Nolloff Posted September 22, 2002 Share Posted September 22, 2002 Spoiler ?!? Hi there, I´m struggling with the Scenario "Ameisen und Elefanten" (translation: Ants and Elephants) by Dan "Berlichtungen" Brown from the CMBB CD. From the Russian side: I´m using my 2x82mm spotters for laying smoke on the far left and right from round 1 onwards. There´s no smoke left for the center as I had hoped my fire would deal enough supression there. All light mortars, MGs and the foward moving tanks are spraying supression fire on suspected enemy positions. The idea is to get either my left or right flank attack into town and then try to move along the main road and flank the defenders. Not surprisingly my infantry is hardly leaving the woods before they hug the ground and the attack is breaking down. I´ve used different approaches. Normal movement seems to be too slow considering the time until the smoke lifts. Fast movement to cover 2/3 of the open terrain to be followed by an assault got me the furthest but nowhere close enought to even think of assaulting. The last thing I tried was an all out human wave assault despite the long distance to the enemy positions. Basically there hasn´t been any success with any approach. Any ideas, recommendations, suggestions? Another question: Do the Russian tactics of this early war period involve the heavy usage of smoke or would they rather have blasted the area with HE instead. It might be a stupid question and down to the local commanders but I´d nevertheless be interested to know. Thanks already, Cheers Nolloff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Berlichtingen Posted September 22, 2002 Share Posted September 22, 2002 Ants & Elephants? Guess they couldn't find a good translation for pop guns Smoke is a waste of your mortars... you won't be able to close beore it goes away. Better to use it to kill some of the Germans. One tactic that I find useful is only advance with one platoon out of every company. Go for 50m advances rather than trying to cross the entire field. until you actually spot the Germans, use area fire on likely positions. If you try a massed assault across the open ground you will be shut down cold. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andreas Posted September 22, 2002 Share Posted September 22, 2002 Area fire, Area fire, Area fire. Anything where a sound contact pops up. Area fire. Anywhere where the enemy could hide. Area fire. Move the KVs up with the infantry. Area fire. Advancing infantry has to area fire. Have I mentioned area fire yet. It really helps. It still will be a bloody affair. Area fire makes it easier though... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andreas Posted September 22, 2002 Share Posted September 22, 2002 Oh and by the way - that scenario is clearly the 'Soviet type of suck', not the namby-pamby Omaha Beach type of suck, to paraphrase Zhukov. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nolloff Posted September 22, 2002 Author Share Posted September 22, 2002 Andreas and Berlichtingen, many thanks! I finally dealt with my fellow Germans by the power of armor alone. I think none of my infantry ever got closer than 75m to the enemy posistions and hardly anyone but tanks mortars and machine guns ever fired a shot but I lost only 1 T34 to the various Panzeranklopfgeräte and my armor managed to kill and rout enough enemy infantry for the AI to surrender. Somewhat on the masochistic side of things but very nice scenario Berlichtingen! Will try the non-smoke, leap-frog approach another day, another time. While I got two experts listening, allow me to ask another question: Can you give me some advice on when to disembark tank-riding infantry? I think I´ve come to a point where, while attacking, I manage to handle infantry on APCs more or less sucessfully but I haven´t mastered the tank riders yet. There are quite some scenarios where one has to cross a lot of open terrain. Disembarking would divide armor and infantry, waiting for the guys on foot would leave my tanks on open ground like sitting ducks and while AT guns alone are bad the deadliness of enemy air support in CMBB seems to make anything but "fast move" a suicidal decision. Cheers Nolloff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andreas Posted September 22, 2002 Share Posted September 22, 2002 That's easy! Don't - they disembark by themselves when they get under fire You really don't want them to disembark until the latest possible moment in most cases. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Berlichtingen Posted September 22, 2002 Share Posted September 22, 2002 Originally posted by Nolloff: Somewhat on the masochistic side of things but very nice scenario Berlichtingen! Thank you! I must admit I played it against the AI about 8-9 times before I managed to win... and I knew what the Germans had! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Affentitten Posted December 16, 2002 Share Posted December 16, 2002 SPOILER QUESTION = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = I'm playing this one as the germans. There are three AT rifles listed in the briefing, and sure enough I have them. But they're all displaying with EMPTY ammo loads at the start. What the....? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Berlichtingen Posted December 16, 2002 Share Posted December 16, 2002 Originally posted by Affentitten: What the....?Oops Durning one of the builds, scenarios created in a previous build lost all their ATR ammo. Repurchasing the ATRs fixed it, but this scenario slipped through the cracks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Affentitten Posted December 16, 2002 Share Posted December 16, 2002 Originally posted by Berlichtingen: </font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Affentitten: What the....?Oops Durning one of the builds, scenarios created in a previous build lost all their ATR ammo. Repurchasing the ATRs fixed it, but this scenario slipped through the cracks</font> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Berlichtingen Posted December 17, 2002 Share Posted December 17, 2002 Originally posted by Affentitten: Well there go the popguns. Better change the title.Still have your PaK36s don't you? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Affentitten Posted December 18, 2002 Share Posted December 18, 2002 SPOLIERS = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Yep. But I didn't need them. Played as the Germans against the AI. The Russki infantry made a few forays out of the treeline and got promptly hammered back by fire from my HMGs and mortars, which I was alernately hiding/firing. The tanks sat out in the open but couldn't spot any of my other troops. Lost one Pak to an airstrike and the only time the tanks fired was at the gun crew that broke and ran. From about turn 6 to 30 nothing at all happened. Tanks never moved at all and the odd infantry squad that came out of the trees never went further than 5 meters before breaking. Probably the least action-packed scenario I have ever played. But I recognise that it's down to the AI's attacking weaknesses. It obviously got stuck in a loop of the tanks waiting for the infantry to advance but the grunts not wanting to until the tanks started supressing fire. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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