Close Anti-Tank Combat Troops.

[Zalgiris 1410]

I was always a little unsatisfied with the two man Tank Hunter Teams in CMx1, though having them there with their capabilities was appreciatedly better than nothing extra there at all for sure.

In the game IME they are undermanned and get eliminated too quickly and thereby also too easily, just as similarly do two man ATR, Panzerknockers and LMG teams are.

The problem as I see it is that they more often than not have to manoeuvre or approach towards an enemy AFV than the other two man weapon types have to to be effective in fulfilling the role.

So I guess I'm saying that the two man Tank Hunter Teams in CMx1 should be looked at seriously again by some BFC IMHO with a view to expand them to teams or demi-squads of 3-4 men.

This is not an unconsidered willy-nilly clueless wish, in case you are wondering, because their is plenty of historical material which founds the basis of this recomendation.

Actually I don't know where some BFC came up with universal two man sized Tank Hunter Teams in the first place, because all the sources that I have on these types of small, role specific units has them as consisting of 3-4 men.

It was recomended SOP for such Close Anti-Tank Troops to consist of at least 3 men, up to 4 and even 5, because it wasn't likely that only one or two close assaulters even if armed with Panzerfausts were going to be successful attacking tanks and more often than not loose their lives in the fail endeavour.

There was more to be done than could be manged by just one to two men in such attacks and the German close combat methods must approach the standed, because their Infantry had to perform it most often, though at least I've also seen the Rumanians had to arrange themselves likewise from early on because they went to war against all that Russian armour without an ATR.

To support what I am saying here somewhat I'll mention that Guderian stated in "Panzer Leader", that by May 1944 the number of the especially created decoration awarded for the individual destruction of enemy tanks stood at 10 000, and AIUI most by this date could not have been down to Panzerfausts & schrecks.

According to my information Close Tank Destruction Team members had to perform 3 essential tasks, blinding the tank's observation and providing a smoke screen, destroying the tank with the means availiable and securing the team against the tank crew and any supporting infantry, mind you this all required to be co-ordinated and time managed by the leader.

Smoke was used to hinder enemy observation and smokey or incidiary devices and materials where either thrown on or near the tank or placed over sights and slits, as well as hunging strung over gun barrels and therefore not only molotov cocktail like flamiable liquid bottles were thrown in this effort.

These actions are not depicted in CMx1, though I can understand the difficulty in creating these things to happen, however I would like to see occations where they took crowbars or axes to tool beat mounted MGs and rammed jamming rocks down main gun barrels in some sort of a desparate man hand fighting against tank kind of thing!

The means of tank destruction involved what was on hand but the option were to use explosive packages, concentric grenades, magnetic hollow charges and later Panzerfausts just like in CMx1 by German Infantry and THTs / Pioniers.

However they did also used T-Mines in verious ways placing them under tanks, on their tracks and even actually threw them at tanks including moving tanks, fair dinkum!

My main concern here for this thread is to indicate the historically realistic soundness of suggesting that the two man Tank Hunter Teams from in CMx1 ought to be expanded in CMx2 to be 3-4 man Close Assualt Anti-Tank Troops.

I hope that I have made a reasonable arguement for some BFC, any thoughts fallahs?

[stoat]

Originally posted by Zalgiris 1410:

consisting of 3-4 men.

But would all four attack the vehicle? I find it far more likely that one man would attack an AFV and the others would provide cover fire. I think having a two man unit was a nice compromise between a too-large unit, and a one man unit that would not survive more than two minutes.

[Denwad]

I actually have the Männer Gegen Panzer video that details an assault of a German infantry position by Russian tanks ( about 4 t-34 with supporting infantry and a KV1 )

the infantry is stripped away with long range rifle fire and the tanks are dealt with one by one. The German infantry use Tellerminen with grenade fuzes ( fuze well in the side of the mine ) as large anti-tank frisbees. They also have the 3kg charges, use smoke grenades ( the glass ones ) and a smoke-bola to blind the tanks.

the KV is taken out by a tellermine at the end by placing it under the overhand of the turret.

[Bigduke6]

Originally posted by Denwad:

the KV is taken out by a tellermine at the end by placing it under the overhand of the turret.

Which is not always so easy, considering a KV has a machine gun sticking out the back side of the turret to keep that from happening.

[Panzer_M]

take the KV from the side, while small arms ping at the vison slits and make noise for the crew inside buttoned and not to mention annoyed and stressed by it.

I had a story my granddad used to tell me about a russian heavy tank, in summer of 41, having to deal with it by petrol cans and a flare. The tank was torched in the middle of the night and the 5 grunts that got volunteered for it, got war merit medals if I remember right.

[Private Bluebottle]

I'd just rather make it harder for AFVs to identify AT teams. In real life, unless they are moving, its bloody hard to figure out what any infantry subunit is armed with, from my experience and even then, if its only a small team, its much harder to spot them than its made out to be in CM.

[Ardem]

In the battle across the Luga, in general raus memiors, they could not knock out a KV-1 so a lone sergeant jump onto the tank and covered the viewing slot of the gunner, with his body and the driver drove the tank out of town. Sometimes you don't have to kill a AFV to win.

But on this topic, I think that it will be harder to kill AT men, due to relative spotting, compared to current borg spotting. The tanks currently take on the AT men, rather then long distance enemy infantry who normally spot them first, so I am expecting AT men to be a lot better.

[ September 11, 2005, 09:57 PM: Message edited by: Ardem ]

[Zalgiris 1410]

Tanks shouldn't be able to see let alone engage those very close TH teams when there're in their blind spots and that ought to be better handled with the relative spotting.

BTW Ardem do you remember if the guy who used his body to block the KV-1s vision applied it alive or dead?

[stoat]

Russian hitchhiking, eh?

[Ardem]

He jumped off an lived (well the rest of that day atleast), when the russian tank left the town and was awarded the Iron Cross first class.

The KV-1 left the scene cause pretty much all the infantry and BT-7 had routed.

I would reccommend General Raus Memiors( http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0306812479/102-1278383-7951325?v=glance ). Anyway its a great read, probably one of the best from a German Divisional to Corp Commander view, with detail elements of some battalion size engagements early on in the book.

[ September 11, 2005, 10:01 PM: Message edited by: Ardem ]

[Zalgiris 1410]

I have a copy of that book Ardem, "Panzer Operations", 'The Eastern Front Memoir of General Raus, 1941-1945', compiled and translated by Steven H. Newton.

However, I prefer the translations in "Panzers on the Eastern Front", 'General Erhard Raus and his Panzer Divisions in Russia 1941-1945', Edited by Peter G. Tsouras.

In both the actual episode is on page 64. I shall quote a combined version of both relatively exact treatments from the same origional source:

"the KV-1 emerged from the forrest and drove with such speed, and so close passed a well-camoufluged 100mm gun that the crew had no opportunity to fire at it. The tank circled the church and crushed everything which appeared suspicious, including Colonel von Waldenfel's regimental headquarters. Our PzKw 35ts were powerless--because as at Raseinai their fire had no effect on this monster. At long last, one particularly plucky NCO put an end to this critical situation. He jumped on the tank and kept firing his pistol into the driver vision slot. The latter, wounded by bullet spatter and his vision obstructed, was compelled to turn back. He obviously hoped that by crossing the Russian lines to force his troublesome passenger to abandon his ingeniously chosen position. Thus the smallest weapon in our arsenal had put to flight the enemy's heaviest tank. Shouting and swearing, the driver of the tank again steered passed the 100mm gun. Not until only seconds before the moment they were just about to cross out of the German lines did the NCO leap off the tank, leaving the giant-size vehicle to its fate. However, no sooner had the offending tank reached no man's land when it burst into flames, struck in the rear by a direct hit from the 100mm gun."

Please note that when Raus refers to a 100mm gun he means the K 18 105mm field gun, which has a very long barrel, very high initial velocity and a range of 19 000 metres! Better for taking care of superheavy tanks than even the 88mm Flak. And bloody oath do I want them included in CMx2!!!

[roqf77]

Ah ha how about that then?

[roqf77]

sorry wrong thread

[Zalgiris 1410]

WTF is that bloody pic doing in my thread roqf77? :confused: :mad:

Why don't you take your own, well quoted, advice and just 'go away we were here first dammit'!

Regards,

Saul.

[pad152]

In somes states these days that picture would qualify as felony child abuse! :eek:

P.S. If you ever get divorced, some laywer is going to have a field day.

[Overman_XXX]

What always frustrated me was the lack of effectiveness of 'tank hunters'; especially when asssaulting open-topped vehicles like halftracks. They would sit there and toss grenades, yet never destroy the target.

Even worse for some of the Allied teams lying in ambush on the side of the road in a foxhole or trench. They hopelessly lob multiple grenades at German hafltracks to no avail.

[YankeeDog]

JasonC has made the assertion (and, as usual, supported it with gobs of evidence) that, if anything, infantry are more effective at close-assaulting armor in CM than was true in real life.

I can't say I have done enough research on the matter do add anything to what he's said, but his evidence is pretty compelling.

So while more detailed modeling of what happens in a close assault, and perhaps some more graphic eye candy would be nice, I'd want to see more evidence before I concluded that the close assault abilities of infantry were, taken as a whole, undermodeled in the current engine.

Cheers,

YD

[SgtMuhammed]

I don't think infantry got as many chances as they do in CM. Players tend to send troops and vehicles with no real support plan. In RL armor troops new what terrain lended itself to infantry assault and avioded it when possible.

The use of vanilla grenades is overmodled. Infantry without at assets would usually engage the supporting troops and hide from the armor. Even HTs were normally left alone without AT support.

[Zalgiris 1410]

Originally posted by YankeeDog:

JasonC has made the assertion (and, as usual, supported it with gobs of evidence) that, if anything, infantry are more effective at close-assaulting armor in CM than was true in real life.

So while more detailed modeling of what happens in a close assault, and perhaps some more graphic eye candy would be nice, I'd want to see more evidence before I concluded that the close assault abilities of infantry were, taken as a whole, undermodeled in the current engine.

While he may have read heaps of evidence, unfortunately IME JasonC is always only expressing his self-righteous assertions with nothing more than globs and globs of opinion.

I haven't been discussing the realistic effectiveness of nor the lack of eye candy for Infantry close assaulting actions in CM, yet. But I'll be interested in where that goes YankeeDog to be sure.

What is actually the subjuct of this thread is the size of tank hunter teams in CM which are supposed carry out most of those close assaults of tanks and I have provided evidence for my call for a grater number of members.

(My sources for my origional post were first and foremost "The German Infantry Handbook", by Alex Buchner, and my reading of things by Franz Kurowski, James Lucas and in a few instances in the recollections of Gen Erhard Raus, who incidentally provides the only account of Panzerwurfmine actually being employed that exists AFAIK. Mind you, since he had to rely upon memory when he came to write of this occation, which took place early in the Russian campaigne, he mistakenly describes them as functioning as though they were Panzerfausts for a time when these had not even been developed.)

[ September 12, 2005, 08:44 PM: Message edited by: Zalgiris 1410 ]

[Guest Mike]

Originally posted by sgtgoody (esq):

I don't think infantry got as many chances as they do in CM. Players tend to send troops and vehicles with no real support plan. In RL armor troops new what terrain lended itself to infantry assault and avioded it when possible.

Yeah well that's an option the players can take if htey want - everything else is down to stupidity!

My basic tank hunting unit for infantry in CM* is the "rifle team" half of a squad - when you split it they get all the heavy AT equipment - Pzfausts, mines, etc.

Tank hunter squads I only ever use for scouting and to fill in when I've got a few more points to spend!

[Zalgiris 1410]

Yeah that's the resaultant problem that I find I am faced with Mike, having to do something I really don't like doing at all, splitting squads and using the "Bomber" half to make close assaults against AFV, because those two man T-H teams are just too small and vulnerable and tend not last long enough to perform their specific task.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Zalgiris 1410:

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

JasonC has made the assertion (and, as usual, supported it with gobs of evidence) that, if anything, infantry are more effective at close-assaulting armor in CM than was true in real life.

So while more detailed modeling of what happens in a close assault, and perhaps some more graphic eye candy would be nice, I'd want to see more evidence before I concluded that the close assault abilities of infantry were, taken as a whole, undermodeled in the current engine.

While he may have read heaps of evidence, unfortunately IME JasonC is always only expressing his self-righteous assertions with nothing more than globs and globs of opinion. </font>

[Guest Sgt. Emren]

I usually employ TWO tank-hunter teams to work in tandem. The way I see it, that's a proper TH-team, but it's like a smaller squad split in two. Makes it a bit easier to set up good flanking shots.

[Private Bluebottle]

Originally posted by sgtgoody (esq):

I don't think infantry got as many chances as they do in CM.

My point is that that it nearly impossible to "stalk" tanks because it is too easy IMHO for the stalkers to be spotted and thence annilated before they can bring their weapons into play. In particular, I'd like to to be much harder to work out what each subunit is armed with, so that AT units don't specifically get targetted in the manner they presently do.

[Zalgiris 1410]

I think relative spotting ought to resolve this problem of the stalking TH teams being taken out before they close in on their AFV target hopefully enough somewhat Bluebottle Kiss.