Tactical problem from "KG Langheit"

[Der Alte Fritz]

1 company of PzIV plus two sections of Stugs, a Company of PzGR in the rear and a spotter for 105mm. Facing an open area of ground 500m to a clump of trees with maybe 8 Russian guns. Problem is that the open ground is open to cross fire from 1500mm away with more Russian guns. The only position to engage these from the screening wood is itself open to cross fire from the original group of guns.

How is the best way to win with the minimum losses?

[Michael Emrys]

How is the best way to win with the minimum losses?

Call in the bombers.

Seriously though, can you use the artillery to suppress one group of guns while you rush the other with the tanks? Also, is it possible that the StuGs can fire smoke to mask all but one gun at a time in the group you intend to attack? That would allow your tanks to concentrate their fire on one gun at a time.

Michael

[George MC]

Hi Daf

Hope all is well mate? Cheers for all the comments about the Strachwitz and Baeke scenarios - very much appreciated.

Re your tactical question (that's one of my scenarios) so without giving too much away - first off check the briefing to get an idea of what the scoop is - it's key to fighting this one I think. I've actually just finished playing this through myself the other week so pretty fresh on how it will play out.

What I did was use the Stugs as my overwatch - they are pretty sturdy wee things when hull down so move em to somewhere they can overwatch a large area (might have to have em jockey about as and when they become targets - but as they become targets you will unmask gun positions which your arty can take out (mind and have your FOOs where they can see lot's).

Next trick is to decide where to attack - there are lot's of options for using the ground but here good combined tactics will work well, so you can move up along dead ground leading with panzers and closely supported by infantry. When you get close but not LOS to the Soviet positions dismount your PzGs and have em move in on foot (you also have infantry on-map mortars and if I mind are there not any SPWs with on board mortars. Your dismounts should make contact with any Soviet infantry - again your arty/stugs in overwatch can help blast on ID positions or your close support mortars. PzGs then move up an clear what's left. Panzers are there to provide close support to take out any MGs etc.

Might help to think of this operation in phases and be conservative with what you hope to achive in each phase (mind the odd way CMBB re-draws battle lines after each battle). This one is less of s weeping blitzkreig and more a slow and methodical reduction of Soviet opposition.

Key thing is dealing with the Soviet PAK, then the Soviet armour which will give you operational flexibility i.e. move about the map.

Be keen to hear how you get on with it

Cheers fur noo

George

ps this is based on a RL event see Panzertaktic for the AAR.

[Der Alte Fritz]

Good to hear from you George, I thought you had crossed over to the 'dark side' of CMSF never to be heard of again. Am keenly awaiting CM2:N but suspect I will be drawn back to the Ostfront for its breadth of subject matter time and time again.

Yes did some tidying up of my reviews as I realised I had played a lot of these but never graded them as they were on TPG at the time.

This only scenario one of the five but it is a typical kind of engagement and so one I want to explore in detail. Tried a rush kind of attack with a flank guard this morning but lost 7 tanks but killed both sets of guns. So I want to see if this can be improved upon. Will have a go with your ideas this evening.

Finished creating my big Melikhovo battle and it turned out alright in the end. Getting the force balance right was the main problem but go there with trial and error. I think it brings out all the right elements about the Kursk battle, highly mobile Germans, gun and infantry based Russians and the Germans just keep getting worn down and although they win each battle. A couple of days after this Dr Baake has his Ghost Column adventure - I think you were going to have a try at doing this as a scenario?

cheers

[coe]

Y'know this brings up that I never mastered the idea of tanks only overcoming a Pak front with minimal losses (something the germans were able to do somehow) - especially if you have to approach from a distance over reasonable open ground. If I use Pz IVs in general they take decent losses....

Is it better to standoff from a distance and engage the Pak front or to close in? (if you had tanks only)

[Michael Emrys]

Is it better to standoff from a distance and engage the Pak front or to close in? (if you had tanks only)

You should do better at a distance. His ATGs won't have as much penetration but the only effect on your HE will be a slight loss of accuracy that shouldn't be too important, especially if you can mass fires against one or two targets at a time.

Michael

[Der Alte Fritz]

I have seen this too.

I some cases it is explainable, as in the case of 503rd Tiger Abt, where they roll forward destroying AT guns and running them over in some cases.

In others it does not look so simple. I suspect it is an effect of date. For instance at Kursk 7th Kompanie 6th Pz Div on the 7th, meets some AT guns and the officer shouts "drive like fury for the village" and they make it to the village losing a tank and knocking out several AT guns. Turns out they were facing the 51st (?) AT Bde armed with 45mm AT guns firing at about 1200m against PzIVG and PzIIIL, so they were seriously out gunned.

The day after, same officer (who later went on to command a Tiger Company with 503rd) approaches a village, meets AT guns and loses his entire company in the space of about 20 minutes. Turns out this time his 15 tanks had met an Army level AT unit armed with ZIS-3 76mm guns.

I think at other times, when German tanks are crunching over AT guns with their tracks, they are occupying a position that has already been cleared by artillery fire and the crews are dead or fled.

Certainly by late war both sides found that tank attacks were brought up short by PAK fronts and required infantry/artillery to clear a way.

Has one one other thoughts on this

[JasonC]

Signal magazine and vet fish stories are such a reliable indicator of tactical realities...

The 105mm FO doesn't have 60 rounds in real life. More like 1200.

Read "the Sidi Rezegh Battles" for a real description of DAK reducing a "box" and what it entailed. The defending ATGs do not have much of a chance, because the Germans use tank artillery cooperation, they crawl in slowly (with lots of back and forth) for about 2 hours, backing into their own dust to give LOS only to a forward crust. The 75mm Panzer IVs open fire at 2 kilometers. Artillery dust is masking most of the position. The 25 pdrs that can kill at km ranges go first, though some are deep enough in the box they last a while. (They correspond to Russian 76s for such matters). The 2 pdrs need short ranges or side aspect and they don't get them often, and the few that do don't last long (they correspond to Russian 45s). By the time the tanks have closed to 500 yards, the ATGs are silent and it is mostly down to machineguns. Then German infantry debuses behind them from trucks (in the dust), and adds heavy weapons fire. Last, dismounts move slowly through the whole position, and anything that opens draws a hail of fire from the tanks.

The combined arms are not used in a "total dose" of penny packet size each all thrown at the enemy at once to let him pick which arm to shoot, which makes each defending weapon effective against something in the attacking force. Instead they are used largely in sequence, in industrial amounts, and paired at specific time windows to present specific tactical dilemmas to the defenders (arty plus armor early when the defending guns are deciding whether to fire or wait for closer range, armor plus infantry late when the defending infantry is deciding whether to stay down or shoot back, etc).

Real Pak front tactics early war depended on very poor combined arms by the enemy, and afterward switched to ambush firing, which itself only attrited the attacking formations, trading off guns for a few tanks. (Then the Russians in particular just relied on many layers of small ambushes. Big ones make neat artillery targets). If PaK could kill from long enough range to remain unspotted (which depends on cover and light conditions etc, not just an opening range choice) they could sometimes halt armor solo; in those cases it is always a matter of guns remaining unspotted or an outlier ambush success in a mad minute, and typically against only company sized armor formations.

[coe]

ahh so there's a bit of creep forward aspect... hmmm but how does this translate into a CMBB context (e.g. only have 30-35 minutes, limited artillery, closer starting ranges). ....

[Michael Emrys]

If it is a scenario you are creating, you could start the defending forces off with losses and suppressed (I forget the exact term used in the game). That would model the effect of an artillery barrage that had just lifted.

Michael

[coe]

I wish I were designing a scenario... no no I'm trying to win some of the kursk scenarios (where they don't start out supressed unfortunately.

[Michael Emrys]

Hmmm, it's been a few years, but ISTR that you can open somebody else's scenario in the editor and do a little "doctoring". My one experience was trying to modify some terrain in CMBO to try to make it a little more realistic looking, so I can't swear that it applies to all parameters, but you might give it a try.

Michael

[Cuirassier]

Instead they are used largely in sequence, in industrial amounts, and paired at specific time windows to present specific tactical dilemmas to the defenders (arty plus armor early when the defending guns are deciding whether to fire or wait for closer range, armor plus infantry late when the defending infantry is deciding whether to stay down or shoot back, etc).

I understand the holding fire/opening up dilemma for defending infantry, but not the PAK one so much. What threat keeps the PAK from refusing to fire except at close range? Can the artillery prep bombardment suppress the PAK so much that the tanks gain a sighting differential and therefore gain an edge in dueling the guns?

Also, was German artillery used primarily in prep shoots, or did they keep the 105's and 150's reactive, hitting batteries as they appeared?

I ask because I have not read Hamilton's book (not in my library and too expensive for me to afford at the moment). It also is difficult to replicate in CM, since attackers rarely have so much off-map artillery, time or long initial LOS distances.

[Der Alte Fritz]

My understanding is that the 105mm and 155m howitzers were used for prep shoots and that the heavier guns were used for counter battery fire, having less spread and longer range.

An example of 6th Pz Div attacking prepared defences during the battle of Kursk at Melikhovo on 8th July. Prep shoot by standard Panzer artillery force of

I Bn/PzArtillery Regt 76 (12 x 105mm?)

3/54th Nebelwerfer Regt

857 Artillery Abt (210mm)

lasting for 10 minutes on a large village hosting 17 x 76mm AT guns plus a battalion of infantry.

Given the prepared nature of the defences, the 105mm were not capable of inflicting too much damage so the Panzers that came after got shot up.

[coe]

that's interesting, because given the prepared nature of the russian defenses all over the salient you'd expect german artillery to have been not that effect and the PAK fronts to have inflicted staggering losses but from what I understand, that wasn't the case (losses were higher than a normal day but not like on Goodwood proportions)...

[molotov_billy]

Signal magazine and vet fish stories are such a reliable indicator of tactical realities...

The 105mm FO doesn't have 60 rounds in real life. More like 1200.

Read "the Sidi Rezegh Battles" for a real description of DAK reducing a "box" and what it entailed. The defending ATGs do not have much of a chance, because the Germans use tank artillery cooperation, they crawl in slowly (with lots of back and forth) for about 2 hours, backing into their own dust to give LOS only to a forward crust. The 75mm Panzer IVs open fire at 2 kilometers. Artillery dust is masking most of the position. The 25 pdrs that can kill at km ranges go first, though some are deep enough in the box they last a while. (They correspond to Russian 76s for such matters). The 2 pdrs need short ranges or side aspect and they don't get them often, and the few that do don't last long (they correspond to Russian 45s). By the time the tanks have closed to 500 yards, the ATGs are silent and it is mostly down to machineguns. Then German infantry debuses behind them from trucks (in the dust), and adds heavy weapons fire. Last, dismounts move slowly through the whole position, and anything that opens draws a hail of fire from the tanks.

The combined arms are not used in a "total dose" of penny packet size each all thrown at the enemy at once to let him pick which arm to shoot, which makes each defending weapon effective against something in the attacking force. Instead they are used largely in sequence, in industrial amounts, and paired at specific time windows to present specific tactical dilemmas to the defenders (arty plus armor early when the defending guns are deciding whether to fire or wait for closer range, armor plus infantry late when the defending infantry is deciding whether to stay down or shoot back, etc).

Real Pak front tactics early war depended on very poor combined arms by the enemy, and afterward switched to ambush firing, which itself only attrited the attacking formations, trading off guns for a few tanks. (Then the Russians in particular just relied on many layers of small ambushes. Big ones make neat artillery targets). If PaK could kill from long enough range to remain unspotted (which depends on cover and light conditions etc, not just an opening range choice) they could sometimes halt armor solo; in those cases it is always a matter of guns remaining unspotted or an outlier ambush success in a mad minute, and typically against only company sized armor formations.

Out of print and rare it looks like, does anybody have maybe an online link for this?

Does anyone have other recommendations for straightfoward tactical accounts like this? Obviously a lot of operational studies, but there tends to be a trend of this level of history being more about the human drama side of things.

I want to know the tactical components of what operational statements actual mean - "2nd panzer chewed up elements of so and so tank corps over the course of several days" - how?

[Joachim]

I understand the holding fire/opening up dilemma for defending infantry, but not the PAK one so much. What threat keeps the PAK from refusing to fire except at close range? Can the artillery prep bombardment suppress the PAK so much that the tanks gain a sighting differential and therefore gain an edge in dueling the guns?

For just staying alive:

Thick frontal armor.

Front is smaller target with less vulnerable areas.

Unfavorable angles.

Others:

Killing bailing crews is easier the close they are.

Recovery of tanks is easier the closer they are (read: you want them far away from fortifier German lines and close to your own line)

Also, was German artillery used primarily in prep shoots, or did they keep the 105's and 150's reactive, hitting batteries as they appeared?

Both. Reactive hits better as the target is located but after the target fired first.

It also is difficult to replicate in CM, since attackers rarely have so much off-map artillery, time or long initial LOS distances.

But you face the same dillemma in CM: Fire on suspected locations (which is just another kind of prep fire) or wait till you have a target. The less ammo you have the more likely it is you will use reactive fire only - which leads to the difficulty you mention.

Would you use more prep fire if you had terrain markers indicating gun positions? More time for cautious recce with inf or light tanks? Both increasing the chance to hit sumkfink with limited ammo?

Time and initial long distance depend on the scenario. QBs won't work here. But I bet "South of Kharkov" - 120 turns with a btn of inf on each side - will appeal to just a few players. Most scens or qbs put you right into the action. The concept of "balancing" a game limits prep arty, not CM itself.

You've got to look for scens. Or play campaign games.

[Cuirassier]

Joachim,

So the the guns are forced to open up at distance for fear that they may just get knocked out during the prep-bombardment without getting any shots off? I guess this would require some good recon since the attacker would have to map out the defense to a degree, to know where to put his fires (though having tons of shells of course alleviates that concern a bit).

Molotov Billy,

The US Army Green books have some pretty low-level tactical stuff in them. It also helps to read operational histories covering the North African or Northwestern Europe campaigns in general, as these tend to cover actions at a lower level than an Eastern Front history. Divisional and regimental histories also tend to have some decent information in them. You can also read field manuals and lessons learned documents (there is a good one from the Soviet General Staff covering the Moscow fighting).

[Joachim]

Joachim,

So the the guns are forced to open up at distance for fear that they may just get knocked out during the prep-bombardment without getting any shots off? I guess this would require some good recon since the attacker would have to map out the defense to a degree, to know where to put his fires (though having tons of shells of course alleviates that concern a bit).

That would be one option. But the starting positions are usually hidden and most prep bombardements in CM are in turn 1 - so no time to open up for the guns.

A scenario might see a Soviet assault, open steppe, a few rear-slopes - gullies, patches of trees. Lots of Soviet high-level large guns or rockets, no TRPs. - so reacting to threats is impossible. Then T34s with tank riders advance behind a pre-planned delayed rolling barrage targetting any place that can't receive direct HE before rushing in.

Next thing would see a massive Axis assault with 2:1 on map forces plus lots of arty for the attacker - and a huge negative Axis bonus, so he can't just exchange forces to grab the flags (worth a little less than the negative bonus) but has to care for his troops.

A more likely scenario is direct HE towards spotted trenches or foxholes regardless of whether a unit was spotted inside. Or leveling every two-story house in a village with direct HE. Direct HE is cheaper in CM - and works better vs small target areas.

Once scouts close to 150m from your trenches in the open - will your gun in that trench open up or sit and wait? It's just a smaller scale.