defeating unbalanced forces in rarity off QBs

[manchildstein (ii)]

i played a bunch of tcpip qbs through the cmhq chat, and was trying to think of something useful to post here about the experience...

i was seeking non-rarity attack/assaults over custom maps, usually in 1941 or 1944 ... ... some of the players there are extremely good... others almost seem worse than the ai... and they run the gamut in between...

anyway.. the idea of 'rarity off' is to use the battlefront 'overall values' assigned to the units, and to allow for all kinds of variations in forces...some battles were combined arms... most were unrestricted....

the problem with rarity is that certain vehicles, support weapons, and artillery FO modules don't appear in games as much, being penalized for their historical rarity rather than their actual 'potency' on the battlefield...

of course with rarity off, and looking at the unadjusted 'values' of the units, there will definitely be some cherry picking going on

in 1941, the kv tanks are very cheap with rarity off... the 25mm aa is ridiculous at 13 points...

the german 75mm IG is 19 points in 1941... things like that....

ultimately, the challenge of 'rarity off' QBs is in fielding a force which can deal with all contingencies....

so here are a few ways to deal with unbalanced forces you might see:

UNBALANCED FORCE #1: 1941, russian player purchases KVs: there are 2 or 3 basic ways to kill kv tanks in 1941: 1) infantry close assault... when you spot the kv tank(s)... immediately begin planning on how to get your infantry in close... purchase tank hunters yourself...

2) lots of smaller guns; if you purchase a german battalion with the heavy company, you already have 5 guns; 3 x 37mm atg and 2 x 75mm IG... add more guns during the unit purchase... sometimes, if you position all your guns at the start, overlooking a key fire lane, on turn 1 you can knock out a kv... 6-8 light guns firing on a single kv can produce immobilizations and gun damage.. this will have the kv bailing in no time...

3) air attack... this is risky... because of:

UNBALANCED FORCE #2: air support... i like to play with clear skies, and challenge the other player to purchase air support.... with the russians, you can do this with say, 6 x 25mm aa screening the back/flank of your defense from tree positions... when the air support shows up, it will be a good duel between all that aa and the aircraft.... with romanians in 1941, you get a particularly powerful light aa with the hotchkiss 25mm...

UNBALANCED FORCE #3: lots of aa guns and such on the defense: as the attacker/assaulter, you want to have a method of quickly dispatching those pesky guns... with the germans you can employ the 81mm mortar halftracks... even the 50mm infantry mortars are ok for knocking out guns... as long as they can get within 500 meters... the russian 50mm has a range of 800 meters! another answer to any kind of massed-gun defense is the sharpshooter... sharpshooters can take out guns without themselves being spotted....

UNBALANCED FORCE #4: lots of conscript heavy artillery with TRPs on the defense: you have to keep your units separated as much as possible in order to prevent being hit too hard... my best use of the russian 210mm in '41 at 93 points was when i spotted 8 tanks all scrunched up within two tiles at the start... i had TRPs but with a target like that presenting itself... i just unloaded with a pre-planned barrage on the tanks instead... killed 2 and knocked out 2 tank guns, plus a 150mm ig and about 60 infantry...

while i've never been shelled that dramatically, i've seen my share of 150mm and above smashing my tightly packed positions....

UNBALANCED FORCE #5: russian su-76, t-70, or stuart 'swarm' assault... you want the 37mm aa, or for the su-76s in particular, a module of 158mm rockets...

UNBALANCED FORCE #6: russian regimental smg company in low visibility: this can be difficult to defeat... usually, when moving up through low visibility, i'll have the infantry in half squads and moving to contact in a sort of picket formation... usually when the smg squad(s) is encountered, the nearest half squad dies... often though a lot of the other friendly infantry moving up has stopped just out of los of the first identified smg position... the best tactic for these i learned is to -- in the following orders segment -- simply fire area fire toward the known smg positions while staying put for the moment...

fire area fire around the smg foxholes, and let them leave their foxholes to attack you if they want further contact.... you might lose them if they withdraw, but if they stay put and you send more infantry forward, those will die like the first... so the idea is to keep hitting them with area fire and try to get some high explosive or mg fire on them.. bring tanks forward to where your infantry are stalled out and pound the smg positions... with the machineguns, bring them up to where your infantry are waiting and set them up, in the hopes the smg squads don't counterattack in the meantime... once the hmgs are set up, then start peppering the positions with area fire... the main thing is to kind of fight them just out of los until you can get armor there... you do not want to be moving up on them the moment after you discover their positions.. they're too alert and have too much ammo... perhaps after a turn or two of the area fire by the forward infantry... you can sneak a half squad or tank hunter forward, to see if you've had any kind of effect, but the best thing is to.. if you've got it.. get the tank support there as quickly as possible... the russian smg squads are absolutely the nastiest infantry in cmbb at close range... the russian player can get a company of them for about 270 points or less... listen for that russian smg sound and pay the proper respect once you've found it... and realize that.. if you're lucky there are only 2 more platoons like that.. out there somewhere...

anyway, there are a few examples of unbalanced forces and how to counter them...

some of my favorite units, and the favorite units of my oponents are:

1941: russian 85mm aa, ot-134 flame tanks, kv2, 76mm 'artillery piece' (24 points), 25mm aa (13 point), 210mm FO, 107mm mortar FO; german 75mm IG (my fav) and 150mm IG, sig33; romanian pioneer battalion, 25mm hotchkiss, french import tank

1944: russian su-76, t-70, stuart

favorites in all situations are the german 150mm ig, german 158mm rockets, the russian pioneers, and smg companies

the reason the german pioneers are not so good is that you're forced to pay for a lot of flamethrowers... with russian .. or especially those romanian ones mentioned above... you get a lot more demo charges... and that's what the pioneers are most useful for.. the demos... the flamethrowers can actually be a liability...

[Carl Puppchen]

Excellent post. I played a lot of games against a human opponent in similar circumstances. I always played Germans and he always played Russians.

For the Russians the OT34 flame throwing tank is a screaming bargain. Its flame has a VERY long range and the fact that it has a 76mm gun and excellent armor makes it a formidable adversary.

In any time frame the Russian T34 tanks armed with cannister are also murder on infantry unless you have very powerful AT weaponry.

The SMG squads are awesome at close range your rifle armed infantry have no chance unless you use special tactics.

All Russian arty suffers from severe delay in the early years and in some circumstances can barely be used within the time frame - thus they are often used on pre-registered targets which can be anticipated as the defender.

The "wall of guns" theory with the cheap AA guns is a menacing threat. My opponent got tired of it because it was so "gamey" but it certainly works.

The self propelled SU 152 and SU 122 tanks are murder on the Germans. A crafy human opponent will pre-emptively obliterate your likely positions, and with the 152mm shells it doesn't take long to blow you away. As the German player I often have to abandon what would otherwise be excellent positions because I know they will be targeted at long range by these weapons. Also, HE does not really rely on penetrative power so it can be chucked from very long range (accuracy suffers a bit, but you can hit a building usually) which means your AT assets can't really counter this unless you are in a position to slug it out, which I usually am not on defense.

Finally, if you survive into late 1944-5 you get smashed with the absolutely dreaded JS II series. They have the fantastic 122mm HE guns and can duke it out w/any German tank if handled correctly. May be expensive but can dominate the battlefield.

Good weapons for the Germans are the STG series. When they get the "long" gun and are bought in platoon strength of 3 they are a good bargain. Even the short barrelled 75mm isn't too bad a bargain since they are cheap but they don't have MG's and are next to useless vs armor.

Late war you can every so often buy a tiger or the dreaded jadgpanther, but I tend to avoid this solution because it is so "easy". Anyone can keep purchasing Tigers and Panthers but what is the fun in that ?

Take a look at the SMG armed Finns. They are a good bargain as attackers. Also the Romanian infantry has 11 guys and are relatively cheap. Romanian support weapons are also cheaper - since they tend to die quickly on defense when targeted, I buy cheap stuff.

The Italian 75mm AA gun is an excellent gun vs Russian early war armor.

The Romanian mortars have bigger crews and more ammo.

I tend to rely on stealth, keyhole defense and reverse slope. The shrek is a good bargain if you have woody terrain or rubble (best) - less useful in buildings due to backblast. I don't get much out of panzerfausts unless I am using tank hunters.

Great post!

[Sidewinder]

when defending against an attacker with lots of guns, a couple 81mm/82mm mortars with HQs spotting from high ground works good. Couple this with 50mm mortars (so you have a mortar team of maybe one 81mm/82mm and 1-2 50mm that comes with the platoon/company) and you can deal with most threats. Artillery can work too if you have a quick enough response time. Any HE chuckers with decent enough armour to withstand the 75mm IG can pick them off too.

[ February 28, 2004, 05:45 PM: Message edited by: Sidewinder ]

[manchildstein (ii)]

when we took that borisovka station map and expanded the axis setup zone so they could set up guns in the edge of the trees ... i had something like 6 x 75mm IG, 3 x 20mm AA, 3 x 37mm AT... the aa were pretty much covering just one isolated sight line, my left... that t-34 you had toward my right was able to take out the other guns piecemeal... down to the last 3 or 4, which it then basically overran...

during that entire battle.. i never had more than 2 or 3 guns on that t34 at a time... then i realized i needed bigger guns for that map... so i played some other people, and twice i purchased 6 x 150mm IG... both times those guns were able to deal quickly with the russian armor... one player complained that i didn't purchase transport for the 150s...

...another time on that same borisovka map, i had the basic 2 x 75mm IG and 3 x 37mm atg, with 3 20mm aa thrown in... the opponent showed up on turn 1 in line of sight of all 8 guns... i opened up on him and knocked out the kv's gun on turn 1...

definitely though in battles against you sidewinder my guns have had difficulties... there was that other assault on that rail map... i lost that 105mm art early.. and several other guns... late i had 2 x 105mm firing but they weren't doing much except making fancing fireworks... the 4th was setup in really poor position and was flailing around moving through the woods at the end....

one way to get more use out of your heavy guns -- if you're allowed to place them forward at start -- is to open up with them only after the battle is well under way... wait until your infantry is engaging and several of the defending strongpoints have been identified...

then if your guns were well-placed at the start.. if they open up decisively for a turn or two.. they could turn the tide...

but if you open up too early with big guns... and some defender -- some kind of mortar or sharpshooter, etc. -- has a 'bead' on your gun positions... bye-bye guns....

i like to open up with some 20mm to start... they don't provide very good ID signatures to the opponent... their area fire might reveal some defending positions while their stealth makes them the most survivable gun type...

as for whether the attacking guns should be towed... i figure you could have a house rule where all attacking guns set up in the back of the attacker's setup zone... or where guns of a certain size and above are required to entire the game in tow....

i don't mind if the attacking player purchases guns without transport... guns are pretty easy to kill... 'muahahah'... i've lost enough of my own anyway... lol

after that, i wondered about some house rules for guns.. one would be that, during setup the attacker has to place all guns on the back tile row of his setup zone...

or that smaller guns - 37mm atg, 20mm aa, etc. -- can set up forward while others require transport...

i do know that, as for the 150mm IGs.. if you purchase 1 or 2 on the assault over a large map... with spw 251/1s to tow them... you can really get some good results... following behind the main action and setting up with line of sight to a flag area...