spotted along with their accuracy being far worse.

Re: the rocket artillery. Since fragmentation against tanks isn't modeled you need direct hits and the best way to achieve that is to use point targets and try to rack up a small advantage that you can further exploit with your dismounted AT-4.

[Simcoe]

2 hours ago, Erwin said:

I played the US vs Probus as the Soviets and Probus easily kicked my (pretty experienced) ***.  While the arty cannot easily kill tanks, the Soviet ATGM's (if placed intelligently) can take out any M60's that happen to be exposed - ie: can be seen from the Soviet hill.  My experience was watching tank after tank simply explode and I never saw any of the Soviet ATGM's.  The BMP's are not for attacking tanks, but good vs inf.  It seemed to me that in this scenario the US were almost blind.  My US units seemed unable to even see the Soviet units until they were at short range.  But, the Soviets seemed to be able to pick off US tanks easily while often staying invisible.  It felt like playing the Syrians in CMSF.  I actually concluded that it was a mistake to play this H2H as it was "clearly designed for Soviet vs US AI".  So, your experience is a surprise to me.

Finally someone that has played the scenario H2H. The AT-4's only got three tanks before running out of ammo. 

I guess I could have hung back with the BMP's and waited until the tanks arrive. My concern was that would give the US forces time to set up hull down positions from all different angles. Once my tanks arrived they wouldn't have a safe avenue to get into range.

My plan matched the scenario briefing. Take the closest objective and set up in the hills on the other side of the valley. That way I could make sure the US couldn't use it to ambush the tanks. 

Are you saying your opponent sat his BMP's at long range and using their ATGM's?

[Erwin]

16 hours ago, Simcoe said:

Finally someone that has played the scenario H2H. The AT-4's only got three tanks before running out of ammo. 

I guess I could have hung back with the BMP's and waited until the tanks arrive. My concern was that would give the US forces time to set up hull down positions from all different angles. Once my tanks arrived they wouldn't have a safe avenue to get into range.

My plan matched the scenario briefing. Take the closest objective and set up in the hills on the other side of the valley. That way I could make sure the US couldn't use it to ambush the tanks. 

Are you saying your opponent sat his BMP's at long range and using their ATGM's?

 

****** POSSIBLE SPOILERS *******

 

My experience was that I initially wanted to move the M60's into better ambush positions from their set-up positions (nearly all US units are stuck in place for set-up) .  This was my first CW game and most of my experience with modern titles has been with CMSF and CMBS.  I thought that the M60's would do a better job spotting Soviet vehicles at long range. 

The result was that any M60 that was poking its head around a building to get LOS to the Soviet-occupied hills got killed by ATGM's.  IIRC about 3 or 4 M60's were quickly KIA in this way.  I do not know if these ATGM's were from BMP's or inf units.  I assumed inf units as no Soviet BMP was spotted.  However, the US vehicles seemed very bad at spotting as later on when Soviet vehicles closed in it was common for a US vehicle to have problems spotting an enemy unit 50-100 meters directly in front of it(!).  My conclusion was that the US vehicles need to stay hidden behind buildings and trees in order to stay alive.  

Noe that my situation was made worse as I failed to move any US ATGM units into the hills on the US side of the map as I didn't notice the restricted Soviet set-up zone.  I simply didn't notice the double line of barbed wire that delineates the Soviet "zone".  (It would be helpful for the design notes to point out this Soviet restriction as it may be essential for the US to occupy these hills with ATGM's.) 

Re the Soviet artillery.  While It is rare to kill an enemy tank with arty, the arty most certainly can immobilize vehicles, and this happened to at least a couple of the US vehicles.  I thought that the inf in the APC's would be safer in a church, but after concentrated Soviet arty, the church collapsed killing an entire squad while immobilizing the APC.  However, the inf would have survived in the APC - at least until the Soviet BMP's and inf arrived and killed it.  

One US AA vehicle was well-placed and killed several BMP's before succumbing.  However, what shocked me was the poor spotting ability of the US M60's.  I tried the NTC training scenarios and also found that the M48's and M60's seem to be very poor at spotting even when pointing directly at an enemy.  

We abandoned the game as the Soviet tanks approached the final objective as it seemed impossible for the US to mount a credible defense.  Every time a US vehicle exposed itself to shoot at a target it either couldn't see it and/or was soon killed.  I have been looking forward to playing this as the Soviet vs the US (as soon as I forget enough) as this scenario seemed designed for that.  Am amazed that you had a completely different experience.

I only just recently upgraded to v1.06 (altho' I only see v1.02 in the DATA folder - is that correct???).  Am wondering if the US spotting has improved in the latest version.

 

 

[Simcoe]

On 12/12/2022 at 8:48 AM, Erwin said:

 

****** POSSIBLE SPOILERS *******

 

My experience was that I initially wanted to move the M60's into better ambush positions from their set-up positions (nearly all US units are stuck in place for set-up) .  This was my first CW game and most of my experience with modern titles has been with CMSF and CMBS.  I thought that the M60's would do a better job spotting Soviet vehicles at long range. 

The result was that any M60 that was poking its head around a building to get LOS to the Soviet-occupied hills got killed by ATGM's.  IIRC about 3 or 4 M60's were quickly KIA in this way.  I do not know if these ATGM's were from BMP's or inf units.  I assumed inf units as no Soviet BMP was spotted.  However, the US vehicles seemed very bad at spotting as later on when Soviet vehicles closed in it was common for a US vehicle to have problems spotting an enemy unit 50-100 meters directly in front of it(!).  My conclusion was that the US vehicles need to stay hidden behind buildings and trees in order to stay alive.  

Noe that my situation was made worse as I failed to move any US ATGM units into the hills on the US side of the map as I didn't notice the restricted Soviet set-up zone.  I simply didn't notice the double line of barbed wire that delineates the Soviet "zone".  (It would be helpful for the design notes to point out this Soviet restriction as it may be essential for the US to occupy these hills with ATGM's.) 

Re the Soviet artillery.  While It is rare to kill an enemy tank with arty, the arty most certainly can immobilize vehicles, and this happened to at least a couple of the US vehicles.  I thought that the inf in the APC's would be safer in a church, but after concentrated Soviet arty, the church collapsed killing an entire squad while immobilizing the APC.  However, the inf would have survived in the APC - at least until the Soviet BMP's and inf arrived and killed it.  

One US AA vehicle was well-placed and killed several BMP's before succumbing.  However, what shocked me was the poor spotting ability of the US M60's.  I tried the NTC training scenarios and also found that the M48's and M60's seem to be very poor at spotting even when pointing directly at an enemy.  

We abandoned the game as the Soviet tanks approached the final objective as it seemed impossible for the US to mount a credible defense.  Every time a US vehicle exposed itself to shoot at a target it either couldn't see it and/or was soon killed.  I have been looking forward to playing this as the Soviet vs the US (as soon as I forget enough) as this scenario seemed designed for that.  Am amazed that you had a completely different experience.

I only just recently upgraded to v1.06 (altho' I only see v1.02 in the DATA folder - is that correct???).  Am wondering if the US spotting has improved in the latest version.

 

 

WHT did the BMP2'S do exactly? Did they try to take the first objective themselves? Or hang back, waiting for the tanks to arrive?

[Erwin]

First of all the town was bombarded for a long time so the tank and APV stationed here were both immobilized and many buildings destroyed.  During the bombardment, a combination of inf AT and BMP's took out the two M60's stationed at the Soviet map edge.  After that there was nothing to then stop inf and BMP's approaching the first obj.  A combo of inf and BMP's took out the town's tank and APC.  As mentioned the problem was that the US units seemed to have very poor spotting ability.  

IIRC after that Soviet tanks started to arrive.  You should ask Probus as to what he did.

[Simcoe]

On 12/13/2022 at 3:45 PM, Erwin said:

First of all the town was bombarded for a long time so the tank and APV stationed here were both immobilized and many buildings destroyed.  During the bombardment, a combination of inf AT and BMP's took out the two M60's stationed at the Soviet map edge.  After that there was nothing to then stop inf and BMP's approaching the first obj.  A combo of inf and BMP's took out the town's tank and APC.  As mentioned the problem was that the US units seemed to have very poor spotting ability.  

IIRC after that Soviet tanks started to arrive.  You should ask Probus as to what he did.

Maybe it's a bit of a dice roll. None of MLRS did any damage to tanks and the US tanks at the first objective stayed far enough back that infantry couldn't take it alone. 

I found the US tanks had good spotting.

Thank you for your input.