Killing Matildas?

[Tom Haymes]

How do you kill Matildas if you don't have an 88? According to Tank Combat in North Africa (a cited reference on the CMAK references page), the Germans determined that you can kill a Matilda if you hit it right at 200m with PKW III with a 50mm gun (F and above). I just had 4 IIIs whacked without making a dent in a Matilda in a Quick Battle set in August 41. I wasn't able to kill a Matilda at 100m - much less 200.

You just can't get 88s in a 500 pt game.

Any suggestions?

TH

[dugfromthearth]

buy all infantry and laugh while the matilda shoots AP ammo at them?

or play on a large map and laugh as the matilda can't drive to the flag on Fast before the turns run out?

I haven't tried taking out a Matilda yet, just keeping one alive. They are amazingly tough.

[-E]

Originally posted by Tom Haymes:

Killing Matildas

I'm for it. (hehe0

[Speedy]

Just did a test 4 pzIIIg Vs 1 Matilda (with no ammo).

Range started at 240 metres closed to 200 then went out to approx 225.

In 1 turn the pzIIIg's achieved 22 hits, the vast majority of which were 'front turret ricochets with internal armour flaking',

There were also a number of 'front upper or lower hull partial penetrations'.

At the 43 second mark and a range of approximately 210 metres there was an 'front upper hull penetration at weak point, 1 casualty', this was the 12th hit.

On the 51st second at a range of approx 225 metres the 18th hit was 'Front upper hull partial penetration, knocked out', 2 hits later was 'track hit, immobilized'. The crew abandoned after the 21st hit.

[Louie the Toad]

I just killed a Matilda with a PzIII 50L42 when the PZ finally saw the whole tank and started getting side hits. Range was 180 or so. Three things helped: 1.The Matilda was distracted and not returning fire. 2. There was a blinding sand storm with visibility max at about 180. 3. There were 2 to 3 PZIIIs that were ranging in, and at least 2 of them fired.

Sandy Toad

[Louie the Toad]

It must have been the sand.

Upon winning the battle in my previous post and checking over the battlefield I discovered that the once identified by the AI as knocked out "Matildas" (2) were actually Valentines.

To the victor belongs 20/20 vision.

Sand in my eyes... Toad

[Treeburst155]

You need not kill Matildas. They are harmless to everything except light armor and infantry in the open. They are fat and slow and really quite pathetic. Have a heart. Let them live.

[-E]

Originally posted by Treeburst155:

You need not kill Matildas. They are harmless to everything except light armor and infantry in the open. They are fat and slow and really quite pathetic. Have a heart. Let them live.

Because they are fat and slow, they have all received the death penalty. All players should assist in the imposition of said conviction. *grin*

[Rabidbvr]

State of play German.... a Lone MKIII a couple of trucks and about a platoon of infantry.... Meeting eng QB.... as you can guess a Mat rolls out the dust got the boys out the trucks and into cover only lost a MG34 team that the Mat took a dislike to.Mean while the MKIII is bouncing Beer cans of The Mat at least 4 Clean hits no effect.Now the Mat takes offence to the new battle scars and puts a shot into the turret large bang lots of smoke etc no more MKIII and then guns down the crew (shock horror) :eek: .By now the rest of my inf are on the seen not that it does a lot as its a trade of with the Brit inf about 250m away.by now the trucks are of at speed doing some serious of roading to keep out of the Mats sights.. Then a God send the only small patch of soft ground on the map and he goes and gets stuck... my guys swarm over it with crow bars and fists after a few grens the crew bail wooppiee for my side. not sure if had not got bogged would the inf have had the same effect.was my first encounter with a Mat and no armor to take it on any more ideas out there...

" If at First you dont succeed get a bigger gun"

[phil stanbridge]

They are incredibly tough, but I knocked out three with infantry only at close range. The AP ammo they have is hopeless against them. I got them close enough and flanked them, split the squad to really confuse them, lobbed grenades like no tomorrow and immobilised them, the crew bailed and were cut to ribbons. Seems to be the only way to stop them, unless you get a lucky kill from a tank, but more often than not, a lucky hit immobilises or causes gun damage.

[Monty]

I just tried a QB, hotseat, English probe 600 points.

Germans had 1 Pak 38 50mm gun, 1 150mm inf gun, 1 Pnz III and some inf stuff.

Limeys had one Matilda, one Valentine, some recon vehicles and a lot of inf.

The PAK 38 killed the Valentine quickly, and got a (lucky?) partial penetration on the Matilda at 550 meters, then some recochets on the Matilda, the crew panicked and reversed out of LOS.

So, one or 2 PAK 38 guns should do the trick maybe, i have to test more.

English should use mortars to knock out the guns as fast as possible when the guns are discovered.

So recon with scout vehicles and keep some HQ units with mortars behind them ( recon vehicles reverse in stead of attacking the guns....)

Monty

[Big Demonic Bunny]

I can say that I'm QUITE annoyed with the heavy armor of the matildas after playing the "Descent on Malene" operation. Those two matildas would ALWAYS, and I mean ALWAYS set them selves up so that they had a perfect position from which they could pin down my main assult with that machinegun of theirs.

And none of my guns had the slightest chance of knocking it out.

It wasn't until the 4th round of battle that I managed to get an AT-gun to the side of one of the tanks, and through MASSIVE bombardment managed to immobilize it(both 37mm AT-guns, 1 Inf Gun and a 20mm Flak shelling it for 2 turns straight at short range). Afterwards I snuck up on it with tankhunter teams and tossed a few explosives. The second matilda survived all the way to the end.

I truly do pity any paratroopers that had to face heavy tanks.

[Tom Haymes]

I guess it's a good thing the British spent so much time and material building those tin cans called cruisers.

Working up close enough with infantry sounds like a good idea but in the open desert with a halfway decent opponent is well-nigh impossible.

Does anyone else think that these monsters are overprotected by the game engine? I know the Italians could never stop them and the Germans certainly respected them but they were not invincible - especially once the 50mm gun was available on the PKW III and as an anti-tank gun. I don't remember any instances were they were absolutely unstoppable in the Western Desert after 1940 (Italians).

Of course, German doctrine was to knock out any enemy tanks with anti-tank guns (usually 88s) and only use their precious tanks to mop up what was left. Maybe this is another one of those instances where the scale of the game betrays the gameplay. If the Germans encountered Matildas with only PKW IIIs they probably would have withdrawn. The tanks were more valuable than any fixed point in the desert could have been. When it really mattered, like around Tobruk or in Hellfire Pass, the Germans would always scare up some 88s to take care of the threat.

Something to ponder. Maybe the solution is to up the rarity on Matildas since 3 or 4 in a 500 pt. Quickbattle can create a very unbalanced scenario.

In the Quickbattle I mentioned in my first post, I feel like I did everything right. Once I saw there were Matildas roaming the battlefield, I hid all of my Panzers and made sure that the Matildas would have to close to less than 100m to get a visual on any of my tanks. I had one adventuresome Matilda try to flank my position and he took out 3 out of 4 of my IIIs (the other was holed on a beserker suicide charge - what can you do with Green troops?) One of my PKW III (my lone H) was even taken out hiding between two buildings which should have increased his protection a lot (there was barely enough room to poke his gun through at the Matilda). All of this damage was done by only 1 Matilda and the Brits had two more that just stood off and machine-gunned my infantry.

BTW, does anyone know how to get more than Green troops in a 500 pt. Quickbattle? Having only rookies is a pain in the butt when it comes to fighting real beasts like the Matilda. It doesn't help when they miss 50% of the time.

My two cents.

TH

[Siege]

Ahhh, now people understand what I meant when I told them that the Germans weren't always the ones with the Uber tanks. You had your fun with Tigers and Jagdpanthers, now it's our turn

The Germans had serious issues dealing with them both in France and in the desert. The Matilda's were one of the prime reasons for the panic to mount Russian 76.2mm guns on Pz38(t) Chassis to make the Marder III. Once those, the long 50mm guns and the PzIV F2's arrived, the Matilda's day was basically over.

-Hans

[Bnej]

Well, I just lost a bunch of Matildas - they might be unstoppable out in the desert, but the lack of HE and only one MG makes it really hard to deal with AT guns using them, and they still die to inf. assault.

Mine generally got immobilised by infantry guns, then either pounded to death or close assaulted. Of course, this was largely because of my own inept orders, since I was too confident they were unstoppable after driving up to the flags.

Way to go vs. matilda is I think AT guns, not tanks. Lots of hiding tank hunter teams, and ugly little knife fights in close terrain.

(does anyone notice that the matilda is in a way similar to the KV-1? Tough tank, just not enough firepower!)

[Shadow 1st Hussars]

All these stories are pretty funny seeing that I just had a green 47mm Italian anti-tank knock out two Matilda II's at 400m.

[Marlow]

Originally posted by Tom Haymes:

Something to ponder. Maybe the solution is to up the rarity on Matildas since 3 or 4 in a 500 pt. Quickbattle can create a very unbalanced scenario.

Sort of like Tigers in a 1942 CMBB battle. Nice to see what comes around goes around.

[Redwolf]

Might be time for a ruleset