CMBB Tank Riders: A Dangerous Ride to the Office

[Terence]

If memory serves, in CMBO a really good way to get your men shot to bits is to ride them into harms way, embarked on a tank.

Whenever I've transported men into way of shot and shell, either by getting ambushed or early on when I was learning what worked, I paid for it heavily. The troops riding tanks are exposed and very vulnerable to small arms fire and arty.

But I read a mention in another post about SMG bearing Russian tank riding forces, and I was wondering if there was anything different about the Russian tanks -- ie. modifications that made the troops safer?

OR are tank-riding troops in CMBO too vulnerable to enemy small arms fire?

OR does the player with the tank riding troops just take heavy casualties and write them off as the price of doing business

OR, (I just thought of this) did tank riders not ride right into range of enemy small arms? Did they dismount before reaching that point?

[The Commissar]

Terence,

Most often it is the last option you mentioned. "Tanko Desantniki" usually hopped off the tank and were expected to run alongside and in front of it as soon as firing started.

I took the liberty of doing a little google searching and came across several interesting websites. Here is an interview with one Evgeni Bessenov, who describes the tankodesantniki role as

"Now tanks advanced carefully, following tankodesantniki infantry, while our task was to destroy German Panzerfaust teams with small arms or indicate Fritz targets to the tanks, so that they could destroy them with main guns."

Full link:

http://www.iremember.ru/infantry/bessonov/bessonov1.htm

[Andreas]

Terence, there is an interview with a tank rider platoon commander on the Russian Battlefield site that will answer some of your questions.

It is my understanding that they would dismount when small-arms fire started. Also, the tanks would fire HE and MGs while moving to suppress the enemy (not much of a chance of hitting, but if 20 do it, you may keep their heads down), and if you advance under cover of a barrage, you are inside the enemy position before he can get out to man the MGs.

[ August 05, 2002, 04:15 PM: Message edited by: Andreas ]

[Grisha]

Terence,

Tankodesantniki, or tank-riding infantry, were pretty standard fare (meaning, TO&E) with most Soviet armored units by 1943, due mainly to the lack of Soviet APCs. And there were no gimmicks or advantages that Soviet tank riders had over the average tank rider in any other army - well, they did have hand rails to hold onto

Soviet tactics dictated that tankodesantniki were to stay on until their dismounting would allow them to effectively interact with armor in a combined arms fashion. Basically, they weren't supposed to get off until the tanks were in position to fight. However, reality could disrupt this - in the form of mg or mortar fire - and force the tankodesantniki to disembark earlier than expected, resulting in subsequent tank losses from German infantry.

[ August 05, 2002, 04:22 PM: Message edited by: Grisha ]

[Commissar]

My experience with using tank riders was similar. Yes, heavy causalities could result but if you used them correctly, the tank riders would be a nasty surprise for any enemy. A platoon of SMG troops with accompanying tanks into an enemy's exposed flank is usually enough to ruin their day. Improper use will often lead to botched attacks and lots of causalities however. I'm usually able to get them to where they need to go without causalities. You need to make sure to use terrain very effectively, give the enemy very little chance to target you and unleash them when the enemy really doesn't expect it or can ill afford to handle them. I get the best results using tank riders this way. Normally I use German troops for this since they have dedicated SMG squads (yes, I know this was most definitely not German practice). I can imagine what PPsh-40-armed troops aboard T-34s can do.

[ August 05, 2002, 04:31 PM: Message edited by: Commissar ]

[Terence]

Thanks to you all for your swift and informative replies.

Do the the changes to MGs and the firepower model that lets suppression happen more generally and at higher ranges, may make the lifespan of the average CMBB tankodesantnik longer than we find in CMBO? My understanding is that Defenders may be more suppressed by attacker fire --as Andreas explains. Can anyone correct me, or confirm?

It also makes sense that when the bullets are flying around, the smart infantryman gets on the ground or moves to cover, and doesn't stay sitting on top of a large metal box, especially one that attracts enemy fire.

[Terence]

Originally posted by Commissar:

A platoon of SMG troops with accompanying tanks into an enemy's exposed flank is usually enough to ruin their day. Improper use will often lead to botched attacks and lots of causalities however.

I definitely agree with this. I hesitate to speak for anyone else, but I can confirm that surprise attacks of SMG-bearing infantry and a platoon of tanks definitely put kinks in my plans.

It seems that the changes to FOW and MG firepower might make the more set-piece assaults more possible, and so we might see the tankodesantniki employed on our computer screens in much the same fashion as they were in history.

[Gpig]

I once had a squad of german troopes riding back of a Pz IV when a cromwell nailed it.

The Panzer brewed up and ALL 9 of my german troopers were killed outright.

I NEVER send out troopers on tank-bank when there is a known threat about. At least not anymore.

Gpig

[Commissar]

Originally posted by Gpig:

I once had a squad of german troopes riding back of a Pz IV when a cromwell nailed it.

The Panzer brewed up and ALL 9 of my german troopers were killed outright.

I NEVER send out troopers on tank-bank when there is a known threat about. At least not anymore.

Gpig

Yes, that is unfortunate. If you use tank-riders at all you need to use them as part of your attack and not THE attack. I use my tank-riders as my quick spear I use to gash the enemy's side while he is busy fighting more forces elsewhere. Use your main force to ID potential threats like enemy tanks and especially AT guns and eliminate them best you can. Once I've done this, I usually let my little tank-riders go. The enemy is usually so busy dealing with my main force, they cannot respond all that well to a fresh SMG platoon riding down their throats with just as fresh tank support. However, a well placed AT gun can make this tactic futile as well as well placed, dug-in enemy troops expecting the attack. It takes some coordination and a good sense of timing to pull it off but when you do you'll find the tank riders to be VERY useful. Needless to say, do not get involved in tank-to-tank fights with tank riders still on board. Either leave the tank dueling to your AT guns or tank hunters (like a nice Hetzer) or be sure to have the troops disembark and take cover while their ride is shooting it up with enemy armor. Or course if your tank loses, your troops have just lost their ride so try to keep away from tank duals with these units.

[ August 05, 2002, 06:08 PM: Message edited by: Commissar ]

[Ligur]

I'm too scared to use tank-raiders in the normal CM:BO QB.

I usually advance with my infantry picket line and bring the tanks in later when targets start appearing, with nobody riding on them...

However in a large map with a lot of points or a designed scenario where you know where you are about to engage, why not use them.

They just don't suit your average 2000pts QB that well.

[Ligur]

Here, an interview with Dmitriy Losa, a tank commander. There are several questions and paragraphs about their SMG raiding friends in the interview:

http://www.iremember.ru/tankers/loza/loza1.html

[Ligur]

And the tankodestantnik is in the infantry memoirs section, Evgenii Bessonov:

http://www.iremember.ru/infantry/infantry.htm

[Durbish]

Not exactly ontopic but... I used to like to use tanks to get MG units into good position quickly. However, doing this not only puts the units at great risk but it gives your enemy free intel as to your positions. I have become more and more reluctant to pay this price realizing what a force multiplier deception and stealth can be.

[Commissar]

Originally posted by Ligur:

I'm too scared to use tank-raiders in the normal CM:BO QB.

I usually advance with my infantry picket line and bring the tanks in later when targets start appearing, with nobody riding on them...

However in a large map with a lot of points or a designed scenario where you know where you are about to engage, why not use them.

They just don't suit your average 2000pts QB that well.

Funny, I typically use a 1500-2000 pt QB and I use the tank riders all the time. Works great. It just takes some practice. Give it a try, comrade.

[Ligur]

Originally posted by Commissar:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Ligur:

I'm too scared to use tank-raiders in the normal CM:BO QB.

I usually advance with my infantry picket line and bring the tanks in later when targets start appearing, with nobody riding on them...

However in a large map with a lot of points or a designed scenario where you know where you are about to engage, why not use them.

They just don't suit your average 2000pts QB that well.

Funny, I typically use a 1500-2000 pt QB and I use the tank riders all the time. Works great. It just takes some practice. Give it a try, comrade.</font>

[Sgt. Schultz]

I like to put riders on light armor and scout vehicles and use the 'fast move' command. They have the speed to run from one place of concealment to the next without too much danger involved. This can also expose enemy ATGs that miss, as who will pass up a scout with an FO on board, even if it is a low-probability kill?

Units I put on vehicles ...

Sharpshooters, 81mm FOs, HMGs, Schreks, Flamers.

When it absolutely, positively has to be there in a hurry, you pays your money and takes your chances. I have lost serious pointage, and have gained incredible tactical advantages. A flamer and a Sharpshooter hidden in a village way before the enemy can see where they went will put a pause in anyone's plan. Nothing like rushing a house just as it goes up in flames. Talk about back-pedaling. I am still working on a 'ferry' plan to use one or two fast vehicles to move units up from concealment in relays for larger, longer games. Why make the poor schmoes lug that HMG when they can just catch the next bus and still be there sooner with less exposure to enemy fire? Fast lateral movement of reserves comes to mind as well.

Tank riders should take the moniker of the Western Desert Lighter Flotilla (We Die Like Flies). Too slow, too enticing a target. So far, I have best success with tank riders by taking the HUGE gamble of putting my panzers right in the center of town as soon as possible with every unit I can squeeze on board. The I get them off and into the trees, not the arty/HE targeted buildings.

[ August 05, 2002, 11:02 PM: Message edited by: Sgt. Schultz ]

[Grisha]

Guys, just realize you're going to takes losses. It's a given. Just make sure you have fewer losses than the enemy. So, move fast, stay spread out while trying to draw fire, concentrate fire quickly as needed, and keep moving. The Soviet way

[Kuma of Finland]

Originally posted by Terence:

If memory serves, in CMBO a really good way to get your men shot to bits is to ride them into harms way, embarked on a tank.

Whenever I've transported men into way of shot and shell, either by getting ambushed or early on when I was learning what worked, I paid for it heavily. The troops riding tanks are exposed and very vulnerable to small arms fire and arty.

IMHO, tanks are good for giving a ride. But as others already stated here, you should avoid running directly into the battle with troops on tanks. They should disembark before that happens.

If they're caught pants on their knees, anything can happen. Somebody mentioned that he got his squad roasted alongside with his tank. I've got one opponent experience, too. My Panther was roasted and it's still burning like hell, but the SMG squad is still sitting on it nicely with no casualties and not shocked and even more - out of any command radius. Tough guys

So whenever I need a fast transport of extreme fighting force, I put guys on top of tank and ride them very close to battle area but not into it. Still it's possible that enemy has been faster and you accidentally ride directly into harms way.

Hint: you can place more than one troop on top of tank. Possible combinations: squad + arty spotter, squad + bazooka, HQ + HMG etc. you name it. Sad thing is that you can't ride a 81 mm mortar on top of any tank as its' transport class is 3 when tank's capacity is 2.

But I guess this is one of those matters of which everybody has their very own and very right opinion

/kuma

[Ligur]

Originally posted by Grisha:

Guys, just realize you're going to takes losses. It's a given. Just make sure you have fewer losses than the enemy. So, move fast, stay spread out while trying to draw fire, concentrate fire quickly as needed, and keep moving. The Soviet way

Hey we can't think like the Red Army or Soviet head honchos here.

"Yes, infantry very good in Red Army. Enemy fire NOT problem. After the first wave, we send the second. Then the third. Then the fourth. They pave the way for the fifth, you know, comrade. Then we send the..." and so on. I care about my little polygon men!

[Terence]

Originally posted by Ligur:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Grisha:

Hey we can't think like the Red Army or Soviet head honchos here.

"Yes, infantry very good in Red Army. Enemy fire NOT problem. After the first wave, we send the second. Then the third. Then the fourth. They pave the way for the fifth, you know, comrade. Then we send the..." and so on. I care about my little polygon men!</font>

[Commissar]

Originally posted by Terence:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Ligur:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Grisha:

Hey we can't think like the Red Army or Soviet head honchos here.

"Yes, infantry very good in Red Army. Enemy fire NOT problem. After the first wave, we send the second. Then the third. Then the fourth. They pave the way for the fifth, you know, comrade. Then we send the..." and so on. I care about my little polygon men!</font>

[TSword]

Tankriders were very common in both the russian and german army. (Good quality german Tankdivs or PzGren.-Divs had one armored (APC) Battalion at most, but in most cases only the Recon-Bat had some APCs..)

Tankriders have relatively good frontal protection (In CMBO it's like you're riding on a flat plattform presented to the enemy, because protective quality of turret is not modelled..unfortunately..), but if they run into an ambush, the senctence "We usually dismount when fire starts" means a slaughter of course....

If you surprise your enemy your mounted troops may even stay on the tank and add to the volume of fire to stun and panic the enemy rather then dismount and give the enemy time to reconfigure and start effective counterfire...

If you ride your infantry to a heavy defended village over some kilometers of open ground (with almost no cover) you want to stay on the tanks long enough to take advantage of their speed in the hope the inevitable artillery barrage will fall long or the defender being unable to react in time, but ready to dismount when coming into normal/likely fire range (around 300 - 200 m). To go nearer you will likely get crossfire. Atleast you have to dismount when the tanks stop to engage targets...(otherwise mortars will do it for you..)

Interesting thing to be modelled in CMBB (Don't think protective value of tank turret will).

Greets

Daniel

[ August 06, 2002, 01:13 PM: Message edited by: TSword ]

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Ligur:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Grisha:

Guys, just realize you're going to takes losses. It's a given. Just make sure you have fewer losses than the enemy. So, move fast, stay spread out while trying to draw fire, concentrate fire quickly as needed, and keep moving. The Soviet way

Hey we can't think like the Red Army or Soviet head honchos here.

"Yes, infantry very good in Red Army. Enemy fire NOT problem. After the first wave, we send the second. Then the third. Then the fourth. They pave the way for the fifth, you know, comrade. Then we send the..." and so on. I care about my little polygon men!</font>

[JasonC]

Nobody has mentioned the main point about tank riding SMGers, it seems to me. The point is that they present a fire-no fire dilemma to defending infantry forces. If the defending infantry opens up at long range, they easily brush the SMGers off the tanks, where thy go to ground. The SMGers are then beyond effective range of their SMGs. No problem there.

But to do this, the defenders must reveal their positions to the tanks. At long range. At long range, infantry can't do a bleeding thing to a tank. The tanks just stop out at 400 yards or whatever, and merrily blow away everybody who fired, at a leisurely pace. Since the range was relatively long, most of the SMGers also survive, get off, go to ground, hide and wait. They don't rush because they don't have to. There are plenty of neat targets for the tanks, which are invunerable to the replies.

If instead the defenders try to wait until the tanks get real close - schreck, faust, AT mine close - then they have a different problem. They might actually take out a tank or two. They might KO the SMGers on that tank or two. They might make the rest of the tanks button and reverse. And they might get a few of the SMGers off the other tanks. But they are quite unlikely to get *all* of them. They are left with bailing out SMGs all around and right on top of them. With very high point blank firepower. Those quickly suppress whatever AT weapons are firing, dig the remaining defenders out of their holes, etc.

The problem is simply that infantry AT wants to ambush close and infantry MGs want to ambush far. Putting SMGers in the same spot as the tanks makes it next to impossible to do both.

Then, suppose a few MGs do ambush at range, drawing ranged HE from the tanks. After those MGs get plastered, everyone else hides at the backside of woods or whatever, to get away from the tanks. OK, then the dismounted SMGers walk up unmolested and infest the evacuated treeline.

The whole point is the combined arms effect of close range infantry and tanks. It is not the extra mobility given to the infantry. That is just a necessary tag along thing, needed to keep the SMGs and tanks at about the same range.

Will SMG riders help the tanks against lots of dug in heavy PAK? No. Against defending tanks in open steppe? No. They aren't meant to. They just help plain tanks deal with infantry and the sort of terrain infantry likes, by means of the "what range should I open fire at?" dilemma. The defender picks his poison. But one arm or the other - tanks at range, or SMGs close - will get him.

[Grisha]

JasonC,

Great point. In one test scenario I made for CMBO, I tested just this, using a small but powerful Brit armor force with infantry riding on the tanks who were attacking a German hasty defensive position(probe in CMBO). When I came to what seemed the most likely first line of defense, I got fairly close to the probable position - a treeline. At 200m, I dismounted the tank-riders. The enemy didn't expose themselves by firing until my tank-riders advanced to within about 100m of the treeline (grant you, I wasn't really focusing on good tactics, just wanted to see the reaction priorities). However, the platoon lived long enough to draw all enemy fire, allowing the tanks who were at a mere 200m to blast the enemy position without trouble.