How to kill a Tiger

[Screeny]

Question:

2000 pts, ME, Unrestricted force some where mid '43 CMBB, light tree coverage and light hills, me playing USSR

Obviously enough the opponent comes in with plenty of tigers (4 to 5 vets).

What the &^&^%7 can I do to stop him?? T34 can het on his flank with luck yet on a range beyond 300mtr They really don't hurt the tanks a lot (he keeps his tigers rather close together in the middle of the map). Tank hunterteams can't get close as he is in open terrain. The heavy AA guns are immobile and there is no location in the set up zone that gives any LOS into the rest of the map. Lighter guns don't destroy the tigers....

Does any one havea clue (don't mind the USE alot T34 and get in his back, as the terrain is such that there is no way I can get any t34 on his 6 oclock, a flank shot maybe).

Should i leave my t34's home and just buy massive Infanrty and smaal arty for smokescreening and hope the infantry can get the flags and hope they can mnage untill teh end???

gr

Screeny

[JasonC]

Basically nothing. You are screwed, by the date alone. There are real world tactics to deal with them, but the armor Tac AI in CMBB is busted and they do not work.

SU-152s can kill them at range. From the fall of 43 on SU-85s are available, which can kill them with flank shots (only) at range. (Yes I know the numbers say front hits too, close enough. But in practice you get "shell broke up" shatter gap failures). But both types will cower on achieving LOS, reversing, often without getting a single shot off. They will range you with 2-3 shots and KO you long before you get them.

Closing to point blank on side and rear, in 1944 with 76mm APCR also, should be possible. But in practice does not work. The tanks cower and fail to perform the ordered closing. I've had 100m tail shots with the Tiger facing 180 degrees the wrong way, and the T-34 still just freezes and runs. Won't pull the trigger. T-34/85s make it possible to fight them (barely, still suffering Tac AI problems), but aren't available until 1944.

Earlier, another doctrinal counter is to use "hail fire", expecting a gun hit or track hit to disable the vehicle even without a penetration. This was especially used on lone vehicles (whole platoons can kill too much in the meantime). You can try it, but since at least half the shooters will "choke" it doesn't work very well.

If you fight people who always take KVs as Russians in 1941, or Tigers as Germans in 1943, forget about realism. Get a new opponent, is my advice. There are a few gamey counters to this gamey situation, though.

Valentine IXs do "hail" better than most. They still cower too much. But they can get partial penetrations at 500-750 range, or with flank shots, if they happen not to cower. They also have smoke dischargers, so at least when they cower they sometimes live. T-34/57s are also able to hit them, and move around better than Valentines. They are higher rarity though, and more expensive.

57mm towed guns are effective, and can't cower because they aren't tanks. Unlike heavy AA, you can actually reposition them during battle, though they are obviously most effective on defense. IL-2s are another scattershot possibility, though not one I've tried much myself. AT minefields on defense. In principle pioneer demo charges might work, but in practice you won't get close enough, or live if you do. (Maybe against the AI, not against humans).

[Snorri]

i found out; "to defeat a best-armoured-to-date", you don`t have to penetrate the armour. i often fired at the thin line,with "anti-personal" ammunition, right where tracks met ground. The result was this "heavy-evil" to be prone to the end of game. As soon as it`s prone, there "somany" funny ways to silence it at all.

from calibre 7,5(german IG) to su-122 non-piercing ammo worked fine to; immobilizing a giant.

[tabpub]

So, in other words, you area fire HE at the ground under the target, looking for an Immobilization result.

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by JasonC:

From the fall of 43 on SU-85s are available, which can kill them with flank shots (only) at range.

But they get APBC ammo only from April 44 on. The HE filled AP shot does a much worse job.

[Sardaukar]

Have several anti-tank rifles targeted to them to button the Tigers up, while trying to close with pioneers etc. Problem is that Tiger is very good anti-infantry vehicle too. But at least ATRs reduce their spotting capability, so you can use them to help your tanks to get closer. There is not much else than Valentine IX and 57mm anti-tank gun that have ability to KO Tiger during that period. When 85 mm comes, then one can try to fight Tigers with bit more equal terms.

There is a reason why Tiger was so feared weapon until autumn 43 when 85 mm equipped tanks and tank destroyers come to Soviet inventory. T34/57 is nice too, but horrendously expensive. Nothing gamey about Tiger being very tough opponent during that period..just like KV-1 during 1941, it's just historical fact-

Cheers,

M.S.

[ April 05, 2003, 06:01 AM: Message edited by: Sardaukar ]

[Bruceov]

i just ran a test 2 platoons of T34s vs two tigers. flat terrian. everyone regular. I charged up the flanks with the 34s. Three 34s were knocked out quickly. The other three 34s got the tigers on the flanks..and handily knocked out the tigers without cowering, (one at a time) Lesson. The tiger can be defeated by the t34 if you make use of its speed.

[Gen. Longstreet]

One Tiger doesn't make a jungle.

I'm playing a QB and I'm up against about 4 of 'em . I can't see myself winning this one.

[Sardaukar]

I have had couple of bad experiences in the receiving end of Big Cats too. Platoon of Tigers 42-43 is definitely bad news for Soviets.

Cheers,

M.S.

[Bruceov]

2 t34/85s 2 JS2 and one Jabo= 4 dead tigers. I dont understand the difficulty. The russian player can also use captured Stugs IIIF and knock them out. Of course if all you have is infantry....

[Bruceov]

Well you cant use the stugs too effectively in open terrian. But they can destroy tigers in 1943

[Poor Old Spike]

No tank in the world (not even Tigers) can stand up for long against infantry throwing plenty of grenades and molotovs etc at them.

Each "hit" brings the "knocked out" or "abandoned" message a little closer.

Problem of course is getting your inf within throwing range,as they'd obviously be cut down by tank fire and supporting inf fire if they had to cover too far a distance,so do the next best thing and let the tanks come to you!

Try to strip the enemy's supporting inf away from his tanks with longrange bombardments and MG and on-map mortar fire (or even barbed wire and anti-personnel mines,so that his tanks have to come on unsupported to capture the flags.

That's when your lurking inf can break out the grenades and molotovs close up!

[Guest Mike]

Originally posted by Bruceov:

2 t34/85s 2 JS2 and one Jabo= 4 dead tigers.

Maybe it's the in 1943 the russians dont' get T34/85's or IS-2's?

[Brigadier]

Funny I should happen across this thread today given the fact that I have been pondering PRECISELY this ALL day today (yes even at work , I need councilling .

I am a complete noobie at this game and my knowledge of the Eastern Front WW2 is rather abyssmal ( now you want to talk Napoleonic Wars , different story aHEM!) But I simply cannot see how the Wehrmacht lost the '43 Eastern Front war , with a tank like the Tiger and the crews that manned them! I mean was it simply a question of Tiger numbers ? Logistics/ supply or all of the above and the fact that the entire front was falling apart?

I have had several experiences like the original post (mind you that does sound like a dreadfully one sided engagement) but IMHO it was a VERY difficult time for the Soviets , until of course the T-34/85 came along

I have to say I avoid any '43 senario like the plague , then again I am but a noob!

[Screeny]

Well quite simply said (i guess more detaill info will follow from real history buffs ):

The were not enough Tigers for the whole eastern front(nor Western front from june '44). When Tigers were deployed in one particaular area at the front the russian still came through the lines on other points where there were no tigers. Secondly a platoon, company or battalion (as they were deploued in special Heavy Tank battalions to make them more effective) of tigers can stop/destroy a lot T34's, the russians had planty of tose. And the t34 was a real good tank after all. So A tiger battalon might stop maybe 2 T34 battalions, so in that case the russians threw in 3 4 5 battalions of T34's. In CMBB QB this quantitave superiority is some what modelled but basically you can consider a CMBB qb with Tigers vs T34 is playing exactly that part of the front where the Russians were stopped .

Thrid ofcourse on a strategic level (so beyond the scope of CMBB) the Tigers were pretty heavy in maintance and in fuel consumption and they were pretty slow so strategic manouvering was hampered.

Well so much for my 2 cents of Discovery channel WW2 Knowledge

gr

Screeny

BTW still ahven't found a good counter tactic

[RSColonel_131st]

4 to 5 Vet Tigers in a 2000 Point game is boring, bordering on "gamey" me thinks.

I played a 2000 point PBEM set in December 1942, and even though I had only one Tiger I felt a bit slimey about it already...

Anyway, I would say that captured Stugs are your best bet. I had a hellish respect for them when fighting the PBEM. Of course, if he has his Tigers concentrated in proper Platoon formation, you will get a lot of echo if you stick out a single StuG. Flaking from two sides, sacrifying one or two T-34 to get the enemy turret turned the other way, and then bring a StuG into LOS...

But basically I agree with Jason, find another opponent.

[Brigadier]

RSColonel_131st

What about 4 to 5 vet King Tigers in an XXXX point game (forgive me I am not up to speed with points totals for something like this, Pure Armour).

You know played an Operation recently (versus AI , can't think of the damn name of it, anyways ) I had several dozen armoured and infantry/vehicle units at my disposal over the course of the Operation, two units were a Crack (Lt) and a Vet (Osf?) King Tiger outfit. I must say as the operation progressed , the Soviets were systematically destroying my troops , but I became fixated with the performance of these two King Tigers! (Great Commander I am!)

They were unstoppable. I let the rest of the battle go to the buggery and watched these two tanks anihilate 30 odd Soviet armoured vehicles over the course of the battle... amazing stuff. The Kings took some hits but they were still serviceable at the end... w00t!

[JasonC]

The Tigers are somewhat overmodeled ("reinforced turret front") and Russian ammo might be somewhat slighted, but the basic deviation from history is the poor Tac AI cowering from them too easily, instead of coordinating actions to take them out.

Bruceov reports success against them with T-34/85s and IS-2s, but of course those do not appear until the spring of 1944. The Tigers were out for a year and a half before that, and were deployed in significant numbers for half of that period.

The Germans not only lost despite having them, they lost the decisive battles of the war in the precise period when they had both Tigers and Panthers and the Russians were still in T-34/76s.

There are AARs of Tigers reporting them taking out 5 to 15 Russian tanks apiece in single engagements, and these are often reported as though they were typical. But any look at the numbers will show they could not have been. There aren't enough dead Russian tanks.

If you only saw them in CMBB, you'd think those would happen every few hours every day from every Tiger platoon. The handful of Tigers, alone, would have waxed the entire Russian armor fleet at Kursk in less than a week if that were actually realistic. It isn't.

You can see how they were handled in this period if you look at the progress of the Kursk fighting. The southern prong started out with around 50 Tigers. They did not face any significant numbers of weapons on the other side that could penetrate them. There were modest numbers of SUs that are marginal, that is basically it.

Nevertheless, in a few days they are down to 4 running Tigers in the whole Panzer corps. They were hit by "hail fire".

If you fire enough decent sized AT rounds at a tank you will accumulate non-penetrating damage sufficient to disable the tank. Gun hits, track hits in CM terms. In reality, hits to the barrel itself, the sight, the vision blocks, the MG ball, the drive sprocket, the running gear, the fuel cells. Sometimes tube artillery might contribute to this damage, but a hail of direct AP is the basic story.

You can read reports of single Tigers that withstood over 100 AP hits and still drove off the battlefield. But they did drive off the battlefield, because they were essentially wrecks by that point. They went into repair.

And that is an outlier report -more were wrecked on the field. If the field was held by the Germans, they might be recovered, as so show up as a "under repair" rather than a "total write off" in unit returns. But they were out of action.

A few would hit mines or bog, or simply break down. But mechanical failure alone can't account for a 90% reduction in runners in less than a week. That is battle damage.

In CM, hail fire is effective against a tank you can't penetrate if you have a unit 2 echelons larger or so, and if the shooters don't cower, and keep up the fire instead. It is more effective with higher ROF guns and more accurate shooters, and when the reverse is not true to keep losses low. So e.g. it works a bit better for 1941 Germans against KVs than for 1943 Russians against Tigers.

The main impediment to using hail fire realistically is the tendency of tanks to reverse out of LOS instead of shooting. If the Tac AI *thinks* it can kill the tank opposite, it cowers less. That and flanks let T-34/85s and upward fight against them. In reality, 76mm towed guns and T-34/76s in sufficient numbers could inundate them with disabling "hail fire", the same as German Pz IIIs and IVs did to KVs in 1941.

[sgtabell]

Use my Tiger Tiger solution,,,Spoiler follows...

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Fire my boy, fire. Whatever JasonC's grog complaints , I managed to knock out one Tiger, disabled 2 others in the scenario Tiger Tiger. However, my opponent brought them near enough for it to be possible.

The ampoulement is about as game imbalancing as the KV tank is at the beginning of the war. I managed to catch 2 of the Tigers where 2-3 ampoulements could rain down on it using a spotter/just out of line of sight of the tank.

Also remember though, killing the Tiger's gun is as good as a knockout anyday, and enough rounds will eventually track or de-gun it.

SgtAbell

[JasonC]

The AI is dumb enough to get close to infantry. Humans typically aren't. The extra range of the ampulet can reach humans though. The rounds just typically don't do anything when they hit, and the reply typically dusts the team trying it. The best infantry weapon against them is certainly a demo charge from pioneer infantry. Those need to be close - 30m - but will do the job if they hit.

Yes enough rounds fired will gun damage or immobilize them. That is the historically accurate way to take them out, in the era of 76mm guns. The problem is getting the gunners to shoot, in the case of tanks, instead of reversing out of LOS. If you get enough facing one and they actually do all shoot, you will disable it. Valentine IXs are somewhat better at this than T-34s incidentally, because they have higher ROF, and also a chance of partial penetrations when they hit the hull.

It remains true that they are many times more effective in CMBB than in reality because tanks fighting them refuse to do sensible things (like shoot, penetration chances be damned) instead of reversing.

[Eric Alkema]

Something Bruceov said got me thinking. Fight evil with evil. Counter his invincible tanks with air power. In open terrain it should be like ducks in a barrel for your planes. Start off with your tanks in scattered trees and wait for the fun to start. Just to be sure, buy a few planes.

[Never mind. I haven't been able to find a way to get more than 350 points to spend on airplanes. That is not nearly enough to take on a platoon of Tigers unless they park right next to one another.]

[ April 10, 2003, 12:26 PM: Message edited by: Eric Alkema ]