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Especially the time frame when NATO only have 2nd gen tanks like Chieftain mk5, Leo1A4, and M60A3 & TTS, to fight against T-64B and T-80B. In this game, Leo2 appears to FRG from 1980, M1 from 1982, and Challenger from 1983.

Recently I'm more playing 1975~80 games. What I found from AB is that more or less similar to what I learned during SB pro and Flashpoint Campaign. First, the entire tank meta of that era is totally different when compared to late 1980s and modern games, and second, M60 series should be controlled in defensive manner. When I play with M60s, I usually rely on ambush tactics, place them behind the cover and hull down position as much as possible.

But I just can't always play defensively. During meeting engagement or assault scenario of this game, your M60s should push forward and maneuver. This means that M60 tanks should expose their weak front armor (especially hull) to the open. And their relative advantage of superior FCS is weakened, as M60s forced to shoot during move, instead of stand and shoot.

I found that against M60s are doing well against T-62 variants, and they are doing OK against vanilla T-64 and T-72. But I'm not sure how to play against T-64B and T-80B. If it is defensive condition, they still can do some fight. But in open ground, especially during maneuvering battle from meeting engagement, or assault scenario, it is really hard. Hinds + DPICMs + 125mm cannons... It is not easy to try something.

I'm also curious about opinions of M60 vets, what was the operational plan or tactics against tanks like T-64B and T-80B around 1975~1985s? (Except tactical nuke and carpet bombing which we don't have in this game [:D])

i do remember the early NATO battleplan "active defense" involved fighting a war of attrition against WP making sure to inflict X number of losses for every inch of ground WP took... it functioned in a similar fashion to the soviet tactic in the battle of kursk... a defense that moved its forces to great concentration against the enemy spearhead.... problem is WP not only fields greater numbers but also better armored and armed equivalents straight until the fall of the USSR... (the 2A5/6 and the M1A2 were superior to any russian equivalent until the modern era)... this means WP has the upper edge in standoff capabilities...especially bcz everything WP fires an ATGM and usually has longer range in exchange for slightly less penetration... and therefore fighting them in a standoff fight isnt recommended... it also gave away initiative to WP hands... not a good idea...

imo you should perform the late NATO battleplan of AirLand Battle... whenever the enemy were to attack an immediate counterattack is done... the general idea is not to engage the enemy head on and perform what is known as a "counter-blitz"... the objective is to separate and blunt the spearhead by a mobile hit and run counterattack taking advantage of NATOs on par (m60) or superior (leopard 1a4) cross country mobility by attacking the opposing force at unknown or unpredictable locations....

"Boyd suggested what he called the "counter-blitz", where small groups of equally mobile forces would pick away at the lines of thrust and then move on to the next in a series of hit-and-run attacks. There was no necessity to retain any sort of front line, and the attacks deliberately moved from point to point in order to avoid being bogged down or getting trapped. The idea was not to force the blitz to lose its ability to maneuver, but instead upset its ability to understand where it should be maneuvering to—the attacker would have no idea which of these counteroffensives represented a real threat, and would have to respond to all of them."

ORIGINAL: gbem
i do remember the early NATO battleplan "active defense" involved fighting a war of attrition against WP making sure to inflict X number of losses for every inch of ground WP took... it functioned in a similar fashion to the soviet tactic in the battle of kursk... a defense that moved its forces to great concentration against the enemy spearhead.... problem is WP not only fields greater numbers but also better armored and armed equivalents straight until the fall of the USSR... (the 2A5/6 and the M1A2 were superior to any russian equivalent until the modern era)... this means WP has the upper edge in standoff capabilities...especially bcz everything WP fires an ATGM and usually has longer range in exchange for slightly less penetration... and therefore fighting them in a standoff fight isnt recommended... it also gave away initiative to WP hands... not a good idea...

As far as I know, NATO 2nd gen tanks put more weights on mobility and manufacturing advantage, while the importance of front armor and 'tanking' capability is more or less sacrificed. This is because their OP during that time frame is based on tactical nuke. So they feel less necessity to develop new paradigm of tank.

It changed from 3rd gen tank. Several factors involved. First, SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) suppressed the easy utilization of nuclear arsenal, including tactical nukes. This bring some importance of 'conventional' weapons over nuclear weapons, including tanks. Second, Yom Kippur war showed the power of ATGMs, even brought skepticism against tanks for a brief period of time. As such, after seeing what happened during Yom Kippur war, tank designers put more weights on defensive capability of tanks. Third, engine technology and FCS technology enhanced during 1970s, which helped 3rd gen tanks to have similar degree of maneuverability when compared to 2nd gen tanks, and fight better. As their technology enhanced, western politicians and decision makers gain some confidence, that they can win the war or at least defend the western Europe from PACT attack without tactical nuke. Rolf Hilmes's book described about tank generation concepts.

In this game, unlike real OP of both forces around that timeframe, we don't have tactical nukes, and we don't have any bombers to try carpet bombing. Players need to rely on M60s, TOW/ITOW and Cobra only.

"Boyd suggested what he called the "counter-blitz", where small groups of equally mobile forces would pick away at the lines of thrust and then move on to the next in a series of hit-and-run attacks. There was no necessity to retain any sort of front line, and the attacks deliberately moved from point to point in order to avoid being bogged down or getting trapped. The idea was not to force the blitz to lose its ability to maneuver, but instead upset its ability to understand where it should be maneuvering to—the attacker would have no idea which of these counteroffensives represented a real threat, and would have to respond to all of them."

This very sounds like multiple unexpected ambush, right? It is sort of what I tried already. But I prefer massive ambush rather than split my forces, because small ambush of M60s can easily wiped out, in peacemeal manner... But that multiple, small-size hit and run sometimes work. What I also found sometimes work is, deploy smoke to maximize the advantage of thermal sight and better FCS. But I don't know any other good method to counter them.

As far as I know, NATO 2nd gen tanks put more weights on mobility and manufacturing advantage, while the importance of front armor and 'tanking' capability is more or less sacrificed. This is because their OP during that time frame is based on tactical nuke. So they feel less necessity to develop new paradigm of tank.

it was more of due to the ATGM and heat rounds and the belief that the ATGM and HEAT would obsolete armor outright... all this changed when composite armor was developed with the launch of the T-64 series main battle tank... with the introduction of autoloaders and composite armor NATO found itself on the short end of the stick...

It changed from 3rd gen tank. Several factors involved. First, SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) suppressed the easy utilization of nuclear arsenal, including tactical nukes. This bring some importance of 'conventional' weapons over nuclear weapons, including tanks. Second, Yom Kippur war showed the power of ATGMs, even brought skepticism against tanks for a brief period of time. As such, after seeing what happened during Yom Kippur war, tank designers put more weights on defensive capability of tanks. Third, engine technology and FCS technology enhanced during 1970s, which helped 3rd gen tanks to have similar degree of maneuverability when compared to 2nd gen tanks, and fight better. As their technology enhanced, western politicians and decision makers gain some confidence, that they can win the war or at least defend the western Europe from PACT attack without tactical nuke. Rolf Hilmes's book described about tank generation concepts.

the release of 3rd gen tanks also came with serious overhauls to the armor layout such as the addition of a 30mm high hardness steel plate to the T-64 and T-72 series and the eventual development of Kontakt-5... this meant that WP tanks still kept the armor and firepower advantage until the M829A1... only to have WP introduce the more powerful svinets 2 years later... unfortunately and fortunately the USSR collapsed months after the introduction of the svinets... regardless Kontakt-5 allowed WP tanks to remain a step beyond NATO munition well into its collapse and only with post cold war analysis of russian tanks did NATO actually develop segmented penetrators in order to counter WP armor development with the DM53 and M829A3... these developments were what actually caused NATO to leapfrog over russian technology in the middle-late 90s... shockingly enough as tankograd stated the russians already had segmented penetrators on the T-80U designed to defeat NERA in the abrams and leopard series as early as 1986 in the form of the 3bm42 mango.... this coupled by the ever present proliferation of PACT ATGM systems meant that standoff capabilities were still on the WP side until the near end of the cold war...

NATO`s old strategy of active defense was inherently flawed in its idea of requiring the nuclear option in order to stop WP from rolling over europe.... this is why NATO opted for a counterattack strategy in airland battle... to prevent PACT from using its ground based standoff arsenal from reaching maximum effect... by denying it a standoff battle and giving it a mobile hit and run war... thus taking advantage of NATO`s superior mobility electronic warfare and stabilization to great effect...

This very sounds like multiple unexpected ambush, right? It is sort of what I tried already. But I prefer massive ambush rather than split my forces, because small ambush of M60s can easily wiped out, in peacemeal manner... But that multiple, small-size hit and run sometimes work. What I also found sometimes work is, deploy smoke to maximize the advantage of thermal sight and better FCS. But I don't know any other good method to counter them.

ive pulled off this technique with Leopard 2A4s and M1A1(HA)s against T-80Us ingame...although the Leopard 2A4 is my favorite tank for this technique... my tank on tank battle testing showed that even with the vanilla database which underrepresents the 3BM32 3BM42 and the DM33 the T-80U still has a high chance of winning the firefight against 1989 model M1A1(HA)s and Leopard 2A4s... soo instead i let the enemy attack... i layed TRP`s near areas where i would expect the tanks to attack and waited.... when the attack arrived i used infantry as the bait for fire for the T-80s and ordered a quick DPICM strike and mortar smoke barrage on the position of the T-80s... maneuvered my leopards into close ranges along with infantry in marders and bam dead T-80s... a similar technique could be done but to even greater effect with the leopard 1a4... after all its quite cheap...

I find the standard methodical leapfrogging plan with smoke works nicely if your enemy is willing to be completely passive.

- scout carefully to locate the center of gravity of enemy defenses
- smoke them up
- drive lots of stand-off units into good firing positions. Especially TOW missiles work wonders because it's pretty hard to counter massed ATGM with Soviet tanks at ranges over 2,5 kilometers. M901, TOW infantry teams, what have you.
- wait for smoke to dissipate a little and fight it out.
- once enemy vacates, relocate your ATGM teams but keep them covering the piece of terrain you want (most likely a hill).
- drive up with scouts, armor and infantry squads
- take up positions to cover the AT teams as they pack up and come closer
- rinse and repeat

When moving closer to enemy positions, use the 2 to 1 rule: 2 units move up, 1 unit covers. If you leave only ATGM launchers covering the advance, enemy can use their own infantry teams to hit you. When you move ATGM units in the second leap, leave a few of them covering the advance of your main body. It's important to pack enough ranged punch to discourage enemy armor from coming back into firing positions.

Use smoke to cover your stand-off units moving into position. You'll inevitably take some casualties in the ensuing fight, but the enemy will suffer more. When you commit to the approach you ideally don't want smoke because that hinders your ability to maintain fire superiority at range.

If you're fighting a clever opponent, he will scout you, drop lots of indirect fire on your stand-off forces (including lots of smoke!) and attempt to move into position when you're in approach. You'll have to play this by ear but one plan is to smoke up, drive up at full speed and play the numbers game. At ranges less than one kilometer whoever has more guns will almost certainly win. Forces deployed behind military crest are another problem, but at least you can come at them from several angles pretty easily.

Note that stand-off forces are very weak against infantry. Be prepared to switch up your plan if enemy defenses include a lot of infantry, especially missile teams. HE from indirect (especially mortars) and your 105mm guns should do the trick until your infantry closes up to deal with them. You have an advantage in stabilization and electronics, accurate fire control on the move is much less of a problem for you so you don't necessarily need to stop. Suppression is enough, destruction comes later.

I find the standard methodical leapfrogging plan with smoke works nicely if your enemy is willing to be completely passive.

- scout carefully to locate the center of gravity of enemy defenses
- smoke them up
- drive lots of stand-off units into good firing positions. Especially TOW missiles work wonders because it's pretty hard to counter massed ATGM with Soviet tanks at ranges over 2,5 kilometers. M901, TOW infantry teams, what have you.
- wait for smoke to dissipate a little and fight it out.
- once enemy vacates, relocate your ATGM teams but keep them covering the piece of terrain you want (most likely a hill).
- drive up with scouts, armor and infantry squads
- take up positions to cover the AT teams as they pack up and come closer
- rinse and repeat

soviet tanks can actually fire ATGms back at them and all soviet IFVs have ATGMs aswell... theyre also cheaper and have better range in exchange for less penetration... i tried this with TOWs against T-64`s and BMP-1Ps... immediately ate ATGms of PACT aswell... imo its better to close the gap and engage the enemy at close range negating the massed ATGM fire advantage that pact has...

If you're fighting a clever opponent, he will scout you, drop lots of indirect fire on your stand-off forces (including lots of smoke!) and attempt to move into position when you're in approach. You'll have to play this by ear but one plan is to smoke up, drive up at full speed and play the numbers game. At ranges less than one kilometer whoever has more guns will almost certainly win. Forces deployed behind military crest are another problem, but at least you can come at them from several angles pretty easily.

this is my preferred strategy against pact... and why i love the FRG leopard 1/2 series vs WP over american tanks


are you by any chance a veteran of wargame red dragon? it seems like you have played a competitive multiplayer cold war game...

You can use infantry ATGM teams in the mix. They're harder to deal with direct fires at long ranges and immune to ATGM. You may have to smoke some of the enemy so they won't take part in the fight, use air or what have you. But the entire point is to mass more firepower than the other guy into one fight. It doesn't matter if you lose one TOW carrier per enemy tank destroyed, you'll still end up on top in the end because you have more to spend and you know where to concentrate fire. Try to have at least 2 launchers per estimated enemy tank and you should get by with reasonable losses.

Closing up and engaging at short range is a Soviet tactic. If you had masses of T-72, I'd do that instead. In this particular period, it's not necessarily a bad idea for NATO forces either, since their 105mm guns lack penetrating power. But you have better tools in your arsenal, use those first.

I built the mod tools with Enohka to Wargame. First mod was done by hand with hex editor, I dropped the price of T-72A to 35 points per. I've got the picture somewhere in my Steam account still.

Other than that, I've been playing Cold War games since around 1989 or so. First two I can recall were Theatre Europe and Overrun! which is basically like Armored Brigade on C-64. Some things are like riding a bike.

ORIGINAL: HobG

I find the standard methodical leapfrogging plan with smoke works nicely if your enemy is willing to be completely passive.

- scout carefully to locate the center of gravity of enemy defenses
- smoke them up
- drive lots of stand-off units into good firing positions. Especially TOW missiles work wonders because it's pretty hard to counter massed ATGM with Soviet tanks at ranges over 2,5 kilometers. M901, TOW infantry teams, what have you.
- wait for smoke to dissipate a little and fight it out.
- once enemy vacates, relocate your ATGM teams but keep them covering the piece of terrain you want (most likely a hill).
- drive up with scouts, armor and infantry squads
- take up positions to cover the AT teams as they pack up and come closer
- rinse and repeat

When moving closer to enemy positions, use the 2 to 1 rule: 2 units move up, 1 unit covers. If you leave only ATGM launchers covering the advance, enemy can use their own infantry teams to hit you. When you move ATGM units in the second leap, leave a few of them covering the advance of your main body. It's important to pack enough ranged punch to discourage enemy armor from coming back into firing positions.

Use smoke to cover your stand-off units moving into position. You'll inevitably take some casualties in the ensuing fight, but the enemy will suffer more. When you commit to the approach you ideally don't want smoke because that hinders your ability to maintain fire superiority at range.

If you're fighting a clever opponent, he will scout you, drop lots of indirect fire on your stand-off forces (including lots of smoke!) and attempt to move into position when you're in approach. You'll have to play this by ear but one plan is to smoke up, drive up at full speed and play the numbers game. At ranges less than one kilometer whoever has more guns will almost certainly win. Forces deployed behind military crest are another problem, but at least you can come at them from several angles pretty easily.

Note that stand-off forces are very weak against infantry. Be prepared to switch up your plan if enemy defenses include a lot of infantry, especially missile teams. HE from indirect (especially mortars) and your 105mm guns should do the trick until your infantry closes up to deal with them. You have an advantage in stabilization and electronics, accurate fire control on the move is much less of a problem for you so you don't necessarily need to stop. Suppression is enough, destruction comes later.

My method is kinda similar with you, but that also have some limitations. At least in meeting engagement, AI charges to you as well, so you can use this factor to set up "leapfrog" lines based on your comment, some sort of "offensive defense" or "offensive ambush" or "ambush in deep position"

Smoke the field => Push the mech infantry (company size) using "Tin can" to the position I want => mix them with 106mm RR jeep and M901 TOW (but I prefer to place TOW far behind the front line), maybe a section of M60 tanks => Ambush Soviet tanks when they approach to the killzone I set => call airstrikes and DPICM and HE => push to next line.

As you see, my main damage factor is artillery and air, not the infantry. The role mech infantry is to force Soviets to stop and engage against my forces where I want, so that I can call DPICM and air on top of their head. This is by far the most effective method I used. But sometimes this requires some heavy casualty, especially when they have too many tanks or they bring artillery too. AI in this game also do fire support nicely. If you pack too many boys in small town or narrow woods, then you will see HE bombing or HE shelling. Soviet artillery in this game have some limitation (too long delay time out of TRP), but once in the TRP, it is quick. So in narrow map, you need to be careful against Soviet arty because their TRP covers more ground.

I'm surprised that sometimes 106mm RR hit a home run, at least suppress or damage them in really close range. But 106mm RR has clear limitation, it cannot stands that long. But still, blowing T-80B with 106mm RR is an amazing achievement, though it is rare event.

Real problem is offensive against dug-in fortified Soviet defense, reinforced with T-64B and T-80B and field AA and SPAAGs. If AI set up good recon, they will bring HE and DPICM on top of my boys, whenever I try to attempt to push via "offensive defense" method. Because it is offense for me and defense for AI, they don't push to my forces, so I need to approach them. It is hard to set up such "offensive ambush" in such situation. Depending on the map, if they have eye on my LoD or AoA or firebase position, then my options are gone. The only answer is smoke, a lot of smoke, but you don't have limitless smoke, and this game's US artillery is expensive in point.

So... more and more I think that M60A3 and A1 is not a proper tank to use against T-64Bs and T-80Bs in wide open field, in typical all-out tank war, especially during offense or charge. Rather, I think it would be better to fight against infantry and mech infantry using M60 tanks, with my infantry. This makes everything so difficult for 1980 US army in this game and other games like SB Pro. It is similar with what I felt during SB pro. With M60 tanks around late 70s, game kinda become "fight enemy armor with mech infantry, while fight enemy infantry with tanks", sort of mismatch game.

Another point is, this game's TOW infantry or any ATGM infantry team have no vehicles. Devs mentioned that this is due to AI-player balance, saying the current AI cannot use ATGM with vehicles. Because of this, Tow team is only useful during defense, not in offense.

You can use infantry ATGM teams in the mix. They're harder to deal with direct fires at long ranges and immune to ATGM. You may have to smoke some of the enemy so they won't take part in the fight, use air or what have you. But the entire point is to mass more firepower than the other guy into one fight. It doesn't matter if you lose one TOW carrier per enemy tank destroyed, you'll still end up on top in the end because you have more to spend and you know where to concentrate fire. Try to have at least 2 launchers per estimated enemy tank and you should get by with reasonable losses.

the BMP-1P and the BRDM is a problem though being armed with the konkurs and being cheaper than american ATGM carriers by being half the price while retaining its deadly accuracy... it can devastate NATO atgm carriers with impunity aswell as outranging them by 250m... this compounded by the T-62 series which can also fire the kobra ATGM... which means even with an auto built enemy loadout 9/10 times PACT is gonna bring more ATGMs with longer ranges...

Closing up and engaging at short range is a Soviet tactic. If you had masses of T-72, I'd do that instead. In this particular period, it's not necessarily a bad idea for NATO forces either, since their 105mm guns lack penetrating power. But you have better tools in your arsenal, use those first.

odd in WGRD i pull that tactic off consistently with NATO forces instead intending to take advantage of my superior stabilizers + cheap leopards... in both wargame and armored brigade i exploit the massive standoff advantage of PACT by sending infantry forwards and ATGMing/APFSDS whatever armored vehicle i see with mortars as my go to infantry killer... although in a direct attack i also open with swathes of T-72s aswell...

I built the mod tools with Enohka to Wargame. First mod was done by hand with hex editor, I dropped the price of T-72A to 35 points per. I've got the picture somewhere in my Steam account still.

incredible :O
nice to see a fellow WG vet...

ORIGINAL: gbem

I find the standard methodical leapfrogging plan with smoke works nicely if your enemy is willing to be completely passive.

- scout carefully to locate the center of gravity of enemy defenses
- smoke them up
- drive lots of stand-off units into good firing positions. Especially TOW missiles work wonders because it's pretty hard to counter massed ATGM with Soviet tanks at ranges over 2,5 kilometers. M901, TOW infantry teams, what have you.
- wait for smoke to dissipate a little and fight it out.
- once enemy vacates, relocate your ATGM teams but keep them covering the piece of terrain you want (most likely a hill).
- drive up with scouts, armor and infantry squads
- take up positions to cover the AT teams as they pack up and come closer
- rinse and repeat

soviet tanks can actually fire ATGms back at them and all soviet IFVs have ATGMs aswell... theyre also cheaper and have better range in exchange for less penetration... i tried this with TOWs against T-64`s and BMP-1Ps... immediately ate ATGms of PACT aswell... imo its better to close the gap and engage the enemy at close range negating the massed ATGM fire advantage that pact has...

If you're fighting a clever opponent, he will scout you, drop lots of indirect fire on your stand-off forces (including lots of smoke!) and attempt to move into position when you're in approach. You'll have to play this by ear but one plan is to smoke up, drive up at full speed and play the numbers game. At ranges less than one kilometer whoever has more guns will almost certainly win. Forces deployed behind military crest are another problem, but at least you can come at them from several angles pretty easily.

this is my preferred strategy against pact... and why i love the FRG leopard 1/2 series vs WP over american tanks


are you by any chance a veteran of wargame red dragon? it seems like you have played a competitive multiplayer cold war game...

I played Wargame Franchise total 2000hr+, EE ALB and RD. Trust me, Wargame is not a good game to depict realistic cold war. It is fantasy war with unrealistic fantasy spec units and tanks.

I played Wargame Franchise total 2000hr+, EE ALB and RD. Trust me, Wargame is not a good game to depict realistic cold war. It is fantasy war with unrealistic fantasy spec units and tanks.

yep... in the WG series soviet standoff capability is actually compromised badly as PACT ATGM systems have shorter range and have significantly less accuracy than NATO systems... this means that WP cant as efficiently standoff against NATO in WG and is forced to use either unicorn units like the T-80UM/T-72BU in contrast to actual WP standoff assets which involve massed long range ATGM fire...

wargame also models units with weird penetration values and numbers and includes fantasy units and prototypes... looks at the T-72BU... never had i used wargame as a means to justify any changes to AB however rather preferring to cite data ive gathered in conjunction with the appropriate sources....

however i have tried adapting tactics ive learned from wargame and found that they work to some great extent in armored brigade... the same lessons ive learned can be translated between the two games... with minor modifications at least...

Closing up and engaging at short range is a Soviet tactic. If you had masses of T-72, I'd do that instead. In this particular period, it's not necessarily a bad idea for NATO forces either, since their 105mm guns lack penetrating power. But you have better tools in your arsenal, use those first.

it is also worthy to note that in AB (unlike wargame) the T-72 costs more than the leopard... a massed leopard rush at close range is in most respects superior to a T-72A or B rush...