Tank Descent Tactics

[Tigrii]

In follow-up to the SPW/PGD post, I would like to point out that mounting infantry on tanks also has it's uses. This is an assault tactic, whereas HTs are more focused on transport. The obvious drawback is that the tanks don't have armored passenger compartments. However, this usually doesn't make too much difference against different threats compared to HTs.

AT guns/rifles:Tanks offer much better protection due to their much thicker armor and ability to fight back.

HMGs:Infantry will often be "swept off" due to lack of passenger protection. However the same thing will often happen with HMg bullets going right through the HT, and the tank won't get KO'd.

Small Arms: HT better in this field. However, infantry will only be "swept off" a moving tank when pinned. Long range rifle/LMG fire isn't going to pin them. They may become cautious, but not much more.

In addition to the small protection difference, tanks are immune to most anti-HT light weapons, and possess multiple MGs and cannons to fight back at the threat with. They are also fully tracked, so can deal with difficult terrain better.

A typical tank descent assault begins with a turn of the tanks bombarding enemy positions for a turn with HE. Then, with the enemy pinned, the tanks charge the position and the infantry assault off with the tanks delivering point-blank supporting fire. The infantry will become shaken or at least cautious, and will take some losses, but usually carry the enemy position. (This scenario assumes 1 Tank-Descent platoon attacking 1 defending platoon).

Often players but Crack or Veteran assault units for this role, such as the American Parachute Demo squads, the British Recon Assault squads, or the German Jager squads. This allows them to deal with the inevitable morale trial caused by riding on an exposed tank and assaulting an enemy position. Also, these squads are SMG-heavy.

[George MC]

Originally posted by Tigrii:

A typical tank descent assault begins with a turn of the tanks bombarding enemy positions for a turn with HE. Then, with the enemy pinned, the tanks charge the position and the infantry assault off with the tanks delivering point-blank supporting fire. The infantry will become shaken or at least cautious, and will take some losses, but usually carry the enemy position. (This scenario assumes 1 Tank-Descent platoon attacking 1 defending platoon).

The Soviets used this tactic a great deal - with correspondingly heavy casualties. But also very effective as you describe. In the film 'Stalingrad' theres a scene where the germans fight of a tank borne infantry assualt which gives you a very graphic view of what such an event may have looked like.

I'm in the process of testing a new scenario which involves a soviet tank assault with tank-descent infantry. So far they overun the German defensive positions very effectively - although they take heavy casualties. Of all the jobs you could have in WWII a Soviet tank descent infantryman must have had the least career prospects. Brave men...

[junk2drive]

In SPWAW et al you mount infantry on tanks for spotting ability. but those games dont have buttoned unbuttoned iirc.

does mounting inf in cm help spotting for tanks? or at least spot antitank assets sooner?

[Tigrii]

I don't think having infantry riding does help tanks spot.

[Keke]

Originally posted by junk2drive:

In SPWAW et al you mount infantry on tanks for spotting ability. but those games dont have buttoned unbuttoned iirc.

They have.

[Keke]

Originally posted by Tigrii:

I don't think having infantry riding does help tanks spot.

It does.

[JasonC]

This is not a very effective tactic to just charge with mounted infantry. It misses the point of the combined arms coordination involved. "But I tried it, and though I took some losses I took the position". Yeah, because you have a platoon of tanks. Give me 2 tanks, let alone a platoon of them, and I will take the position. By just driving up to 100 yards and blowing the hell out of the defenders.

Firepower kills. Fire dominance is what takes ground. Not bayonet charges. You don't need to lose *anybody*. The tanks can break *all* the defenders, and the infantry goes in to murder the cowering survivors. "But they don't show themselves". Advance with infantry while the tanks overwatch, or recon by fire if you have the ammo for it and enemy cover is limited.

The reason a tank rider SMG and T-34 attack works is *not* because the tanks get the SMGs to point blank alive. It works because it presents the defender a fire decision dilemma that doesn't have a winning answer.

Open up at long range and you easily sweep the SMGs off the tanks. But you don't kill them - the range is too long. You just pin them out at 200 yards or whatever. And the tanks then eat your now revealed infantry for lunch, without needing to come closer. So the SMGs are beyond range and ineffective. Who cares? The tanks will kill everything.

If, on the other hand, you hold your fire down to infantry AT range, or try to just hide while the tanks pass by, the SMGs bail out right on top of you. A few bursts and they suppress you. Even SMGs outrange fausts and grenade bundles.

The main threat is not the infantry, it is the tanks. The point of the exercise is not to get infantry forward. It is to kill the defenders. The threat of the infantry getting close forces the defender to do something, which they would not want to do if the infantry weren't present. They also are around to clean out the insides of woods and the bottom of holes etc, where the tanks can't easily reach in. Attacking infantry can't be kept out of such places without revealing the shooters to the invulnerable tanks.

A tank without accompanying infantry is not invulnerable, it is ineffective. The defenders just hide. If the tank comes very close they can attack it while it has a hard time seeing them. If it doesn't come very close they just stay as quiet as mice. They stay behind houses, deep in woods, at the bottom of holes, on the reverse slope of ridges. Collectively known as "back" or "down" positions.

But from back or down positions they can't stop the infantry at range. It will walk close, to the same cover the defenders have, within SMG and grenade range, and wipe them out. If the defenders want to use their cover and range to hold off the infantry, to force it to drop off the tanks while still out of range, they must use "forward" or "up" positions. In the house, at the treeline, standing up in the holes, on the crest. And in those positions the tanks can annihilate them with direct fire.

If the defenders are in up positions, positions you can see from 200m or more, don't charge, mounted or not. Shoot and kill them with the tanks alone. If they shift to back positions, then send the infantry in - mounted to 100m or so if you like, to put the tanks in position to see as much as possible as they go in.

In practice, long range stealthy fire can make the infantry dismount and advance on foot, while giving only limit sound contacts to the tanks. There is nothing wrong with staying mounted until the defender actually does this to you. But he easily can, and if he does you will have to approach on foot, using "advance", the rest of the way down to full ID range. A tank pushed ahead might get full ID, or intimidate the MG into silence, to help the advance.

Also in practice, the real limit on the whole advance is whatever heavy AT defense at long range the defender can put up. The SMGs don't really help with that. Foot overwatch groups (mortars, FOs, etc) can. But mostly, the tanks just use their grouped firepower in whole platoons to outshoot individual guns and such. If the heavy AT network can't stop the tanks at range, the rest of the combined arms logic discussed above takes over, and infantry alone will not manage to stop the attacking tank-infantry team.

If arty can strip off the attacking infantry e.g. after MGs brush it off the tanks in an area of open ground, then the infantry defenders can hide in back positions and cover their immediate surroundings with infantry AT - fausts, demo charges, zooks, grenade bundles, whatever. Breaking combined arms coordination can thereby stop the attack, even if the heavy AT defense fails.

This is harder, though. It requires enough arty to thoroughly destroy the attacking infantry, not just pin it, and to do so without revealing the bulk of the infantry defenders (just a few stealthy MGs and such to brush off the infantry and pin them in the artillery "kill zone").

It is not a problem of movement. It is a combined arms issue. Tanks are so powerful when supported that it is extremely difficult to stop them. They are the real threat, not the riders. The riders are just plugging up one possible "countermeasure" loophole.

[ February 22, 2004, 03:11 PM: Message edited by: JasonC ]

[Charlie Rock]

What regularly works for me 80% of the time is the dismounted infantry assault with the tanks bounding along 100-200m to the rear. Tactically that is successful most of the time for me and if it doesent work its often due to bad execution and my own mistakes. Descent tactics for me are special situations, only--here are a few:

I would recomend descent tactics if you are weak on halftracks or if the enemy has lots of light ATGs or ATRs so that following your tanks with halftracks is impractical. I have a mental image of a Kursk type of central front action with big maps and open sectors of fire and an OBJ a couple thousand meters down the road. You cant really follow the tanks with halftracks or they'll die, and you are compounding the problem by keeping the halftracks back (say 300-500m) so that they'll stay alive. Wastes time. The other problem is that when the grunts dismount they take a few turns to get up to the tanks. By the time you figure its dismount time if your tanks are getting harrassed by satchel charge teams it gets quite aggravating. As a minimum maybe a descent engineer squad in the trail tank of every platoon--I hate it when I'm in a minefield and the sapper is broken because his SPW is on fire 500 meters back. That's a bad day. HMGs and flamethrowers as a rule, usually. I fought a silly scenario lately where I dismounted a flamethrower off a sherman and had him run off to get shot. The MK IV shot my descent flamethrower and the sherm shot the Mark IV. Sort of like a flare dispenser on an airplane--launched a decoy

Another reason I like descent tactics would be if you have a long, narrow sector map and the bad guys have mucho artillery. Your infantry move out and get hit by FA and are pinned. Tanks cant advance because there are bad guys in trenches with satchels and so forth. FOs are hidden so its hard to suppress them. Best to put the infantry on the tank and drive like hell.

I would still look for a covered and concealed position--backside of a small hill or depression--

and dismount your troops, shake them out into a linear screen of formation--and attack out of that. Dont run over the bad guys like a herd of buffalo, though.

Descent tactics also may work if depending on your scenario you need to try to get a jump on the bad guys in a time relationship. Like an ME, or a scenario where you think there will be enemy reserves and you want to secure a nice hull down position before the visiting team show up.

Also, shortish scenarios with snow. Your grenadiers are nice and rested for a good day's work on the OBJ. Come to think of it, that's my favorite. I scout with fewer troops and pack the riders onto tanks when there's snow and I want my dismounts to still assault and advance with pep in their step.

[xerxes]

I don't care for mounted assaults, the infantry is swept off too easily and then out of position.

The major exceptions are for moving quickly over wire or AP mines. A quick mounted dash over wire is extremely helpful.