Anybody good at dessert fighting

[Imp]

How do you stop a superior armored force in mainly open terrain, the likes of Europe Asia you can get round the problem with cover. Quite how the likes of Israels neighbours stop them is beyond me once the Merkava comes along. Have been trying & no matter the visibility just cant stop them. Somehow getting infantry in range seems the only way but no way is that easy especialy once the Mk 2 comes along.
Merkava accurate hard to kill inc impervious to most ATGMs RPGs from the front, has TI & 6 smoke dishargers.
So high visibilty shot stands a good chance of not penetrating at range then it pops smoke making you a sitting duck. Low visibily is worse you dont even see them total domination. So they just roll forward with APCs taging along behind, bump into some infantry it fires of smoke APC moves up & unloads. Now your infantry dies as its unsupported, Israeli infantry have 2 LMGs & most visibilitys APCs can pull back & help the Merkava out with firesupport goodnight. Even when the other side gets TI it makes little diffrence as they cant kill without flank shots. Eventualy they get tanks capable of taking on from the front but if the odd Mk4 appears they now have 50TI so low visibility Israel always has the advantage scout vehicles not realy required. High visibility & dust they might actualy lose a few of these but scout vehicles criss cross in front of the advance pulling back into the dust cloud which the TI tanks advance in.
Either way most time frames until the battles nearly over you hardly see an Israeli vehicle if done right let alone kill one with ground forces, same cant be said for your vehicles however. Once TI ATGMs are available both troop & mobile these are your only real hope if you can keep them alive long enough to get in position for a kill shot.
Not even tried attacking them but the only way to defend against is give them the desserts & attempt to stop them in the hills & cities. If there was a force tailored to dessert warfare this is it & from the 90s troops have 10 vision to making killing even a man at night a major triumph.

[DRG]

Well.....let's say you're Egypt and it's anytime past the mid 80's and you have access to Milans and M270's.Firing the Milans tends to bunch the attackers up and when M270's are applied in liberal doses not much is left standing afterwards. The key is getting the concentrations you need to make the CM's work the way they do and the side benifit is you may end up with a bit of a minefield afterwards if you used enough of them.


Don

[Imp]

As you rightly say CM & air ar the most useful assets along with ATGMs however still has big problems.
Egypt dont get 270MLRS till early 2000 & previos stuff is not very effective vs tanks, Syria does get the Uragan to play with, Jordan zip.
Israel has exp of 80 does not need much arty support so can set to CB albeit not much ammo left once hits & loads of targets.
If Israel kicks up dust only Jordan I think has FOOs non vehicle ATGMs with TI, depending on dust level there are 30 vis FOOs who might see. Israel can therefore advance much more dispersed than normal & zig zag reverse direction if human controled. Some APCs can offload there troops to Merkavas & act as decoys producing false dust trails to in the dust storm so truly massed CM or some luck is required to get much. Waiting till they hit your lines so producing dust becomes difficult helps but they then have 6 SD to pop off so you need to blanket the area about 20 hexes around them & hope more than 1 platoon is in it. Even moving Mk3,4s are pretty accurate out to this range. The 50TI FO vehicle can get some if in right position & does not move before being spotted, 1 turn to do its dirty work generally.

[Mobhack]

dessert warfare

If that is your problem - then perhaps employing some pastry chefs would help out there in the blancmange ...

Side turret armour of a merk 4 is 35. The Egyptian 120mm weapon #103 will pass through that regularly to 4500 metres. The M60 TTs with weapon #105 will perforate that at 1900m. Both can dice up better result (and both can bounce, or you may be attacking off 0 degrees axis to the target)

So flank and rear shots is the thing. Adopt a "U" shaped ambush if he is coming at you. Hide behind any terrain and fire as they go by. OK tactic, so long as you are not the advancer..

Otherwise, just drop shed loads of arty on them, or where the seem to be firing from. Arty can break tracks, and an immobilised merkava is 600-700 points stuck in the wrong place. As Don said - dust them down with your cluster rockets (MLRS, Saqr-CM). Any on-map ones with access to armoured resupply can play shoot and scoot. Off-map ones should probably unload as fast as possible to avoid counter battery fires. Your arty and mortars are your primary delouser for Israeli infantry too.

If you're Jordan - simply use some javelin and TOW-2B T-A ATGMs... The Al-Hussein III can penetrate Merk 4b frontally to 1000m (best to 1600m but I would not bet the farm on it). So greeting them with a reverse slope ambush (with views to the flank for side kills to 5000m) should work.

If you are Syria, then go large on kornet teams (120 HEAT pen) and RPG-29 users, and advance as an infantry mob behind a storm of arty + mortars. And buy uragans. Any tanks etc to hide in the rear till needed to sweep up APC and wrecked merkavas in the end game.

Remember that tank turrets often turn to face the enemy - so firing something from the North may make him point there, so your units down to the South get to see his turret side. If the shot from the South makes the turret turn to face there, then the North firing group should get an exposure of his side. Keep pinging shots from the opposite angles and jumping back to the ones that get an exposed side.

Alternatively, for Israel's neighbours, use the Chinese strategy.
Merkavas cost the same as probably 2 rifle companies.
Israeli APC are rather expensive and have no cannons.

So buy a force based on 4-8 leg rifle companies (get any elites you can for better morale), many mortars and arty, plenty of inf-at teams + a few inf-SAM. Then walk forwards behind a barrage of HE, swarming over any tanks and APC - the HE will immobilise some, and duff his grunts up. The more super-expensive tanks he buys, the less infantry he gets, and you have not given those any targets by not investing in tanks of your own. Only buy a few APC-killer light vehicles (like a platoon) which hide deep in the rear till needed to off any surviving Israeli APCs (e. Pt-76, BMP-2 or Fahd 240-30 with plenty of 30mm AP). If he buys merks, you probably only have to deal with 4 or so, plus loose change, then.

Andy

[Imp]

The Chinese tactic does work eventually overcoming so long as you can maintain contact. Pastry Chefs are effective if you can find one of those hidden ridge lines quick enough, look like regular level zero but in fact block or some raised dirt etc.
The obvious ones though are arty magnets or avoided. They can also prove death traps as his extra vision rating means does not work quite as expected.
Cheers for the input as you say the key is cover managed to stop a couple of times if I have some but when its thin on the ground its very hard work managing to isolate some units for flank shots.

[hoplitis]

To the reverse slope,flank shots, low tech numbers vs high tech=hich cost approach add:
1. the obvious: don't target units you have little chance of disrupting/damaging/killing, ie forget the Markavas go for the APCs etc (if there are not around yet,wait...)
2. try to "separate" the attacking armour from its accompanying mechanized element. Arty and arty delivered mines may help at this. A forward "skirmish" line may also do the trick. If some of your forward units survive the armor onslaught, they might cause the mechanized element to unload. Then apply artillery as usual. The armour element may continue to advance but without infantry support.Your chances are better now (well in the theory!)
Avoid the strong(er), hit the weak(er).

[Imp]

You have to strip the infantry away realy to have much chance at getting to the tanks with grunts. Am kinda overemphasising the problem wide open maps do not appear that often but if only 3 or 4 crest lines you know where his gold spots are or just given a wide margin. This time have a few nicely placed hills for flanks & a few depressions to boot so in with a chance of inflicting some hurt. The generator does a good job the amount of midnight oil that must have been spent deciding on settings for respective opponents let alone getting it to work does not bear thinking about.

[iCaMpWiThAWP]

To stop a superior and expensive armor force you'll need a bunch of atgms, if your nation has rocket/atgm carrying helos, but a few and park the at the sides of the map, when armor appears move them in, pop from cover, fire, change positon, then keep shooting

[Wdll]

A couple of months ago I played a couple of desert battles against a very good player, he had Israel and I had Greece (I know, I almost always have Greece).
Anyway, the latest Merkavas are very difficult to destroy if you do not have TA ATGMs and even then they have 1-2 CW shots (or something). What worked for me especially in the first battle, was the use of Apaches. I had 4 IIRC and had them fight in waves of 2. It took a couple of waves to deplete the enemy anti missile defence. After that the Apaches had easy targets whenever they could locate one. Mind you it wasn't always a one shot one kill, but it was good enough. If you don't have them, you can use for example as Jordan Cobra T (with TA TOW=have a nice day) or the jeeps with the same missiles. You do not need many tanks (although my Leo2 were not that bad), as long as you play very carefully. The problem is that all the above are very expensive ways of dealing with Merkavas and if something goes wrong, you are in deep trouble. I was in the second battle after some wrong decisions and those bulky Israeli APCs with the tiny gun on top but the strong armour, are a PITA to deal with with simple infantry...

But yeah, if you can buy many infantry ATGMs, do it. They are too good for their money and a huge pain to deal with in large numbers, if placed strategically.