Fighting King Tigers...

[Hinkar]

Rarity off and German attack with Jerry taking 4 King Tigers and some inf.

Rural map. Lots of cover.

What's the best Russian defence?

Lots of T34-85s and lots of smoke?

Lots of 20mm AA?

Lots of inf and tank hunters and ATRs?

Lots of aircraft?

Lots of inf with pioneers and flamethrowers?

[MeatEtr]

Whats the point amount? Although with rarity off, a toon of KTs is still a big chunk of change. So since his infantry force should be on the lightside, I'd overwhelm him with an all infantry force. Don't bother with ATRs, snipers do a better job of killing the TCs and keeping him buttoned up.

IIRC the Russian 76.2mm ZiS gun can punch through the KTs sides at a decent range. Maybe get a few 20mm for distraction and then open up on the KTs side turrets.

Since this is late war, load up on tank hunter teams and hope most of them get the RPGs.

And smoke will surely help with infantry tank assaults.

[Vark]

Reiterate MeatEtr's comment.

1. How many points to play with?

2. When you say lots of cover, what type of cover, what is the map like, contours or flat?

3. Do you know the quality of his troops, and what is the quality of yours?

4. What month are you playing and what is the ground condition like?

5. Is your opponent experienced, or are they new to CMBB?

Possible suggestions

If the ground is wet then let nature take its course as they bog and immobilise!

If the map has plenty of wooded areas then lay mines along the gaps and position Maxims in trenches to pin his infantry. Highly effective if the contours allow reverse defences, negating one of the main advantages of the 88 L71.

I would not advise armour as it will come of worse, the KT is over modelled and tanks cannot ambush as they did historically, ie invisible till they fired. Take AT guns and buy lots, just keep the infantry away from them as the damn borg spotting will mean the tanks can stand off and pick their targets, if the map allows.

If you are up against King Tigers, buy aircraft, especially IL-2's or PE-2's for the rocket bomb combination. Better still a module of 132mm rockets fired at the start should screw up his infantry armour cooperation, especially if his troops are average to poor quality, ditto for 203mm's though ROF is poor.

Make sure your infantry are SMG's, if forested and pioneers for the tanks, with barbed wire to channel infantry and mines/roadblocks to herd the tanks into pre-registered kill zones. Use of smoke is useful to separate tanks from infantry, or vice versa, so that each can be engaged individually.

Snipers and tank hunters are a given, and don't forget 82mm mortars firing in full defilade. If you refuse to buy armour and out number him in infantry he will most likely loose.

Final point, make sure your opponent does not read this advice!!

[JasonC]

76s are a bad idea, won't get through the sides, which are 80mm and sloped. It takes 57mm, out the towed guns, plus a flank shot.

IL-2s are good vs. lesser armor but against Tigers or KTs only can get immobilizations and those are significantly rarer. One might still be worth it if the German has no flak.

A better bet on a tight map defense (only) is to defeat his infantry and then have more pioneers and tank hunters and AT mines than there are lanes through the blocks of impassible woods. On large point maps, though, the mines are tough to use, as the map tends to get wider rather than deeper, and often the enemy can cut the map with a middle to back clean LOS line without advancing into your own set up area.

In a defense there is another possibility, taking multiple TRPs and putting them on the openings between woods areas, along with very high caliber and thus usually unreactive (and cheap) FOs. Those will still land in 1 minute if fired at a TRP. And they will immobilize or gun damage vehicles regardless of their armor thickness, as well as shredding infantry. Not that expensive either e.g. 152mm gun FO with 20 rounds as conscripts is 64 points, take 2 of those and up to 7 TRPs.

In an ME, though, those tactics will not work. You need flank shots and he will keyhole to deny them to you. So you need to be able to shred his infantry and get an occasional unexpected flank shot. That means speed and smoke and a T-34/85 (risky) or a 57mm hidden. 37mm AA also has a good chance of gun damage or track immobilization results. There is no point in trying to duel them frontally BTW.

[Hinkar]

Great, thanks for the advice!

It's 2000 points attack, so 3000 points for him as attacker, and med woods, med hills, rural in Oct 44. With rarity off, he could have bought quite a bit of inf after buying the KTs.

Mix of SMGs, Snipers, a few 57mm (with rarity off not so expensive), big arty and trps, mines, and pray for mud!

(EDIT : And hope he's not reading this!!).

Don't like my chances, but I like a challenge!

[Vark]

Thanks for the additional info Hinkar, I take it medium, for the terrain settings, is moderate. Could not sleep so did the CMBB equivalent of counting sheep, running through various scenarios, for your up and coming battle taking 1250 as a point limit, with a medium map and moderate trees, slight hills and set in the summer (Bagration?) I initially bought a platoon of regular KT's and a Pz Gdr company. I simulated the opening couple of turns, looking at how best to degrade his covering infantry, without them the Tigers are toast, literally.

Two modules of green 132mm rockets on average, (simulation repeated 10 times) inflicted 25% infantry fatalities and half the remaing infantry was broken/paniced. Waiting for the infantry to move, by delaying the barrage by 1-2 minutes, increased casualties by 10%. The tanks suffered a 25% gun damaged/commander ko'd result. IL-2's, forget it, they popped up and attacked the infantry mainly, only once actually damaging a tank.

Just finished the 2000 point simulation, opening turns, I do have a life!! Bought a platoon of veteran King Tigers and two companies of veteran Grenadiers and still had change for two modules of 105 and one of 150, oh and some VGndr smg platoons to baby sit the tanks and tank hunters to scout ahead. The map is now so wide that the 132mm rocket barrage is ineffectual, 10% infantry casualties and it uses up too many points. So my advice, mine the approach routes, pre-register artillery and create AT strong points, guarded by MG's, mortars, snipers and SMG/pioneers. Tanks might survive better on the larger map and could be used as a mobile fire brigade to stem infantry assaults.

As for mud the five pregenerated battlefields all were dry, cold but dry (this was the central region). Good luck.

[Hinkar]

Great, thanks Vark.

Will try something like that, with maybe a tank or two to take advantage of any of my enemies mistakes...

[JasonC]

If you are going to try rockets with rariety off, definitely buy the 300mm variety. Much more bang for a very similar buck. Buy them low quality and prep fire them. Significant gun damage or immobilization chances and the single best rocket can KO an infantry platoon.

[Redwolf]

Lots of small autocannone (small FlaK guns). They knock out the gun on the heavy tanks in no time, and they are only spottable from pretty close range.

AT mines will also do

[JasonC]

I find the really light ones, the Russian 25mm and Germans single 20mm, don't have the punching power to inflict gun damage or track damage even when they hit those areas. Neither do ATRs. The 37mm AA guns do, but can be spotted at something like 800 meters distance, even firing from woods. They are still effective, though. Their hit chance is so high and so is their rate of fire. They get in multiple licks before any reply, even if the range is too short and they are seen. That is already enough to get a good chance of a damage result. But they aren't as cheap as the little ones, no question.

As for AT mines, in scenarios they work, but in large point QBs they don't, really. The reason is the way the set up zones work. You can expect to have only about 600 to 700 meters to set up in, with flags (in an "attack" scenario) about half way to a third of the way forward. This means the enemy can approach to within 300-400 meters of the flags without entering your set up area. And can usually get LOS there, often clear to your back map edge, cutting up side to side movements. Without ever entering an area where you were allowed to place a minefield.

Rural medium woods is a lot of woods, but with hills too, the LOS distances from the better spots still aren't all that short. Instead there are bottlenecked approaches to the places that have LOS from just outside the set up area. If you can get ambushers to those bottlenecks in the early game, great. You can also skulk away from them trying to draw his tanks in, of course, and you can put TRPs on those bottlenecks, even outside your set up zone. Still, it helps enourmously to have some weapons that can kill armor at range, if they can get a side shot. Just makes the enemy much less frisky.

Here is a sample force I took for this. The Germans had a King Tiger platoon, PzGdr company plus 3 more platoons, 2 105mm FOs, 2 SPW 251/9s and 2 251/2s, one platoon of armored Pz Gdrs to get 4 MG SPWs to cart around heavy weapons. Not a gamey optimum force, but a capable one with combined arms. (Gamey optimum, drop the Stummels for StuHs instead, e.g.).

The Russian defenders took -

2 1943 pattern infantry companies

1 SMG company

1 pioneer company

2 extra Maxim MMG, 4 total

1 12.7mm AA HMG (half track duty)

1 37mm AA gun (damage and halftracks)

2 57mm ATGs (flank positions)

2 76mm infantry guns (front positions keyholed)

2 82mm mortars on map

1 120mm FO, regular quality

2 152mm gun FOs, conscript quality

6 TRPs

1 veteran sniper

6 veteran tank hunters

2 flamethrowers

In all you get nearly 500 men and can outnumber the German infantry by nearly 2 to 1. And they are well armed - about 175 SMGs all told, and a good mix of ranges and ammo loads. Stealth fire at range comes from MGs and mortars.

The close assault crew is 6 DC squads in 3 teams of 2 each, 6 THs with RPGs, 2 FTs with 45mm range. All told that is enough to cover about a full kilometer of frontage with close assault threat. With the woods taking much of the remainder etc.

The TRPs go on routes a tank could take through woods bottlenecks, and the 152mm FOs set up with LOS to them. Despite being army level guns and conscripts, their rounds will still land after 1 minute of delay, without a warning spotting round, and should come in a single flight at a time. Giving 10 shots of 4 shells each, all told. The blast is enough to pin a platoon with a single tree burst, and to immobilize a Tiger on a near miss.

The 57mms have enough punch to KO through a side facing if they ever get one. The 76mm guns are bait for them, meant to hit infantry piled up in woods from their keyholes, and draw Tigers into positions that the 57mm can "cross" or TRPed 152mm can drop on.

The 120mm mortars can hit infantry and they can also drop smoke to let tank killers work. So can the on map 82s and 76s, though not as copiously, of course.

There are also light AT weapons to avoid any need to show a 57mm to kill halftracks or other scouting armor. The HMG can do so stealthily, and AA is fast and lethal at it, and the 76mm at least able to do it if required.

As for the infantry, plenty of company HQs means flexible tasking. The pioneers expect to work in pairs not full platoons, and so will most of the tommy gunners. The extra tommy gunner squads go with the other company HQs (other than the pioneers I mean), one each, along with regular squads. So there are 12 infantry platoon positions, or 15 if you count the pioneers. This should outnumber the German infantry formations by 2 to 1 to start with.

Then the 152s, 120s, 82s, 76s, MGs, etc all try to KO about half of the German infantry before it can get to grips. The Germans then need to kill something like 300 men with their Tigers (and FOs, it is true) to have a chance of rooting you out of your woods.

If there were less cover, I'd consider adding a passel of trenches too, but in rural heavy woods it is superfluous.

[Hinkar]

About 25 mm AA. I tried a test,

20 25 mm AA (cost 280 pts) vs 20 KTs (cost nearly 6000 pts), on small map with AAs in trees and KTs Hunting forward from 700 meters.

Result, turn 10, 16 dead KTs, the other 4 immobile or Gun Damage. 5 AAs still firing.

Gamey? Maybe. But gamey opponents reap what they sow...

That combination of conscript 152s and TRPs is marvellous.

[undead reindeer cavalry]

usually those players who choose Tiger IIs are rather bad players. on two occasions i have taken out Tiger IIs with a AT-mine & tank hunter combo. the Tiger stupidly drives into mines, gets immobilizes and a bit later KOed by nearby tank hunters. never underestimate human stupidity, especially when there are only a few turns left and the opponent feels he needs to do something.