Panthers, Tigers, oh my!

[bloodpuppy]

what is the best way to beat Tigers and Panther tanks. During my last game I lost five shermans to one Tiger. It wasn't that my shermans couldn't hit the tiger, the hits just kept ricocheting. An artilery bombardment didn't do any better either.

[Guest wwb_99]

First, Tigers are a bit harder nuts to crack than Panthers. While panthers are better protected from the front, they are quite penetrable form all other angles. Still, most of the same tactics apply.

1) Use Smoke. If it cannot see you, it cannot hit you. US 81mm mortars are great for this, becasue they lay a big smokescreen fairly quickly.

2) While they are smoked out, get close. Very close. At 100m, the pop gun (75mm) armed shermans have a decent chance to penetrate. And the slow ubertank turrets become a serious liability. And they can penetrate Panther side & rear armor out to medium range to boot.

2) Present multiple, fast moving targets. A Hellcat (US TD, very fast, not very armored) moving obliquely is too fast for the ubertanks to track with their very slow turrets.

3) Whatever you do, do not attempt a head on gun duel, even if you have a 5-1 advantage.

WWB

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Before battle, my digital soldiers turn to me and say,

Ave, Caesar! Morituri te salutamus.

[109 Gustav]

Don't ever slow down. Dash from cover to cover, firing one shot at a time. The tigers and panthers won't be able to turn fast enought to keep up with you this way. Use at least two tanks to flank them. That way, if the tigers turn to face one sherman, the other one can hit them in the rear.

Whenever possible, fight where you have the most cover. Urban fighting is where the sherman and other fast tanks excel, because you can work your way in really close, and then dash out for a flanking shot.

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Well my skiff's a twenty dollar boat, And I hope to God she stays afloat.

But if somehow my skiff goes down, I'll freeze to death before I drown.

And pray my body will be found, Alaska salmon fishing, boys, Alaska salmon fishing.

-Commercial fishing in Kodiak, Alaska

[jasoncawley@ameritech.net]

First, understand the capabilities of the weapons. Then move to general tactics. Last some specific tricks you can try.

The Panther can defeat the standard 75mm from the front at most ranges. The Tiger can do the same, and in addition can defeat 75mm from side angles that are somewhat steep, meaning not "broadside" shots but angled ones. The Panther can't do the second of those - the side armor is thin, and if you can hit it from that direction, the angle doesn't matter very much.

In addition, some Shermans have 76mm guns, which have better penetration. They are dangerous to the Tiger from the flank angles, and sometimes to either type from the front (but only close, and not with any certainty).

In addition, 76mm Shermans and tank destroyers, sometimes carry special AP ammo - tungsten rounds - that can hole either type from any angle. The problem is this ammo is rare, and the tankers are reluctant to use it unless #1 a previous shot has already hit and bounced and #2 they think the chance of a hit with the next shot is high. It also depends on how much of the stuff they've got, the more they have, the more likely their are to use it.

Both types can be clobbered from the rear facing by any U.S. tank gun, 75mm is fine.

Meanwhile, they can hole your tanks from any angle, including head on and half the map away. So dueling them from the front is suicide. They can kill you, and you can't kill them (with the tungsten iffy exception noted above).

But the Tigers are slow-moving, and their turrets rotate slowly. The Panthers are faster and their turret OK, but still not as fast as yours, and in addition those, as I already said, can be holed from any side-armor shot, practically.

For the same ground speed, the closer you are to an enemy tank and the nearer the angle of your motion is to a right angle from the line to the enemy tank, the faster he has to turn to track you.

See, if you move 140 yards, and you are a mile away, he turns his turret a few degrees and he is still tracking you. Or if you are moving straight at him, he doesn't have to turn his turret at all. But if you were only 100 yards away, by the time you move 140 yards of at an angle "around" him, he has to turn 90 degrees, cause you are clear over on his side by then.

Closer, and an angle near 90 degrees, means his turret has to run fast to one side to catch up with you. If you are still running, he is still turning. When you stop, his turret gets a chance to catch up, and it will catch you. But if you stopped behind a building, what good does that do him?

So that is point #1. They are vunerable to rapid moves to their sides, at right angles, because of slow tracking speed.

Point number two is to use *teamwork*, and this is the most important single item. One on one, it is not hard for him to keep his front armor facing you, and what's to track? He was pointed in the right direction already, and you are sunk. But he can't track two that way, and he can't face his front armor toward two tanks that are seperated around him at a steep enough angle.

"But what if he has 2-3?" Helps him on the tracking some, and makes it harder sure. But each tank cannot face all of you with its front armor. Shoot the ones with their side armor toward you, and trust the rest of the team to get the ones with their front armor facing you. The team can *always* get a side shot somewhere, if they are just seperated enough but still have LOS to the same enemy tank location.

But you do not want to find out where those locations are, with your tanks. Because you will lose some of them, to little or no purpose. Find them with the infantry. The infantry are your *eyes*. Stay behind woods or buildings or rises of ground, seperated to do the team thing, advancing behind the infantry - until the infantry spots an enemy tank.

Then pop out to get firing angles at that tank from *two directions* at once. Whichever of those is closer to the directon he is pointing, have run at high speed at a right angle, toward some piece of cover farther ahead. Your turret will stay tracking him. He will try to track you, but the angle will be steep. Then you duck behind the cover and he has lost you. (No cover? Make some, with smoke rounds). Meanwhile, the other team member looks at his side, and sees his turret turning the wrong way to track the other team member. It gets a nice clear shot at the flank, and the flat side of the turret to boot, without reply.

If you don't get him in the first minute, have the "shooter" back up in the next turn. Have the "runner" pause 30 seconds, then pop out around whatever cover it hid behind, on "hunt". Your shooter fires during its command delay, then backs out of sight. The enemy tank tries to traverse back to hit him, as the only threat now in view. He turns, and turns. By the time he has turned, your previous "shooter" is out of view, backed up - no shot for him. And your previous runner has become the new "shooter" from the other side.

It is a tag-team fade-away-jab fest. You are the dancing boxer, he is the head down inside puncher. The angle at which a boxer moves to launch a fade-away-jab is just the same, that same circling side-step. He does it to get a "side angle" around the other guy's glove, but the idea is the same.

But you can run this closer by bounds, too. From point-blank, your guns are reasonable dangerous to him, and it is real easy to get on a side, and sometimes even to get one tank behind him, if the terrain lets you get that close. For example, in a village, hiding behind houses and having one tank run up behind him, while another runs across his front.

Think "infantry eyes", "distract & use cover", "fade-away jabs", "close rear sides", above all "teamwork".

I hope this helps, and good luck.