Bakker@home Posted March 26, 2000 Share Posted March 26, 2000 Well, with CMMC just around the corner discussing tactics of the different nations has become unwise. No need to give my future opponents free insight in military tactics! But to continue my habit of posting articles here I’d like to post some small insights on the more general tank tactics which could be of some use to novice commanders. Read and enjoy ! ------------------------------------------ Hulldown Using terrain features, particularly crests, to position the tank so that only the turret of the tank is visible to the enemy. For example moving a tank slowly up a hill until the turret ‘peeks’ into the adjacent valley. This gives a double bonus of presenting a smaller target to the enemy to fire at and reduces the change of being spotted before firing. Crest jockeying When firing from a hull-down position (or any position for that matter) a tank was bound to quickly being spotted and being engaged as an stationary target by the enemy. On average, three rounds are needed to acquire and destroy a target at anything other than point-blank reange (standard gunnery procedure). To upset the enemies aim it was therefore logical to frequently change position by reversing below the crest and coming up at a different place. Fighting superior tanks With the gun-armor spiral in full swing during the second world war it was not uncommon for tanks to confront opponents which frontal armor could not be penetrated by their main gun. When confronted with such an opponent a number of tactics could be used, singly or in conjunction with each other; a round of High-Explosive (HE) was burst on the enemy’s turret; this would not penetrate the armor but the explosion could temporarily disorientate the commander and smash his vision devices. An Armor-Piercing (AP) shell could be used to shatter one of the enemy’s tracks and/or suspension wheels, thus immobilizing him. When thus immobilized the superior tank could be outmaneuvered and was susceptible to a flank shot. Flank shot A flank shot is a reliable method of dispatching a tank as the side armor is invariably thinner than that on the front of the tank, even better is the rear shot but that can rarely be obtained. Overwatch / movement by bounds When tanks operate together (squads, troops or zugs) they can cover each others advance by moving from fire-position to fire-position in two separate groups. Thus while one group advances across the terrain to a new firing position the second group will cover their advance while being stationary in their firing position (preferably being hull-down). Thus they can quickly lay surpressing fire on any enemy unit engaging the moving group. If the moving group would reach their new fire-position they would switch roles so the second group would advance to an new fire-position while being covered by the first group and so onwards. ---------------------------------------- Grtz S Bakker [This message has been edited by Bakker@home (edited 03-26-2000).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark IV Posted March 26, 2000 Share Posted March 26, 2000 Thanks. But re: fighting superior tanks, unless something has changed in the Gold version, you can not specify what type of round (other than smoke) the tank will fire- this decision is made by the TacAI, nicht wahr? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bakker@home Posted March 26, 2000 Author Share Posted March 26, 2000 That's correct AFAIK, but the above information is general information about the mosty used tank tactics in the second world war. Some u can use in CM and some not. Grtz S Bakker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts