Question: Airborne MMGs and close assault

[RetLT]

I have recently seen US ABN MMGs and German FJ MG34s close assault armored units.

I have never seen this happen with regular MMG units.

Are the airborne ones a different unit type rather than just jump trained?

[scorpio_rocks]

Infantry, of ANY type, can close assault armoured units - IF they have a anti-tank weapon (this includes grenades!)
therefore the USA unit #159 (para MG) Abn MMG Sec cannot / will not assault armour.
BUT USA unit #226 (para MG) Abn Bn MMG Sec CAN / WILL

[zastava128]

I've just run a test. I placed a few infantry squads armed only with Rifles (no Grenades) and they still assaulted any tank that moved adjacent to them (though without success).

[Mobhack]

Originally Posted by zastava128

I've just run a test. I placed a few infantry squads armed only with Rifles (no Grenades) and they still assaulted any tank that moved adjacent to them (though without success).

And assaulting tanks is what infantry does - A/T weaponry helps substantially. grenades are useful against light armour or open-topped "grenade buckets". Ethiopean tribesmen learned to deal with Italian tankettes by swarming them, sticking spears and/or rocks into the running gear to immobilise them, then lighting a fire under the immobile tin can. Sometimes, they would simply heave the immobilised tankette onto its back like a turtle.

Poor morale and also experience, and lack of A/T weaponry can lead to "tank panic" retreats, sometimes with casualties occuring.

A support weapn team like an LMG is not that great at assaulting a tank but if given A/T weaponry may well fire at a passing one.

[RetLT]

I had never seen it happen with non airborne MMGs before. I always rolled right up to them with tanks. I guess I will need to reconsider this.

[zovs66]

I can confirm, and in many many playings of campaign games, infantry are the key, while tanks are fun, if they get in to close terrain infantry can kill them even panthers and tigers, etc. a lot of times when I don’t have enough AT assets, I always have infantry to set up traps to kill tanks. To me infantry or the backbone of the game, and everything else supports the infantry including tanks and artillery.

Much as I hate to say this is an old X tanker. LOL

Once when we were playing Op4 (wargames with real tanks and infantry) in Germany a bunch of crunchies got really close to our tank and they freaked us out, they kind of like swarm and you can only point the machine gun in so many directions on the darn tank, another nasty thing we didn’t like was antitank guided missiles and jets we really hated jets, helos you can shoot, but a tank is helpless against jets/planes.