Setting up 88s, Please help

[Rudy]

Hi guys, I have a problem setting up my 88s. I have played many games against the AI and every time I try to get those 88s setup, they are destroyed. Ive tried smoke, and placing AA guns near the 88s, but no luck. For example, in the senario, ROAD TO SEVASTAPOL, they give two 88s but by mid game they are taken out! Any suggestions? THANKS

[Becket]

Originally posted by Rudy:

Hi guys, I have a problem setting up my 88s. I have played many games against the AI and every time I try to get those 88s setup, they are destroyed. Ive tried smoke, and placing AA guns near the 88s, but no luck. For example, in the senario, ROAD TO SEVASTAPOL, they give two 88s but by mid game they are taken out! Any suggestions? THANKS

Don't expect guns to last long in most games. Once they "decloak" (fire at a target) their location is known and their lifespan is short. 88s probably fare better than most, since they have a good chance of scoring a kill on the first hit.

Tips for survival: place guns in woods or, if you have them, trenches. A gun in a trench in the woods can survive for a long time.

[Ogre]

Originally posted by Rudy:

Hi guys, I have a problem setting up my 88s. I have played many games against the AI and every time I try to get those 88s setup, they are destroyed. Ive tried smoke, and placing AA guns near the 88s, but no luck. For example, in the senario, ROAD TO SEVASTAPOL, they give two 88s but by mid game they are taken out! Any suggestions? THANKS

Pretty much par for the course. 88s make fine big targets once they open up. The only thing I could add is to try to position that puppy "hull down" on a slope. Hull down & in woods in a trench...even better!

[JasonC]

The other thing to understand about protecting guns is that stealth is their main defense. Before they fire they are nearly impossible to spot if already in cover. Once they fire, they can remain mere sound contacts and thus pretty safe (from everything but a big barrage) if the range to the nearest live enemy is long enough. How long depends on the gun caliber. With 88s it is quite far, around 1750m (might be 1500m in deep enough woods, I haven't checked).

As for setting them up in the sense of unlimbering, 88s take a long time to do that. And they can't move short distances by being pushed, unlike lighter guns. With lighter stuff, you can unlimber on the back side of cover and push through. But that doesn't work with the immobile 88s. Instead, try driving the tow vehicle a short distance into scattered trees, then unlimber. Get the tow vehicle out of there, because it will draw fire. Once it is just the gun, the trees will provide decent concealment.

One other trick with gun placement (most applicable on defense it is true) is to avoid locations with LOS to everything on the map, because LOS works both ways. With light calibers you can have a wide LOS and count on distance. But with the bigger stuff, it can make more sense to sight down relatively narrow lanes - like 30 degrees of arc. You do that by peeking between two bodies of cover (e.g. around the side of a building). Then the idea is, kill anything within that arc when you open up, then hide again.

The downside of this tactic (called "keyholing") is that the enemy can avoid the whole LOS of just one gun relatively easily. So it works best with 2 or more. By crossing their fire lanes, you can make it so the enemy can't get close to you without passing in front of one gun or another. You still have to worry about losing one gun e.g. to artillery after it reveals itself once, and then the enemy having a way in. But he doesn't know exactly how many you've got typically, and a tank can plug a hole, etc.

88s are at their best when you have truly enourmous lines of sight. Like 2-2.5 kilometers. The initial hit chance may seem so low it is pointless, but don't be fooled. The hit chance will rise dramatically after the first 2-3 shots help find the range. (Less so against fast moving targets, it is true). You can afford to plug away for full minutes at 2 km and will hit things. That far, the enemy will only get a sound contact back. On typical CM maps, though, they aren't at their best for lack of room. You are often better off with a smaller, more readily deployable and harder to locate PAK.

[Warmaker]

JasonC hit it exactly on the mark for setting up your guns. Keyholing is very key for big guns since their traverse rate is quite slow, esp. if there are casualties among the crews. This is really a killer if enemy armor starts creeping close and your big gun is traversing one side of his arc to the other in acquiring new targets when the original goes out of sight.

[Hensworth]

Originally posted by Warmaker:

their traverse rate is quite slow

Not the 88 Flak. The wheeled guns turn slowly because the crew have to turn the whole gun, but the AA gun rotates on its base. It can switch between targets very fast, often it doesn't even wait for a confirmed kill. If the target has taken a couple of hits and there's another one which looks more threatening, it will take that one on.

[YankeeDog]

Gentlemen,

Good comments by all, but if I'm not mistaken, Rudy is asking about the specific problem of trying to set up a Flak 88 'on the fly' during a game, a situation that turns up occasionally when you're playing early war Germans and trying to deal with KVs since almost nothing else in your arsenal can deal with the beasts.

Alas, I have no good answer to this problem. It's a very tricky thing to do because (1) the FlaK 88 has a pretty long setup time and (2) the 'signature' of a gun while being setup is pretty high, so its quite vulnerable while being set up.

Other than generous use of smoke, which has already been mentioned, the only other tactic I have had some success is to try to find a location on the map that is completely out of LOS of the enemy, and then try to draw the KV forward into LOS of the gun once the gun is set up. This takes considerable finesse and cooperation from your opponent to accomplish, though. Against the AI, keep in mind that the AI tends to overreact to: (1) any sighting of enemy armor, and (2) any enemy presence near a VL. You can sometimes use these AI behaviors to draw it forward into a trap.

Against a human player, you need to play behavioral psychologist a bit and come up with some sort of bait or ruse to make him commit his heavy armor forward.

Cheers,

YD

[JasonC]

I addressed that issue somewhat, but can expand on it. You want to pull into scattered trees with the tow vehicle, dismount the 88, and get the tow vehicle out of dodge. If the enemy can't see while the vehicle is there, the trees will provide adequate concealment for the gun alone, to avoid a rapid knock out before the gun is set up. Yes it takes time, about 5 minutes. But if during that period he can't see you, that is no big deal.

How do you cover the actual period when the vehicle is dropping the gun? The easiest way is certainly smoke. It does not take a lot, because you don't need to keep it up for 5 minutes, only during the drop off. Naturally you also want to come through the back side of the trees, limiting LOS before you reach the actual gun location.

One trick that helps there is to use tanks with smoke grenades by interposing them along the line between planned gun position and KV. They should pop smoke and reverse behind it. Another way is to use an 81mm mortar or some such to momentarily blind the KV. You don't need a whole FO fire mission.

Barely dead ground is another way. You set a marginal LOS, one that can see say 20m in front of the KV. Then use a vehicle as bait, reversing to a spot the KV could see if it advanced slightly. You can't expect to draw a KV clear into your own positions (even the AI, dumb on this question, is not *that* dumb most of the time). But you can easily get it to move 20m, or 50m, trying to kill something.

The problem with the barely dead ground tactic is that after the 88 opens up, if it doesn't kill with its first few shots the KV will often reverse out of LOS again. Then you've only restricted it, not killed it. And you can't pick up the 88 again to try somewhere else. So a smoke covered insertion into scattered trees is preferable, if you can swing it.

[Mr. Tittles]

I try to set covered arcs and the 88s still open up at targets outside the CA even if hiding. Anyone seen this?

[ August 21, 2003, 01:52 PM: Message edited by: Mr. Tittles ]

[YankeeDog]

Huh. My 88s usually seem to get spotted while setting up, even if I put them in scattered trees.

Maybe I'm not putting them deep enough into the trees. . .

YD

[Redwolf]

Deeper into trees is not a good idea either, because the hit probablity gets lower.

In a duel of shooting at armored targets and yourself being vulnerable to HE you usually prefer hit probabilities high.

[YankeeDog]

... and therein lies the quandary. If I set the 88 too far forward in the trees, it gets spotted and taken out before it even finishes setting up. If I put it farther back, it has restricted LOS, reducing LOS and hit probabilities.

In now occurs to me that part of the solution to this conundrum may lie in trying to maximize the distance between the 88 and the nearest enemy - the 88 can take out even KVs at very long range, so there's no need to try to get close, and the greater distance is likely to reduce the chance of it being spotted while setting up.

There's only been a few scenarios I've played where I had to deal with this situation, so perhaps it's mostly a matter of gaining experience with exactly how far forward you can put the gun without it being spotted. The few times I've tried to set up an 88 in LOS of the enemy (but in cover like scattered trees), I've obviously misjudged because my gun has been spotted and knocked out before even taking a shot.

Cheers,

YD

[Redwolf]

CM's spotting rules are very unsophisticated, there will be one sharp distance at which they are spotted. For a big vehicle like the gun tractor it will likely be so long that you cannot be that far away.

[YankeeDog]

Yes, but I can smoke the 1-2 minutes it requires to pull up with the Gun Tractor and drop off the 88. What gets really expensive (in terms of shells used) is trying to keep a smoke up for the whole 5 minutes it takes to set up the gun.

I dunno. I obviously need more practice at this particular tactic.

Cheers,

YD

[JasonC]

Use the LOS tool. If you barely can't see through the trees, they can't either. Go slightly further and stop. Yes, long range is key. Even if you are seen you are less likely to be hit. As I said before, 88s aren't at their best on small CM maps.

I got 1 out of 2 set up in "Iron Roadblock" this way, in trees. I set up the other on a road, shy of LOS, but he came too close before they had finished setting up and I lost that one. Then I gun damaged the KV with hail fire (from the PAK and tanks) before the 88 weighed in, making the tree set up success unnecessary.

[Rudy]

Thanks guys, Im learning alot at these chat areas. I didnt know I could put 88s in the trees. Time to give it a try, thanks again.

[Joachim]

Originally posted by YankeeDog:

Yes, but I can smoke the 1-2 minutes it requires to pull up with the Gun Tractor and drop off the 88. What gets really expensive (in terms of shells used) is trying to keep a smoke up for the whole 5 minutes it takes to set up the gun.

I dunno. I obviously need more practice at this particular tactic.

Cheers,

YD

Use on-board smoke (81mm mortars, IGs, PzIV, StuGs) if available. Fire two guns every second turn (depending on wind). With high ROF or keyholing the 88, one gun may be enough.

Gruß

Joachim