Road to Nationals Part Three: Comparative Advantage

Jerry's missing out

71 points is not very much and will force players to make tough list decisions. I haven't spent much time building lists that aren't from fighting first but the impression I get is that DAK lists will struggle to achieve my sacred combined arms ideal. For them, Italian allies will be the best way to get infantry of any real substance. Their artillery is scant and expensive with no decent mid tier artillery. They can take the afrika rifles with single mortars and/or take the Lorraine Schleppers. The 105 battery seems incredibly inefficient next to these options, being the most expensive yet middling performance. Unlike the Schleppers they can be pinned down and are much more susceptible to counter battery.

These'll have to do

Contrast with the Americans, who have artillery picks at each echelon, DAK sorely lacks arty. The rifle company can take all the artillery it needs and has the observers to make it work. Even if the Germans could get such solid company and battalion level artillery, I suspect spotting would become an issue. As it stands, the DAK rifle platoon's integrated mortar should spot for itself since they are going to be at the front. This means as I'm tackling a German position held by their infantry, I have fewer targets for my artillery since I can engage both their artillery asset and their infantry under one template. On the receiving end, my opponent needs to decide whether he wants to spend bombardments conducting counter battery or blasting my infantry. The mid tier artillery DAK does have access to are dual role armoured vehicles in the form of Semoventes or Panzer IV short barrels. These options are practically immune to counter battery fire but their dual nature means they will probably be overworked when presented with both infantry and light armour to deal with.

It's just bad...but cheap

Tanks are the real threat of DAK though, especially given my self imposed doctrine. The problem is the spread of anti-tank assets in fighting first. Rifle platoons have one bazooka each, nice to have but I can't rely on them like the armoured rifle platoons can. The 37mm anti-tank gun makes me sad; its not fast like the Italian ATG, and it's not powerful like the PaK38 or 6pdr. They will probably still have a place in my list but I wont place much faith or points in them. I need something to cover my infantry while my tanks are rampaging around, or are dead. A Stuart company would provide most of my AT. They will lose long range skirmishes with Panzer III's and IV's but have the weight of fire to blunt M14/41's and the like. Not made for head to head tank fights but a devil if they manage to breach into the enemy's rear and start a knife fight with the Marders or Schleppers or whatever soft support units are hanging around.

We'll be seeing a lot of these guys

I have long since accepted that Marders will feature prominently in most if not all DAK lists, hopefully sneaky stuart play and smoke bombardments can nullify some of that problem but this brings up the yankee equivalent, the M10. Same AT, double the price for more than double the armour, a .50 cal, and worse skill/morale. These big guys (4 me) are the reason I've since dropped M4 Shermans from the lists scrawled in my notebook. The price is a factor, I can take a minimum of two instead of three; that's 8 free points, or 4 stuarts worth. More importantly: Shermans occupied a tactical role I wasn't entirely comfortable with them occupying. There isn't much subtlety to how I would have employed Shermans, they have AT 10 meaning their top priority is killing things that my Stuarts cant. I wouldn't have them in sufficient numbers to let them do anything else. They would be too

Who needs Shermans?

valuable to tangle with infantry and worse at exploitative cavalry movement relative to Stuarts. So for my purposes, a dedicated AT option makes more sense. Not to mention my twisted fear of those beasts with a front armour value greater than 6.

I have not spent any great deal of time looking at the brits and confirmation bias may be a factor here but as I see it, Fighting First is the best book for combined arms lists. The brits seem to have the similar artillery problems as the Germans and expensive medium and heavy tanks. Due mostly to the atrocious skill of the Americans and the subsequent low cost, they can bring it all.