How do you attack a "keyholed" enemy?

[RSColonel_131st]

I recently found out that City Streets and buildings (so they are quite rectangular built) serve very well as "Keyholes". That means the enemy has a few tanks/guns in there, and they all have their barrels aimed along the lanes towards the enemy.

Now, every tank entering that small field of fire will be knocked out in no time flat.

If I were playing russians, then I'd say tank-rush with superior numbers. Germans dont have that luxury - quite to the contrary the enemy will be keyholed AND outnumber them.

Not enough smoke shells either...

It is quite a weird situation when you actually HAVE scouted out the enemy tanks, then send your Panzer's forward with a "hull down" order, and even in hull down the enemy will get off the first few vital shots and inflict too many casualitys.

So, what is the correct procedure for attacking "keyholed" AT-Defenses when you can not outflank them?

[Slappy]

Well, saying you can't flank them makes it almost impossible to answer. In reality, you either have to bring up something with enough front armor to pound it out or (as you mentioned) smoke them. The other, generally better, answer is to flank them, making it uncomfortable to stay in the keyhole position. In reality, if you could do neither, you would probably pull back and wait for more firepower or attack somewhere else and flank the whole position. Most commanders would not send the whole armored company to its doom. Of course, at the tactical CM level, that may just mean you're out of luck. At the same time, what about infantry? Can you work squads up on the flanks into positions the armor can't reach?

[RSColonel_131st]

Well, actually it may have been possiple to smoke just a few positions long enough to get infantry into the flank...

Yet, it certainly would not be easy. There are 200 meters bare ground in front of the first house row...that means getting there is not easy either.

Actually, the weather saved my day. At the third try the scenario was foggy, and I was thus able to get my troops in their own "keyhole" positions - and when the sun came out, the enemy was shot to pieces.

[JasonC]

You can always flank *one" keyholed shooter. That he is keyholed means he has a narrow LOS, and obstacles blocking the rest of his view. Those blocks produce dead ground. You go into the dead ground, and then advance toward him, staying out of his narrow LOS footprint. You can do this all the way to the obstacles forming his keyhole "edges". Then you can send infantry through those obstacles, or infantry or a vehicle around them on the far, non-keyhole side.

But you can't always flank *two or more* keyholed shooters. Because their narrow sight pictures can cross. Two keyholes looking right front and left front can "criss-cross" the field. That divides the field up into separate "safe zones" that the keyholers can't see, each walled off from the others by sight-threat from one of the keyholers or the other.

To restore the ability to flank one of them, you have to pass the sight line of the other. That means either taking out one of the shooters - "disassembling" the keyhole "crossfire" pattern - or temporarily blinding one of them (e.g. by smoke at the keyhole origin itself), while scooting units from one "safe zone" to another.

When there are multiple crossing lines of sight, it is obviously harder. You face a whole "network" of "fire cells" in that case. In practice, you will have to silence a number of the shooters to make a path forward through this network. You do not, however, have to take out all of them. Picking the ones you take on, you can create paths where you need them, to get closer and flank others. Or leave them irrelevant, with a narrow field of view only to areas you won't have to cross. (Particularly useful vs. bunkers and hard to reposition guns).

How do you take out keyhole shooters in their fire lanes, to facilitate the above process? First you want to know where the shooter is and see where his LOS picture begins and ends, obviously. You want to know what is doing the shooting. Once you know that - from scouting by expendable small infantry teams, hopefully - you then need to pick a shooter of your own to deal with that kind of enemy.

You want an assymmetric match up. If it is a gun, you want a mortar outside of its LOS, while an HQ sneaks into cover inside its LOS to direct fire onto it. Or an FO. You can also get assymmetry by spotting, e.g. by having a sharpshooter suppress him at long range. Your sharpshooter is unlikely to be spotted. A lighter gun can also sometimes remain a sound contact while firing (e.g. light AA). You can also achieve assymmetry over weaker enemy by superior armor. A StuG vs. a 76mm ATG at long range, for example.

The hardest keyholers to beat are superior AFVs themselves. The stealthiest weapons can't kill them. You can't outmatch their armor. Indirect fire is unlikely to hurt them (it'd take huge calibers to even have a chance, which would usually take a long time to call in and still be a waste). It is usually better to take out other parts of a keyhole network if you can, smoking these if you need to.

You can go for an annoyance match up instead. That is, put an ATR or two, or a light AA gun, in a StuGs "fire lane". The hits will bounce but he won't see you back. And he risks immobilization or gun damage if he just sits there. Often he will scoot back out of LOS, thinking he can come back when he has a real target. Or you can put a sharpshooter in his lane, not fire to button him, and wait for the TC to get careless and unbutton.

Finally, you can try distraction tactics combined with with an "eggshell with hammer" shooter, if you have one. That means you want the heyholer aiming at the far right side of his field of view (e.g.) going for one target, which then scoots out of view to his right before he can get it. While an upgunned but thin shooter pops into view on the left side of his lane, takes one shot, and reverses back out of LOS.

Examples - a Valentine IX as shooter, StuG as target, T-70 as distractor. Or an M-10 with tunsten as shooter, Tiger I as target, plain Sherman (or Stuart etc) as distractor. (Note that infantry distractors can also be tried, but won't work if he has a vehicle covered arc).

[RSColonel_131st]

Actually, you should know best what works

I was refering to your "3rd Battle of Kharkov" scenario.

I actually found the city battle itself not too hard, but the advance to the edge of the building line was damned difficult.

Very well done scenario.

[Carl Puppchen]

It is a brutal scenario where the defender can setup in a keyhole position and you can't outflank them. This is usually a function of one board edge being used as an impenetrable flank.

It brings to mind the scenario "Barkmann's corner" from the good ol' ASL days where a single panther threw a wrench into an entire attack by defending from a great location.

[Redwolf]

The better the keyholed position is the more sensitive it is to blocking it's LOS by smoke.

[Orange]

Don't know the specifics of that scenario but I've brought buildings down with HE fire to open up a clearer shot. It also has the added benefit of disrupting any infantry in those buildings.

[xerxes]

If you're short on smoke and long on HE you can always knock down a heavy building to get a 2-3 minute dust cloud to obscure the keyhole. Works in a pinch.

[RSColonel_131st]

Xerxes...genius.

That is something I completley ignored. Of course, a keyholed position in a street will be flanked by two buildings...each giving a moderate dust cloud...

Hey, cool, thanks! I mean, I noticed that destroyed buildings provide good smoke cover, but to deliberatly use it...never occured to me.

[Joachim]

Originally posted by RSColonel_131st:

Xerxes...genius.

That is something I completley ignored. Of course, a keyholed position in a street will be flanked by two buildings...each giving a moderate dust cloud...

Hey, cool, thanks! I mean, I noticed that destroyed buildings provide good smoke cover, but to deliberatly use it...never occured to me.

If you can not hit the tank cause he is in a street, direct large caliber HE might not only bring down the bulidings for smoke but immo or shock the tank. A shell hitting the 2nd floor is like an airburst. Buildings coming down spread debris and may kill TCs.

Works even better vs. ATGs or hammers with eggshells.

Best bang for the buck is still the good ole sIG - if you manage to keep it alive. It can keyhole to 2nd floors...

Gruß

Joachim

[Orange]

Intertesting:

I just started reading Panzer Commander. During a battle in Belgium, the Germans were being held up at a river by artillery and sniper fire on the other side. Rommel ordered the infantry to cross in boats and secure the other side. Well, they got torn up by enemy fire from the other side. The author said Rommel was asking for smoke to cover the crossing but they had no smoke shells. In a move similar to the one mentioned above, Rommel ordered several buildings set on fire, the smoke providing the cover needed for the crossing. The Germans were able to cross, set up a beachhead and break out across the river.

[Aco4bn187inf]

JasonC's excellent post reminds me- when working around the fields of fire of "keyholed" defenders, beware of mines and enemy arty TRP's. Those would be the standard way to deny you the "deadspace" you need to move through.

[Tigrii]

In an extension of the building destruction technique, it can work to line up an anti-armor asset so that it is shielded by the dust cloud, but then has an instant flank-shot setup when the dust cloud istantaneously vanishes, which should take out almost any tank.