How do you deal with French tanks

[Brian61]

Originally Posted by gila

Somewhat OT,i'm pretty sure 88's were not commanly used as AT guns in France until the desert war with the Afrika Corps.

Depends on what you mean by comman use. Rommel had a battery available at the Battle of Arras. I'm pretty sure batteries were attached to other units as well, expressly for use in the anti-tank role. Problem is, the 88 FlaK is a rather large awkward piece of equipment unlike smaller ATGs. This means good visibility and favorable terrain was required for their use. Nearly impossible to use in the advance, hence the experiment with a small number of truck mounted 'portee' versions in France.

At some point there was a gun carriage for the 88 that allowed for firing without a fully deployed setup, although at lower accuracy and ROF. I don't think that version is in the game though. Anyhow, I find the use in game of the 88 to be highly situational, at best you'll get one or two turns of fire before you'd better pack it up and run just ahead of the arriving artillery shells. Redeploying to use a second time in a battle is difficult.

Brian

[gila]

Rommel i'm sure used 88's in France,he saw thier worth as a big gun against armour but they were mostly not used as an ATG,very hard to get them down to a level firing position,until the gun carriage was redesigned and AP shells replaced the flak shells, that they became a more less dedicated ATG's we know of in No.Africa.
So i agree they were used in France yes,but not "expressly in a ATG role" as you say,more as a last ditch ATG with the inferiour flak rounds and mostly in the AAA role.

[Brian61]

Hmmm.. I was under the impression that 88's attached to Wehrmacht were for use in the AT role. Be that as it may, even if dual role, Guderian's XIXth Motorized Army Corps had 3 batteries of Luftwaffe 88's attached as well as a company of the portee version.

Looking at the parent organization (Gruppe von Kleist), there was one battery of attached Luftwaffe 88's per division basically. For comparison, there was a platoon of self propelled 47mm ATGs per division. In Gruppe von Kleist, there were at least as many attached Luftwaffe 88's as JPz I's.

Slicing down to the typical battalion level for the game, using Gruppe von Kleist as a model gives about half an 88 or a bit less than half a JPz I per battalion, so yeah uncommon in one way but not any less common than other typically used units.

Confusingly, at Arras, the 88's Rommel employed probably came from PzAbwAbt 525 which was a Werhmacht unit with 88mm FlaK guns *not* a Luftwaffe attachment although there were also Luftwaffe 88's attached to his parent organization .

Another part of the picture I'm missing is the number of towed 4.7cm ATGs available. From the data I've been looking at it seems the towed ATG battalions of Panzer divisions in 1940 may have had some but most infantry divisions had only 3.7cm ATGs. I'm not sure if it would be something like one platoon of 4.7cm ATGs per towed ATG company in a Panzer division or ???

I guess the suprising part of this is that the JPz I's were as rare as the 88's.

Brian

[gila]

In your earlier WiKi reference it clearly states that Rommel in the battle of Arras, was forced to bring 88's to deal with heavier British tanks,what ammo did those 88's have?
Not AT but Flak rounds most likley

[Mobhack]

Originally Posted by gila

In your earlier WiKi reference it clearly states that Rommel in the battle of Arras, was forced to bring 88's to deal with heavier British tanks,what ammo did those 88's have?
Not AT but Flak rounds most likley

AP. The first use of the 88 as an ATG was in the Spanish Civil War.

However, they were generally specialist AA weapons under their own command. Their commanders did not like letting them go for ATG purposes, since they got stripped of superfluous stuff like the AAA director kit, etc. And since they were great big things, they were dug into pits for protection and concealment that made them impossible to recover when the defended positions got overrun.

In any case - once the 75L48 and the captured 76.2mm ex-Russian ATG (towed or mobile on the Marders etc) started appearing, then the requirement to use 88s as dedicated anti tank guns more or less disappeared. Those guns did the same job, but were less high profile in the towed variant.

As for France 1940, not very hard really. Drench the French infantry with HE fires, also covering the tanks to button them up, break tracks etc. "Force Broken" is based on all the elements on table - so if the majority of the enemy infantry are doing a runner, then the armour will be getting unhappy too.

Deal with any of the lighter tanks first, if you can - the only ones to look out for are those with the long 37mm. Char Bs are extremely slow - so if they are somewhere you don't need to go, you can generally ignore them for now. The Somua is the French tank to treat with most respect.

If you have to deal with a pesky tank or two - keep it suppressed under mortar fire, or smoked off as your mobile AT assets stalk it. Your 15CM SiG should be the weapons of choice for dropping presents on French heavy armour when detected away from your troops. Big bangers that are quite likely to break track, and which have large blast areas that sweep escorting infantry away, and that make craters that slow the things down even more, or can drop a wooden bridge out from under them - a very satisfying trick to pull off !

Since they are so slow then you often have them trundling up to retake V-hexes, eventually. So you can prepare a reception committee for these. Keep them under a hail of indirect fire - to button them up, and to drive off any accompanying infantry, since you want them to be blind and so less likely to spot or hit your tank killers, if they actually did manage to spot them.

If close assaulting with infantry - hose any unbuttoned tank down with rifle, LMG, MMG fires as preparation. The heavy infantry with 50mm direct fire mortars are useful for rattling their cages too - they have a decent warhead size - a few plinks with these can make an uneasy tank change to "retreating" status (hover your mouse over the target), which greatly increases its vulnerability to close assault. Only once fully prepared (and any companions that might give covering fire to the target also suppressed) - do your inf-assault teams go in.

Even if your infantry have no specific AT weaponry bar hand grenades, an assault can make a tank's status go to retreating. It does not matter then if the riflemen are in retreat if you have another asset able to take advantage of that - another inf-assault, or you can motor an AFV up close to pot the retreater "up the kilt" at point-blank range (if there is no other armour able to cover the target). The 37mm tank guns are fine at dealing with a retreating Char, since even if they do not penetrate a side shot can get a track break result, and when that happens a demoralised crew will usually bail, either immediately or in the morale phase at the end of his turn - or even surrender to anyone within 1 hex.

Cheers
Andy

[Griefbringer]

Originally Posted by Mobhack

If close assaulting with infantry - hose any unbuttoned tank down with rifle, LMG, MMG fires as preparation. The heavy infantry with 50mm direct fire mortars are useful for rattling their cages too

Don't forget anti-tank rifles, if you have some around - they seem to be excellent for making tanks button up. Just don't expect them to do lots of damage on French tanks (except the very lightest ones) though every now and then they can manage to immobilise the odd tank with a lucky shot.

Speaking of immobilisation, sufficient artillery pounding can also cause a tank here and there to get immobilised, meaning that you can leave dealing with it until later (unless the crew decides to bail out first). And the slow speed of many of the French tanks makes them relatively easy targets for artillery, once you get your forward observer on a good spot.

If you are playing with the German paras, then take advantage of their recoilless rifles. The 7.5 cm version (available from early 1940) might not be particularly impressive, but the 10.5 cm model (available from June 1940 onwards) has a very nasty HEAT round available - though the ammo supply itself is rather limited, so you probably want to have them engaging the enemy at range and then falling back to reload.

[gila]

Originally Posted by Mobhack

AP. The first use of the 88 as an ATG was in the Spanish Civil War.

However, they were generally specialist AA weapons under their own command. Their commanders did not like letting them go for ATG purposes, since they got stripped of superfluous stuff like the AAA director kit, etc. And since they were great big things, they were dug into pits for protection and concealment that made them impossible to recover when the defended positions got overrun.

In any case - once the 75L48 and the captured 76.2mm ex-Russian ATG (towed or mobile on the Marders etc) started appearing, then the requirement to use 88s as dedicated anti tank guns more or less disappeared. Those guns did the same job, but were less high profile in the towed variant.

As for France 1940, not very hard really. Drench the French infantry with HE fires, also covering the tanks to button them up, break tracks etc. "Force Broken" is based on all the elements on table - so if the majority of the enemy infantry are doing a runner, then the armour will be getting unhappy too.

Deal with any of the lighter tanks first, if you can - the only ones to look out for are those with the long 37mm. Char Bs are extremely slow - so if they are somewhere you don't need to go, you can generally ignore them for now. The Somua is the French tank to treat with most respect.

If you have to deal with a pesky tank or two - keep it suppressed under mortar fire, or smoked off as your mobile AT assets stalk it. Your 15CM SiG should be the weapons of choice for dropping presents on French heavy armour when detected away from your troops. Big bangers that are quite likely to break track, and which have large blast areas that sweep escorting infantry away, and that make craters that slow the things down even more, or can drop a wooden bridge out from under them - a very satisfying trick to pull off !

Since they are so slow then you often have them trundling up to retake V-hexes, eventually. So you can prepare a reception committee for these. Keep them under a hail of indirect fire - to button them up, and to drive off any accompanying infantry, since you want them to be blind and so less likely to spot or hit your tank killers, if they actually did manage to spot them.

If close assaulting with infantry - hose any unbuttoned tank down with rifle, LMG, MMG fires as preparation. The heavy infantry with 50mm direct fire mortars are useful for rattling their cages too - they have a decent warhead size - a few plinks with these can make an uneasy tank change to "retreating" status (hover your mouse over the target), which greatly increases its vulnerability to close assault. Only once fully prepared (and any companions that might give covering fire to the target also suppressed) - do your inf-assault teams go in.

Even if your infantry have no specific AT weaponry bar hand grenades, an assault can make a tank's status go to retreating. It does not matter then if the riflemen are in retreat if you have another asset able to take advantage of that - another inf-assault, or you can motor an AFV up close to pot the retreater "up the kilt" at point-blank range (if there is no other armour able to cover the target). The 37mm tank guns are fine at dealing with a retreating Char, since even if they do not penetrate a side shot can get a track break result, and when that happens a demoralised crew will usually bail, either immediately or in the morale phase at the end of his turn - or even surrender to anyone within 1 hex.

Cheers
Andy

Very good advice,however still i don't believe 88's had much effect in France,remember Gerry used used Blitzkrieg tactics against the French,who had the mindset of a "static" warfare,and spread thier slow armour, doubt they could field a few Chars,where mostly scattered. with better odds,the nod should go to the germans.
In Africa it was a different situation with the Brits.

[Ts4EVER]

I recently played a campaign game against france and they actually had two of those super heavy tanks (Char 2C I think?). I immobilised one with artillery, but the other one just kept driving and killed one PII. However, being so damn slow it didn't reach any objective before the round ended