Road to Minsk

[soft skin]

Hey guys!

Long time lurker, first time poster - I'm out of the closet now and I call upon your combined wisdom.

I have been playing CM since it first came out, and I am slowly making progress (I can't play as often as I wish I could..)although I still suck with tanks (which is pretty sad).

Would anyone here be nice enough to give me some help with the operation "the road to Minsk". It's a tank heavy operation and playing the Red Army puts you in command of 4 IS-2, almost a dozen T-34 and almost as many SU-76 and a bunch of others AFVs.

The Germans appear to have a few StuG's and Nashorns but they mostly rely on AT guns (a whole bunch).

The terrain really funnels the russians towards the middle of the map, facing the AT guns while the self-propelled guns are waiting in ambush behind.

My problem is this: no matter what I do, my advancing armoured force is apparantly no match for their guns. Even if supported by loads of artillery, I can't suppress the AT guns, and those damn StuG are just picking my tanks one by one (even if they are ALL shooting back - all I get are missed or deflected shots). I've tried using smoke to move in close, I tried flanking on two sides to divide their firepower but nothing seems to really work and I end up losing most of my tanks before reaching any worthwhile objective.

As anyone played this operation with some success and/or could you give a sense of your loses and tactics?

Thank you very much.

ps: Sorry for the long post.

pps: I am also sorry for spelling errors, english is not my native language.

[Joachim]

The Stug frontal armor (80mm) is impenetrable for the T34s. Don't try to shoot it out.

Advance behind smoke.

Scout with infantry - make sure you locate every gun that opens up so it gets off as little shots as possible.

Have mortars in overwatch to deal with ATGs. Guns behind small rises or walls are very hard to kill in CM using direct fire (near impossible if you don't have v1.03). Mortars usually do the trick. Especially if the gun is in trees or woods.

Gruß

Joachim

[soft skin]

Thanks for the tip.

The only thing is that the setup puts the russian forces in full view of the german StuGs so it makes everything harder. On top of that, the map is so back that infantry takes forever to be deployed forward.

So far, I had very little luck advancing my force behind smoke.

I shall try again then.

[imported_no_one]

Soft skin,

*****SPOILERS*****

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

Let me just say that I tried to play this one PBEM as the germans.The first battle was fog,and for me it went from "oh,theres a armor sound contact",to "well,theres are a couple of t-34s",finally to "OMFG!!!"...then there were tons of burning german infantry.Moral of the story,dont play this op if it has fog in the first battle.It will be an absolute rout.

That being said,there are many openings in the german defenses.The swamp,the gap between the swamp and the woods,and then there is the woods with the road through it.It may take until battle two,but focus on the woods.You have large calibre arty,and a huge attacking force.Advance through the woods until you advance the map far enough to bypass the trenches.

From that point the rest is up to you,since I didnt make it that far.

I was very disappointed by the restrictions the scenario designer placed on the german forces.Unfortunately I have become accustomed to this kind of thing

[ July 02, 2004, 06:27 PM: Message edited by: no_one ]

[soft skin]

Thanks a bunch, No_One.

Since I last posted, I made some progress and realized that, yes, the woods were probably the best line of advance (although the hamlet was much more heavily defended then expected).

I can see how fog would make it much harder for the Germans. However, the Russian having no mortars whatsoever, all those trenches and MG-42s are really a pain in the neck.

Once again, thank you for the tip!