How do you deal with French tanks

[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

[iCaMpWiThAWP]

Originally Posted by 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

In a recent campaign as the french, i had some of these in as support, i just drove them around until the game ended as german shells bounced off it's armor
There are some nice toys to play around with in the french OOB.

[Imp]

You may find this post useful my attempt at taking on the French AAR starts with them straight off skipped over Poland. Mobhack gave some very useful advice in it which allowed me to prevail. Found they were surprisingly hard guys to get to route if remember correctly. Chars were not the biggest worry as a rule was those Somanas or whtever there called.
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=41834

[Brian61]

I've been having some fun in France lately with a company of light panzers from 2nd PzDiv. The company is composed of 6 Pz Ib's, 9 Pz IIc's, and 7 Pz IIIe's. Infantry suppport is provided by a kradschutzen platoon and a pair of spaehtruppe. Needless to say the Somua's are hairy and even the H-35's aren't exactly easy

Using smoke and terrain to set ambushes, infantry close assault to suppress, and point blank fire from PzII's and PzIII's seven Somua's and five H-35's were destroyed at a cost of two PzII's. Didn't run into any Char's this battle but if necessary would deal with them the same general way, would just take longer.

I'd have loved to have used air and arty to go after the French tanks but with a core force drawn from a panzer division, those assets were needed to deal with enemy infantry.

I thought I'd throw this in because most of the ancedotes I see are for infantry heavy forces (3 : 1, infantry : armor), but in the schwerepunkt of an armor offensive that ratio is reversed. Another word for infantry heavy is 'penny packeting', as Guderian would put it, wasting the armor by dispersing it amongst the infantry rather than using it in concentration.

Brian

[Tarasque]

You have to do what the Germans did, using French ATG, the 47mm ATG of the German OOB is french and teh Germans quicly learned how to use it..

Planes, can wipe the French tanks, a German player should always be allowed to have tons of planes and the French very few AA.
You can also use 88mm guns or 105mm field guns.
this is how the German did.
An infantry assault is near useless if you are attacking, as a German you are supposed to attack.


To give you an idea I am playing a pbem battle with 11500 points of French Vs 20000 points of Germans, the German side can have up to 30 planes!!! and i have only 6 AA gun for a max size map.
I am doomed.