Cuirassier Posted February 25, 2006 Share Posted February 25, 2006 Hi After playing the Russian training scenarios, QB's and scenarios against the AI, I am beginning to learn the ropes of using infantry heavy and combined arms force types for the Russians. However, I am now interested in learning the tactics of using an Armor Heavy, or Mech force, for the Russians, where one essentially has an abundance of T-34's and some SMG riders. I know that the tanks carry out the actual attack, but I am not exactly sure how. With such a force, how do you conduct overwatch? How does the armor effectively use cover? Does the armor always lead, or can infantry lead in cases too? How is the attack carried out? Do the tanks standoff and plink away (though I don't know how you would get spots by doing this) or do they drive point blank up to enemy positions and blast away, doing the scouting themselves, and the infantry mop up afterwards? What are the combined arms principles that the armor and SMG troops use to help each other to disarticulate the enemy defence? Is the usefulness of this force type limited to open ground, or can a Russian Mech assault force have use in tight terrain as well? How does one scout, and how concentrated should the armor be? (platoon strength, company strength) How is limited supporting artilery to be utilized? (The 120mm mortars most of the time) Finally, how are AT guns dealt with, as this force type usually doesn't have supporting on map 82mm mortars? Oh, and how does an armor heavy force such as this combat enemy armor, particulary against more capable tanks like the Panther and Tiger. Just some questions off the top of my head. If someone could answer these questions, and perhaps outline the general tactics involved when conducting an assault with Russian Mech Force types in steppe terrain, (Eg. A company of T-34's with SMG infantry and one 120mm spotter) it would be greatly appreciated. I am looking forward to the replies. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JasonC Posted February 26, 2006 Share Posted February 26, 2006 Overwatch is a platoon of T-34s that have LOS to a location but aren't moving. Armor uses cover by restricting LOS to certain locations on the field, in sequence. The idea is to divide up the enemy AT assets, so only half or a third of them bear on your tanks. The thing to avoid is all enemy AT weapons getting to engage - at all, and especially not simultaneously. So you pick routes that only a portion of the enemy position is likely to be able to see. You can spend a long time in LOS of a given part of the defending position, as long as you overload that part. Don't spread - spreading lets every enemy AT weapon get its licks in, which is precisely what you are trying to avoid. You avoid completely open routes for the same reason, prefering dead ground, part of the time behind LOS blocks, etc. The attack is carried out by first guessing where the enemy is and isn't, and aggressively grabbing some set of places you guess he isn't. I say guessing because you generally can't wait around for enough recon to be sure. Then you overload some portion of the defended position. You want some stationary with LOS to it, then others moving closer, LOS restricted to that location is possible, then right next to it. Kill anything there that fires. If nothing does, send dismounted riders through. Shoot anybody they discover. Now you own that spot, so pick another and walk your way in. How close the tanks can get depends somewhat on the era. Late war, you need to stand off 150 to 200m to avoid easy schreck shots. Those can fire 250m, but hit readily only much closer. They tend to be spotted by their 1st or 2nd shot, so long range low hit chance attempts rarely work against multiple tanks. Earlier in the war, you can approach infantry to 75m or so safely, and they can pass unsearched covered locations (on "fast") if they stay 50m away. A good rule of thumb is you want the most forward tanks close enough to see trenches and spot MGs. The unit of maneuver is the tank platoon. Occasionally you send one tank first to see something or to cut a line of retreat with LOS. But a platoon is the amount that is enough to outshoot a single PAK if you hit one, or to shoot down a platoon of enemy infantry before it kills all the riders, etc. Then you walk on two legs, one overwatching as another repositions. If you have a third (doctrinally correct) it is initially a reserve, in defilade rather than immediate overwatch positions. Commit it when you see an opporunity. As for how the SMGs help, they search covered areas while the tanks avoid getting too close to them until they have been searched. They can go first across a field if you expect fire on the other side - one half squad, that is. They close with units the tanks have pinned with HE fire, to finish off the cowerers without burning all your ammo. Tanks should fire HE at a unit until it is crawling, then MGs only. When everyone in sight is heads down, the SMGs rush. You need them primarily to force the enemy to fire, to give the tanks something to "chew on". They can also tell you what is over a hill or on the other side of woods without exposing a tank - in case the answer is "a StuG facing you". So the attack order is get LOS, tanks overwatch, half squad goes there, tanks send HE, then SMGs wade in. The tanks are first with vision, last with physical movement. For a defended location. When you expect the location is clear, you risk moving to the near side of the cover mounted, and then send a rider through to be sure. It is definitely not limited to open ground. The best terrain has LOS cut up into "cells" that see the next 1-2 only, to limit how integrated the enemy AT defense is. If you can move through the terrain without getting 50m from cover too often, that does help, through. A few cases you can check, no problem. But if it is every 100m, or there are chockpoints only 20m wide that are the only passable route for armor, the infantry has to dismount and go first. You have to be willing to drive through scattered tree areas on more wooded maps. The arty support can be map fire or reactive. I prefer 120mm radio FOs for reactive fire - it hits hard enough, they can ride tanks, and it is affordable (rarity permitting, on the radio bit). Map fire (rocket prep is one example) should hit large covered areas within 2 minutes of your physical approach, which you have to plan at start up. The idea with that is mostly just to have AT assets pinned the minute you get LOS. The mortars (reactive 120s I mean) have a different job, to do the interior of large woods, since you don't want to waste all your riders fighting in spots the tanks can't see. Direct 76mm can plaster tree lines and force enemies inside. But instead of sending in SMGs to places the tanks can't help, send a minute or so of 120mm. Or send both with the shells before the SMGs. If you know there are enemy ahead with long LOS available, you can dismount the FO and call for fire well ahead of time, and walk it around once the time reaches 1 minute. Otherwise he dismounts on contact and calls fire as deep inside the enemy position as his LOS can reach. The tanks drive the enemy off the treeline while his timer counts down. AT guns are mostly dealt with just by tank fire, a platoon sending HE at once. Typically you trade a tank for every full PAK. It is one reason you have to move by platoons - if you move individually, you will lose the first tank with the PAK still alive. The key thing is to overload only portions of the enemy AT network this way. You can trade for 1-2 PAK along your chosen route, but don't want to have to trade off every enemy gun. Ideally, you lose a T-34, kill one gun with reply fire from the same platoon (often the same minute it opens up), and make another irrelevant somewhere by avoiding its LOS entirely. You can always add pairs of 50mm mortars, which can ride tanks. 2 of them hit hard enough to pin a gun. Then finish the pinned gun with tank HE. Another important trick is the marginal LOS area fire tactic all tankers use. You hunt just enough to see the edge of the foxhole without getting LOS to the gun itself, then area fire HE at a location 2-4m from the gun. Enemy armor is dealt with by flank and close, by platoons. One platoon is here in front of them, goes to full defilade. Another runs around its right or whatever. Fast move - hunt will induce tank "cower" behavior when a superior enemy AFV is seen. Force them to turn. They may hit and kill one flanker, but another, or a shoot-and-scooter shot from the "fixing" platoon, will get them from the side. Tigers - 80mm sides rather than fronts - are a different matter. Against those you really want superior AT shooters. Even a perfect drive of a T-34 with T ammo to point blank from a side results in the Tiger being favored by about 2 to 1. Some richocet, some partial pen but do nothing, and even full pens it can take 5 or so to KO, average. A full platoon might do it or might result in a dead full platoon, and is not a trade typically worth making. The right way to deal with Tigers is with 57mm ATGs from hiding, SU-152s, and Sturmoviks, not with T-34 rushes. T-34/85s can kill them from the side and return to the usual logic and tactics explained above. Compared to the infantry or combined arms way, you have to be far more aggressive with the mech. You have to take risks, proceed by guesswork about where the defenders are. You have to be willing to have a firefight start unfavorably, and then win it ugly by rapid overwhelming violence. Hair trigger escalation to "risk the whole force". There aren't many individual positions for typical defenders, that can "chew" 6 T-34s at a time without choking. Tigers excepted, of course. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JasonC Posted February 26, 2006 Share Posted February 26, 2006 Here is an example, from the Russian training scenario 202. You get 6 T-34s, 1 T-70, 2 platoons of SMG riders, a 120mm FO, and a single DP LMG. The initial set up is spread, which is usually bad. If you change nothing, the PAK will engage you rapidly and kill a T-34. If you kill it with your replies you can still do fine, but it is a long way and in a trench, so it could kill a whole T-34 platoon instead. If that happens you will certainly have trouble. A better set up for the second time through, knowing the defense, is to attack along the right edge, hitting first the house and woods position on the little knoll, then past it and quarter-left turn, engage the trench position. Advance on the center woods keeping first the center ridge and then the woods area itself between the tanks and the PAK. Dug in PAK don't move, tanks do. Hit the house and woods position with a full minute of HE from all tanks, and almost everyone there will be pinned or worse. Then drive a platoon to 60-75 meters out, with the riders having dismount-assault orders. If you like, you can start dismounted to make it up to the end of the rough instead - a bit slower but reduces the risks from MG fire from the left, which can dismount some of them pinned, otherwise. So it is faster than a pinned version of the mounted attempt. Also, avoid the rightmost tile with riders, as a hit and dismount there can result in a rout off the map. When the tanks are all partying at 75m, the riders should be able to just sweep through the position. Send 1-2 tanks beyond it, being sure to keep 50m away from any cover and watching LOS lines toward the PAK position. These are meant to cut retreat, to help induce surrender, and to start engaging the trench position that comes next. Driven into the hollow beyond the house and woods position, they should spot the trenches. Meanwhile put the 120mm on the central woods on turn 2. Let him count down. To delay, just reposition slightly, but have those shells 1-2 minutes out well before you reach that area. Don't worry about the previous positions, they won't need 120mm fire. The whole module will be expended on the center woods, but with flexible timing and interrupts allowed, to lengthen the suppression period. Some of your riders may get pinned by MG fire from the left, by a holdout "pop up" in the house-and-woods area getting off a shot of two, or by distant fire from the trench position. That is OK, just get them into any decent cover and let them rally. The rest push through the cover. Now tanks toss a minute of HE into the trenches. Doesn't matter if you see anybody, put a full minute of 76mm HE on each end of each trench. You will pin people, and like as not some will get up to run. Shoot them to heck with the tank MGs. While that is going on, the riders should be closing up, resting any that are "tired", some can remount the rear tanks, and a few half squads should push into the shellholes on the way to the trench position. If those draw fire, shoot the men that delivered it. By turn 10 you should be fully engaged with the trench position. Get the first half squads into the trees in front of it. Run the tanks up to 75m again, dropping riders into the shellholes and brush shy of the trenches themselves, but within SMG range. Watch the lines to the PAK when the tanks close - you want the center woods in the way, so you need to swing a bit left. Send a half squad into them on "advance". Shoot everyone who appears, as they appear. Doesn't take long in my experience. By now the rounds should be landing on the center woods, too, prepping it for the next attack. Maybe you got careless and let one T-34 get too close to a tank hunter. More likely, you strayed into LOS of the PAK here or there, and lost 1-2 tanks. The better you read the lay of ground and drive to restrict LOS, the fewer tanks you will lose and the stronger your whole attack will be. But he won't get anything like all of them, so you will keep rolling. You can lose tanks with a mech force - just don't lose the battle. One tank and the DP LMG can discourage any AI-happy rushers headed out for the front flag. Just don't park in PAK LOS. If you hotseat it instead, not an issue. Approaching the last assault, you want to park tanks to the right and front of the woods, and hit the extending "tongue" of trees there with direct HE. It is the SMG entry point. Let the 120s do the length of the woods - some will be airbursts, quite nasty. Hit the front edge with 76mm HE too, saving 12-18 per tank for fully spotted shooters. Spray any spotted runners with the tank MGs. Now the SMGers leapfrog from trench area to shellholes between, to that tongue of trees at the right end of the center woods. Covered arcs at 75m, 180 degrees ahead - don't waste their ammo at range. Advance until actually in the trees. Then assault one unit at a time along the near treeline, with others entering as they make the crossing and spreading deeper. Tanks stay on the near side, never go around into PAK-ville. If you did it right to this point, it should be turn 15-18 when you enter the woods, against not much left that isn't already routed. Worst case they contest with a holdout, if you were slow. You will still win on knockouts if you only lost a single tank, and will win with 2 tanks dead if you get the flag. Notice, you don't have to kill the PAK to win. Exploiting its lack of mobility via cover is quite sufficient. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cuirassier Posted February 26, 2006 Author Share Posted February 26, 2006 Thanks for the reply. That answered all of my questions. I have a specific question as to counter StuG's though. I know that to take out a StuG (the 80mm front ones), the proper drill is space out your tanks, make it turn, and get a close up flank shot. However, how do you do this if it is integrated into a defence. For example, a PAK is covering a route to approach the StuG's flank. If you concentrate your tanks, your T-34's won't get flank shots and the StuG might bag a whole platoon. If you spread out though, PAK and other weapons might engage your armor piecemeal. How do you disarticulate a defence like this so you can afford to spread out your armor to knock out a StuG? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JasonC Posted February 27, 2006 Share Posted February 27, 2006 Attacking against superior AFVs is the hardest tactical task there is. In general, you simply don't - the guy with the superior AFVs is the one attacking. In CM, the Russians in particular are called upon to do it endlessly. Cherry picking by opponents and modeling inaccuracies are a big part of the problem. If you regularly face ladder style players who cherry pick, then at some point (if you don't get a new class of opponent, instead) you have to depart from history yourself and reach for effective in-game counters. Not just tactics with the historically accurate forces, but specific items in the force mix that trump or at least help reduce the trump-like-ness of the other guy's gamey high cards. What is an example? Taking overmodeled air power to counter overmodeled heavy armor. A Sturmovik will eat StuGs for breakfast and spit out nails. Or you take a T-34/57 platoon instead of a T-34/76 platoon. Presto, rounds now go through StuG fronts if you are close enough. In the real deal, the 76mm rounds did so inside 500m, so mostly you are just restoring a balance the game got wrong that the German cherry picker is exploiting. A poor man's substitute is the Valentine IX. But it is slow, has no MG, has limited HE with limited punch, etc. Its penetration is also marginal against 80mm stuff if the side angle is serious. The T-34/57s are better. Rarity can sometimes prevent them, though. You can also take a pair of SU-152s, the original eggshell with hammer. They aren't as easy to use because the long reload time means you only get a shot apiece, then you need to be back under cover. If one lives, though, a dozen 152mm HE delivered direct can put a world of hurt on half a dozen positions. 57mm towed ATGs are cheap with rarity off. If you are used to using guns on the attack from infantry force type practice, they can help significantly against cherry picked German armor. Take a universal carrier or two to help reposition them. In 1944 the situation isn't so bad, because you can take T-34/85s. They work fine, higher ROF than the big ISUs or IS-2s. What you can't really do is sit there playing the patsy, dutifully and historically taking only T-34/76s while the German never looks at a Marder or even a Panzer IV, but takes StuG after StuG and Tiger after Tiger. No the prices do not make up for it. A single StuG you can still kill with T-34s by making it turn. The fast move to flank can be done with a whole platoon if you will be out of LOS for much of the run. If you are going to be in LOS for the whole run, you can't afford it, and must send singles. Yes a PAK can kill one of those. Just be sure to kill it back with something assymmetric, whether mortar fire or a hunt to area fire move or whatever. Then try again. But it is a lot easier if you take some upgunned shooters. Another more historical trick that works for StuGs only, not really with other types of armor, is to take T-70s or (my favorite if a little less historical light) Stuarts, and flank them with those. Half the price, kill them just as dead from a flank. The Stuart can handle side angle and longer range to the 30mm sides better than the 45mm on the T-70 can (because, surprise, it is undermodeled). Another way to bag StuGs in particular is to set up a shot from a hidden gun, then distract with a tank. All of these require more in the way of special weapons or tactical coordination or both, than vanilla fighting with Russian mech. To see the original doctrine, fight with the Germans in Pz IVs sometime, and vs. infantry force types at other times. The IV is stronger than a T-34 - kills any aspect, vs. needing a turret hit. But simply being penetrable from the front is enough to allow standard mech tactics to work. Some things to not try - SU-85s in 1943. Ammo is so undermodeled they won't kill a StuG from the front at 500 yards, or a Tiger pretty much any aspect. Take SU-152s or T-34/57s instead. Flanking charges to point blank against Tigers by T-34s. Historically it was doable, but in CM the behind armor effect or pens close to the armor limit is so low, and pens so often partials, that the Tiger is likely to calmly turn and toast you despite repeated penetrating hits at point blank range. Against Tigers, use upgunned AT assets only, or better still asymmetric tactics (air, infantry AT at point blank, AT mines, etc). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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