Battle field guidance needed

[markshot]

WARNING: THREAD IS A POSSIBLE SPOILER - "A Day in the Calvary".

I am playing the operation, "A Day in the Calvary".

This is my first operation. It is an "advance" operation. So, how do I win? I assume destroy the enemy and transit the map, yes?

I am on my second of four battles. I have advanced up the right side of the map, up the road. My forces:

Some jeeps with MGs.

Some Stuarts.

Some Greyhounds.

Some Howitzers.

A platoon in trucks.

One off map 88mm spotter.

Arrayed against me are:

3 AT/Flak 88mm

Superior numbers of infantry

Terrain:

20% trees/woods

Gently rolling terrain

A few random buildings

One cross map road moving from my position to theirs

Ground wet/damp

Map length 1000-1500 meters (don't recall just now)

The challenge (I've tried a number of times with saved games and different approaches):

The German 88mm are first hidden. But at the risk of losing a jeep or greyhound, they can be made to expose themselves.

However, even after exposing themselves, they basically rule the map. They have a tremendous reach and fire power relative to my AFVs.

I am unable to maneuver/flank/approach them due to the fact that they have a solid buffer of infantry with a line of scattered mines running across the map. MG fire against them is either out of range or ineffective. The 37mm guns of the Stuarts are also ineffective despite an effort to use hunt/hull down tactics.

I have tried using my off map 88mm to wide area target one of the guns. But such an approach seems unable to knock it out.

Then, I tried using the 88mm to supress one of the guns while attacking with the Stuarts. That got me a trade of one Stuart for one AT gun. However, I don't think I can knock out the three guns by doing this. Also, I am under the impression that trading one light tanks per gun is not in my favor.

I haven't tried getting my spotter forward and using direct fire against the 88s. Would this be worthwhile?

The other thing I have not tried is laying smoke on or in front of the guns. However, once I got my smoke screen, I still don't see how I would proceed to take them out. Perhaps, I would fight my way through their infantry buffer so that I would be at a better range to attack them?

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Any suggestions from the senior commanders here would be appreciated! Thanks!

[Cribtop Gamer]

Mark,

I recently played this operation vs. AI, and I did the following:

I put most of my Stuarts, plus the two 75mm howitzer Stuart variants, behind the central hill (the one to the left of the first hamlet with the roadblock). The howitzer Stuarts were very effective for me throughout. I used the "Tophat-Lowskie" tactic to minimize AFV losses, but really never exposed an AFV to the ATGs, as I was able to ferret out the ATG locations before revealing the tanks.

This was probably the key to the battle for me - I really acted like I was recon, trying to determine where the enemy was and avoiding too much direct engagement.

Early in the second battle, I discovered that one ATG was in the woods behind and to the right of the single building in the center of the map (Peter's Gasthof, IIRC) by having my jeeps and one infantry platoon recce the area near the Gasthof. I doubt a human player would have taken the shot that the AI ATG did, but once that first ATG was discovered, 81mm mortar fire destroyed it.

I poked one of my Stuarts around the nose of the Gasthof at the end of the 2nd battle and it was promptly whacked by the second ATG, the one on the hill to the back/US left flank side of the map. This gave me valuable intel for my third battle setup.

FWIW, note that this rearward ATG doesn't seem to have LOS to much of anything in front of the Gasthof - this can be useful to you as I was able to safely use my tanks to support an infantry attack into the woods past the Gasthof from the hill I mentioned without any reply from this gun.

In the third battle, I had two Stuarts plus one infantry platoon plus my 81mm spotter set up on the far left. The ATG can't target the Stuarts until they crest the little ridge near the wall on the left. However, the Stuarts were able to help the infantry platoon clear the woods on the left (these woods have a name, but I can't remember it).

Once the infantry cleared the woods and crept up to their edge, the rest was pretty easy. I just found a spot to where I could sneak the 81mm FO so that he could see the spot where I knew the ATG was (it had by now disappeared, but I memorized its location). I plastered that area with 81mm and presto, no ATG.

I even got a nice bonus because a german platoon took cover in some woods near the ATG and opened up a fire fight with my inf. platoon. I was able to shift the 81mm fire to their woods after the ATG died, and they were also broken.

Once the ATGs are gone, HE fire from the 75mm Stuart howitzers pretty much handled everything else (until the last battle, but I won't spoil it for you)

[l3w53r]

I dunno, but maybe this would work: use the "Target"command(not the wide one) against the guns.

[YankeeDog]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> I haven't tried getting my spotter forward and using direct fire against the 88s. Would this be worthwhile?

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I assume by 'direct fire' you mean 'observed fire' - direct fire would be fire from an on-board weapon with direct LOS to the enemy unit. But in a nutshell, yes. This is the most effective tactic against ATGs/IGs in my experience.

Haven't played this operation yet, so I can't offer you specific advice about it, but in my experience the best thing against hidden AT guns is mortars, either on-board or off. Remember, an 81mm FO is two guys - it's a hard unit for the enemy to spot, so once you have a good idea where a gun is, you should be able to get the FO to an LOS spot without too much risk, and a 1500m LOS for an artillery spotter is as good as a 500m one - if there is high ground well behind the line of contact on your side of the map, this can be extremely useful. From that point on, the gun is a sitting duck. It rarely takes me more than a turn or so of shelling to at least get the crew to abandon the gun.

Another important note is that if you can't quite get LOS to the gun with your spotter, if you can get LOS to within 20m or so if it, this is just as good - the shell dispersal pattern will take care of the rest. I never use 'Target Wide' when targeting guns - the dispersal of the regular 'Target' command is enough.

On-board mortars can work in a similar fashion, except that if they have LOS to the gun, the gun will generally have LOS to them, so it's better to use a platoon leader to spot for them and leave them just behind a hill crest or whatever.

A little note on getting the guns to reveal themselves in the first place - playing peek-a-boo (i.e., Tophat-and-Lowsky, or just scooting from cover to cover) with a fast AFV (such as Greyhounds or Stuarts) is a good tactic in my experience. It works even better if you can get some infantry in good observation spots with LOS to likely gun locations - the infantry have a much better chance of spotting the gun than the 'bait' - who are bouncing around in a fast moving vehicle scared out of their minds. . .

Happy gun-hunting.