The Americans in Late-War have a perceived weakness in their D-day book: only having one unit with an anti-tank rating above 12. This means a few things, American players can struggle against heavy tanks, and they need a different answer to the heavy tank problem than say Germany or the British. Both of them have the luxury of having ample high anti-tank capability where the difficulty is lining up the shot. This is also the case with the M12 155mm SPG but it’s an unreliable and ultimately unnecessary solution. Only 4 shots per turn is a problem, on 4’s and 5’s to hit I am personally skeptical of its performance. It can work and prove a nasty surprise but I do not think American players should simply have the M12 in their list and feel safe from heavy armour. The answers for american forces are a little more nuanced so we’ll explore these answers in general and move onto some particulars.
Heavy tanks essentially pose two threats, one: difficult to remove high end AT, and two: assault capabilities that can crunch through American lines with only some scratched paint. On the defensive, tigers and panthers can be confounding, providing long range threats to your armoured thrust which are difficult to remove. On the offensive tigers, churchills, and KVs can wreak havoc. All of these tanks can be dealt with by AT 12 but the odds are not great, particularly at range. 76mm Shermans and M10’s are rarely able to stand up in a ranged gunfight with panthers or tigers. So what is to be done? In short, isolate the problem.
In general if one’s opponent is relying on heavy tanks they will not have many shots, they might be very good shots (AT 14 and so on) but a single platoon may not have more than 6. Americans are well placed to exploit this. If you can strip away the supporting elements from the opponents heavies, you will be in a much better place to deal with them and they will pose a greatly reduced threat to your armour.
So what does this look like? When attacking an objective covered by heavy tanks the easiest answer is to attack the other objective. If there is no way to avoid confronting heavies on an objective you are attacking you need to rely on a true combined arms approach. Use artillery to strip away gun teams and reduce infantry platoons which are supporting the heavy tanks. Next use smoke bombardments to close the gap, you need to get in close because unless we’re talking about churchills or KVs, M10s and 76mm shermans will likely lose in a long range gunfight. Bring infantry with you, this is critical because even if/when you’re getting side shots on the panthers or tigers, you may only be getting bailed results. Infantry can capitalize on this, especially american infantry. Their dash speed and a lucky follow me means they can get 18 inches up the board in a single turn and within 12 inches some yankees with bazookas can be a serious assault threat. If you get the bails you can destroy these steel beasts by simply knocking on the hatches with a .45. Generally heavy tanks have very good remount ratings so if you assault on the same turn on which you bail them, there’s a chance they will not be able to get back in their tanks. More likely however it’ll be a more serious fight. Still, once you reduce the defensive fire down to just 8 dice, (2 active tanks) you should just keep charging until you push them off the objective with failed counterattack rolls while your AT 12 vehicles keep pounding them.
On the defensive the same principles hold true: isolate the heavy tanks by stripping away their supporting elements, and pounce on them with infantry and mobile AT 12 platforms. This is where M10’s really shine, their seek strike and destroy rule means you can play peek-a-boo with the best of them, particularly if you take a desert veteran company. American infantry can provide you with quite a bit of defensive depth with which to absorb your opponent’s attacks. Smoke can again be extremely useful as a means to isolate the heavies from their support that you can’t immediately kill, or isolate the supporting StuGs from the tigers so the tigers can’t snipe your M10s while you kill the StuGs for example. Remember, in most defensive missions you just need to keep your opponent away from the objective by a certain turn number. This means you need to be more conservative with your infantry assaults but a well timed counter charge could win you the game.
These tactics are far from a guarantee of victory but they do leverage the american’s strengths: highly mobile AT 12 platforms, ample smoke and artillery, and solid infantry. None of these things are really the answer in and of themselves but used aggressively and in concert, these elements can be a potent answer to any problem on the table, including heavy tanks.
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