A Series of Misfortunes

[Tord Hoppe]

Hi there. Newbie here again

I dl and tried my hands on the above scenario and would like to hear from the vets in the crowd regarding your ideas on how to handle this scenario.

For those that haven´t tried it, it is a German tank attack against Brit AT guns with a bit of infantry at the flag. No arty for the Germans. The terrain is open, rolling with some low lines that one can make use of. The Germans have a ridge line that cover their initial position. The Germans recieve some

My first attempt was basically a tank rush which ended pretty quickly.

My second thought was to go hull-down on the ridge and then start off with a bit of "mad minute". The first reinforcement comes pretty quickly and I thought, WTH get going boys. After a while I began sneaking up the right flank, making use of the terrain to move up closer.

Anyway, my coming attempts will allow for more initial suppresing fire, followed by more use of terrain for advance towards the Brits.

Comments, other solutions?

/Tord

[BigDork]

First off you should probably include a big SPOILER in the beginning of your post...

SPOILER

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I'm actually playing this right now with dieseltaylor as a quick little scenario to get me used to the PBEM Helper. It's been brutal for DT. I've KOed about 10 of his Panzers with only the loss of one of my 25 pounders. From what I've seen I'm not sure that this is possible to win as the Germans.

Perhaps a tank rush would work but perhaps not. I don't know if the Germans get any reinforcements and I haven't seen everything they have yet I don't think but still, it's no easy task for the Germans.

[Tord Hoppe]

Oops, forgot one question in the rush. One of the things I was wondering about is the speed of the manouvering tanks. My desire is to prefer speed over shooting accuracy during the advance, at least when in LOS from ATGs. A fast moving target is obviously more difficult to hit and I want the tanks to close quickly in order to make better use of the hull MGs (higher rate of fire and more(?) area effect than the main gun). My feeling is that the tanks (at least the models in this scenario) are at an disadvantage when it comes to long range shootouts with the ATGs, wrong or right?

[BigDork]

SPOILER

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In my experience with this scenario, the 25 pounders don't have all that good of accuracy. They still hit quite a bit but they aren't as accurate as a 16 pounder AT gun would be. I believe the 25 pounders are L/24 but I could be very mistaken. Also the AP load on the 25 pounders isn't all that high, only about 20 or so to begin with.

My suggestion would be to shoot and scoot and let the guns use up there AP and then try to charge. The HE might do some damage but it's a lot better to face HE than it is AP.

[Kobal2]

**** EVIL NASTY STINGY BITING SPOILER. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. PLUNDERER WERDEN ABGESCHOSSEN. ****

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This kind of battles has always left me frustrated - although I haven't played "A Series of Misfortunes", I tried and tried and tried "Battery Overrun" over and over again, which according to your description is really close : 3+ platoons of German tanks (plus a couple of scout cars) against 5 clustered sandbagged british 25 pounders and a wee platoon of Inf., small ridge next to the german starting position, big ridge smack in the middle, no arty whatsoever. I tried everything I could think of :

- sniping at the guns from hulldown positions on the starting ridge

- rushing to that middle hill, then all tanks hull-downing at the same time at the top

- rushing to that middle hill, then form two groups, each group rushing from a different side of the hill to divide their fire

- having a couple panzers and scout cars rush the map's right side to get behind them, then, when all brit guns are aimed to the side of the map, rushing them from the front, as they turn ever so slowly

- having my panzers zig-zag full speed across far away open ground, shooting wild HEs at the guns while always being on a 75° bearing from them so that it's hard for them to shoot precisely

Results : nada, nichts, nothing, rien. Every single time I get all of my panzers brewed up, no time at all. Hence my deep fear and despise of ATGs alltogether. They are almost impossible to knock out, hard to suppress and come back up fast (but maybe than an effect of the sandbags ?). The proper way to deal with them is obviously infantry and/or arty, but a "full tanks vs ATGs" seems unwinnable to me, unless they're really scattered across the map...

I also thought "what the heck, I'll give the AI a 50% bonus and see how it does". Result 15 turns later : dead panzers everywhere, not a single brit down. AI rushed.

[Tord Hoppe]

Thanks BigDork and Kobal2.

Sorry about the spoiler thingy, one more lesson learned

I´ll do a couple of more attempts before moving on. Good thing that games can be replayed as opposed to reality, lol.

/Tord

[Joachim]

There is an old discussion in the scenario talk.

Divide and conquer is the way to go. Smoke and dust will mask a few guns while you concentrate many on few.

Rush a few tanks in using terrain as cover as good as possible. Avoid rocky terrain - it will slow you down to sitting ducks.. Once you are in MG range, you have a better chance to suppress the guns.

Area target the guns with a few tanks (use short covered arcs to avoid them switching targets) and have a few in overwatch for other targets.

BTW - if there are sandbags visible - guess where the guns are.

[flamingknives]

What's a 16 pdr? 17pdr ATG and 18pdr field gun I've heard of.

[BigDork]

My bad, you are correct, 17pdr. I was kinda mixing the 17pdr and the 6pdr together.

[Kobal2]

I know where the guns are, but logically, if I can see where they are (to area fire at them), they know where I am too

[willbell]

I don't want to get SPOILED, so I haven't read what has been written, so this might be redundant.

Here is a little trick I've used in the past with success.

Sneak your tank up to a vertical obstacle, like trees, a house, or a steep hill side (a very tricky move, use a unit to scout the position) that shields your tank, but allows you line of sight to an area right next to the side of the AT gun. Then place some area fire there. When you do area fire the tank crew switches to HE. A few of these will do the trick. Here is a bonus, if you do six shots or so the rounds have a tendency to land in a random pattern. The edge of the pattern closest to the AT gun will often have a round that lands right on the gun. It’s kind of like shooting around a corner. I have never considered windage, but that might be used to refine the effect.

[Kobal2]

While direct firing at ATG, tanks use AP rounds ??

[MikeyD]

"A fast moving target is obviously more difficult to hit..."

Heh heh heh. I ALWAYS make that mistake of trusting in speed, and often wind up with a couple holes in my hull side as a result! Against a single gun you can try to divide-and-conquer. Let the gun hammer away at you on the right while you make a dash to the left with another vehicle -- try to outrun the gun's rate-of-traverse (by the way, this never seems to really work either). Against two or more guns it get REALLY tough.

[Tord Hoppe]

Lol! I agree, my infantry days at an Swedish AT platoon equipped with both recoilless guns and AT missiles certainly showed that there is no big problem plinking moving targets with guns (had lots of practice against our heavier brothers). The problems came with finding good spots that have clear fields of vision and such, which is even more difficult with ATMs since you need to guide the missile until impact, but still slows down the very fast modern tanks.

I guess I should have said "... more difficult to hit than one that stops to fire back."

Thanks to all for your tips!

[Joachim]

Originally posted by MikeyD:

"A fast moving target is obviously more difficult to hit..."

Heh heh heh. I ALWAYS make that mistake of trusting in speed, and often wind up with a couple holes in my hull side as a result! Against a single gun you can try to divide-and-conquer. Let the gun hammer away at you on the right while you make a dash to the left with another vehicle -- try to outrun the gun's rate-of-traverse (by the way, this never seems to really work either). Against two or more guns it get REALLY tough.

Divide-and conquer-technique means to get a better local force ratio. Once successful you can dash forward. The dash is not part of divide-and-conquer, only the exploitation of its success.

Gruß

Joachim

[Lars]

Played this one as Germans in PBEM and got slaughtered.

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If I were to do it again I'd wait for all the reinforcements to show up, then rush up a map edge using the cheap tanks to create a masking dust cloud for the good stuff. Once on the flanks of all those guns you should be able to roll them up as they aren't all able to hit you at once.

[Kilroy Lurking]

Hi there one and all!

Any one out there actually had any good results (as the Germans) in this Battle?

Apart from the CMBO demo battles this is probably my most replayed battle - but the best I can get is a...major defeat If I play out to the bitter end (ie Last remaining Tank!). Generally I think I can give theTac AI a good run for its money, but this is a real killer.

In real life I suspect that a competent commander would call off the attack after losing 25% (or less) of his main attacking force, and call for some units that are more effective against entrenched AT guns in emplacements.

[MikeyD]

I recall hammering and hammering and hammering away at the single 25pdr emplacement on the far right for turn after turn. When the game was over I went back to the map to find that gun had only been supressed, not knocked out. After all that ammo expenditure. C'mon, that's just plain mean!

[dieseltaylor]

I suppose this should be in Scenarios or Tips and Technique......................

but.... I am being pasted By BigDork but as it is really designed to make him comfortable with PBEMHelper I am not fussed. Someone has said they won by shooting and scooting and I have a suspicion this might be the answer. The only time I have played it I snuck almost all my tanks down one flank deciding to skulk there and try and nobble some isolated guns.

Getting bored I chanced my arm and lost about 6 tanks ruining the point ratio I was trying to wangle. I suspect it is not a game anyone can possibly win on a first play if they go in without any pre-knowledge! : )

[MikeyD]

Y'know, there are some scenarios that weren't actually meant to be winnable. They're more a lesson in humility than anything else.

[willbell]

Kobal2,

If you were referring to my post, no, you can't choose the type of round you are firing at a target, the AI does.

But, if you select a spot to the side of the AT gun and just shoot at the ground, the little targeting message says Area Fire? For area fire the AI chooses HE. If the spot of ground is close enough the HE can knock out the ATG. Several shots means a good chance that one will stray right into the ATG.

[willbell]

Kobal2,

In fact, this is a method I have used for all kinds of different situations. I always just assumed others were doing it too.

[Kobal2]

Yeah yeah I know that, but I wondered if tanks direct firing at AT guns preferably used AP rounds, as you seemed to imply. I never checked that really, and it seemed...wrong

[Sergei]

No, tanks and guns always use HE against soft targets if that is available. Whether you target ground or the unit itself, matters not. This very simple is.

[willbell]

Sergi,

I'm not so sure your right about that, but I don't know exactly. I think on direct fire the tank uses AP to get through the armored front plate of the AT gun, or to put it out of commision. I know when I fire at them I don't see what appears to be a HE explosion.