Question: How to conduct an attack were the enemy is waiting for you

[Berkut]

This is a post from a very jaded CM player.

I have a had a number of very disappointing games over the last couple of months, and it has involved the question being posed.

I do well in defensive scenarios, but that is hardly a proud boast to be making. I should be making progress but nothing I seem to do works.

Oh, I can make use of cover to get into position, I can use arty to suppress the enemy and do him some damage, but when it comes to going over the top...the whole effort melts under enemy fire or I suffer such heavy losses, I can't hold what I have taken. Some posters might be tempted to claim it is bad luck, but if that is the case then I am a really unlucky CM player...I can count on the fingers of one hand, the number of games I have won.

So whats to be done, can I be helped or should I scrap CM and switch to monopoly?

ps

I should point out that this occurs when playing human opponents.

[Soddball]

I find that an invaluable piece of equipment is a mortar spotter to lay down smoke. With lots of smoke, the enemy can only guess where you are attacking, and can't see exactly what units you are using. So use more smoke and you will see a big improvement in your success ( I hope! )

[Silvio Manuel]

Re: Soddball's recommendation of off-map smoke...

I like to drop smoke such that it obscures the flanks of my "over the top" charge. You can couple that w/ arty on the objective, and use MGs and tanks to cover the advancing troops.

So, the arty/tanks/mgs suppress the enemy troops on/near the OBJ. The smoke covers your flanks. Of course, if you haven't ID'd any/many enemy positions, you can hardly waste too much smoke/arty if you have to do the above a few times to cover a lot of ground. That's what the scout teams/ scout vehicles are for.

[109 Gustav]

Direct fire is very important before going over the top. Remember, tanks support infantry, infantry supports tanks. Don't just buy tank destroyers with limited HE and blast, you also need some sherm 75s, SP howitzers, StuHs and the like to kill off the squishies. If your armor points are limited, you can even use guns- towed 105mm howitzers and 150mm infantry guns work great for routing squads and breaking up a defensive line.

[Redwolf]

I think the solution is a matter of taste. But remember if you just speak of infantry and supressing artillery you have WW1, which is excatly as you describe - a slaugther of the attacker. There are a number of solutions:

Personally I like tanks. Push with infantry until you are reasonably sure no AT asserts threaten you. Then move in a pair of tanks so that they can destroy enemy strongpoints peacemeal. I prefer a full tank like a Pz IV or a Sherman 75mm. Their HE is good enough and they have enough ammo. I do not like the SP guns, too fragile. The 105mm Sherman is too expensive. I do like the 95mm Cromwells, though. While I generally prefer the fast tank to rush from cover to cover as a better defense against AT asserts than thick armor, the situation is a bit difficult for the Americans. The normal Shermans are too lame on normal ground, not to speak of mud or scattered trees and the more mobile Shermans are too expensive. On the other hand, the Jumbo is quite fast for its resistence against 75mm L/48 and I also think it is a historically appropriate assault tank, so I sometimes take it. I only buy the thick Churchill when I think my opponent will select "maxed-out" units as well, which means Panzer IV/70. And I don't want my regular opponents to rely on me buying thin fast tanks every time. A tank destroyer as overwatch can be a good idea, but outright retreating the tanks if defender armor threatens it is usually the better idea.

Other attack options include special artillery, which means big mortars, 105mm VT, 5.5" and similar cost-effective and effective modules.

Or plain infantry skills. If you play enough, you will know what kind of supression you need to overrun a positions. See top players at tournamenthouse.com.

A wasp or other flamethrower vehicles are pefertly reasonably tools in the Commonwealth arsenal, too, although some players disagree.

Generally, as the Americans you want firepower, as the British special tools exploiting opportunities created by substancial firepower and as the Germans swiftness and deadlyness on a per-unit basis. The Tiger being a German tank is a historical joke.

[ February 17, 2002, 12:23 AM: Message edited by: redwolf ]

[Thermopylae]

The real trick of attacking an enemy with Americans is not jumping too it. Two platoons and an MG will outshoot a dug in gemran platoon by a long margin, and if you start throwing in arty/DFHE then pretty much all you have to do is wait two turns beyond the start of the supressive fire.

Germans...kill enemy support weapons. Close with enemy in approved fashion. Kill him. Repeat.

Commonwealth. Find an attack corridor hidden from most enemy supporting fires, bring up the specialists and flame/mortar/mmg,/95mm/whatever the hell out of a position, then occupy.

[Louie the Toad]

Don't give away what you are going to do. Be deceptive and sneaky. Use split squads to recon.

Make a feint attack to draw out the enemy.

Read about Stonewall Jackson.

Platitudinal Toad.

[BigJoe]

Try not to advance to fast or you could get cut in two. advance slowly and make sure you secure the areas you have taken before advancing. Make sure you have people providing cover fire for when you advance. use tanks and armoured cars to support your infantry.

[Toran]

Adjust. Don't be afraid to modify or scrap entirely your battle plan based on surprises. Ingenuity is better than laid-in-stone tactics.

[Mr. Johnson--]

Well said, Toran. Start with a simple plan and modify as nessicary.

Sounds like one part of your combined arms assault is failing you. Might be you need more and bigger arty, with more smoke. Or maybe you need to buy more infantry heavy weapons, and take your time setting them up while you identify weakspots.

Maybe try buying armor last, after you've made sure you got nice support weapons for your assault.

Plus QBs are not all that great, compared to a third party setting up a battle.

[Berkut]

Mr. Johnson said "Sounds like one part of your combined arms assault is failing you."

Yes, the infantry part.

I thank all who have replied but I have used the tactics you have spoken of. But when it comes to the crunch of sending in the troops, I have to sit and watch as it all falls apart.

I have watched platoons and companies simply melt under enemy fire, quick battles are the worst as the terrain the computer picks is just shocking at times.

It's really an annoying feeling, as I feel that I should be getting better at this, but I'm not.

I'm not sure what it is that I am looking for here, but thanks for taking the time to reply.

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by Berkut:

I have watched platoons and companies simply melt under enemy fire, quick battles are the worst as the terrain the computer picks is just shocking at times.

You need to find safe approaches. Usually you will find one way which is covered by the smallest number of enemy units. Then you have to neutralize as many of them as you can. Usually that will mean that one or two assault elements will place supressive fire while one will cross the open space. Smoke can be used as well, but on-map mortars or smoke from tanks (which often don't need to get into enemy LOS to do that) is more useful than FO smoke.

Also unstand the difference between move, fast and sneak. In sneak they will stop and shoot back. If you plot a way, make sure you sneak when crossing slight cover like scattered trees so that they stop inside it, but use move or fast for open spaces. Careful with fast, do not run into the unknown. But do run when you know the destination is safe, but the way is not due to crossfire.

If there is no safe approach, and you cannot make one by supression or smoke, and you don't have support weapons to shape the form of the terrain and the defense layout, you cannot attack except with a large superiority in numbers and the willingness to give it up.

[ February 20, 2002, 10:15 AM: Message edited by: redwolf ]

[Ron]

It sounds like you have the 'basics' under your belt, just need to fine tune a few things and mix things up a little with your approach to attacking.

First realize before you even start that you will take losses, sometimes a lot. Accept and welcome those losses because you want to keep your head for the whole game.

"the whole effort melts under enemy fire or I suffer such heavy losses" To my mind can only be attributable to enemy artillery. From your post it sounds like your opponents have your "number" and you have become predictable. Learn the methods and responses of your opponents to differing situations and conduct/adjust your attack accordingly. Even a 'new' opponent reacts in a predictable fashion in most circumstances.

Select a true combined arms force and you will have the 'right tools' for most jobs. Have a plan, yes be flexible, but a 'general' plan is vital. That starts with reading the map and grouping your forces. Realize your opponent can figure out the safe approaches to his positions and plan for that, so the 'safe approach' for attacking may not be the best or wisest approach.

Move slowly then *attack* quickly to keep the tempo of your attack high and your opponent off balance. "Show your hand" only when you are ready to attack, I don't think that can be emphasized enough. You can't afford to get bogged down, you must keep moving once you have committed to your attack.

And if you get too discouraged then yes switching to Monopoly is always an option lol! Hope that helps,

Ron

[sturner]

All of the descriptive talk of combined arms and how to apply them is correct. When you say that you do that, but your troops are still decimated, brings the following to mind.

You have to isolate the area that you are going to attack. Then you have to attack it with overwhelming superior force.

That means, if your opponent can shoot you from your flanks, or that his firepower to your attack front is greater, then you haven't (1) isolated the area, or (2) selected and area you can apply superior force.

That often means catching his attention in his front while attacking his flank.

Attack and defeat what you can. Allow your opponent no opportunity for an even fight. Try to mass superior firepower and keep it coming until you are there. Don't let him shoot at you.

And again, like you have said you found out, it is harder to do than it is to talk about.

[Thermopylae]

It sounds as if you are being overly hasty in your attack. As a rule of thumb, the first ten turns of the battle should be spent on reconnasaince, fire base establishment, and getting the infantry in jump off positions. Your infantry should not run across the map towards their assualt targets from start to finish either. You will need places to rest and regroup. And of course, pound the hell out of the enemy before you go in.

[Numidian]

Looks like this topic has been well hashed. If all of these tactics are being applied, I would hope for better than melting units. Take a look at your perception of the scale. Are you crossing a thousand meters of open ground in an assault? Are your units lumped into a vunerable mass? I dont understand. Also, in the US army acronym for offensive operations, SCSFA, the F is for flexibility. Which means you don't have to attack into withering fire. Let me know if any of these numerous and refreshingly tactical recommendations improves your situation. My method for frontal assault(truely a last resort) with American troops is (1.)to lay down a high volume of sporadic rifle fire from covered positions to deplete enemy ammo as well as ferret out his main positions. (2.) Now I am free to plan the attack. Select a section of the line that you can reach by covered routes and protect with your covering fires. (3.) Prepare the target area with massive and sudden suppresive fire. This is simultaneous with the advance of the "assault force," not your reserve, covered by smoke if nessecary. (4.) Lift arty. and make contact. BE RELENTLESS!, BE VIOLENT, always seeking flanks, and penetrate with you first available units. once behind the position continue to envelope. (5.)Victory Dance.

[IronChef4]

yeah. . .i would have to say that when crossing open terrain is neccesary:

1: pound them with artillery

2: supress them with HE tank fire and MGs

3: use MASSIVE amounts of smoke (81mm spotters work nicely)

4: send your men over in closely sucessive waves. . . maybe 3 platoons followed by 2 platoons followed by 1 or 2 etc. this allows suppresive fire coming from the back platoons to cover the first ones just in case the smoke lifts.

5: pray that if you're playing against axis, that veteren SMG squads arn't waiting for you. . .

[Berkut]

I have taken the advice of fionn and challenged a few people to practice my attacks.

I have employed most of the tactics that people have spoken of here, the problem was when it came to the crunch of using infantry to take the objective. It was then that the whole thing fell apart as my troops melted under enemy fire and did not seem able to hold their own.

It was not always due to arty or even flanking fire, but mostly when it came down to CQB with my opponents troops.

I am hoping to pick up a few new tactics that may overcome this. Once again many thanks for all those that posted.

[Cpl Carrot]

I'm waiting

[newlife]

Hi,

If it's coming to CQB then it's a number of possibilities. First, you don't have him properly supressed. Generally you want his troops pinned and ready to break when your infantry goes in.

Second, know the optimal ranges for firefights between your troops and his. SMG are great if you're close enough, but only if your troops are the ones holding them. Realize that plain rifle squads will get cut to shreds by some of the "upgunned squads". Attacking at even strength is NOT a good idea. Try to have 2:1 local odds if you can.

Third, try buying less armor and more plts of infantry. When you only have a couple of AFVs you tend to be MUCH more careful with them and protect them more. This is good. You then bring them up to break the morale of his squads. Also be sure to buy thin armored tanks with good HE, especially as the americans. Reason being most of his tanks will be able to kill most of your armor anyway, so why bother with lots of armor. The trick to killing enemy armor is to first remove it's infantry screen, and then kill the tank.

Fourth, don't be afraid to probe and fall back. Sure, some of you're squads will break, but that doesn't mean they become useless. Get an HQ over to them, get their morale back up, and use them in support. I've used many broken squads on the way to victory.

Fifth, don't succumb to defeatism. Even after you take heavy causulties, your opponent is probably hurt more than you realize. Keep the pressure up on him, and he should eventually break.

Sixth, only use 81mm FOs for smoke screens. They are useful for keeping his troops suppressed on the short term, but they'll recover quickly without many casualties. It's far better to buy some bigger Arty which will cause more casualties and break squads. In an ME, the 4.2 inch mortars and 120mm mortars are GREAT. The quicker responce time for mortars are essential. In an attack, you can afford the longer times for the regular artillery. Take something around the 150mm size, or take multiple smaller sizes and overlap their strikes.

Pete

Originally posted by Berkut:

I have taken the advice of fionn and challenged a few people to practice my attacks.

I have employed most of the tactics that people have spoken of here, the problem was when it came to the crunch of using infantry to take the objective. It was then that the whole thing fell apart as my troops melted under enemy fire and did not seem able to hold their own.

It was not always due to arty or even flanking fire, but mostly when it came down to CQB with my opponents troops.

I am hoping to pick up a few new tactics that may overcome this. Once again many thanks for all those that posted.

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by newlife:

Fifth, don't succumb to defeatism.

I'm reminded of the tourist walking along a street in Oxford, overtaking two dons deep in argument, and overhearing one of them say to the other "...and, eighthly..."

Even after you take heavy causulties, your opponent is probably hurt more than you realize. Keep the pressure up on him, and he should eventually break.

[snips]

Or, as Rudyard would put it:

"Read here the moral roundly writ

For him who into battle goes --

Each soul that hitting hard or hit,

Endureth gross or ghostly foes.

Prince, blown by many overthrows,

Half blind with shame, half choked with dirt,

Man cannot tell, but Allah knows,

How much the other side was hurt!"

Lord Wavell said in "Other Men's Flowers" (from where I copied the above verse) that the last two lines illustrated his "favourite military maxim, that when things are going badly in battle the best tonic is to take one's mind off one's own troubles by considering what a rotten time one's opponent must be having."

All the best,

John.

[JasonC]

The description of your infantry "melting" in close quarters battle is usually a sign of attempting to win a battle by rushing a still intact enemy. That is why you are getting all the responses about supporting firepower. Timing an infantry rush is not trivial, and it is better to be late (on the safe side), then early (too many enemies still up and shooting).

Until the enemy is heads down and decimated, your infantry has no business charging him. Ground is not taken by physical presence, but by fire dominance, by having your guys still heads up, after his have gone heads down, due to the volume of fire they are receiving. Get rid of the idea that your infantry is going to hurt the enemy by running on top of him. Infantry kills from 80-150 yards away. Closer is only used to mop up already beaten men.

It is possible you are trying to apply this, but getting fooled and then beaten by enemy reverse slope deployments. Smart defenses avoid exposing too many men to the attacker's superior firepower. By waiting behind slopes, at the rear sides of trees, behind or toward the rear of buildings, the defenders try to stay alive and rallied until an infantry push. Then they cut loose.

There are various ways of dealing with such tactics. First, you can blind and reduce the enemy by just concentrating on his few forward elements. Don't go over the crest, kill everything spotted in front of it first.

Second, you may be able to turn the crest line and thus re-establish long range LOS lines for your supporting firepower (tanks, MGs, etc). Walk the LOS lines into the enemy position. He may well back out of your way, gradually. Let him, do not rush, just keep the fire hot on some point 100-150 yards ahead of your men. Move that spot forward, with an eye to routes that re-establish long LOS lines again.

Third, probe. Do not throw in all your infantry at once when you do not know what is waiting for them beyond the crest. Send a half squad first, or a platoon with one squad ahead of the others. While the rest of your force overwatches from cover, ready to fire. If you discover intact defenses, resume the arty before proceeding. The principle here is limitation of losses if the enemy is waiting for you. If he isn't, and you only find cowering troops, you can reinforce the following turn or two.

Fourth, use your artillery to reach over crest lines and to hit areas of dead ground your direct fire can't reach. Use the tanks and MGs on stuff you can reach, leaving the heavy stuff for the reverse slope areas. Use arty 105mm and up for such places. 150mm and above works best, but will not always be available. Do not blow your arty early on, on small teams well forward. When you do dump the heavy stuff, follow up quickly, within 2 minutes.

Fifth, if an attack fails, fall back and rally. Let the overwatch fire support work over the newly revealed enemy once again. Use higher HQs to patch together ad hoc platoons from the rallied men. And then try it again.

The item you want to keep in mind all the time is the balance of forces remaining. Not ground, not how far forward your men are. Attackers start with 3:2 odds in point terms. The superior firepower that gives should allow you to wipe out forward elements of the defenders, in return for delay and morale hits that you can rally from while still at range. Then you want to bring twice the numbers to the area of attack, and shoot it out from nearby cover.

This gives the defender a dilemma. If he opens up with everyone, your firepower locates him and you can hurt him back. If he lets only a portion of his force carry the fight, while others stay intact in reverse slope type deployments, then yes he keeps something alive to stop a rush. But the engaged elements lose their firefight all the faster, doing less to the attackers until then.

As the attacker, you have to judge which the defender is doing. You should not rush until you think you have engaged and outshot *everybody* he's got. Otherwise, just keep up the methodical firepower based crawl. If he does not throw in everyone at once, kill him slowly, piecemeal, in sequence. You may have to rotate troops to handle ammo limits. Keep a reserve platoon with at least half ammo remaining. Work the tanks and MGs - the high ammo firepower units - to deliver the needed firepower, while sparing your small arms ammo.

Finally there are small unit tactics when you do finally rush. Again, don't try to run over him. Just get to cover nearby, then stop. Moving units aren't firing much. You want to rush into the same body of cover as his men, and then stop and shoot it out with him at short range. Even inside the same bit of cover, you then need to keep an eye on "differential sighting". Meaning, you want lots of your guys in LOS of a few of his, with other units of his out of position (no LOS, or long range).

It is local odds fire, from position in cover, that do the job. Some of your units will be suppressed during the rush, others will be suppressed by his fire once there. The remainder suppress his shooters. Once his fewer shooters go heads-down, your suppressed men will recover. When they start firing again, you will have won, because their added firepower will keep the enemy heads down for the duration. The amount of firepower you put out snowballs, his melts. Once again, the name of the game is fire ascendency, not overrun or close-quarters combat.

If instead you try to rush right on top of any intact, firing unit, in cover, over open ground yourself, the enemy will shoot down entire full strength squads 5 yards away, without loss. Even a few weapons can adequately defend the immediate vicinity, if anybody has the morale to fire them. So you don't move on top of them.

Move to cover nearby, within 25-40 yards, then shoot it out. If you see an enemy unit obviously broken, cowering, not firing - then and only then you can move the nearest squad, already at 40 meters or less, down to 5-10 meters to finish them off (or make them run away).

You should develop a sense of what the firepower the enemy is putting out can do to your guys. Meaning, how deeply it can suppress them, when the shakens turn into pins, the pins into panic and broken results. When you are losing 1-2 guys, and when half a squad gets blown away. The trick then is to stay far enough away from his buzz saw that your units do not break or get cut in half, so they continue to fire themselves.

Bring odds. Then dial down the range to as low as your men can stand, while still delivering effective fire. Then do not push further. Instead wait, and fire. What you can barely stand will be enough to melt him, if you brought odds. Even if his cover is twice as good, having only half the shooters will doom him. Because he will suppress half your guys as deeply as you suppress *all* of his.

Wait for that fire ascendency snowball to get going. One sign of it is when the incoming fire has slackened enough that virtually all of your men on the firing line have rallied to "OK" or "alerted" morale. Then you can dial the range down again to pour on the pressure. If that isn't happening, you need more supporting fire or to back off and try again after rallying. Do not push into intact firepower with just half of your men in good order morale states, you will just get them killed.

Also, if you want the comments to be more specific or more helpful, you need to describe what you are doing in far greater detail. Just "I tried all that, and still..." will not cut it. Nobody can be sure you have the faintest idea what "all that" is, if you don't explain it yourself in your own terms, referring to the concrete actions in a real game. As in, "on turn 6 I called for 105mm here, then..."

Attacks with proper odds, delivered correctly, do not fail in CM. No amount of luck can make them do so. There are way too many "die rolls" for that to be the case. A full assualt is nearly "ergodic" - all the different rolls, several hundred of them, have by then averaged out. So if yours are, you are doing something wrong, and we aren't. You just need to spell out it greater detail what you are doing, for us to spot the places where we do things differently.

[Andrew H.]

I pretty much thing that everything Jason said is correct, including the the fact that it's sort of hard to prescribe solutions because you've described your difficulties in pretty general terms. (It's also hard to prescribe solutions because tactics are all pretty well entwined with each other). But I want to focus on one tactic (which others have mentioned) because when I learned it, it made the largest difference in my attacks.

This tactic is using tanks to blast infantry out of foxholes. While this seems like perhaps the first thing you did when you played CM, there are a couple of refinements you need for it to work right.

First, you need to advance with your infantry to even find the enemy infantry - if there are infantry units in cover, in foxholes, possibly hidden, they can be difficult to discover until you come within 200 meters or so...sometimes closer. So your first job is to find the enemy infantry in the first place, without having entire platoons killed in the process. So move cautiously until you've at least located some enemy units.

Once you've found entrenched enemy infantry units, your best course of action, if you can do it, is to have a tank fire HE at the unit until it breaks. But the key do doing this without losing your tank to a distant AT gun is to find a location for the tank to sit where it has LOS to the enemy unit and, if possible, nothing else.

This means don't drive the tank to the top of the hill to blast the enemy unit. Instead, move the tank around the hill and try to use the hill to screen the tank on one side and woods or buildings or something to screen the tank on the other side. One of the safest places for a tank to be is on the left or right side of a building, because that means that the tank is safe from AT fire from the side protected by the building.

If you can get the keyhole tank thing to work, you will be able to advance your infantry with small losses. You may also dislocate the defender's defense because if you are able to get keyhole attacks on defenders, the defender will generally need to move his AT assets to a location where he can attempt to counter your attack,and his AT units will be more vulnerable while in transit.

After you've blown out the defenders, be cautious advancing to their previously occupied location - sometimes you'll find other hidden defenders behind them who are out of LOS until you advance closer -- so if your infantry units incautiously run up to occupy a recently vacated foxhole, they may find themselves coming under fire from other units in foxholes behind the first units.

If you can't use a tank to keyhole defenders, your next bet is arty. But especially in the first couple of firefights, your infantry should almost just be used for spotting and then mopping up units. Once you've breached the initial line and have a better bead on where the enemy is located, you can more safely concentrate your infantry and you won't need to rely on tanks as much. Also, if you try to concentrate your infantry in the initial battles, there's a greater danger that your concentrated infantry will be hit by arty.

This tank-keyhole thing is not the be all and end all of attacking tactics. But it is a very important tool to have, and my attacks became much better once I learned it.

[Berkut]

More detail?

Ok, try a recent battle. I had advanced with one rifle platoon, from cover down a steep hill which rose slightly up to a road that ran east-west across the map. They moved up the slope and into a small wood. They then sneaked forward to the edge.

directly in front of them beyond the road, they saw some units interspersed in the scattered trees and woods that covered a hill rising up to a bare hill that dominated the area. They also uncovered an AT gun and indentified that some armour was on that hill. amazingly my guys are not spotted!

I had three tanks[pzIV's] on overwatch duty behind a small patch of heavy woodland, just enough to hide them not enough to obscure the view. beyond them is the main assault force consisting of pioneers and STUh42's, which I intended to advance through these tanks. The rest of the infantry was to follow through the pioneers when they had breach his lines.

I ordered an 81mm mortar FO with the rifle platoon to target the area were the AT gun has been spotted, another FO near the tanks targets the area were I suspect he has infantry watching this part of the road.

Things seem to be going well, the AT is not long in being taken out, my rifle platoon and see infantry running to the rear. My only concern is the armour he has on that hill and the possibilty that he had more than one AT gun. In short I needed to know what he had. I decided that a recce in force was needed.

The main assault element is moved around to another location, still hidden from view. A recce force of his own is driven off after coming to close to my left flank. My right flank is of no concern, it is close to the map edge, a bit gamey but it cannot be helped. The best approach was from the extreme right.

I decide to probe a little further with another platoon and a couple of light tanks, to the left of the original recce party.

There is plenty of cover with trees of varying density leading up to the road. Disaster strikes, that tank on the hill comes forward, it has spotted one of my tanks, a duel begins with his single tank and my three panzers, One turn later his tank is still alive and I have lost three tanks.

My opponent takes matters into his own hands and advances two tanks towards the trouble spot. I have only two pzIV jagdpanzers left, I give them hunt orders. Disaster strikes as one of these tanks is revealed as a jumbo, I watch as the shots from my tankkillers simply bounce off, then watch dumbly as it and it's friend a 105 make short work of whats left of my tanks.

Now i am in a quandry, his tanks have taken up positions to cover this approach. He moves infantry into the area, but they are getting chopped up by the infantry that i have moved forward and the arty that is now falling, yet I have three tanks that i know of and no method of removing them, I could risk the stuh42's but I know they have little chance of winning against a jumbo, I am wishing that I had stated we should play by the 75 rule.

what we now had was a stalemate position, I could no longer use this approach. In earlier games I had tried to rush tanks with infantry and paid dearly for it, so that was out. They were too far away for shreks, the chance of hitting was so low.

And now my infantry is being engaged by troops he is moving into the area. He does not seem to be too bothered by the arty. He emails me telling me that apart of the AT guns i am not doing much damage. The heavier arty 120 mm mortars do seem to ease the pressure, He has pulled back from the road but I am still stuck on the best way forward.

I have paraphrased slightly, but this is pretty much what has happened to date.

I know what would happen if I were to push my infantry forward and what would happen to my poor assault howitzers.

[JAK]

Hi Berkut, I would recommend this. You opponent is going to be feeling very safe, and somewhat smug so here obviously is you best chance to strike him. Pull your infantry back to a reverse slope position inside of heavy trees (not pines mind you). Take however many schrecks you have left and guard the round about approaches against his tanks. Take your StuH42's and pull them back to locations along his route of counterattack that have short and narrow lines of sight (maybe you can make him foulup on watching his flanks and back). Save you 120mm arty so you can use it when he comes after you (which from you post he is inclined to do), infact stop all arty and save the 81mm for smoke cover. If you try this tell me how it goes! Good luck!

Jake