playing yelnia as the germans(from a russian's point of view)

[zukkov]

as a (mostly) allied player, i'm used to frustration on the battlefield. seems like the germans always get the best of everything. not that i always lose, but victories are usually hard fought with lots of casualties and some luck on my part(ie gun damaging a king tiger or a lucky weak point penetration, etc). anyway, i learned to accept casualties as the price of victory playing the allies.

now i'm not ignorant of the eastern front by any means. it's always been my favorite theater. i admire the ability of the soviets to turn the tide of war and win it in spite of all they had to endure. i know for instance the t34 and kv tanks were superior by far to any of the german panzers in the first full year of the war. but my first battle in yelnia stare let me in for a big shock. i lost 2 t34s front up in the first few turns to the german pak 36s. i obviously wasn't the only one surprised by this as there was much cussing and discussing on the boards almost immediately after the demo's release. added to that was the apparent uselessness of the russian conscript infantry. if a german pointed his finger and said "bang", the russians would hit the dirt. well all this took some getting used to and as i learned to provide covering fire for the infantry, things began to move along. i have played that scenario several times and have always achieved a victory as the russian player.

so i decided to play it as the german and see how the "master race" does it. no problem i thought. then i loaded the game. oh my god! every unit was tiring or worse, every squad or split squad already had casualties from previous battles or artillery fire. ammo loads were not at full capacity. i held my head in shame. as a russian player i was so proud of my victories in this "tough" scenario, but now that i knew what i had been facing, i realized there was no honor in beating this poor excuse for an army.

well i set it up as best i could and started playing. at first things were going pretty well. my pre-planned arty pinned him down for the first couple of turns, the t34s weren't racing forward as i had feared they might, and best of all, there was no incoming barrage from the russian! hey, maybe i have a chance after all! the next few turns i kept pinning down his infantry with the mg34s and mortar fire. the tanks moved a little, but seemed to want to wait for the infantry to catch up. i was disappoined(as the german, but happy as a russian player) that the german machine guns seem to jam as often as the russian ones. this was bad because with only 3 mgs, when one jams, that means an entire area of the battlefield wasn't being supressed.

slowly the russians were managing to move forward with the infantry, then the tanks seemed to lose patience and began to charge forward. 1 t34 moved closer than the rest and i opened up with both pak36s. i had set them off to the left and right flanks with a limited field of vision, so los was blocked to all other tanks. perfect, if i can just get them to move 1 at a time into my "death trap" maybe i can kill 3 or 4 of em and rout the rest. but it was not to be. for 2 full turns both paks fired at that lone t34 for no result. a few partial and full penetrations, a gun hit, but no serious damage done! the net outcome was 1 pak was destroyed and the other ran out of ap.

now of course the other tanks were moving in and began to acquire my infantry. 1 mg knocked out and several squads pinned or worse. on turn 15 when i decided to surrender, most of the russian infantry was eating dirt but their tanks were unharmed and firing at will from close range to my lines. my poor tank hunter teams, which were the most forward deployed units i had, never got to assault any tanks. the t34s seemed to part like the red sea and go around their positions. they never got closer than 70 meters or so.

anyway, forgive me for rambling here, but i just wanted to say that if you felt frustration playing the russians in yelnia, you should try the germans!

[Pvt. Ryan]

The best tactic to use when playing the Germans in Yelnia is to increase the Axis forces by 200%.

Actually, a lot of the Germans' success has to do with luck. If you can get a few good shots at the T-34s with your paks you might be able to take a few out. You also need to keep your infantry well inside the tree lines or hidden on reverse slopes so that the tanks can't pound you from a distance. You also might be able to lure the tanks in close enough to do some damage with the tank hunters and other infantry. The MG34s are great for supressing the Soviet infantry, but you do not have enough ammo to let them blaze away on every turn. I find it is better to let them fire for two turns and then hide them for a turn. That way they won't be spotted as quickly and their ammo will last longer. The Soviets take a couple of turns to recover their morale so you don't need to fire at them on every turn. It is also best to only defend two of the three flags as you don't really have enough forces to protect all three. I also like to regroup the split squads at setup so as to help them maintain their morale and firepower when the Soviet infantry gets in close.

[Simon Elwen]

This is the only scenario I've tried so far since i'm doing Citadel as a blind pbem . So here are my tactics and thoughts as playing the Germans .

Given the strength of the T34's , I decided to concentrate on stripping the infantry support away before even attempting to take on the tanks .

My method was as follows . The HMG's set on arcs with 2 overlapping to cover arcs out to 300-350m , as far as the small trees in the centre of the map . The LMG armed split squads again given arcs out to around 100-150m , I made these arcs fairly narrow and short ranged to conserve ammo . The other split squads were held about 20m back to give really short range fire if needed , and maybe assault a tank if one came near enough .

A platoon was assigned to each flag basically , the spotters were placed in the thin trees on the right . The 50mm mortars with the PAKS in the central wood with the CO . Tank hunter teams were hidden in the brush about 50-60 m in front of the main positions , I gave them 25m Armour arcs over 180 degrees .

The battle basically went as I expected , the russian infantry decided to concentrate on my centre and right flags . By about turn 8 the HMG's were hammering the infantry and the attack was getting quite disorganised . Quite a lot of troops were now in the central light trees so I unleashed the arty on them , the 75's in the middle and the mortars to the rear of the trees to hasten the rout .

By turn 12 a lot of the russian infantry was running away , from then on the battle was fairly easy .

With the infantry stripped away all I needed to do was wait for the the T34's to advance , which they duly did . They spotted one of the HMG's and slowly eliminated it . The problem was that the PAKs never really had a favourable target almost until the end of the game , when on Turn 24 they spotted the split squads covering the right hand flag and turned towards them to fire . One moved within range of one of the tank hunter squads too.

The tank hunter squad threw their PWF's and the tank blew up (great graphics there) , they got gunned down quite quickly afterwards though .

I decided to cocentrate the fire of the PAKs on one tank and it was junked in about 45 secs an the crew bailed , 1 PAK was killed then and the other fired at another T34 until it retreated away .

That PAK was killed the next turn , but the damage was done and the other T34's kept out of the way .

The end came on turn 29 by which the HMG's had run out of ammo and the LMG squads were seriously low , It was enough though to not let a single russian squad get anywhere nearer then 80m to any of the flags .

I've played it again and didn't even fire at the T34's and actually got a better win points wise by not losing the PAK's to enemy fire and preserving them .

[antawar]

************SPOILER*****************************

I've won a MAJOR victory as the germans in yelnia stare 84 to 16. I inflicted 173 casualties on the russian but only knocked out one tank with a tank hunter team. The key is to play for time. Let the MG-34 suppress the enemy at long range. They killed 72 infantry in between them but their major effect was to pin down and reduce morale by suppression. The T-34 were quite shy about dashing forward. One got close to an infantry position that I had positioned in brushes to the right of the small central wood with the victory flag. The two tank hunter teams slowly crawled near the tank and threw all their stuff at once. The tank was immobilized and the crew abandoned it. I kept the rest of the infantry hidden until the russian were about 200 meters away and then let them loose. Already badly supressed (the effect is cumulative) they were either killed or ran away. All three flags were still in my possession and all machine guns had expended all their ammo.

[zukkov]

thanks for the tips guys. i'll give 'er another go!

[Prinz Eugen]

Duh.

Having just played Yelnia as the Soviets in mano-a-mano mode (and lost) , i can't say anything else but it will prove to be the Mother of all problems to herd the Soviets conscripts/greens against the might of the reg/vet Germans (or, elite/crack Finns ).

In the game I got to advance in my right at my leisure. I was wondering at my opponent's tactics ; during the course of my advance I didn't receive MG fire at all. Oh well, " onto victory ! " I thought and advanced towards the woods. Next turn my troops were all panicked and running away.

Sweet. He'd put such an ambush that he only opened at almost point-blank range. And he had three hmg's there. Yup, that was the end of the Soviet infantry. :mad:

Wonder what it'll be like in QB ME's, when you have the same amount of points. The quality of German materiél and troops is overwhelming. It takes only an 37 mm gun to take out the dreaded T-34 ! What then when the Germans get the 50 mm Pak ? 75 mm ? 88 ?!? Oo ****. Then there's the optics issue. In game there are 7 kinds of optics, of which 6 :eek: are for German guns, others cope with the "standard" model. Just think what a single Tiger does to a platoon of T-34's from a long range. Ah the horror !

Yes, I am very upset. The reason for this is my defeat. Still, I am buying CMBB. Why ? Because it indeed is a mark of an excellent game, that upon losing you are REALLY pissed ! I mean, I just watched silently my men running, no, fleeing from the enemy, and I could do nothing about it. Is there any other game that even comes close to this ? :cool:

[zukkov]

sounds to me like you didn't use enough suppression fire to support your advance...

[Specterx]

I won Yelnia as Germans the first time around. I kept all of my infantry hidden in forests or in reverse slope positions. If you keep your HMG's near the rear they will remain invisible for the entire game. Deploy the ATG's in a similar way, near the back of the map, in positions so they have limited fields of fire at the T-34's. The Pak36 is actually more effective vs. the T-34's front armor so try and get frontal aspect shots at < 400 meters.

[Kanonier Reichmann]

Originally posted by Specterx:

I won Yelnia as Germans the first time around. I kept all of my infantry hidden in forests or in reverse slope positions. If you keep your HMG's near the rear they will remain invisible for the entire game. Deploy the ATG's in a similar way, near the back of the map, in positions so they have limited fields of fire at the T-34's. The Pak36 is actually more effective vs. the T-34's front armor so try and get frontal aspect shots at < 400 meters.

Yes, I found that out too with the Pak 36's but why is that? Surely the frontal armour of a T34 is superior to its side armour? I couldn't beleive it when I was getting "fair" chances for a kill when firing at it frontally yet "poor" or worse when firing at its side aspect. :confused: :confused: :confused:

BTW, I did manage to get a Major Victory as the Germans the first time I played it but there wasn't much left of my foces by the end with no AT guns or HMG's left.

Regards

Jim R.

[ September 15, 2002, 08:01 AM: Message edited by: Kanonier Reichmann ]

[Fionn]

Jim,

Ricochets. If firing frontally at a T34 you have a fair chance of hitting the fairly flat frontal turret armour. If firing at the sides everything is sloped.

As a Soviet player you shouldn't take a T34 hull-down in the early years of the war since going hull-down means anything that hits will hit ur turret and that's BAD news for you. Instead just sit up there on the top of the hill and let everything ricochet off your sloped frontal armour.

[Andrew H.]

Originally posted by Kanonier Reichmann:

Yes, I found that out too with the Pak 36's but why is that? Surely the frontal armour of a T34 is superior to its side armour? I couldn't beleive it when I was getting "fair" chances for a kill when firing at it frontally yet "poor" or worse when firing at its side aspect. :confused: :confused: :confused:

[snippage]

Jim R.

My T-34 book lists the armor for the T-34 M 1940 as: Turret Front - 45; Mantlet - 45; Turret Side - 45; Turret Rear - 40; Glacis - 45; Hull Side - 45; Hull Rear 40-45.

The slope on the glacis is obviously better than at the hull sides or rear, but it's not clear that the slope of the turret front or mantlet is any better than that of the turret side.

The T-34 M. 1941 has the same hull armor, but increases the turret front, mantlet, and turret side armor to 52mm. (It has a cast turret, too, which I'm sure will affect penetration, although I'm not sure how).

The T-34 M. 1942 turret front and sides have been increased to 65 mm, but the mantlet is down to 45mm again. The turret rear and entire hull is now 47mm. Cast turret again.

The T-34 M. 1943 has a different armor layout. Turret front and mantlet are 70mm. Turret side and rear are 52mm. Glacis and hull rear are 47 mm, but the hull sides are 60 mm. (yes, the hull sides are thicker than the glacis (although they don't have as good of a slope).

For completeness: the T-34/85 M. 1944 has:

Turret front - 70-90mm; mantlet - 90mm; turret side - 75mm; turret rear - 60 mm; ...and the hull is just like the T-34 M. 1943; i.e. 47-60-47.

The T-34 m.40 weighs 26.3 tons; the m.41 weighs 26.5; the m. 42 weighs 28.5; the m.43 weighs 30.9; and the T-34/85 weighs 32 tons. It's interesting that the T-35/85 only weighs 1.1 tons more than the T-34 m. 43.

[jiggles]

Originally posted by Specterx:

I won Yelnia as Germans the first time around. I kept all of my infantry hidden in forests or in reverse slope positions. If you keep your HMG's near the rear they will remain invisible for the entire game. Deploy the ATG's in a similar way, near the back of the map, in positions so they have limited fields of fire at the T-34's. The Pak36 is actually more effective vs. the T-34's front armor so try and get frontal aspect shots at < 400 meters.

Hummm. I've played this scenario from both sides (admittedly only against the AI), and noticed a few bizarre things which caused me to wonder and do a few experiments.

When I played German (I had +100% extra forces) I decided to sit tight and try to let the AI do it's usual WW1-style "lets all walk towards the enemy guns thing", then let go with all barrels when I could read the labels on their Gucci-designed uniforms.

The AI dutifully rolled it's T34s up to the line of the forest for my PAKs to blow away -- only for me to find that even at 45m the engine seems to think they have no chance of a kill. It didn't seem to matter whether they were front on, side on, or showing their bare behind to me. A naive reading of the penetration stats on the PAK suggested that a kill at this range shouldn't be a problems.

This was a bit strange to me, as when I had previously played as Russian two of my 34s had been taken out before they got halfway across the map.

So starting again I opened up with my PAKs much earlier, and took out four of the 34s. The other two ran away. (It was then only a matter of waiting for the massed Russian infantry to bunch together a few hundred metres from my lines. A late artillery barrage and my MGs sent them packing and handed me a total victory).

Anyway, I was rather puzzled how it's possible for a PAK to have a Poor, Fair, OK, Good chance of killing a T34 at 400m, but None at <100m? In the Yelnia scenario the attacking Russian tanks are decending a hill before climbing towards the German positions. I wondered if the engine was taking this into account. Firing downwards at the sloped armour would decrease the angle of incidence, and increase the chances of a penetration.

[zukkov]

well my second time around i won a major victory as the german. didn't even change the original setup too much. the biggest difference was holding my arty back until i could get his infantry bunched together(and man oh man, do they scream and run!), and getting a lot "luckier" with one of my paks. 2 kills and 1 tracked and abandoned! the other 3 tanks never had much stomach to advance after that. not to say it was a lopsided victory by any means. the final results were almost 150 german casualties with 220 russian. the russians still had over 300 men left at the end. if this were part of an operation, they would easily have taken all objectives in the next battle(barring MAJOR reinforcements on my part). the game lasted for 30 full turns and most of my remaining units were low on ammo. not that it would have mattered much with only 75 guys left. it was sloppy to say the least, but a victory is a victory!!

[WWB]

I dont know how many times I have said this, but that kill chance you see when you target something is not entirely accurate. I pay it little or no mind. The same goes for the hit percent display.

Bottom line, dont put too much weight in them.

WWB

[omni]

Prinz Eugen, are you Mikko?

I believe the game you played was with me?

I still liked that Ambush, it was so cool!

You are right though, your Russian troops Ran from my front line!! Even with a Much stonger force, and 3 to 4 tanks slugging away at my HMG's

It was kind of luck in the end, I had forgotten about my 81mm mortar guy, and I dropped it all on your Advancing group to take the Middle flag, which inturn made your forces run away.

70% of your forces had run away to trees scattered around your behind.

You should have the option to set to retreat haha, or you shoot your own men! (The sniper movie did this, forget its name.)

[Kanonier Reichmann]

Thank you Fionn & Andrew for that information about the T34, very enlightening.

At least now I'll know how best to tackle them in future, and on the flip side, how best to handle them when playing the Soviets.

Regards

Jim R.

[scorpius1001]

I had sucess as the russian by havin my reg inf on board the t-34's runnin up the right side of the map and unloading my inf just below a rise to the forest with the objective flag. I repeated this one more time while conscripts were on the left flank givin those Mg-42's somthin to do. After my last load the T-34 gave supporting fire while my inf swept left thru the woods and eventually (I had to wait 2 turns to gather them up with CO's) made a human wave attack to the center woods to capture the next objective. Pretty easy I thought..........Though those poor farmboys on the left would disagree........