Panzergrenadiers and SPWs'

[George MC]

I was curious as to how players use SPW (armoured carrier) borne infantry - I suppose the most common example would be armoured German panzergrenadiers.

My own preference is to use the mobilty of the SPW borne troops to get them as close to their fighting position as possible (assuming good overwatch/armoured support etc and limited or non existant a/t defence). If I know there is only infantry oppostion, with minimal or no a/t support I will keep them in the SPWs until the very last minute then assault from there (using the heavy weapons associated with these units e.g the SPWs Mgs, Mortars, armoured support etc to suppress/overwatch).

From a historical perspective I've read a lot of accounts where the carriers are used simply as x-country transport where the troops are carried close to the combat zone then fight as infantry, to a situation where the attack was carried out mounted up in the SPWs (in one instance, a Das Reich unit, it went very wrong as they ran into hidden a/t guns).

I realise there are no hard and fast rules I'm just curious as to what others do:)

[junk2drive]

fwiw, no spoiler, im playing as allies vs ai on a long fairly flat map. spws are headed my way from afar. my hmgs are taking them out from way father than i thought was possible. the others back up or refuse to move i guess.

otoh if they have los they are scaring my guys busily fighting at the other end of the map.

point being, your best plan may not work on every map.

[George MC]

Originally posted by junk2drive:

fwiw, no spoiler, im playing as allies vs ai on a long fairly flat map. spws are headed my way from afar. my hmgs are taking them out from way father than i thought was possible. the others back up or refuse to move i guess.

otoh if they have los they are scaring my guys busily fighting at the other end of the map.

point being, your best plan may not work on every map.

I guess that behaviour, the forward and backward type stuff, is pretty indicative of how the AI 'armour' reacts when it comes under destructive fire. I would have though a human opponent would have stopped some SPWs in cover and put them on overwatch - the MGs on the SPWs can put down some pretty heavy covering fire - enough to have suppressed your HMGs I would ahve thought. On the other hand the armour on the SPWs is not that great. I read in otto carius's book 'Tigers in the Mud' that his unit had an SPW they were supposed to use for recce missions. Carius states' he did not like to use it as the armour was useless (I guess if you drove around in a Tiger all the time not much would have come close )and it had a tendency to throw tracks and immobilise itself.

Back to your point at least your stopping the Hilerite Hordes in their tracks - literally

[mrcoffee]

Both the .50 (american) and the 12.7 dshak (russian...i forgot the exact name) seem to kill both the german armored cars and HT at most ranges. Even the german Puma gets kills pretty quickly...as least that's been my experience from playing both allied and axis. Oh...and russian AT rifles kill them quickly indeed at ranges 200 meters and less.

I've learned not to buy HT in quick battles...however if i get HT or cars in preset battles i use them a lot for area fire at long ranges with very limited fields of view. They still die but then again, historically, they weren't used much on the battlefield...they were just armored taxis whereby the troops would try to disembark before contact.

[Tigrii]

I have done a lot of tactical experimentation with halftrack-mounted infantry, and here is what I think about it:

1. Never use them in a direct assault on an infantry position. They get cut down as sson as they disembark. The halftracks get shocked from point-blank fire and often die by grenade.

2. Even the lightest gun or even an HMG kills a HT and slaughters the passengers with ease. Your overwatch must make absolutely sure that there are no remaining threats to the HTs before you commit them. You should keep them behind a hill or woods or something until overwatch is done.

3. They are useful for moving infantry to good jumping-off positions for assaults. Just as paratroops don't drop directly on their objective but land nearby, assemble, and assault on the ground, so do halftrack infantry. The halftracks help bypass long stretches of open ground in the approach to the enemy. Halftracks are immune to rifle and LMG fire, which can stop a foot infantry assault.

4. Generally, HTs aren't worth the cost due to their fragility and the fact that you wind up conucting ground assaults anyway. They can be useful, however, and you can consider buying them attached to armored infantry units, where you get a discount. Examples include German Panzergrenadiers and American Mechanized infantry.

[Shosties]

The range of threats halftracks need to take seriously is generally too great to use them in an aggressive fashion [as infantry carriers] in the context of CM battles [as it initally ocurred to me, some rough tests showed results that surprised me!]. I would say this is especially the case for SPWs in CMBB because of the weak but cheap and stealthy anti-armor assets that often come bundled with the Soviet infantry batallions: the PTRD teams and the 45mm ATGs [having tried a couple test scenarios, the 45mm ATG's stealthiness leaves something to be desired and the PTRDs have trouble doing significant damage if the SPWs move fast because of slow RoF and limited behind-armor effects]. The DShK doesn't seem to be as ubiquitious as the Ma Deuce for American forces, but it should be at least as potent (the Russian 12.7 x 109 mm cartrige is bigger IIRC) [in the rough tests I ran, the DShKs did no damage to the SPWs from the front, I haven't tried fire from positions flanking the SPW advance route though]. There are also the light and medium caliber AA guns too [the 37mm AA is potent but will be spotted like the 45mm ATG and can thus be supressed by the SPW's massed MGs]. These will tend to stay hidden if you present them with just with infantry scouts [at long range, if they are right upon them, then why would the HT rush be needed?] and overwatch tanks.

Interesting topic, deserves a good test scenario to illustrate what just what goes on. I just did some rudamentary fiddling.

[ February 22, 2004, 03:41 PM: Message edited by: Shosties4th ]

[Redwolf]

Also watch victory points. Getting a halftrack killed costs the price in victory points plus 6 points for every crewmember (unless they never make it out of the vehicle).

In CMBO times I got used to move them right off the map since infantry was unstoppable anyway and they die even more easy (higher hit probability of AA guns and higher knockout on penetration chance).

Thanks to CMBB molotiv cocktails being less effective than grenades you could make more use of them in CMBB, at least until the enemy ran out of molotovs, then it would become dangerous.

I like them to tow guns, BTW, because they have reasonable going in difficult ground and the enemy cannot use 2" mortars to kill them.

[JasonC]

Attacking in halftracks doesn't work in CM. I doubt it worked in the real deal either, but it certainly doesn't work in CM.

That doesn't mean HTs aren't useful. They just aren't assault weapons. The best use of them is to reposition heavy weapons, like mortars and HMGs and (harder) towed guns. You don't need many for this, but a few help.

They can also help with their MGs late in a fight, after the real tanks have smashed the enemy AT network. This is especially true on large maps. The way to use them then is as mobile MG nests. With emphasis on the MG nest, not on the mobile.

You pick a spot with LOS to open ground that cuts off one part of the enemy backfield from another. You park. You shoot anything that tries to cross from cover A to cover B. That is all.

They can help support infantry going into a given body of cover. But they are best at cutting it off from reinforcement, and chopping up anybody who tries to get away. HE chuckers can help break things in the selected area, and infantry mops up and murders the broken guys.

It isn't fast. It isn't a razzle dazzle maneuver fest that gets there first with the most, before the enemy can react. Quite the contrary, it is a late game positional thing that pits armor against stuff that can't hurt it - from a respectful distance. The carrying ability is not really needed for this.

It is pointless to pay huge prices, more than the cost of the squads they are carrying, to get a whole ton of them to carry around ordinary infantry. Ordinary infantry is better protected than they are - it just uses cover to get that protection.

Buy one platoon of armored Panzergrenadiers to get a few of them to move around heavy weapons, for a whole company of motorized Panzergrenadiers or more. Carry the 81mm mortars and the HMGs to the backside of their first firing positions. Wait in defilade behind those positions.

When the heavy weapons have no targets remaining from that place and therefore want to move out again (and, therefore, when nothing is going to KO them), pick up the heavy weapons again and bound forward to the next position. Which the ordinary infantry should already have reached and cleared.

The net effect you want is the heavy weapons keeping up with the ordinary squad infantry, in the sense of setting up in the same cover a few minutes after the squad infantry clears the place. That is all you want from the transport ability. The rest is late fight MG nests to deny open ground, to an enemy reduced to infantry hold outs after their heavy weapons have been smashed.

The 81mm mortar HTs (251/2) are also useful in this overall role. HQs can spot for them. They sit behind the same cover the rest of an overwatch group uses, and take out guns and MGs and such. They have a huge ammo load. The rariety is sometimes steep, but they can hit things as long as 2 foot 81s, and get forward faster (through dead ground). Unlike other gun HTs, they don't go into LOS, so the thinness of the armor isn't a serious drawback.

[George MC]

Interesting comments guys. It looks like the main points coming through are

1/ SPWs/armoured halftracks are not tanks. Given their weak armour (which is only protection against LMG and rifle fire) they are extremely vulnerable to every other a/t asset from ATRs/grenades etc through to a/t guns.

2/ They are expensive in victory points when killed, and they die easily!

I must admit to liking these weakly armoured, easily killed vehicles. For me the main advantage is their cross-country ability. They allow the player an opportunity to very quickly move infantry into a favourable assault position (as Tigrii states in his post) plus allowing them to keep close contact with armoured assets and hence allow the player to use them for mutual support.

Given their easily killed status they do need very careful overwatch, need to make good use of cover e.g. staying out of LOS as much as, making short dashes from one bit of cover to the next etc more so than relatively more armoured tanks.

When using SPW borne troops for assaulting an enemy position then this attack needs careful prep and excellent overwatch pretty much so that when the attack goes in its pretty much a mopping up operation (a strange euphemism for a pretty murderous business). If not then yeah the halftracks are creamed and the troops cut down as soon as they disembark (I learned this one very early on )

This brings me to the historical side of this discussion. The above comments made by yourselves tend to echo contemporary German doctrine for the use of SPWs.

A point I have seen made a lot is that historically SPWs tended to be just used as armoured taxis. If that is so why do the training manuals emphasis fighting from the SPW as much as possible in attacks (given favorable tactical conditions)?

I have also read several accounts which tend to suggest that attacks went in with the troops mounted up (it is obvious from the account there was very little a/t danger which I suppose reinforces several of the points made earlier). This does suggest that historically, given favourable tactical conditions, attacks did go in with troops mounted up in the SPWs. Perhaps a reason why armoured Pzg units tend to pack a lot of mounted fire power?

As the war went on and the Germans increasingly found themselves fighting defensive actions it appears that generally SPW units were used as part of a mobile battle group to counter attack (in cooperation with tanks) any enemy penetrations. Here it is their cross country ability and speed of deployment so they can rapidly move from one hot spot to another that makes them valuable.

I’m interested if anyone has any historical examples of what did happen (sources would be great as well)?

[BigDork]

When playing a ME QB I will get 4 251/1s so that I can quickly get a platoon up to a flag before my opponent can. I make sure that I use all cover possible because of how fragile they are. After they have dropped off the infantry I will try to use them to move up the heavier weapons(MGs, Mortars)but only if the conditions are right for it. If the enemy shows up in strength then I will hide them somewhere until later on when the enemy has been beat down some. Then I use them as mobile MGs which I send from place to place where needed.

[RSColonel_131st]

I had a totally different experience...on the "third battle of Kharkov" operation.

After my tanks had cleared out ATs and enemy Tanks, we still had to cross a large (200meter+) bare strip of land to enter the first buildings of the city.

Of course, on the other side, in the outmost buildings, you could bet on russian infantry sitting there waiting for my guys to run into the open.

So, what I did was simple to rush up the HTs concentrated onto two buildings, keep them out of grenade range and heads down for the gunner, and then at the end of their drive all the infantry disembarked at once and opened the fire at effective range - while trying to storm the building quickly.

Since the HTs added to the suppression, it worked very well. I dont think trying to get across the 200 meters open ground without HTs could have been done at that speed.

Now, they are not killer-fighting weapons of course, but this shows that they can get infantry trough considerable enemy small arms fire without any problems.

Also, if you really want to use your armor most efficiently, the infantry will have to follow at speed. (Guderian drives that idea home in both of his books). Especially on large QB maps, I'd rather have a small, but fully motorized and armored force (including Arty FOs, Mortars, HMGs and Pioneers) than having a large infantry force that slows down the tanks in the attack time plan.

A few things I'd like to see modelled, though, is fighting from the HTs (which is in the german field manual, so I suppose it would have happened) and squad members being able to replace gunners on the HT if they have been shot.

And yeah, towing guns with them is pretty good too...

[Sirocco]

A halftrack would have been most useful for road marches in difficult conditions. In tactical use, as has been mentioned, they would have a limited role.

I once used them, along with a StuH, to rush an FJ company to the dominating buildings in the centre of a map in a meeting engagement.

But using them as keyholed support weapons is their real use in CM.

[JasonC]

"why do the training manuals emphasis fighting from the SPW"

Because they are just following in the wake of an entire battalion or even regiment of tanks, on a very narrow front. They just want them to follow those and keep up with them. The HT weapons shoot up holdouts, and only those nearest a given strongpoint dismount to clean it out if necessary. This is breakthrough fighting doctrine. Unless you have 30-50 full tanks on a single kilometer, though, you aren't going to have the conditions that could let it work. CM fights are always much less lopsided.

The Germans had very few HTs in their arsenal in the early war period when they were on the offensive. The explosion in HT numbers fielded came in the second half of the war, 1943 to the end. When they were on the defensive. In the early war period, the recce guys were on motorcycles and almost all of the "schutzen" (not yet even called "panzergrenadiers") were in trucks. There was light armor, but it was armored cars in the recce units and light tanks in the armor units (Pz Is and IIs).

As for other people's comments about having the target thoroughly prepared, um, if it is then the attack will succeed regardless. As for how to cross the last 200m of open ground into buildings, send HE and then there aren't any more buildings. MG fleeing survivors. Mop up the cowering broken guys with infantry. (In the real deal, they needed grenades and such against cellars and others forms of "100% cover"). If they shy away from the front windows to avoid fire, then you can cross whether you have a track or not.

[Shosties]

I did some cartoonish playing around in the scenario editor and was a bit surprised at what I found. Don't jump all over me, please, because this is just some tinkering I am reporting rather than a full-out grog test.

1. The 45mm ATG and 37mm AA are, of course, deadly, but will reveal themselves as firm contacts soon after they open fire (range less than 800 m, guns sited quite deep in tall pines), when this happens the remaining SPWs can rain MG fire on the gun and keep the crew's heads down as the remaining distance is closed. Things to try here would be to open up the map to allow longer range fire, give the guns a HQ with stealth and morale bonus, and try more of a "PAK front" style deployment of the guns than I did (SPWs have limited MG fire arc!).

2. The DShK seemed totally ineffective against the SPWs' frontal aspect all the way down to virtually point-blank range.

3. The PTRD's low RoF and weak behind-armor hit effects meant they got little result as the SPWs sped past on "Fast Move". The SPW needs to park within the PTRDs field of fire to get hit enough times to get rattled.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

[Tigrii]

20mm flak; Can pen HT but is small enough to remain a sound contact. Also, MGs from the side.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by George Mc:

If that is so why do the training manuals emphasis fighting from the SPW as much as possible in attacks (given favorable tactical conditions)?

The question you are really asking is "how often was the tactical situation favourable".

What is the answer?

[Kanonier Reichmann]

Originally posted by Tigrii:

20mm flak; Can pen HT but is small enough to remain a sound contact. Also, MGs from the side.

I disagree with the second part of this statement unless it's modified by saying certain MG's from the side. I'm currently playing a scenario where my Russians unfortunately were not provided with any ATR's or proper heavy DShK HMG's and I can confirm that Maxim MG's for instance are totally useless at German halftracks even if firing on their flanks, rear, any aspect. This applies even if the range is under 100 metres.

I have still yet to knock out any halftracks despite numerous attempts over 30 turns plus and more than enough targets with my so called "heavy" MG's. It seems to be a struggle to even get them to button up at times despite being targeted by more than one MG at under 250 metres. Suffice to say that assaults by massed halftrack transported troops can be very effective in these circumstances.

Regards

Jim R.

[Sirocco]

The last place I'd want to be in an assault would be in the back of a thin skinned, open topped, halftrack, any more than I'd want to be on the rear deck of a tank in the same circumstances. It's too much of an inviting target.

The intended role of the halftrack was to get infantry to the assembly area in conjunction with armour, not deliver infantry into direct assaults on the enemys actual positions.

[George MC]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by George Mc:

If that is so why do the training manuals emphasis fighting from the SPW as much as possible in attacks (given favorable tactical conditions)?

The question you are really asking is "how often was the tactical situation favourable".

What is the answer? </font>

[JasonC]

See the CMAK forum for a post on the question, when they did and when they didn't - for the MTO and vs. the US anyway. The conclusion is, basically they didn't.

[manchildstein (ii)]

in 1941 the average panzer division had 2 infantry regiments with 2 battalions apiece... usually.. just one of those 4 battalions had armored halftracks.. as jason had mentioned... the rest were in trucks...

i think 1 or 2 of the panzer divisions had 2 spw battalions but the rest had just one... on the other hand, some may have even had only the first company of the first battalion having spw support...

so, at least early on they were fairly rare...

in cmbb terms, i find that whatever i'm deploying, if i have more firepower at the point of contact -- and the matchups are correct -- then the firefight can be won... sometimes an spw assault can succeed spectacularly.. other times it can leave the field littered with burning halftracks and broken panzergrenadiers... you have to know when to hold, and know when to fold...

i would agree that 'interdiction' and sealing off narrow firing lanes would be good uses for the mg halftracks...

of that 251/2.. the 81mm mortar halftrack.. you get 1 of these behind a spotter hq... knocks out guns in a jiffy... have had it done to me many a time...

it would be cool if they had an armored panzergrenadier battalion with 6x 251/2 and an HQ attached, rather than the 81mm FO which comes with the MG company...

[George MC]

Originally posted by JasonC:

See the CMAK forum for a post on the question, when they did and when they didn't - for the MTO and vs. the US anyway. The conclusion is, basically they didn't.

Excellant post mate and well laid out. Makes a very valid point. I've been reading through some Eastern Front stuff and have found a few refernces to where the SPWs were used in a more aggressive way. I don't have the time at the moment to collate this but it struck me that the refernces I have found were around the 42 - 43 period. Both involved heavy armoured and art support, against little A/T defence. My thoughts were that perhaps as the German army became less able to conduct massive well supported movement offensives (or as the enemy became more adept at countering such attacks) that using SPWs in a more aggressive role became a high risk tactic, such that it was unjustifiable and therefore the role of the SPW did indeed become more that of a cross country armoured taxi - gets you from A - B (B being the attack assemby area) therafter the attack went in making best use, as you described in the above post, stealth and the terrain.

[mrcoffee]

The power of the halftrack and the truck lies in its operational ability to quickly move troops from one place to another. A motorized or a mechanized unit is better able to function as part of the armored "pincers" than, say, hard-marching infantry.

That being said, Germany never had enough HT even during the begining of the war to equip more than a few units...most of the german motorized divisions were dependent on trucks.

The russians in 1944 had enough of american made HT to equip several divisions and a number of recon units. Possibly they had enough to parcel out a few HT to every corps, even infantry corps...they certainly had enough trucks to.

I would think the difference between a truck and a HT is not its armor protection but rather its cross-country mobility...trucks must stick to smooth roads while HT can cross rough roads and even go across country for a short time. On the other hands trucks are more reliable and consume far less fuel than a HT, so i guess it evens out.

[xerxes]

Accurate or not, I've found HT mounted assaults to be very successful in many cases.

[Code13]

HT's carrying infanty can be great to use if assualting infantry positions...just like all assaults though it helps if the defenders are suppressed, they are brilliant for rushing across open ground though to secure terrain and dode larger calibure AT.

As said though 20mm AAA is a garanteed dead HT and no chance of spotting the gun.

Best use for HT's though is fire support. Use them to supress the target while the infantry makes the assault, that means you dont need the extra squads to provide suppressing fire meaning target can be taken with fewer troops.