Tips from the Frontline

[RNL Tiger]

Plan

Here I was with my carefully selected forces taking my first look at the map:


This was not good heavy tank country, this was not tiger country! I immediately thought back to the advice about tanks: “In case you're wondering, the Panzer IVH is the equivalent of the T-34/85, they can both drill each other easily. Or you could plump for Tigers instead which are near-impenetrable except at short range but they're more expensive and you won't be able to afford so many. A third option is to go for Panthers, they've got excellent front hull armour but have weak turret and side armour.”

There were very few places with good open LOS so choosing tigers in this terrain was mistake. I now also had to think about ensuring their safety and include that within the plan. The key vulnerability here for the tigers: “If enemy tanks can get close to Tigers they stand a good chance of killing them, especially if they use tungsten ammo. In open maps the attacker can blind them with smoke and get close that way. The German player must therefore try not to let enemy tanks get close..:) From experience I know that T-34/85's have a hard job penetrating Tigers at much more than a couple of hundred metres.” OK, so I had purchased forces without taking into account the terrain or weather so now I had to adapt. However, POS added a footnote that I would come to appreciate much more fully later: “Don't rely too much on printed statistics, I never do, just use them as a very rough guide and play by gut instinct and experience most of the time.”

Of course, it was easy for POS to talk about playing by gut instinct, especially when you have played hundreds of battles but this was only my second QB and I had not played that many scenarios. As for the comment on not relying on the printed statistics, well, I had just spent ages in the unit detail screen comparing and contrasting armour, guns, penetration… so I had no idea what that really meant.

Anyway, the next step is to define the plan now that I can see the map. So what was the plan? “NEVER begin a battle without a PLAN, then MODIFY it during the battle if need be, by constantly re-evaluating what you NEED to do to win. See, in every game you must decide when to attack and when to defend as the situation fluctuates. Of course, you can always decide to surprise the enemy by doing something expected. Another important thing is to be TIME-CONSCIOUS, which means your overall plan must fit into the length of the game. A typical mistake people make is rushing things when they don't have to.”

Now that all makes sense but I still need to put that into the context of the plan here for this meeting engagement. So, time to ask a few questions: “In Meeting Engagements THE big boo-boo 99% of my opponents make is to not race for the flags at top speed in order to dump their infantry there before me. In 5 years of playing hundreds of Meets, I don't think anybody has ever beat me to the flags more than 3 or 4 times.”

So, that tactic effectively makes the game an attack/defend where the attacker does not have the usual numerical superiority...“Not necessarily... If somebody seizes the flags first it means his forces are spread out thinly between 2 or more flags. A wily opponent can therefore throw his full weight against just one flag at a time at odds of 2 to 1 (or better) and capture it before attacking the next flag, and the next (think 'Domino Effect'). As Rommel said - "He who defends everything defends nothing", but that's the risk we take by trying to hold more than 1 flag ..:)”

However, isn't it dangerous to "fast" your armour forward to the flag? Even in a crazy map like this you do not know what LOS the opponent has to it? I think in an earlier email you recommended having the infantry in front of the tanks? “The two sides are so far apart at the start of Meets in mixed terrain that they rarely have LOS on each other, so racing at top speed carries no real risk if he can't see you..:) But later on, when the forces get close and manoeuvring, that's the time to start screening your tanks with infantry in case nasty bunnies are sneaking through the trees to throw eggs at them”

On this map specifically, [lucky!] you have two roads from your setup position into the flags whilst I have none, presumably, if you know that your opponent can get there faster [or assume that he can] you do not still rush the flag? [i.e. try to get there whilst he is still disorganised] “Yes I'm lucky in having 2 roads, but that's random maps for you…But at least as you play more random maps the luck balances out under the Law of Averages. Look on the bright side - you know I've got roads and you can therefore predict where I'm likely to be racing, and you can plan where to attack accordingly, whereas I have absolutely no idea where you'll be coming from, it could be anywhere…”

If neither of us had roads would you still rush your tank to the flag through wooded areas? Presumably if both forces arrived at the flag you would just "hope" that you would win the fire-fight? “Yup! Roads or no roads I always go fast and hard for the flags, even if he's got roads and I haven't. In such cases I hope to at least arrive while he's still disorganised and getting into defensive posture, rather than give him time to deploy at leisure”

So I needed to convert some of these ideas into specifics for this map. It was clear that POS would get to the flags first so what I needed to do was to plan for how I would attack them. Thinking along those lines reminded me of earlier problems I had attacking:
1) Lead with light armour, with armour in over-watch support with follow-up infantry - scouts destroyed too easily for no real gain
2) Lead with an armoured fist with following infantry - armour destroyed too easily for even less gain
3) Lead with scouting infantry with armoured over-watch, with following infantry - seems best in most situations

“1 - Light armour in the lead will draw fire and quickly die but at least it'll have served its purpose and made the enemy give his positions away so that your main force can blast it. Light stuff is also good at finding buried AT-mines by driving over them and getting blown up, but at least it'll allow your main force to then avoid the mines. But in QB's don't spend too much cash on them (just 2/ 3/4 will usually do, (cheap cars armed with just an MG are ideal), otherwise you'll be draining cash from where its needed most - buying good tanks.

2 - If the maps not too big, lead your with an infantry line out ahead of your armour to comb clumps of woods and stuff to flush out enemy AT-guns and shreks etc.
The main body can then blast them.

3 - You use the term 'following infantry'. That's okay I suppose if you want a reserve force, but as I say, infantry is best in front of the tanks as a screen. And don't forget infantry can ride on most tanks, that’s useful if you've got lots of ground to cover before getting near the enemy, it'd be too slow if the infantry walked.

Here's a good example of an attack -scroll down to the pic entitled "Punching with your fist" https://www.theblitz.club/message_boards...885&page=1

One more thing - once the enemy is encountered, STOP moving most of your stuff, deal with the enemy you can see before continuing the advance.”

So, what about the specifics of a plan? In short, I decided that the overall plan would be to find fix and flank. The find part would be easy as the Russians would likely be holding and clustered around the flags. The fix part would need to be frontally by the infantry and the flank part would primarily be by the armour. The infantry would then go around the left flank and then head left to right to roll up the defence like falling dominoes.

Given that the initial deployment plan:
• Use 4 platoon to protect the left flank and to turn inwards take the left flag and to roll up the enemy line
• Use A company to attack the main flags in the middle with supporting HMGs
• Use 5 platoon to protect the right flank and potentially to go for the far right flag
• Use STuG platoon to support the centre flag attack
• Use the Tiger platoon on the left as a mobile reserve and to attack enemy armour

So, I had the forces selected, a plan defined and expectations about where the enemy would be and the probable enemy forces. However, I also knew that I had made a mistake at the purchasing screen by picking:
• Tigers – terrain lacks good open LOS and being able to fight at long ranges
• STuGs – no turret and very slow turning times make them vulnerable to attacks from unexpected directions