Taktik(German) vs ER - Meeting Engagement

Taktik

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ER and I still are playing out these games, but I figured I’d take a break from doing turns tonight and gather some pictures and start to write something up. I don't believe I'll give anything away, even though both games are going down to the wire.

This is one of two mirrored games ER and I have going. You can say they are the impetus behind our armored series matches. The discussion about luck and tactics originated here with these games. I’m mostly armor-happy with my QB picks. I’ve enjoyed it, but its grown old over time. I am beginning to gravitate away from armor-centric fights back to my roots in my recent games and I am really enjoying it. (Those old beautiful Squad Leader counters…guards rifle, pioneers, 2 or 3 HMG with ROF 3 stacked with a 9-2 leader. Ooobaby :yummy:)

Ironically, ER and I seem to have reversed roles in these games. He innocently says he doesn’t get tanks, but he’s doing very well with them. ER’s faith is in the chess-like certainty of infantry / combined arms engagements. I am pleased to note I’ve faired not badly with my infantry and have given out some licks to ERs forces where the fighting centered on the foot troops.

I am feeling the power of the rifleman. Wonderful to find some new interest in this old, dead game :laugh:

The parameters are 3000 points, armored force-mix with an imported map. There were a few house rules.
1. No Tigers or StuG (lates), the ones with the 80mm armor. No KVs for the Russians.
2. No SMG infantry, rifle based infantry only. This was to force us to not rely on the ueber SMG types but use good old-fashioned bolt actions.
3. Max 1 battalion of infantry.

The idea was to represent two mechanized / armored task forces meeting each other over some vital terrain. The map’s setup zones were very small in opposite corners of the map to force players to move and hopefully avoid turtling or bunkering around flags once the initial rush is made. I will talk more on this later.

Looking at the map you can see the three big flags are spaced even along the middle. There is a big one each closer to our respective sides and the third one in the center.

My forces consisted of a recon battalion, 3 plts of PzIIIJ (lates), two plts of marders, 81mm FO, some transport for the guns that came with the BN.

I don’t generally scour over a map and granularize my routes of march to the tiniest waypoint and I didn’t do so this time. I wanted to advance down the road to the outskirts of the town with my armor, and then fan out by plts into line formation. The PzIIIs would lead with a pair of Marders close behind each PzIII plt. The remaining two Marders would strike off to screen my left flank. A plt of infantry and a 50mm ATG would join them. My right flank was my weakest but easiest to support from my right wing in the center. I had a plt of infantry and an ATG head out that way to watch for flanking Ruskies.


More to follow, but first how do you insert pics here? Its asking for a URL?
 

Nemesis Lead

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I like fighting with bolt action rifles too. You can get some long drawn out shootouts and you don't have to worry about low ammo ceasefires.

You know what a low ammo ceasefire is, right ER? :laugh:
 

Tripps

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More to follow, but first how do you insert pics here? Its asking for a URL?
Best way is to create a photobucket.com account and upload there, then for each picture it generates a web link which you can copy and paste into what the photo link does here - its actually pretty simple once you do it :)
 

Taktik

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By turn 4 things began to develop. ER surprised me. I didn’t expect him to race up the middle with his armor. My intelligence officer would argue that based on all prior games, ER would handle his armor carefully and keep them scarce. But this was not the case.

T34s appeared as my leading PzIIIs crested a little hummock and gained LOS to the town. I wasn’t prepared for this – shame on me – so my tanks got a little bunched on the road and weren’t in optimal firing positions. Nonetheless, they engaged the Russian tanks as they were.


 
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Taktik

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Here is another view of our tanks about to square off. I will try to keep the talk of missed shots and luck to a minimum. With this many tanks, there is lots of shooting, so it would be tedious to dissect every encounter. The German gunnery wasn’t inspiring, but not horrible either here. After trading shots and a few kills here and there for us both, ER disengaged and backed away.



One more view of Turn 4 with some arrows indicating basic planned routes of advance. The three PzIII plts and supporting Marders would shake out into line formation and once formed, advance slowly into the town, using pairs of tanks to advance and overwatch within each plt. Most tanks have ACA and the hunt order is used primarily, except for the occasional fast move to catch up and get to cover quickly.

The bulk of the infantry is still far away. Several turns later I alter my plans a little based off of the pending arrival of my infantry. ER will soon go into counter-punch mode in the center. I was going to make a conscious effort to avoid the pitfalls of playing into his hands, so decided to greatly reduce the rate of advance with my tanks and allow the infantry to take on a bigger role. Perhaps I could have pushed faster in the earlier going, but I was sure ER was hoping for this and was aligning his tanks to essentially make this an Att/Def game in this sector. Plus, I was excited to concentrate more on my infantry and allow them to be more of a factor in the game.

BTW, thanks Tripps! Photobucket is pretty cool. I forgot to edit routes and such on my pics but found out you can do them right there on the website :)
 
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Taktik

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Not much has changed by turn 9. The panzers in the center are finally getting with the program and are in line formation ready to creep forward on the look out for ambushing red armor. The infantry is still a ways a away from getting into the fight, although I have almost of company’s worth of infantry that rode the panzers and they are filtering into the town just ahead of the tanks.

Russian ATR fire starts in earnest, and from this point on it doesn’t relent. Indirectly they will be the death of two Marders and the cause of at least two immobilizations. And as you all know, they are pretty much invisible. The little red circle is where Russian tank riders have taken up shop. As the fight progresses, most of the Russian infantry seems split into half sqds. I've noted this is a common theme with ER.

An interesting encounter is developing on my left flank where I deployed the two screening Marders and ATG. This little engagement started off the talk of tank tactics and luck, I believe.


Here is a view of the town center at turn 9 and the results of the past turns fighting. The Russians have lost about 5 tanks to the Germans three. The Russians no longer contest the town directly with their armor. However, sound contacts have been spotted on the edges of town and at least two backed away behind some small hills on his side of the settlement. The Germans are feeling good at this point, even better after developments on the left flank.


Here is a different view of the town. The PzIII plt on my right wing was overwatching for a few turns and is set to advance into the town. German infantry will eventually catch up and lead the way.
 

Taktik

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On the left flank my screening force encounters a Russian tank column of three T34s and a couple of T70s. The Russians approached with what looked like move or fast orders. They didn’t seem to be hunting or have overwatch, nor were the T70s in the lead scouting ahead. The Marders and ATG were able to knockout four Russian tanks a fifth a few turns later

This is when debate began in earnest regarding luck in tank fights, meeting engagement outcomes and the chess-like mentality ER applies to CM. It is too much to cover here, but it was interesting discussion between us. I pointed out that the result wasn’t lucky, but that I had two Marders and an ATG on overwatch with ACA looking exactly where he came with his tanks. The way his tanks moved into contact with me wasn’t optimal. The outcome was not surprising to me barring very bad luck. And of course, all my pieces could have missed and he could have hit with his return fire, a’la Tripps T34s and that conscript Hetzer as pointed out in their AAR.



A few turns later shows the results of the fight on my left flank.


At this point ER said something to the effect that it’s all over now. But of course I knew better.

However, things did look good for the Germans. ER had lost nine tanks to my three. The German armored force was well established in the town with infantry moving up. It would have been relatively easy to push a little farther into the town, take the flag, hold the two big ones and implement an active defense on those objectives while waiting to pounce on anything ER might give me.

Past and current analysis suggests ER likes to counter-punch. I did not want to accommodate him in these fights by walking into a few hooks. However, I figured if we both bunkered then it would be boring the last twenty turns. What to do then?

For 10+ turns I only inched forward with my tanks while slowly working my infantry into the town to secure the big flag at the center. Then I changed track.

I decided if anything, I would play to win, not to lose. Perhaps its something I’ve gotten away from lately. I was of the mind, win or lose, I would attack even though I knew he was waiting for this - in all probability himself having analyzed my style over the last few battles we’ve had :)

I’ll pick things up again at around turn 20. We currently are on turn 28 or something out of 33+, so I don’t want to get too close to revealing anything the devious ER could use :devious:
 
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Taktik

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Getting back to it. After the initial clash of armor, the mid game proceeds a trifle slow, with the Germans creeping forward into the town, waiting for infantry to catch up and pondering the next best course of action.

Turn 20:



From this view you see the Germans positions and Russian opposition. The Germans are in very good order this stage of the game. I don’t believe I’ve lost a tank since the opening salvos at the beginning of the game. One PzIII was immobilized due to ATR fire. My infantry has done well so far and will put a real licking on ER’s infantry several turns down the road when he makes a push on my right wing towards my back flag.

So I had to make a decision. Do I hold on to the two flags while inflicting further casualties, or do I press on with the attack? I chose to attack. I wanted to see what I could do.

I feel this played right into ER’s hands and events were to prove this to be the case. If I were concerned with a ladder win, I might have chosen different. At this point, in my estimation I could have achieved a very comfortable minor victory. Furthermore, if ER decided to press forward with his hidden armor and expose them to destruction, then perhaps even a tactical could be achieved. The German armor outnumbered the Russian and was in good position to riposte any moves by him.

Contrarily, attacking would negate all these benefits save the odds ratio I had over ER’s armor. Something worth noting was that seven of these armored pieces were Marders. Marders are great for taking out T34s if they get the jump on the Ts or are on even footing. At least most of the time this will prove to be the case, but not always. During the advance forward I lose two Marders to a single T34 in separate engagements when it was simply a case of who shot better. I tip my hat to ER’s armor luck factor theories ;).

The Germans would shift a plt+ of PzIIIs to my left flank and press on along the marked blue arrows. The supporting Marders would accompany them. There was a big church right in the middle of the way, which would prove to be a pain. As usual with ER, he had a half squad in every single house, bush, woods, rough, pines, swamp, lake, river, hut and cabana. I only had a plt of depleted recon in the immediate area to escort the tanks. This would prove to be inadequate.

Essentially, I had to poke between woods and church and traverse a few narrow clear patches. There was some bunching and three of my Marders, despite being on ACA, continued to rotate away from the center of the arc and fire at ATRs, which of course have inexhaustible ammo. As this continued to happen a T34 eventually got the jump on one of the idiots and knocked it out. A turn or two later another Marder engaged this T34 and lost a duel, two supporting PzIIIs were right there to add their fire but had to back away because of course a Russian HS appeared in a house adjacent to them. A turn later, this T34 area fired next to a reversing Marder (backing up due to ATR fire) and was knocked out by blast damage. A stunning display of ineptitude by the Marder corps :)

These events rained on the German parade. The advance continued to slow in the face of more Russian infantry HSs popping up while two more T34s made an appearance in the back by his flag area. There were far too many ambush sites and the Germans lacked adequate infantry support.

I finally brought over the two Marders and a PzIII that I had detailed a while back on my left flank to assist in this advance. On the way, an ATR firing from the woods on that flank immobilized one of the Marders. Sound familiar? Perhaps these ATRs are the MVPs of the fight. Lol. Soon the PzIII began a duel with a hidden gun about 600 meters away. This gun must have rung a few dozen rounds off of the PzIII front plate while the little 50mm was ineffectual at suppressing said gun.

All in all these 7+ turns or so was shaping up to be a disaster all do to a game decision to press forward. I’ve likened ER’s style to that of a counter-puncher and used a boxing analogy in the past. To coin it once more, I’d say I went for a knock out punch (going after the big flag even though understanding the dangers) rather than continue with the body blows (nine burning Russian tanks) that put me in such a nice position by turn 20. A string of events very similar to where the bottom fell out for my tanks in my past att/def game with ER.

On a more positive note, the little fight within a fight underway on my right flank continued to grow. The outcome of this firefight encouraged me more in this game, and I’m sure in games to come, than knocking out ER’s tanks. Here I used my infantry to good advantage, stopping ER’s infantry cold and routing most of them.



ER had begun to feed in more and more infantry to this wood mass. Although there are only two units spotted, numerous infantry markers were observed pouring in. I have a nice L shaped base of fire for my two plts. I quickly brought over a third plt from the left to add more fire power and another direction of incoming fire for ER’s sqds / HSs to worry about. I also moved up a pair of HMG and a 75mm infantry that were stationed nearby. After several turns, bunches of Russian HS took flight and / or hit the deck in the woods.

I wanted to kill his infantry badly since ER had implied that infantry are his forte and his chess pieces :). My plt on the right rushed into the woods and engaged some pinned routing infantry. A few stalwart Russians farther in the back of the woods returned fire but ducked soon after the brave German recon assaulted forward.

I had to chuckle for I noted that a number of ER’s sqds were conscript. It seems he enjoys using green or less quality tanks and infantry for the cheap price and perhaps the marginal difference the quality makes, at least for the tank crews. I will have to look after the game, but there is a good chance some of his conscript / green T34s out dueled my veteran Marder crews.
 
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Taktik

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Turn 26:

Here is a closer look at the fate of the Russian infantry in the woods. At the end of the game, a commissar finally rallies the peasants and they strike back against the tired, depleted, low ammo suffering German recon.



The battle on the right wing grows a little bigger as tanks are added to the equation. I few turns ago a pair of Red tanks were spotted racing to help their beleaguered comrades in the woods. The Pz III was knocked out a turn later by a sneakyT-70 far back up the extreme left flank. Nice move ER! The Germans responded with ATG fire and knocked out the reinforcing T34. Another T70 that was accompanying the brewed up T34 escaped by backing out of LOS.


A view of the town. The attack on the left can be seen making little progress in the face of the Church and Russian ATR fire :(
Its evident I have plenty of armor left and I can stop the madness and pursue a more advantageous course of action, namely reverting to actively defending the center and my flag. Yet, I get stubborn and sought to destroy ER’s tanks lurking back by his flag. :OHNO:


A view of the big picture by turn 26.

 
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ER_Chaser

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No, it is not.

It is actually the very reason that we started the armor verification battles.

As Taktik already put it, at early turns, I lost 5 tanks in a turn (3 to the same marder when all of their shots missed and almost all the marder shots made first-shot kill) ---- I was quite frustrated and commented "well, tanks are about lucks anyway" ... and thus a debate started. I am not denying there are tactics to use tank, my point is that luck factor plays too heavy a role in tank battles, which I reinstated in the armor verification thread. Anyway, I think I lost this ladder game from then on.

As Taktik also exhibited, the later turns, my luck was generally better than his ---- plus he did not have adequent inf. support to his attack into my territory and thus he lost more tanks in later turns. However, I do not have extra fire support for my infantry troops heading for his territory either. I was just hoping that I might sneak in something. Apparently it was all under his survillance. So it was stopped cold there.

Craig, infantry is very versatile but it is not invincible :) My green/conscript infantry without any heavy fire support of course cannot break out any of your defenses in strength. :) The plot was very simple here: if these little dudes can sneak in, well, I will be happy with some flag points or something else. If they cannot, then you have to spend time and resource to deal with them and thus make your main thrust into my position weaker and easier to deal with. ----- This is actually my typical strategies. (counter-puncher or not, does not matter, I do not mind doing that, but I do not mind not doing that either. ) It is probably like a "hedging portfolio" in financial industry. All my favorite is to look for some kind of "arbitrage" chance, meaning some strategy hoping to yield positive return with 0 risk or very little risk. That is why I do not know what to do with armors. So far it seems to me that there is no way to use armor in this idea ---- because the loss of a single armor itself hurt too much both in point sense and in action sense.

Let me just use this example to explain my point: suppose, the sneaking-in force of mine is not infantry. Instead it is a group of armors. My point is that it won't work at all. First, there aren't going to be enough armors to last that long if they walk into the defender's ambush. With the same points, I can at most purchase 1 or 2 platoon of T34/T70s. That is 6 or 9 tanks at most. With one single turn like the early encounter, I could have lost 5 of them in one minute. Or it might get worse. Therefore, it was a hedge when using infantry (even the crappy green/conscripts) --- simply because there are lots of them and then they can last very long, you need that long time simply to kill all of them (which is exactly what happened.). It will become a gamble if using armor. Of course the best choice would be a combined force with armors safely supporting infantry advancing to the same spot. Unfortunately, I could spare no more. I barely had enough tanks to defend my own flag thanks to the heavy loss at early turns. (9 was destroyed before turn 10). OK, back to the imaginary scenario of using armors on the flanking action, if I got lucky, of course everything goes well. Otherwise, like what happened, I would lose my armors to your guns/armors/infantry very fast. And then your defending force can march to your attack head probably 10 turns earlier, then what you indicated as "lack of infantry support" will be gone and the story on my defense side will also be re-written.

Another thing is that your early estimation is very accurate and if you sticked with it, you would have done much better than what is happenning now (although you will still win). And sorry I do not agree with your "attack soul" or "bravery" or you know any glow of glory there .. lol .... Honestly speaking, my friend, I think those brave decisions are simply wrong. But well, it is only a game.... if you think it is more fun to play certain ways, as for enjoying the game, there is nothing wrong. :) What I am saying is purely from the point of WINning the game. Apparently, this isn't the sole purpose of many of us who love this game :)
 

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No, it is not.

It is actually the very reason that we started the armor verification battles.

As Taktik already put it, at early turns, I lost 5 tanks in a turn (3 to the same marder when all of their shots missed and almost all the marder shots made first-shot kill) ---- :)
Actually that would be pretty accurate in terms of RL on the eastern front. The German armor had much better optics and gunnery as a whole, but the game really doesn't reflect that very well. Russian vet armor hits about as well as anything German in BB. There might be a tiny to hit advantage at great distances for the Germans, but that's about all.
 
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Taktik

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Thanks for sharing your views, Xuebo! Its a pity certain people don't like to keep their turns numbered, which would not only allow writing up AARs a lot easier, but these certain people could also provide their OWN pics for us to see :bite::bite::bite::p:p

Let me just use this example to explain my point: suppose, the sneaking-in force of mine is not infantry. Instead it is a group of armors. My point is that it won't work at all. First, there aren't going to be enough armors to last that long if they walk into the defender's ambush. With the same points, I can at most purchase 1 or 2 platoon of T34/T70s. That is 6 or 9 tanks at most...
I agree with your example, ER. To me, to sum it all up, it seems perhaps you don't have a problem with tanks and the inherent luck that comes with them, but rather the issue is with the cost of tanks at the expense of spending those points of other things, namely infantry.

But I think you “get” tanks just fine and do well with them. Your tactics are good and you are aware of the price that comes with losing a tank so you keep them safer than I do mine.

The plot was very simple here: if these little dudes can sneak in, well, I will be happy with some flag points or something else. If they cannot, then you have to spend time and resource to deal with them and thus make your main thrust into my position weaker and easier to deal with.
This is a nice idea and can definitely pay dividends. As the discussion goes, a lot of infantry sneaking and flowing around are a lot harder to come to grips with and destroy than a plt of tanks. However, in this case, the German infantry your thrust faced were not earmarked for the advance on your flag, if I had such to begin with. Rather, one plt was local to the big flag on security, the other plt was lurking around on my right flank which I brought over once I spotted your force, and the third plt came from the center where they were holding spots incase you tried to get to the center flag.

Another thing is that your early estimation is very accurate and if you sticked with it, you would have done much better than what is happenning now (although you will still win). And sorry I do not agree with your "attack soul" or "bravery" or you know any glow of glory there .. lol .... Honestly speaking, my friend, I think those brave decisions are simply wrong. But well, it is only a game....
LOL. Yes I am very brave with my digital army :laugh: In real life? Maybe not so much.
 

Taktik

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Now to wrap things up.

Progress at turn 30 shows not much progress. The game has entered a holding pattern at this point. I shift a few of my tanks that had led the attack on my left flank to wait it out positions. The center stands ready to repel any rushes or sneaking Russian HS. The fight on my right flank peters out with some of my recon sqds pursuing conscript Russian infantrymen. However, my lads are out of ammo and don’t pack much of a wallop when they do have ammo, so many of the farmers escape back to fight again for Mother Russia.


Here is a view of my left flank. The PzIIIs have aborted any further movement forward. The little 50mm just doesn’t have enough punch to rout the Russian infantry hiding in the woods ready to toss grenades at my tanks. My infantry in this area is severely depleted and can offer no real assistance to the advance. The German infantry is also ordered to lay low.



And another view shows the state of affairs on my right flank. The action there has receded as well. The Russian infantry no longer shows any sign of moving forward. I send out a few sqds to round up any potential prisoners.
 

Taktik

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The game has ended. Here is a view of the big picture. Note the amazing amount of Red on the map. Lol. Most of those little red squares are HS.



The state of affairs on my left flank. Not much stands before me, looking at it now with no FOW, but I didn’t know what remained in front of me at the time. ER had also gone gun heavy before so I had no intention of sending my remaining tanks into a pak front.


Here is how things ended up on my left flank. Almost all of the Russian infantry here has routed. Consequently, the three plts I had there defending and counter-attacking have also been attritted and are out of ammo.


And the final picture. Heavy casualties on both sides.



Another fun and tough game with ER. The turning point came when I decided to push forward around turn 18-20. Prior to that, things were looking rosy for the Germans. I have no regrets, though. I wanted to see how I could advance and enjoyed the action as a result. It wasn’t a win, but a moral victory. Greiffen Sie An!
 
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ER_Chaser

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In terms of battlefield percent points and ladder rating points, you still won, Craig and you deserve that :)

And now I learned more about your "strange" habits of making things tougher for yourself---- I wish you won't do that in our site war against the Evil WaW, though ... lol ...
 

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Thanks for the excellant AAR.

Very impressive performance by both sides.
 
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