Although based on the modern US Army their field manuals are available, and useful references
FMs
ATG that cannot see you cannot kill you. So deny them LOS.
The best way to ensure that the ATG cannot see you is to smoke them off or perform a night/fog assault, and/or make your attack through a wood/town/city/large village or a defile.
ATG are vulnerable to infantry fire, sniper fire and long-range MMG fires. Above all, they are vulnerable to shellfire. So your best antidote to ATG is artillery, and the second best is infantry weapons.
If you are assaulting/advancing then your artillery is your primary weapon system. Allow one battery per company, and one section of mortars per rifle company as a minimum.
You will need a minimum of a batallion of arty (18 tubes)for the barrage group and another for the hammer group. More is better - "Quantity has a quality all of its own" (Iosef Stalin)
.
Smoke off the enemy front line to cover your approach, and drop HE on suspected enemy positions as you approach your break-in point. Blow the poo out of the approach path to your chosen breakthrough point with the barrage arty group while it is not yet time to fire the creeping barrage mission. Against a human defender - consider firing a fake barrage away from the intended point of attack as you approach.
Arrange a walking barrage (use the arty screen to shift fires incrementally to make the creeping barrage) on a small front (say 10-15 hexes) where you will be breaking into the enemy positions, and make the barrage depth about 3-500 metres deep, though with most guns firing on the main barrage line - the deeper guns are to pin troops, and murder any retreaters. Dismount your infantry at your edge of the creeping barrage, apcs to follow and tanks about 5 hexes behind, and then follow close behind the barrage into the enemy position. The infantry deal with any stunned (hopefully)enemy found in the beaten zone, with the tanks there to support. You walk behind the barrage at infantry pace (2 hexes per turn), nice and slow so the barrage has a decent dwell time on each lift. Artillery has a better neutralising effect if applied to the treated area for at least 2-3 turns.
If your breakthrough zone has open flanks (you dont have a village or wood to screen say) - then drop smoke along the edges of your penetration to screen it off.
HE fire will also cause obscuration - so HE bombardment will cause some obscuration of enemy LOS as well as keeping the enemy heads down.
The best place to break through is usually in a wood or large village (or along one edge of same) to get the terrain masking if some smoke gets blown away by the wind leaving you exposed in the open.
Assaulting through close terrain, with your infantry leading will find any enemy ATG etc at close range and confronted with troops the ATG dont like dealing with (grunts) while screening your tanks with both the terrain and the leading grunts.
Another good place too attack through is a narrow valley (defile) as then the ATG outside the defile cannot see to shoot at you. A defile gives you flank security on both sides, so all you have to do is march the barrage through it, and clear the valley sides.
Assign about half your arty to counterbattery of any on-map arty found firing at you, and if some does shoot - assign the whole lot as a "fireblow" on one revealed arty battery position at a time - dont sprinkle it about in penny-packets. That also includes any ATG that reveal themselves - even if you have not got the exact location, smoke off the LOS and drop the hammer on them with the entire CB allocation, that usually discourages them somewhat!. The CB group should contain some long-range offmap arty (with higher than average skill levels) to stay silent in order to fire CB on off-map enemy arty, if you can spare 2 or 3 of these batteries (good use for any core arty that has gained loads of experience in a campaign). These reserved batteries are a good way of holding some ammo in hand in case of shortages later in the battle.
Once you have deployed your troops behind the rolling barrage and have begun marching through the beaten zone, then use the CB bunch to drop fire-blows in the depth of the direction your walking barrage will be going through (essentiallly a second barrage wave preceeding the main one by perhaps 10-15 hexes, perhaps spread to twice the width to pre-prepare the corridor) or to pound the flanks of your penetration corridor for security or to discourage or disrupt counter-attacks (especially if playing a human). If more arty or ATG appear then pull the CB group off the deep fire mission and mallet these, then return to deep/supporting fires as necessary.
Go for
one objective cluster, deal with that, leave a covering force to hold it and then rinse and repeat the process for the remaining clusters. (against a human player probably make some feints with lighter/reserve forces against the others to ensure he keeps forces there rather than drawing them off to deal with the breakthrough).
Naturally - not all your troops will be immediatel behind the barrage. a company of infantry will do as "beaters" with tank support (a comapny perhaps), the rest of the force should be in column behind ready to feed fresh troops as required, guard against flank counter-attacks etc.
MRL - if you have them - are best used on troops moving in the open, so are much better weapons for the defender than the attacker. MRL are a wonderful "assault breaker", and a perfect antidote to the above strategy of the narrow-front insertion behind a barrage, if you are a human defender vs a human attacker trying the above. A few MRL just behind the barrage line should annoy the tight pack of troops there
!.
Naturally as an attacker in such a scenario - any defenders MRL that reveal themselves are a prime target for your CB hammer group. If you are an attacker, then a few MRL can be useful to break up any counter attacks by the defender. However - since refilling them takes time, then they are definately an auxiliary weapon.
MRL are a wonderful counter battery/counter mortar toy for both sides (especially if the enemy is not dug in, or is using ammo trucks or dumps alongside or near the battery position
).
As the attacker - use any MRL in your CB group for CB fires and depth fireblows. They are too innacurate to use in the barrage line, as the danger-close zone for these is so big that if you do this you will suffer too many friendly casualties from the inevitable drop-shorts. Also, MRL fire in "burps" as the reloading takes time, and the point of the barrage is
continuous fire.
If you want to use MRL in the rolling barrage - then fire them in waves, some firing, some retiring to the ammo zone to reload etc, so some fraction of the batery is available to shoot each move.
Only use MRL in close support if your troops are dug in, and the enemy is mingled inside your defensive positions while in the open. Otherwise, never drop MRL within 10 hexes (500m) of friendlies I would say, or 5 hexes if you have an observer with "eyes on" the target hex.
MRL tend to draw CB fires - so move them about.
Your infantry mortars can be added to the barrage (in which case use them in the depth of the beaten zone, as pinners and retreater killers rather than in the main barrage line), or to CB (especially counter-mortar) tasks if long enough range - but in the early stages they ae best used as screening smoke layers. Sections of mortars are useful to annoy any small units of enemy found that dont warrant the full hammer-blow of your CB&strike arty group. If playing a human defender they are useful to fire in "pepper pot" mode sprinkled randomly along any routes you think that he is moving troops up to counter-attack you, or as "murderers" if you think there is a mass rout of enemy infantry - drop them deep behind to chase and harras the retreat further.
MRL are an
excellent murder weapon on routers and retreaters - so if you think there is a rout in progress, drop them behind the contact line to execute the runaways, like mortars. They can be quite good as "pepper pot" weapons as well.
Also - firing the on-map mortars while witholding any on-map MRL/Arty for later use may tempt him to reveal his arty positions if he fires CB on them.
If you can - move your on-map arty about to avoid enemy CB fires. If you have access to self-propelled kit, this makes it easier to do.
So - that is the basic tactic for the assault. If you have a ridiculous amount of arty (USSR, BCE USA etc) then you might allow yourself 2 penetration points (or a wider penetration).
The advantage of the creeping barrage method is that you really only have to decide on the right place to attack. As it will be done at walking pace then there is no real need for open terrain. In fact close terrain is better as it lessens the need for smoke shoots. You do not really have to analyse possible enemy placements, since the barrage will be used to "mow the lawn" of any defenders placed ahead of your attack, and the screening terrain and/or smoke will blind the remainder. No need for any recce either
! - use any light recce to watch for counterattacks etc from an overwatch position.
Cheers
Andy
Strategy for taking out big AT guns
Linear Mode
