How do you handle Panzerjäger?

[Crinius]

Hi, yesterday I played the stock scenario Hornets nest. I had about 6 Nashörner and some Panzergrenadiere and I had to halt an Soviet advance towards my position. I positioned the Nashörner at the reverse side of an hill and let them scoot and shoot at the T43`s and KV`s. But that wasnt too efective. I only managed to knock out 6 T34`s and lost 3 Nashörner and 2 got their guns damaged. I fisrt thought to position the Panzerjäger in covered positions and let them open fire at long range. But then I thought of the thin armor the Nashorn has and of their high silouette and I decided for my first plan. Any tips???

[Hensworth]

Definitely go for long range.

Just make sure you're hull down, no need to shoot and scoot as that prevents your gunners from bracketing their targets. Just let them blaze away and you will see those Soviet tanks light up in the distance.

[Sivodsi]

Er, Sgt Kelly, have you actually played this scenario?

[Crinius]

I now tried that scenario with long range tactic but the T34`s knock my Nashörner now more easily out at about 2000 meters while Iam fortunate to knock out 1 T34 at best. Could a T34 realy hit that accurate at 2000 meters while my 88`s dont scratch their colour?

[Sergei]

Your problem, basically, is that if you let too many T-34's open fire on you, then even with their small hit %'s they're bound to hit you about as often as you with your superior optics. Try keyholing.

There has been discussions about Nashorn and this scenario before. Try searching this and the Tips section for nashorn or "hornet's nest". Here's a couple of picks.

thread #1

thread #2

[Crinius]

Iam sorry but english is not my native language. What is meant with Keyholling and Bracketing?

[Sergei]

With keyholing, you use terrain so that e.g. your Nashorn gets to duel with a single T-34 while the other T-34's are not in sight and thus can't return fire. As if you shot through a keyhole.

Bracketing is when gunner doesn't know the distance, he adjusts the gun elevation according to whether the shot went over or fell short.

[Redwolf]

This scenario doesn't work at all in CM.

Absolute spotting exposes you to unrealistic return fire, which negates even the range advantage. The TRPs are much too small, and are unrealistically lost once you maneuver back and forth. Starting hit probablity for defending Nashorns with targets near roads and houses is too low. Worst, any zeroing in gain dynamically is instantly lost due to much too limited scope.

We had a at least 2 more threads analysing it in detail.

[dieseltaylor]

The sceanario does work - at least against the AI.

I won 76/24 losing only 1 vehicle by keyholing, it is very much a learning scenario from the point of view of getting the techniques right.

Keep trying and remember to degrade the Rusian observation by keeping them buttoned as far as possible

[Hensworth]

Originally posted by Sivodsi:

Er, Sgt Kelly, have you actually played this scenario?

Yes. My opponent gave up after something like 10 turns. Every Soviet tank in sight was dead.

Maybe I got extremely lucky, but I did what I describe above.

I was actually surprised to see more Nashorns arriving as reinforcements because I thought the game was already unwinnable for the Soviets with the 3 you start with.

[dieseltaylor]

Blimey

"Yes. My opponent gave up after something like 10 turns. Every Soviet tank in sight was dead."

Kelly you must have been very fortunate - I have never fought as the Russians but that sounds too easy .... memo to selve .. play as Ruskies

[phil102]

Hi, I played the scenario once and found it fairly easy. The Russians didnt get further than about 500m from their start point. I placed all the target reference points right where the Russian armour had to appear and then I spent a long time finding very good keyhole positions for the Nashorns. As soon as the Russians appear they get picked off very easily. The TRPs make your fire very accurate. They are only effective if you dont move your Nashorns from their inital positions, so this makes locating them in good positions vital. Make sure your Nashorns cant be seen from all angles but only from certain spots. Use the terrain carefully, small dips in the ground can provide good cover. Use the trees to hide you from certain angles. I did find that the Nashorn I located on the left got taken out quite quick but the others took out loads of Russians before eventually getting wasted too. When this happened I moved my other Nashorns into poition to replace them and continue the carnage.

[dieseltaylor]

I have just palyed it as the Russians and I do wonder if the smoke barrage was correctly laid by the AI/ other player to account for the easy wins.

As the FO's are greyed out I almost missed them.

As Russians I won 75/25 and I had to foget where the German reinforcements arrived which was quite funny as they turned up and wasted three tanks instantly and then in a hail of ATR file one backed off the board, one eventually died and then for ten minutes I chased the final one with a HQ who could not assault it - despite having grenades and SMG's . All the while the ATR's where making into a pepper pot. Eventually a squad arrived to put it out of its misery.

A bit galling to realise the AI would probably have played the Russians better!

Still an interesting scenario to learn from for anyone greenish

[Vixen]

This was one of the 1st I played after installing the game. My Nashorns got massacred. Maybe I try again soon.

[ladoga]

I think that IRL it wouldnt be possible to knock out "hull down" Nashorn because only thing visible would be its gun and some 50cm from top of the gun shield. You could get gun hit but very hard to damage anything critical unless penetration is made by HE round.

[phil102]

There's 'hull down' which can be achieved easily on any upslope then there's the totally protected hull down shown above. They are both shown as 'hull down' in CM when you use the LOS tool but there a world of difference between them.

[SpitfireXI]

So how does one get a hulldown like that shown above. I use the upslope one often but did'nt realize there was another way to do it.

[Red Dog]

Didn't somebody do a test of this a long time ago...

[ October 18, 2004, 11:47 AM: Message edited by: Red Dog ]

[Sergei]

Eh? Where did you get the idea that there are two modes of hulldown in the game from??? Doesn't sound correct to me...

[phil102]

There are not two modes of hull down. There are good hull down positions and poor hull down positions. They are both hull down. Look at your armour from the enemys point of view in #1 scale. You can be 'hull down' and still be 90% visible with only 10% covered. To do it right (and avoid getting hit) you should 90% covered with only the gun and top of the turret visible from the other side of the hill.

[Dennis Grant]

Does it actually make any difference in game terms though?

DG

[Hensworth]

No. In the game hull down is binary. You is or you ain't.

[Sergei]

Originally posted by Sgt_Kelly:

No. In the game hull down is binary. You is or you ain't.

I agree.

Of course you can easily test it by going to editor and then placing two Soviet tanks of the same type within the same distance from a German tank, so that both are facing directly to it, and both are hull down but seemingly to a different degree. Then see how good hit % the German has at each.

AFAIK, however, it is binary. And when you are hull down, your turret/superstructure and upper hull can be hit.