Half track mounted infantry advise needed

[James]

I'm about to undertake an attack on a posisition with a german motorised company mounted on half tracks, should I:

A)Charge right into the posistion dismounting right on top of the enemy all guns blazing.

or

B)drive up to the nearest cover and advance on foot with covering fire from the HT's.

What sort of tactics were used with real life motorised formations?

[JaegerMeister]

My advice would be (, if you try (a) on unsurpressed infantry positions you will get slaughtered, even more so if they are defending in foxholes.

Maybe try dismounting a couple of squads in the nearby cover to provide surpressing fire backed up by the HT's until you have the enemy cowering then advance the still mounted units right ontop of them for close assault.

Beware of anti-tank rifles, they will rip through your flimsy HT's !

[Doghouse Reily]

Try b. I've tried a and even a few AT guns make cannon fodder.

If you want to have fun save the game then try a

first if you are playing the AI.

Good Luck

[Caesar]

What sort of tactics were used with real life motorised formations?

This is a good question actually, how were HTs and the like (bren carriers etc) used in real life? Were they used merely as transports to get close to the battle with the armour and MG being for self defence only, or were they used in the battle itself? Were they considered too valuable and vunerable to be used as mobile MGs providing covering fire? Would they be used to provide armoured cover to cross open ground protected from MGs? Did the tactics vary much between nations?

[Michael Dorosh]

Historically, my understanding is that the Pz Gren almost always dismounted to fight, unless in an extremely mobile operation.

Bren Carriers rarely carried infantry; an infantry battalion had a Carrier platoon of 13 carriers but they weren't often used for assaults. Usually reconaissance; you could only cram half a squad into them in any event. The Kangaroo in CMBO was used to transport infantry from Aug 44, though they were available only in limited quantities.

[ November 02, 2003, 01:25 AM: Message edited by: Michael Dorosh ]

[Stalin's Organ]

Half tracks were normally used as armoured trucks able to get closer to enemy positions than normal ones, and hence allowing the infantry to get into a starting position faster.

Fire support from HT's would normally only be used where the commander was pretty sure the enemy AT had been well and truly suppressed - try using them even for this against a Russian with a few ATR's and you're going to lose a lot of points very quickly!

[JasonC]

B.

That said, Pz Gdrs did not always dismount. But that is because they kept going, to penetrate and isolate things, not because they ran up to enemies point blank in their 'tracks.

When AARs speak of "fighting mounted", if you read the details what it generally means is the MGs on the 'tracks, and the gun armed 'tracks, suppliment the fire of the tanks the Pz Gdrs are working with, and called artillery fire. The unit keeps going.

HT infantry was meant to work with AFVs. They had their own suppliments in the form of heavy weapons sections, gun armed halftracks, and assault guns. But the basic mobile firepower came first of all from the tanks. Called arty also helped.

Once an enemy was penetrated, though, the Pz Gdrs job was to clear out the bypassed bits. The first step in doing that is to get around them, to cut them up into separated pockets. Then MGs on the 'tracks isolate whatever bits of cover the enemy holds on to. They don't have to blow up that cover with just MGs, they just cover all the routes out with MGs. Then the gun armed stuff and called arty plasters this or that piece of it.

The infantry are just waiting at this point - manning a line around this or that bit of cover, creeping to a jump off point dismounted, whatever the particular terrain and enemy requires. After the heavy weapons work a place over the Pz Gdrs go in, generally on foot. Their 'tracks are overwatching at this point, MGs included. Anything still resisting, the whole crew lights up.

But all of that is meant to be done against an already half beaten enemy, one who has already been penetrated by tanks. When the tanks drove through his positions, or herded him off into this woods or that corner of a half-wrecked village, they generally smashed most of his AT network in the process. If he still has one, the tanks are generally still around to help.

If you want to see how it all really worked, play a battle on a somewhat larger scale, and not too short an engagement in time, either. You only see the real maneuvering power of armor plus 'tracked infantry when the fight gets big enough that they can isolate group A, leave just a few 'tracks or weapons teams to bottle them up as long as necessary, and go kill group B with everybody else, thus with odds. Then come back for group A - arty having worked them over in the meantime.

You see the real power of this when the armor component is company sized (10-15 or more full AFVs), the area is several km (longer than single weapon ranges), and there is not great rush time-wise (45 minutes, an hour).

You can see what one portion of that looks like with less - a single platoon of tanks, a company of Pz Gdrs, 20-30 minutes. But half the point was they could get that fight, while only a handful of their guys could "hold down" the other 2/3rds of the enemy force, until it was "their turn".

I hope this helps.