The Anti-Panther?

[ErikinWest]

The Panther is one hard cat to kill in '44. I have been having a lot of success lately with my soviets. Mainly with my AT guns. Even though I seem to be able to get victory, the Panthers are causing pain!

I was playing a 1250 QB and I won it in the end, but not before all my tanks died, thanks to 1 Panther! The Panther has a ROF of 7 compared to the SU's which have 3 and the t-34's have 6. So even if you engage the panther it unleashes a hell of a salvo on you!

In the end of it, i killed it with an RPG grenade. At a side shot with an ISU-122 it ricocheted, at 300m!!! The frontal shots just did squat. And my T-34/85 needs to get in close before they can even do any damage! I need an anti-panther!

Erik (also thanks to those who always give me lots of soviet knowledge. I just don't seem to be catching on to the Bolsheviks

[flamingknives]

The Panther is weak on its sides. Historically, the Panther was typically used as part of a counter-attack so the Red Army simply traded a bit of ground and then hit it in the side as it hits the gun line. Engage from two directions - lighter stuff will do from the sides - and you'll almost always get a flank shot.

Square on, a 45mm gun will kill a Panther from the side.

[Guest Mike]

I jsut had 2 Panthers KO'd by JS-2's at about 1 km - the odds were 2 Panthers to 5 or 6 JS's, head on, and I only killed 1 in return. :eek:

It's just a game of dice!!

[JasonC]

2 57mm ATGs with crossing fire lanes, that is the recipe. It is much harder to get flank shots with AFVs because they are so easy to spot beforehand, to only show front aspect towards once they are spotted, to engage one at a time, etc. ATGs work by not being seen until they open up. The 57mm will kill through the side and through the front turret at close enough range. They are not expensive when rariety is off.

The other gamey solution that works is an IL-2...

[Brent Pollock]

Captured Panthers

[Bigduke6]

If you have long range, time, and a hill Stalin II can do the job. I'm talking a klick of distance or more. Use separated firing points and shoot and scoot, because 122mm takes so long to reload and the Panther fires so fast. But, even if the Panther should connect, at that range you have a fighting chance of shrugging off a hit. Not a guarantee but a reasonable chance.

The game is to force the Panther to play whack-a-mole. Eventually you should score with a 122mm. And that big round ALWAYS KOs the Panther, IME.

(This is CM advice. The RL Soviets considered Stalin II's front invulnerable to German 75mm at normal combat ranges, and even that rah rah Wehrmacht cheerleader v. Mellenthin writes that Stalin II at Targul Frumos (Romania, May, 1944) forced Tigers and Panthers to revert to maneuver, because they couldn't hurt Stalin II at ranges over 500-600m. Unfortunately the CM engine has a different opinion on that.)

[undead reindeer cavalry]

i haven't played 1944 for some time now, but in late 1943 the 45mm AT-guns and SU-85s are my preferred choises to nail both Tigers and Panthers. 45mm AT-guns can penerate Tiger flanks at short distances and SU-85s can succesfully engage Panthers frontally. SU-85s have good ammunition, good rate of fire and relatively good accuracy. 45mm have OK ammunition, good rate of fire, good accuracy, great stealth and relatively OK mobility.

76mm AT-guns are good too, if you engage with them only when the Panthers receive 45mm or 85mm fire as well - the combined effect of penetrating hits and non-penetrating pings will make the crew abandon the Panther/Tiger.

don't take SU-122 or SU-152, as they won't be up to the task. 57mm costs so much that it's waste of points IMO. the static 85mm AA-gun is waste of points as well.

you can get loads of 45mm AT-guns and SU-85s for each Tiger or Panther your opponent buys. you don't need loads of them, though, at least once you get some experience in handling them.

if Panthers are giving you pain, simply stop giving targets to them. just avoid them and make them come for you. plan well and have patience.

[undead reindeer cavalry]

if you have IS-2s you should do OK, no matter what the range. if you keep loosing i think you have something wrong with your tactics. in my IS-2 vs Panther tests the IS-2 had about 50% chance of winning, no matter what the range, even with the low rate of fire and the fictional abyssmal ammunition the IS-2 has in CM. as IS-2 is cheaper, and you get to waste more points on armor, you should be able to deal with Panthers quite easily.

[Nemesis Lead]

Undead,

You might want to check again. While it is not a slaughter, Panthers eat IS-2s on a point by point basis.

The best advice is above--hit the Tiger's in the sides with ATGs.

[ErikinWest]

I actually have to disagree with ‘undead reindeer cavalry’ on a few points. I think the 57mm AT guns are the only decent gun around for the soviets. Don't forget that for every gun you usually need a truck or jeep to move them, so it starts to get pricey on transport. Also, the 45mm never seem to be able to pierce anything!

Erik

[Bigduke6]

Undead,

I wouldn't call it easily. Just my opinion, of course.

My experience, at say 800 meters or less maybe, and 600 meters or less almost certainly, the IS-2 whack-a-mole technique is suicide against Panthers. The better the Panther crew, the further out the danger window. Rule of thumb, you want to be 1,000 meters or more. 1,200 meters is better and 1,500 meters is better still.

This of course is a ahistorical tactic, I'm talking the game not reality.

Another general note: the game's cower routine makes for some very, very silly Russian tank behavior. If the Stalin is going forward on "contact" or "hunt", and it sees a Panther with the front 180 degrees of the Panther facing more or less near the Stalin, the Stalin will very frequently back away. I just ran a test, I got this cower routine at ranges of 1,300 meters, with three Stalins moving forward, and a Panther flank-on to the Stalins, but its turret facing the Stalins. All the Stalins backed down the hill, repeatedly, rather than duke it out with the Panther.

So clearly AT guns are a better choice all told - the game engine won't make AT guns run away from Panthers.

[YankeeDog]

Big problem w/ the 45mm is not only penetration, but Behind Armor Effect.

The 45mm absolutely can penetrate the Panther sides, but because the BAE is small, the kill % is low. So even when you do get the lucky first-shot hit, it often doesn't kill. And you're only going to get 2-3 shots before the Panther's turret rotates around and takes the gun under fire.

Overall, often the best policy us to just avoid 'em. Play peek-a-boo with a couple of cheap T-70s er something to keep the Panther's fire off of your other units -- if you do things right, the Panther will have trouble getting a shot off. Big Cats are so expensive, players who take them are forced to scrimp elsewhere. Infest the woods on the map with relatively cheap, SMG-heavy Soviet infantry, where his Panther can't go, and watch him gnash his teeth in frustration. Another good trick is to use cheap Russian ATRs to simply keep the Panther buttoned -- buttoned tanks acquire targets much more slowly, and make other tricks, like the "peek-a-boo" mentioned above, much easier to execute. Force him to move aggressively with his high-cost Panther, and sooner or later, he may just make a mistake.

But if you really want to go cat hunting, IL-2s are definitely the most powerful Cat Killer, but they're weather depending, and many players play with "no air asset" house rules. w/o Air Assets, in addition to what's already been mentioned, mines are great cheap Big Cat killers. So is the TRP + conscript 208mm arty FO combo. Usually, that first salvo will at least cause gun or track damage. . .

[YankeeDog]

Oh, one other trick that always works against me when I have Pathers:

Buy a few of the relatively cheap Soviet big HE-chuckers: SU-122s or ISU-152s. Maneuver them so they are just of of LOS of the Panther, but can area fire very nearby. Area Fire as close to the Panther as possible.

122mm or larger HE exploding near a tank presents a very real Gun Damage or Immobilization threat. As a bonus, if you do manage to at least immobilize the Panther, SU-122s & ISU-152s can put a world of hurt on your opponent's infantry once the tank threat is dealt with.

Players with big cats often like to keyhole them between buildings, crests, or patches of trees to protect the vunerable flanks. Often, the very LOS blocks that create the keyhole for the Cat, will create a "reverse keyhole', that allows your HE chucker to Area Fire near the Cat, while safely out of Direct LOS.

[stikkypixie]

I find that side shots with the 76mm to be very effective, at ambust ranges at least. The problem of course is how to get them.

[MikeyD]

"SU-85s have good ammunition, good rate of fire and relatively good accuracy."

...unless I'm using them!

I swear, some people just have really good luck with particular vehicles. Give 'em a PzII and send 'em out hunting KVs and they'll come back succesful!

[37mm]

Running a few tests it seems that ‘Off the bat’ on flat terrain and at 800 -1000m combat ranges a thousand points of IS-2's will readily defeat a thousand points of Panthers (for comparison a thousand pt's of PzIV's will defeat a thousand pt's of IS-2's mainly through partial turret penetrations).

However both tanks suffer from being hull down in CM, the same fights as above will end in total defeats for the soviets if the IS-2’s start hull down. Likewise the Panther’s wont survive for two minutes if they’re hull down.

Conclusion: NEVER try the ‘whack a mole’ tactics. Instead if you’re going to take IS-2’s to defeat Panthers try to overwhelm them with numbers… use smoke to get the IS-2's ‘over the top’ of a hill crest & when the smoke clears start blasting away.

All this does ignore the cheap STUG’s, PzIV’s and Pak75’s which can also readily knock out IS-2’s.

[ August 19, 2005, 07:04 PM: Message edited by: Sir 37mm ]

[HeinzBaby]

OT -By Sir 37mm 'NEVER try the ‘whack a mole’ tactics.'

A momentary lapse of reason here.

We don't have Moles in Oz (4 legged),

can some kind soul enlighten the bleeding obvious to moi.

[stoat]

It is an arcade game, a table with a 3x3 or 3x4 set of holes, where you have a hammer and you hit fake moles as they stick their heads up and before they retreat back into the table. Basically, cresting tanks at various points long enough to make the Panther shift its aim constantly, but fast enough to keep your forces from harm.

[Bigduke6]

To start off, I just want to roll my eyes at the very idea of MKIVs doing anything at all to a StalinII at 1000 meters. Not to say it didn't work that way in the test, but just that's a pretty big disconnect from what war histories tell us about both tanks.

There. I feel better.

As I said, the Whack a Mole tactic needs a long range to work. 800 meters is not long range. I'm talking 1000 meters minimum and if you can manage it 1500. The decisive factor is not penetration by the Panther's 75mm - the game allows it to break into Stalin's front at almost any range. The decisive factor is the Panther's crew quality.

Triggering these long-range duels is often not quite as difficult as it sounds, as Panthers and Tigers tend to lurk just behind crests or other cover giving the longest shots possible.

It is of course terrific if you can get your Stalin II in a slugging match with the Panther with both tanks fully exposed, as the lower frontal armor on a Panther is something like 53mm, so a 122mm hits it like a freight train vs. a puppy. Sometimes you can manage an engagement like that vs. the A/I.

But humans operating Panthers in CM almost obcessively keep their Panthers in hull-down positions.

Also, there is the not inconsiderable complication that the game engine frequently makes ANY Allied tank with a Panther cannon pointing at it cower. This means you can be flank-on to the Panther, perfect shot, and the Allied tank will just refuse to fire and back out of the engagement.

Thus, a Stalin II slugging match with a Panther - which is something the Soviets looked for and wanted in RL - is impossible in CM. The Panther will defend itself, and the moment it does - i.e., point its cannon at the Red tank - the chance appears that the Stalin will back out of the contest. The lower the quality of the Soviet crew, the higher the chance they will cower. If your Stalin stays put for a minute that's exceptional.

The only way for an Allied player to get around this rather ridiculous game mechanic, as has been noted for years in other threads, is to place an Allied tank in a situation where it must shoot at least once, before succumbing to the cower routine.

There are two ways: either move the Allied tank to where you want it to fire from on "fast", and hope it will stay there long enough to do you some good, or use "shoot and scoot", meaning you are conceding that it is impossible for you to fire more than one shot.

There is a very real chance the Stalin moving on "fast" or "hunt" will never shoot at a Panther pointing its way. Most of the time, it will establish LOS and immediately reverse the heck out of there. Shoot and scoot forces the game to allow the Stalins to fire at least a single shot, before the cower routine kickes in.

Since Stalins take a long time to reload, in any case, I say it makes sense to it under cover. No sense leaving them out there to be 75mm targets any longer than necessary.

But again, the second best solution to Panthers is a Sturmovik, which is vastly overpowered in the game. AT guns are a close third, but it's hard to attack with AT guns.

The best solution to Panther, by far, is just not to play games including the tank. It produces more ahistorical results in the game than even Tiger, which after all was such a big bad tank that cower behavior and special Allied anti-armor tactics make

some sense.

(Which is of course not to say the Tiger isn't overpowered as well - try using historical Soviet flank shot tactics against Tiger and see what it gets you. :mad: )

But by far the best solution to Panther is just to keep it out of the games that you play. If the German keeps to MarkIIIs, MarkIVs, StuGs - the backbone of the panzer forces throughout the war - then the game engine allows vaguely historical results. You can even chuck a tiny percentage Nashorns, Ferdinands, and Tigers into the mix if the German absolutely must have something ueber.

But Panthers in any numbers - forget it, if your goal is simulating East Front armored warfare.

[37mm]

To start off, I just want to roll my eyes at the very idea of MKIVs doing anything at all to a StalinII at 1000 meters.

I know exactly what you mean… I don’t understand why the JS-2 suffers so badly from ‘partial turret penetrations’ but it does.

The purpose of my tests was to see whether or not undead reindeer’s opinion that JS-2’s should defeat Panthers was a valid one (after losing so many JS-2’s to PzIV’s I thought that undead reindeer was talking a load of nonsense, turns out he wasn’t).

As such I set up 1000 pt slugging matches in various situations at ‘usual’ combat ranges (800m-1000m)… the results in short

1000 points of JS-2’s (6 regular & 1 green) will smash up a 1000 pt’s of Panthers (5 regular) on flat terrain… cower is irritating but seems to lessen as more Panther brew up.

1000 points of HULL DOWN JS-2’s will be defeated by a 1000 points of Panthers… cower becomes debilitating.

1000 points of JS-2’s in flat terrain will completely annihilate 1000 points of HULL DOWN Panthers… the Panthers suffer awfully

1000 points of HULL DOWN JS-2’s will be defeated by 1000 pt’s of HULL DOWN Panthers… again cower debilitates the soviets.

My conclusions from this are when handling JS-2’s (and for that matter Panthers) you should always engage HULL UP. From this conclusion stemmed my statement that ‘whack a mole’ was not the best way of handling JS-2’s, not because I’m saying it doesn’t work*, but because the JS-2’s seem to suffer from being hull down.

My advice (based from these tests anyway) for engaging Panthers with JS-2’s is do it confidently, HULL UP and at ‘normal’ combat ranges, perhaps using smoke (on the panthers positions?) to get you ‘over the crest’… oh & prey that the Germans don’t have any Pak75’s otherwise they'll ‘partially penetrate your ass’.

It is of course terrific if you can get your Stalin II in a slugging match with the Panther with both tanks fully exposed, as the lower frontal armor on a Panther is something like 53mm, so a 122mm hits it like a freight train vs. a puppy. Sometimes you can manage an engagement like that vs. the A/I.

But humans operating Panthers in CM almost obcessively keep their Panthers in hull-down positions.

63mm but very strongly sloped. It’s been discussed on other threads but the Panther actually suffers from being hull down (this problem is often discussed with regards to the T-34 & PzIV).

It is easily tested a thousand points of T-34/85 will readily defeat a thousand points of Panthers but ONLY if the Panthers are HULL DOWN. HULL UP the Panthers come away victorious (if bloodied).

*Clearly it does work, certainly for bigduke anyway.

[Kanonier Reichmann]

I tend to agree with Bigduke. I'm in the middle of a battle where my opponents Panthers (which I assume are at least veteran or better) are routinely achieving first round hits at over 1.2 kilometres distance!

The first time it happenned to one of my T34/76's at 1.3 km range as I was furiously trying to reverse it behind a house I put it down to blind luck, then it happenned a second time on another T34/76 at about 1.4 km range. The real show stopper however was a first off hit & kill on one of my T34/85's at a range exceeding 1.6 km's through two lots of intervening scattered trees tiles just as the T34 was reversing having spotted the potential threat!

Based on this experience it seems that Panthers are almost like M1 Abrahms tanks dueling against T55's at times, they represent the epitome of "uber".

Regards

Jim R.

[Bigduke6]

I'm not trying to sell Whack-a-Mole as the perfect solution. It is pretty bloody and can fail if the Panthers have nothing to do but wait for the Stalins to top a ridge. However, if you are a very bad Soviet indeed if you have Stalins and don't have artillery, and infantry eyes on the Panthers.

If you button the Panthers up, and know which way the gun is pointing, that can usually allow you to get off your shot from somewhere else and duck under cover before the Panther can retaliate. This also requires shifting firing locations, which isn't always possible, so your Stalins aren't always engaging from the same point.

But all in all these are silly stopgap measures, of course.

[undead reindeer cavalry]

like noted, the 45mm AT-gun has non-existent behind armor effect, but the tactic is not to kill the Tiger or Panther with the 45mm shell. the tactic is to use 45mm shells to cause marginal penetrations TOGETHER with 76mm "pinging". in my experience the German crews abandon their tanks if they receive 76mm fire AND potentially penetrating 45mm fire. some TAC-AI thing, i guess. it's possibly gamey, but Tigers and Pathers are more or less gamey in themselves anyway.

that tactic requires that German tanks move into your ambush, but you pretty much need such a situation anyway. if you move into Tiger or Panther firelines you are dead anyway, no matter what you have. in my experience the point is to always force Germans to move into your lines of fire.

like Sir 37mm noticed, IS-2 will deal with Panthers in a simple face-to-face shoot-out. the problem is that TAC-AI, for some strange reason, forces IS-2s to back-off if they face Panthers when moving. so you need to do the same thing you need to do with 45mm and 76mm AT-gun ambush: force German tanks to move into your firelines. never move into German firelines, or IS-2s will just back off or die right off.

SU-122 and SU-152, in my opinion, have too slow rate of fire and they are too inaccurate. they miss and then they are dead. personally i have never seen SU-152 HE shell hurt Panthers or Tigers, while i have seen SU-152 AP shell just ping off from Panther armor at below 200 meters. Combat Mission is a strange, but fun game. my personal experience is that SU-152 HE doesn't have the bang the German 150mm has, but it's likely to be just my flawed personal experience.

i really like SU-85. accurate, fast and effective. just don't try to move and shoot. take good positions and have patience. use them like mobile AT-guns. they are very lethal at least in late 1943.

about 57mm AT-guns. i admit that it's easier to use 57mm guns, but i usually see them cost more than 150 points and in my opinion it's just not worth it. you still need to get the Tigers within 300-400 meters. it's easier to buy couple 45mm and couple 76mm guns for more or less same money. i have seen far too often the Tiger kill the 57mm AT-gun with a single shot after the 57mm opens fire. with four guns you get more flexible AT system and those less-effective shells are countered with the ping factor. you also won't reveal, and thus lose, your valuable 57mm gun if you face some lower quality armor. and in the end game those extra 76mm shells come real handy.

[P_Brett]

Smoke (9 tube 81 mm)

T-34s

[coe]

two questions: both the Pz IV and Panther seem more vulnerable when hull down...isn't however the point of going hull down so that is harder to hit and should the fact that it is harder to hit offset the fact that only the weaker portion of tank is exposed...i.e. if I know I'm going against a panther, but the panther is NOT hull down, wouldn't i target the turret anyways (or wouldn't I do the same thing against a Pz IV?

Second question: ok so now you are a panther against an IS-III...same solution against an IS-III as the lighter soviet tanks vs. the panther (i.e flanking shot)? Or are side shots less effect if you are German?

Conan