Infantry not invited

[JKG]

I have been playing SP for awhile and have not been able to use infantry as effectively as I think they should be. I am interested in opinions on how I could maximize their use. In specific:

Defense in Depth of Victory Objectives

I often deploy an infantry company, with infantry AT units, and AT guns to defend my artillery park and deep objectives. Typically I will assign an infantry platoon to cover about 200-250 yrd frontage along with an infantry AT section at about the same depth. I'll then place a section of AT guns 250-350 yds behind the infantry line for support.

Generally, my preference is to use a reverse slope or "modified reverse slope-tree line defense" where I'll locate my infantry in clear hexes just behind a row of trees or other line of sight obstruction so that the infantry squads have just one hex sight in front of them and then place the AT guns and MMGs in support behind the infantry line(either in the open or in the next tree line back).

I allow all units to OP FIRE at their max range. My rationale is:

1) By placing the infantry behind the line of sight obstruction they cannot be suppressed from a distance (tank MGs tend to do that quite well from 10+ hexes away) and instead AFV's and infantry have to close to 1 hex range to engage.

2) This set-up also allows the MMGs and AT guns to engage the targets from a reasonable distance (300 yrds) but force the engaging unit to decide whether or not to suppress the infantry squad one hex away or the AT gun six hexes away.

However in practice it doesn't seem to be very effective. I may be asking too much for this assortment of units to stop an amoured assualt but...

1) Infantry assualt chances seem to be very low making them mostly ineffective. Sometimes they won't engage at all. So when that tiger sticks it's nose out of the treeline my guys don't seem to be too interested in engaging it.

2) Infantry AT teams use the assualt function to use their primary weapon instead of just shooting the darn thing. Seems like the hit chance is almost always below 10%.

3) AT guns seem to have poor accuracy at this range. I have killed more tanks at 1000+ yards on first shots than <500 yrds. This is probably the most frustrating aspect. I have a notion that crewed AT guns are effective AT weapons, but it doesn't seem to happen that way. Instead they shoot once, miss, are immediately observed and taken under fire, suppressed into inaction, then wiped out.

Obviously AFV are the best defense against other AFV, but any thoughts on improving my last line of defense?

[Voriax]

Interesting. In some defensive battles i've made more AFV kills with infantry assaults than with any other means...

ok..point 1)
What kind of infantry squads? Did they have any AT-weapons or just grenades? If the AFV moves next to a unit it hadn't seen before, the assault % is much larger. There is a kind of surprise bonus. If an inf. unit only has grenades the assault % against a tank is normally below 10%, some 15-25 higher against armoured cars or halftracks. With rifle-grenades for example the assault % can be 80%+.

Also the infantry has to pass a bunch of morale, experience etc checks that affect the hit %. If they fail the check they'll just do nothing except gain about 20 points of suppression. (and aggravate the tank crew)

2)
If the inf. AT team is equipped with an AT-rifle this assault tends to give better chances of doing any damage than just a shot. If you fire an AT-rifle against a T-34 you can hope for suppression and occasionally breaking some equipment, but assaulting with an AT-rifle you can actually kill that tank.
With bazookas and like it is a bit different, but the feel I've gotten is that assaults are always better.
(heck, today my 6-man russian Partisan sapper unit immobilized two Panthers with two 6% assaults!! Talk about Heroes of the Soviet Union)

3)
This is also weird. there is very little difference in the accuracy/range finder statistics of AT-guns and tank guns of similar calibre (In general). Check the accuracy values of those AT-guns. That value is the range in hexes where the gun has 50% chance to hit under ideal conditions. Try setting your guns so that they fire closer than that distance. Also I like to use AT-guns in pairs, trying to guess the advance lines and then giving the guns an overlapping field of fire so whatever enters that zone gets in crossfire.
It might be worth checking what kind of stats the AT gun grews have.
this is really odd...interesting this is that I usally limit the max range of my AT-guns to 5 so that they won't just 'ping' the tanks. (talking about 37mm popguns etc) And I've felt that they do they job fine..okay, often they die but they usually take several vehicles with them.

Your defense setup doesn't sound that bad so it is kinda hard to find out if there is anything really wrong..have you changed the preferences in any way?

Voriax

[JKG]

Voriax,

Thanks for the input.

1)The infantry was Russian regular grunts armed with hand grenades and Molotov cocktails. The rally and leaderships scores haven't been real high. One thing I think contributes is once contact is made I often have to make one hex advances to keep the pressure on. I'm sure the movement reduces the accuracy, but once he knows your there seems like there is no choice but press the issue.

2)See above for the AT units (in this case bazookas. We have the search set to 70, but seems like my guys have poor security and must be talking too loud.

3)It is weird, may just be the luck of the draw so far. The gun from the USSR that I have chosen to go with as the standard is the 57mm. The range I usually try to engage at is about 5-10 hexes. My kills (1 at 20 hexes and the other at 12). In the last game, my opponent had a 37mm on top of a hill and he had 3 hits in a row from greater than 20 hexes on two different targets.

[Tomanbeg]

Suggestions: Set the range on your ATG's so it is no more then the closest friendly squad. Pick out your best AFV target, take a shot at it then reset the range to 1 less then the target. If the target moves up, the Op fire seems to hit almost every time. Range your inf down to 2. If the ambush fails, fall back and try again. These both work well vs humans, I don't know how they will do vs the AI. I rarely take shots under 10%. Why give away your position on a wild chance, when you can get a better one next turn?
T.

[bigjim]

OK Vor now tell me why tank crews are so effective LOL

BigJim

[von Curow]

I have a question regarding AT gun defense. Does it help if, during your turn you select your AT gun and give it a target -- without firing -- and then set the range on the unit so that if that target moves or fires, your AT gun will shoot at it? Or is there only a "targetting bonus" if you actually shoot at the unit you want to target?

I've had some serious frustration with AT guns in my latest battle. I had 3 100mm Soviet AT guns, and while they managed to kill an armored car (after 2 hits) and a Panzer IVg at long range, they also managed to miss more than 20 opp fire shots, all of which were 23% or greater. In fact, they missed every single opp fire shot they took. And they also seemed extremely vulnerable to ranged fire of all kinds: MGs, rifles, 75mm tank cannon, you name it!

On the other hand, infantry has proven very successful in close assaults. A group of partisans supported by Guards infantry have destroyed around 4 halftracks, 2 armored cars, and 3 Flammenwagens. (In another battle, a paratroop unit close assaulted and destroyed two Flammpanzers during my opponent's turn!)

KC
The Literate Hussar http://members.xoom.com/KCurow/hussar/index.html

[victorhauser]

Originally posted by von Curow:
I have a question regarding AT gun defense. Does it help if, during your turn you select your AT gun and give it a target -- without firing -- and then set the range on the unit so that if that target moves or fires, your AT gun will shoot at it? Or is there only a "targetting bonus" if you actually shoot at the unit you want to target?

As far as I know, in v2.3 acquiring a target during your turn has very little effect on how the AI handles your opportunity fire. The AI will fire on units moving in firing range regardless of what target you set for it.

As far as targeting bonuses go, I don't think it makes much difference during op-fire because the AI is often switching between targets.

However, the new v3.0 rules might change all this.

[victorhauser]

Originally posted by JKG:
I have been playing SP for awhile and have not been able to use infantry as effectively as I think they should be. I am interested in opinions on how I could maximize their use.

The best way to maximize the combat effectiveness of infantry is to improve their experience, morale, and rally ratings. Also, having your infantry units within range of multiple leaders who can rally them is a good thing.

When playing a campaign, if I start with infantry in the 70s, then by the 6th battle or so most of those units are in the 90s and some are in the 100s. Those infantry are ferocious in combat and extremly dangerous to enemy AFVs.

When playing in a scenario or PBEM, I very very very carefully hoard whatever good infantry I have and only commit it when I have important missions for them. Good infantry is extremely cost effective on the battlefield in v2.3. I recently played in a PBEM game where I was fortunate enough to win without having to commit my best infantry, but they are a reserve you can count on. Napoleon had his Imperial Grenadiers for precisely the same reason.

[Arralen]

Originally posted by JKG:
I have been playing SP for awhile and have not been able to use infantry as effectively as I think they should be. ... I often deploy an infantry company, with infantry AT units, and AT guns to defend my artillery park and deep objectives. ... Generally, my preference is to use a reverse slope or "modified reverse slope-tree line defense" where I'll locate my infantry in clear hexes just behind a row of trees or other line of sight obstruction so that the infantry squads have just one hex sight in front of them and then place the AT guns and MMGs in support behind the infantry line(either in the open or in the next tree line back). ... However in practice it doesn't seem to be very effective. I may be asking too much for this assortment of units to stop an amoured assualt but... 1) Infantry assualt chances seem to be very low making them mostly ineffective. Sometimes they won't engage at all. So when that tiger sticks it's nose out of the treeline my guys don't seem to be too interested in engaging it.

Do you really wonder why? Imaging yourself lying there in the open (bad place for inf. anyway, so you're already cursing your commander), and than there's a distant rumble growing louder every second .. Tigers on the prowl !!
And than there's a movement a the edge of the forest .. a BIG movement, you feel the earth shaking and see trees bending ... do you really jump up and charge what-ever-is-coming -there with your mighty hand grenade (Urrrraaahhharrrrrgghg....) ?

You'll keep lying there and praying that's all a bad dream, at best. Most likely you and your comrade have already retreaten to the next woods

And that's exactly what's happening with your setup - the enemy tanks get a big bonus for beeing in "partial cover", i.e. the wood hex, while your troops are lying targets

Better put them into the next wood hex.
And set the range of you AT guns to 1 .. fire them only manually, and only 2 shots per turn. With opfire they most likely will waste their shots and give away their position.

Arralen

[Larry Holt]

Originally posted by von Curow:
...I had 3 100mm Soviet AT guns, and while they managed to kill an armored car (after 2 hits) and a Panzer IVg at long range, they also managed to miss more than 20 opp fire shots, all of which were 23% or greater. In fact, they missed every single opp fire shot they took.KC
The Literate Hussar ...[/URL]

Hmm, are you playing a long campaign and have the guns taken damage in previous battles? There is a bug that when tanks get optics damage, its not fixed between battles. The tip off is when your tanks just can't hit anything. Examine the guns stats and see what the rangefinder value is. Is it less than what it should be? This will be fixed in V3. Until then you have to use Fred's editor to fix your save files between battles. There is a link to Fred's page on the Matrix links page.


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An old soldier but not yet a faded one.
OK, maybe just a bit faded.

[Larry Holt]

I've read that the German's 37mm AT guns were recognized as being totally inadequate for AT defense. Until larger guns were widely fielded, the Germans interspaced 88's and 105mm howitzers with their infantry for AT defense. The infantry themselves were expected to conduct field expedient close assaults to destroy tanks. This was deadly to the infantry. When Soviet tanks got into German infantry, the infantry took heavy casualities. This seems to be modeled accurately.

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An old soldier but not yet a faded one.
OK, maybe just a bit faded.

[renwor]

Ahhh, thanks Aralen
i was just formulating similar answer, but no need for it now

Definitely place infantry IN the woods, set their range to 1 and don't move. Those tigers would probably most likely try to drive straight through you ... which usually doesn't work 8)
Your people would be close assaulting happily. don't worry about close assaulting numbers. I had soooo many close assault kills with 6% probability, I started to believe 6 is some magical formula
If you manage to place a AT gun or two in the flank, where they wont be visible from the enemy side, even better,just watch for enemy infantry.

Oh, well are we speaking about vs. computer or human? Human led Tigers may actually try to avoid the suspiciously crowded woods But nothing well placed AT gun cannot handle.

Renwor