Tricks and Trade

By Cal_71

Once you become aware of the terrain of the battlefield, it than becomes time for you to use it for your own advantage and making all that urban rubble work for your own army's benefit. Now think about it for a minute, vast man-made concrete and steel structures are all blown to pieces with their wreckage lying across the battlefield for you to use! Any defensive army that is dug into this kind of environment can extract a dreadful toll on the attacking army. Pay attention to the piles of rubble that are impassable to armored vehicles and tanks. All this rubble will restricted the movement of armor into areas that you (or your enemy) already controls and their path of attack becomes easily aware to you (and vise versus to your enemy).
    
So what is the solution Cal ?!? How can I buy an army that will roll into the streets like the "Red Army?"  You can't, especially if you are facing an opponent who knows what their doing and is dug-in and willing to fight you for every room and passage way. Here you must pay close attention to the units that you buy and more importantly, you must pay VERY close attention to where you place these units. From my own experiences I found that defending is almost always easier, but its not a guaranteed thing that you will win if you simply sit on your ass and wait for the enemy to attack you. The battlefield is a constantly changing environment in which you must move units around to avoid needless looses and to "take the innovative and attack the your enemy when he makes a mistake."

Several points to use on a urban battlefield:

1. Use the sheer strength of the Russian JSU152 or SU 152. These tanks have an incredible firepower!! You don't need to draw a direct LOS to enemy units to kill them with this tank.. Simply shoot at an area that is roughly within 5 to 10 meters and the sheer strength of the high explosive round (152 mm) will easily destroy enemy units. I've once killed  two heavy German tanks with one shoot from a JSU 152 when they were parked to close to each other, so don't let all those shells go to waste. Like I said earlier, you DON'T NEED A DIRECT LOS to an enemy, so take the time to shoot at building that you suspect might be holding enemy infantry or tanks near by... It cant hurt to try but it will be a waste to see a JSU152 or a  SU 152 get killed with all its ammo on board. Use the tank to shoot at anything in the enemy area, don't under estimate its strength (or its reload speed).

2. Mortars suck. What more can I say, your gambling on a weapon that might hit something and then again it might not. I've rarely lost a unit (or a man) in a mortar bombardment in a densely pack urban setting (simply keep your troops head's down with the AMBUSH command and they will do all right... you will lose some.. but it could be worse). The 120mm motar is anexpection to this if your using the weapon in a urban setting made of wooden structures. But for the most part your better off spending those points on offensive (or defensive) units that have a strong LOS firepower.

3. Flame-throwers, now there is something worth talking about !! This is an almost overlooked GEM in the Soviet army... When I go into a densely urban battle with the Soviet Army I always buy atleast 3 ELITE close combat engineers (they certainly hold up better under pressure and why waste your points on lesser units in a highly stressful environment???) Unit for unit, the Soviet Combat Enginners are better in a urban battle than any German infantry unit simply because the Russians equip one man in each of their Combat Engineer squads with a flamethrower. German players beware of this one Combat Engineer with a flamethrower, for he is a deadly oppenent in the tightly confined areas of room to room fighting. The hand- held flamethrower has a range of 30m and this is a added bonus for the Soviet player because he can sneak up on German tanks that are parked to close to a building and bathe the opponents armor in burning napalm! Generally I found that flame- tanks and flame-vehicles are useful in areas where the buildings are made of wood, but are next to worthless in high density concrete building (flames just cant seem get in as easily).

4. Command Units are a important investment in any army, it doesn't pay to built an army that is lacking in command security.. BUY COMMAND UNITS, they will help save your troops and make them perform better when things start to heat up!!! Generally in a 15 slot army I always but atleast 2 command units to help boost morale and maintain the morale of my units in fighting condition. You cant go wrong in supporting your troops with leaders who are willing to enforce discipline in order to maintain order. Hit the "SPACE" bar to check your command radius. Trust me it won't hurt, but neglecting it will certainly come back to haunt you!!!

 5.  Here is an old trick for you to use when you start placing your infantry units in any type of urban structure. When you place infantry units inside a building, take the time to notice which side of the building is facing the enemy. Once you know this you may want to place your infantry on the other end of the building away from the side of the building that may take direct enemy fire. This will help protect your troops from enemy firepower and also trick your enemy into believing that you don't have any troops in there. After all, your enemy is watching their tanks and infantry fire into the structure and after awhile the building starts to look all beat up, but your opponent never heard the dying screams of your units. This will help convince your opponent that you don't have any troops inside the building and this may "lull" your opponent into a sense of security and cause them to move their units into a more exposed area that they believe to be "secure." This an excellent tactic to use with infantry units equiped with heavy machine guns and snipers (my favorite) !!!!! I wouldn't try this with flame-thrower because they are to expensive and valuable to be place on the extreme front line. Try to hold your flame-thrower back in a more secure area where you have other units that can help protect him  from direct enemy fire. This protection works both ways for now the flame-thrower can help provided that extra terrify SUPPORT fire power to his surrounding buddies.

6. Snipers!!! Now there is another weapon that is often over looked but can be very useful if you place them in key position to harass the enemy (Oh my how they can rack up the kills!) Generally snipers can be used for both recon and harassment of enemy units in areas where you are not willing to place large parts of your army. This is a good unit to buy if you are low on points and you need to hold off the enemy in a defensive game. Snipers are independent and have excellent morale, so use these troops as the "forward" eyes and ears of your army. Generally, if you really want to be mean, you can buy 2 snipers and place them with 20m of each other ( close enough so they can cover each other with direct LOS firepower) and place these 2 units in ambush and wait for the enemy to come walking by!  Like I said these units a very good at hiding and enemy tanks are not able to spot them until they literally drive over them!  I have had snipers who have racked up a  record of more than 10 to15 kills in one game and they survived to continue to help me see what the enemy was doing without exposing the main bulk of my army to the enemy.

7. Another good strategy to use when playing a "stand-alone battle map" is to use tank crewmen and AT guns crews who no longer have a weapon to fight with (their tank or AT gun was destroyed). Once theses units get their weapon blown out from under them, try to round them up and sent them back into the line to help the rest of your army. Use these troops to lead the attack on a given area so that they will reveal enemy positions to your more combat hardened front-line troops. Now if your playing an operation or a campaign than DON'T DO THIS. If your playing a drawn out operation than you need to protect these crewman so that they may resupplied with new weapons for the next battle.

8. Use your firepower wisely. This means don't start a gunfight with a tank in which you have very little hope of winning. All tanks have thicker armor on the their frontal areas, try to flank a tank and get a shoot from the sides or back. This is alot easier in a urban setting than in open field battles. So pay attention to all that rubble around you and keep your AT weapons in AMBUSH (if you can) and wait for a more ideal condition to present itself. A useful trick in attacking tanks in a densely packed urban setting is to use 2 or more teams (Combat Engineers with flame-throwers) to attack a tank from several different points. All this infantry swarming around a tank will cause the tank crew to panic and this will make it easier for the guy with the flame-thrower to get in position and finish the tank off. There have been several games where I have given a beaten unit (that has only 2 to 3 guys left) orders to run across the street and draw the enemy tanks fire. With the tank preoccupied with what it thinks is an easy kill, I than order my Combat Engineers to assault the tank. It an menacing sight to see 3 units Combat Engineers swarm up to a tank and hit it with 3 flame-throwers!!!  Be careful, the ensuing explosion will often kill some of your own troops and as for that shot-up unit that was sent out into the open street as bait.... oh well! Those troops where sacrificed to do their job and very rarely will any of them survive. 

 Key points to remember when playing a urban map:

 Buy JU 152 or JSU 152 tanks to support your infrantry attack. Always "soften up an area before you send in your troops" Don't be stingy about your ammo!!! Use it to kill enemy units.. there is nothing worse than a tank getting killed with all its ammo on board.

Know your units LOS. Don't let your attacking units get their asses out there and find out that they cant draw on the support of your tanks. At the same time DON'T PUT YOUR TANKS ON THE FRONT LINE WITHOUT INFANTRY SUPPORT!!!!!!!!!! I've seen to many tanks get killed because they where foolishly placed on the front line without infantry support. Infantry will help improve your tanks visibility (sitting inside a steel tank will have a severe limitation on the tankers ability to see.)

 Watch out for Russian Combat Engineers (flame-thrower's)

 Buy two or more command units.

Be careful with any SP tank (self-propelled) you place on the map. If the tank become "immobile" than you basically have a very expensive pillbox with a very limited field of fire. Tanks with turrets are generally a better deal, but SP guns do have their advantages.

If you got any ideas or stragies that you would like to share than drop a line to the GDS website and thanks to all the players who helped me learn some of these " tricks of the trade."   I would like to take the time to express my apprection to  SGT_Saunders and the GDS CLAN website for letting me write this atricle.

Cal

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