Tank companies retreating to light woods? Realistic?

[Templer_12]

Tank companies retreating to light woods? Realistic?

How realistic is it that tank companies with panther tanks retreating to light woods?
And thereafter recover from the reatreat inside the wood?

[Tophat1815]

Are you asking if it is realistic that tankers would retreat to cover? Yes,very realistic. Now if you might elaborate on the situation those panther drivers found themselves in we can look at the devil in the details.[;)]

[Templer_12]

Now, I was quite irritated.
To move his tanks through forest terrain is usually not a good idea.

[Tophat1815]

ORIGINAL: Templer

Now, I was quite irritated.
To move his tanks through forest terrain is usually not a good idea.

What scenario are you playing? What are the weather conditions? Morale of the unit? TOE status? Had they been in combat long? What were/are they hiding from? Did you get a screen-shot of the event?

[Templer_12]

The thread was started and meant as a general question.
But - here's a picture - maybe the answers are helpful and informative!

[Tophat1815]

Sorry,I didn't mean to turn this into more than you were asking for,but really couldn't give a good answer without better knowledge of the situation. I'll take a shot at what i think the information means and why "armor retreating into light woods" may have happened.

It's night time between 9pm to 4am,snow cover with moonlight. The tank unit does not have a great deal of experience,it looks as though it was attacking through light woods and ran into some infantry? Or did it start out on the road and run into that infantry and end up in the light woods?

In any event it looks like they from the log have been in battle quite awhile but they have good cohesion,personnel and equipment are still high and the morale is alright. Looking at the fatigue I'd say they were tired and ran into something so they pulled back into cover/broke contact.

I really have to break this game out again,patch it up and get the expansion.[;)] Thanks for providing the impetus for me spending more money.

[rickier65]

Templar,

I'm interested in the answer as well.

My thinking is that realistically, tanks would use light woods as a good place to go for cover. As long as it really was light woods. I would think it would be harder to spot a tank in light woods than a tank in the open. And certainly better if they were concerned with aerial recon. I wouldn't want to put one in too heavy of a wooded area, but I wouldn't expect light woods to be a detriment to their movement.

Maybe one of the tankers here can shed some light.

Thanks
Rick

[wodin]

Remember during photo recon of the Market Garden area of operations the SS wasn't spotted, reason being they where in cover in the woods, so yes I imagine a tank crew would zip into the woods again when retreating.

[Templer_12]

Well, in the current, the present case, four of our tank companys held the victory localization before they were driven out of American infantry from there.

Would in fact a tank company retreat in a forest and lose many advantages so the pursuing infantry can use all the benefits of the forest to the tank?

[Tophat1815]

ORIGINAL: Templer

Well, in the current, the present case, four of our tank companys held the victory localization before they were driven out of American infantry from there.

Would in fact a tank company retreat in a forest and lose many advantages so the pursuing infantry can use all the benefits of the forest to the tank?

Well it is night and from what I have read in the past at least as regards US armor during WWII,tankers did not like being up on the line without infantry support at night. Tanks would tend to pull back off the line to replenish,rest pull maintenance. Granted that is US armor and many things are dependent upon the current situation.

In this case we have German armor on its own in light woods with enemy infantry in contact at night. The armor seems to have felt threatened and so pulled back. Hopefully some tankers will chime in and give us a better idea of how representative this kind of action might be.

[Arjuna]

The only thing I have to add is that light woodsare not forest. They represent scattered trees about twenty or metres apart. So there is no problem with movement per se for AFVs in this terrain.

[wodin]

Honestly I have my issues with retreat and routing in the game but this doesn't really seem to be an issue.

[Templer_12]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

The only thing I have to add is that light woodsare not forest. They represent scattered trees about twenty or metres apart. So there is no problem with movement per se for AFVs in this terrain.

The terrain shows a Mot-speed-​​modification of 17%.
I would call this a serios problem with movement if I'm retreating or routing with AFVs.

[wodin]

I wouldn't say 17% was a serious problem though. It's night time as stated. I honestly think it's not an issue or a major problem that hwe are seeing here. There are far more obvious issues with regards to routing and retreating than this one. Personally I wouldn't have though anyhting of it.

Anyway Dave has stated light woods are just that, a sparse collection of trees.

Also if the unit is routing I doubt they are in the right state of mind to fully assess terrain they just want to gen tout of LOS as quickly as possible in that state. I don't see a problem with them going there to retreat either.

Maybe if the modifier was over 30% then fair enough but not 17%.

[GoodGuy]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

The only thing I have to add is that light woodsare not forest. They represent scattered trees about twenty or metres apart. So there is no problem with movement per se for AFVs in this terrain.

Correct. But even forests served as cover for tanks, like during the offensive in the Ardennes, or say during the rearguard actions of the German troops that were then pushed into the Ruhrgebiet area, which resulted in getting trapped in the "Ruhr-Kessel" ("Ruhr pocket"):



After the US troops had crossed the river Rhein (bridgehead at Remagen) , the Germans retreated to the north and the east. The main push of the Allied troops occured towards Siegen and then Lippstadt (southern pincer) and from Wesel towards Münster and Lippstadt.

During the push towards Siegen, the American units had to cross a low mountain range region, with plenty of creeks, valleys, rivers and small bridges, turning many places into chokepoints.

When the US units approached the Siegen area, close to my grandfather's hometown (its church was turned into a German field hospital by the local Army commander), they could not cross a creek for days, as they could not overcome (and not see !) a single StuG helping with rearguard action (the town's chronicle might have mentioned a "Sturmpanzer", I am not sure right now), that had been placed on a hill/slope overlooking the entire creek sector. I think the creek was not even half as wide as the river Sieg on the first picture (link below), IIRC, but the US troops could still not make it.

The German tank kept firing until it ran out of ammo. When the crew then figured that the tank was actually stuck in the forest's soft ground, since they had not moved it for several days, the crew blew it up, IIRC, and retreated towards the Ruhr area. The crew did not have a problem to get the tank into the Forest, though.

The terrain still looks like back then:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... r_Sieg.jpg

http://us.123rf.com/400wm/400/400/phili ... chland.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... holz45.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergisches_Land


So, the Germans moved their tanks into dense woods, if needed, in order to avoid Allied dive bombers or to bolster defensive perimeters.
I think it's a misconcept in the game, if tanks cannot move into forests. It took tank units some time to move into woods (say near roads, to avoid Allied dive bombers/tactical bombers) and even more time to move to defensive perimeters deep inside woods (slopes, hills with good overview), but if the ground had the right layout (say massive rocks under a layer of soil, like quite some areas in the region I described above), a tank would easily cut these trees (European spruce, fir tree) down. My great-grandfather had a stone quarry in the area, the region is packed with rocky ground, like shale and granite.